Golden Gobi Tour

Arrive in Ulaanbaatar, the bustling capital of Mongolia. Our representative will pick you up from the airport and transfer you to a centrally located hotel. After settling into your room, meet your guide in the lobby for a walking city tour to the main square and nearby museums. Then attend an evening show of traditional performances followed by a welcome dinner.

Drive to Tsagaan Suvarga, translated as the White Stupa, is a vibrant clay formation slope with a brink that is about 400 meters long and 60 meters high. This naturally occurring formation once was part of a seabed eons ago. Ores exposed to oxygen created the differing purple, orange, and reddish hues that make it stand out amongst its surrounding flat expanse.

Drive to Yolin Am, translated as Lammergeier’s Valley, named after a large species of bird also known as the “bearded vulture” which glide over the gorge where they live and breed on crags of its high mountains. Lammergeiers mostly feed on bones. They can swallow whole or bite through brittle bones and its powerful digestive system quickly dissolves even large pieces. If a bone is too large to swallow, they carry it up and drop it down onto rocks below to smash it into smaller pieces. Nestled within the Three Beauties Mountain range, the narrowest part of its gorge shelters ice until July despite the hot desert temperature. The stream that flows through, the lush valley and its surrounding mountains altogether is an oasis in the middle of the desert accompanying diverse wildlife.

Our next destination is the Khongor sand dunes overlooking the green meadow of the Khongor river. This long, narrow stretch of sand dunes continues for over 100 km with width of about few km to 12 km. From flatland to the highest ridge is around 200 meters. In the late afternoon, you can try to climb up to one of the crests or walk the lower slopes and enjoy the surrounding view. It’s also called the “Singing Sands” due to a distant propeller hum heard when strong winds push tons of sand grains down steep slopes thus causing friction and producing small tremors.

Drive to Bayanzag, nicknamed “Flaming Cliffs” by an American explorer named Roy Chapman Andrews who led an expedition team here in the 1920s. He was a proponent of “Out of Asia” theory of humankind’s origin. While searching for remains of earliest humans, which they did not find, the team instead discovered the first recorded fossilized nest of dinosaur eggs here at this site along with other dinosaur fossils.

Baga Gazariin Chuluu is a 15 km long and 10 km wide granite massif encompassing an area of about 300 square kilometers. These unique rock formations create a labyrinth with its gorges, thus making it stand out from surrounding semi-desert steppe terrain. There is ruin of an old monastery center here and other interesting spots including rock paintings and a spring locals claim is good for eye health.

Stopover at the Chinggis Khan statue complex. It is a 40-meter (130 ft) tall, stainless-steel statue of mounted Chinggis Khan and the world’s largest equestrian statue. Once you go inside, there is a souvenir shop, restaurant, and small museum. A lift takes you to a flight of stairs leading up to back of the horse’s head where you can get a panoramic view of the surrounding steppe. Afterwards drive to Terelj NP, a popular vacation spot for tourists and locals.

See a large naturally-formed turtle-shaped rock and visit a meditation temple before heading back to Ulaanbaatar. Meet in the evening for farewell dinner.

Pick up from the hotel and transfer to the airport for your departure flight.