The Three Wise (Business) Men

April 24, 2008

On the Gobi Desert the author meets three men on camels, bearing gifts that can be yours for a very good price.

The Mongolians have a saying: “The Gobi is not one desert but a hundred.” It is the largest desert region in Asia and the fourth largest in the world, covering 35% of Mongolia and spilling over into large portions of neighboring China. However, unlike the Sahara, the Gobi is a mixture of mountains, steppes, plateaus, plains, and only 4% sand.

And that morning, that 4% was our final destination. We set out in an old, Russian-made Jeep for an area called Khongoryn Els (The Singing Dunes in Mongolian), a remote wilderness of rose-colored dunes, some reaching the height of a 60-story building. The 40-mile drive from the camp traverses a roadless, trackless terrain, containing not a single village, not a single farm, not a single person. After about an hour the landscape changes rapidly from flat gravel plain to a rolling seascape of sand, and the driver parks the vehicle just below one of these massive formations. We jumped out, like children at the beach, and gazed at the uninterrupted vistas and stark beauty. No man-made structures; no people or animals visible anywhere within eyesight. We scampered up the dune, rolled down, and climbed back up again, taking endless photos and enjoying the total silence. My wife and I looked at each other and commented that we were standing in the most sparsely populated region of the most sparsely populated country on the face of the Earth. We quietly contemplated the isolation and emptiness.

That is until…

We turned around to see three men, three camels, and a dog lumbering up the dune. They seemed to have materialized out of thin air as a 360^o scan of the area reveals no villages, no yurts, and no dwellings of any sort. Are they the park rangers? (This part of the Gobi is a protected Mongolian National Park.) Do they need food or water? Are they a part of a commercial caravan to Dalanzadgad, the only town of any size but well over 100 miles distant? Worst of all, do they wish us harm? (Our driver is relaxing in the Jeep at the base of the dune, quite far away.) Upon reaching the top, they dismounted, smiled (we breathed a sigh of relief), opened the pack they carry on the back of one of the camels, and proceeded to set up and display their wares—an impressive collection of handmade Gobi souvenirs!

Aside from the surprise of encountering anyone at all in this trackless wilderness—let alone three Mongolian entrepreneurs—we did not understand how they knew we were there. We saw no one on the drive, passed no telephone poles, saw no WiFi “hotspot” signs, nor did we see a smoke signal on the horizon. Yet, somehow our appearance quickly and efficiently triggered their arrival and the instant creation of this portable “tchotchke” shop. My wife and I could only laugh at our earlier imaginings of being in the remotest place on Earth—maybe true, but still not too remote to conduct a little business.

We haggled, bought a stuffed camel for our grandson and paid for it. We smiled back at them—it was our only common language. Once they realized we were finished buying; they bundled up their wares, loaded them onto the pack camel, and trudged back down the dune. We wanted to see exactly where they were heading, but they went out of sight over the next hill, probably to locate other tourists who will, like us, marvel at their unexpected appearance.

About the author: Michael Schneider and his wife lived in Ulan Bator where he was teaching at Chinggis Khaan University under the auspices of a Fulbright Grant. While there, he had several occasions to travel with some Mongolian families for weekend trips to the steppes and talked with them about how much the above characteristic is a part of their heritage and culture.