Saw a bunch of gazelles in the distance. They are very skittish. We were not even within a quarter mile of them but they hightailed it immediately. Th picture is not great – I had to take it quickly from inside the car.

There is absolutely no wifi and virtually no phone connection in the areas we have been for the last couple of days. Between Roger, Sara and the driver, we have two different phone companies covered and everybody is checking ever so often if anybody has some connection. The best we get in certain areas is an Edge connection (very poor data connection). But enough to do WhatsApp.

Headed out about an hour back from our camp to go to the Hongor Sand Dune. It is about a three and a half hour rough ride on some really tough terrain. About an hour into bouncing along the hard surface, suddenly we heard the familiar “ding” sound on a couple of phones (notifying messages have been received).

Everybody yelled “There is connection”. I have no idea why at that spot we got some connection. We were surrounded by nothingness. Not even electric poles. And that had been the case for the last one hour. How did we manage to get connection in that area? Heaven knows!

We immediately pulled over (which is very easy since you do not have to watch out other traffic 🙂 ) and started checking out phones.

I am used to pit stops for bathroom and for food. Now I know that internet is the other basic necessity for which we need pit stops!!

It was in incredible experience watching four of us outside our vehicle pecking on our phones in the middle of nowhere!

Took quite a few pictures of the horses in the early morning. Liked the way the early morning orange rays from the sun defined the silhouette of this mare and her baby. The baby horse stayed within a foot of the mother the entire time. And was very suspicious of a strange looking person going around with an even stranger looking black object!

Because of the geographical position, the sun rises (and sets) considerably south of east (and west).

Got up early in the morning. Mongolians folks – at least in the countryside (I am not sure about Ulan Baatar) like to sleep in late in the morning by our standards. Nobody was around. Which means none of the ten or so guests or six or so workers were out in the open. It was very very quiet. And cold! Temperatures fell rapidly at night.

Went back in the ger, put on a couple of more layers and grabbed the camera to get a few shots of a pack of horses that were grazing near our get camp in the dawn.