Mongolia - Tsagaan Suvarga

Standing on the cliffs of Tsagaan Suvarga

Day two we continued south about 200km through Dundgovi Province to our next destination. Tsagaan Suvarga means "White Stupa" - so called because the cliffs are said to look like stupas from a distance. It is a 200m tall and 400m long escarpment of soft rock, striped white, pink, red and orange. It was such an amazing place! The views of the hills from the top of the cliffs was really incredible. And through the day on our drive we passed through such different landscapes, from green as far as we could see with mountains in the distance, to open gravelly desert and sandstone cliffs.

After exploring Tsagaan Suvarga for a few hours we drove to our ger camp, located only a few kilometres away. Our camp was so different from the place we stayed the day before: a herd of camels walking around instead of horses, the Tsagaan Suvarga cliffs off in the distance. But still, a lot of garlic chives!

We made a friend at this ger camp: a black dog that was steadfastly ignored and yet followed us around everywhere we went. He even came with us the next morning when we walked the 3km to the edge of the Tsagaan Suvarga cliffs! We called him Daggy Doggy because he had daggy fur on his back. It was fun to watch him scare birds up out of the grass and chase them just a little bit.

Leaving Baga Gazriin Chulu

The road from one place to another is actually usually a series of a few tracks.
You drive on the one in the best condition (sometimes none of the above)

Some of the only waterfowl we saw on our trip. It wasn't until we got home
that we had a closer look and saw they have really interesting markings!
(Haven't been able to identify it yet just with a cursory search.)

Driving by a big horse statue in Mandalgovi. You would see so many animal statues,
even outside of tiny little towns.

Large herd of camels

The view looking down

Heading down one of the canyons

A very well camouflaged butterfly

Picking up rocks

Yellow button wildflowers

Climbing back up to the top of the cliffs

Dust rising from a van

Monument on top of the cliffs

Heading out to find phone reception.

Tsagaan Suvarga in the distance

Daggy doggy

Camels and garlic chives.

Moon over the Gobi

Watching the sunset

Walking up the road at dawn

The other side of the White Stupas

Heading back to camp

Daggy doggy was tired after our morning trek!