Where will she be when she is older?

Last time we were in the desert, it looked just as you would imagine a dessert. Totally dry with a sandy coloured landscape. But a desert is defined as an area with less than 7cm (2 inches) of rain per year and that means that sometimes it actually rains in some deserts, and recently in the Gobi desert it rained, and wow what a difference! For a short period at least it's green, really green. There are small and not so small plants and bushes that sprout up. At the same time, there are suddenly small streams and ponds that can be 100m across. The latter cause us problems because the dirt track road disappears, and we must drive round on virgin terrain, and just hope we don’t hit a soft spot. (We don’t although a day later we do)
The White Stuppa cliffs are about 4 hours south of the capital. We stayed in a Ger (aka Yurt), as we did last time, but again with some major differences. Last time, we froze on hard beds and slept poorly. This time, we stayed with a different family, and what a change. Real mattresses, quilts, and other luxuries (e.g., toilet paper 😊 ). After that, we have dinner and here rein a change. The food is mutton soup, or mutton. Well, wait, there is innovation, we are offered camel yoghurt and (separately) camel milk. It tastes as bad as it sounds, bitter and rancid. Let’s hope given that it's probably not pasteurised, that there is not a special surprise in a few hours.
I should be so hard on the camels, as after dinner, the kids go camel riding. They are “observed” by the granddaughter of our host, who is 1 year old, and I capture the photo of her that you see in this post. I can’t help wondering how different her life will be from her grandparents. This place is still by any standard very remote and underdeveloped, but things have changed in the last 50 years. Motorbikes have (largely) replaced horses for herding sheep and horses. The people live (at least partially) in proper breeze block houses or portacabins. The internet has arrived, even if its still slow, or snails pace. Some have satellite tv. Progress-! Well sort of, but actually the biggest change is tourists. Numbers are still small with only 10 flights from Europe per week. 2000 Europeans across this vast country won’t make much difference, but here and there we see big investments in “Yurt” hotels. To be clear we stay in Yurts that are family run and they actually live in them too. The modest income from low t level of tourism has helped them have a better life, (we pay $8 per person for B&B), but the investments in places with 20-30 yurts, will probably destroy the low density culture they aim to sell. If I had to bet on how the little girls life will be different, it is that she will at 18 be working either a yurt hotel, or she will have given up on country life and moved to the city. Already around the capital genuine culture has been replaced by “experiences” at $50-100 per day for those who visit but don’t have te time to spend 10 days in the desert. I suspect in the Gobi, things will also quite quickly move from indigenous families making supplementary income, but still farming herds of sheep, camels and horses, to experience parks with full service (yurt) hotels. A box to tick, not a thought-provoking, tough trip.
The Saddest of all those future tourists will miss out on the mutton soup and the mutton and rice 😊, because already the economics of sheep farming are precarious. Pizza Mongolian style, anyone? (Joke based on real-life experience in Bolivia)Read more