01-Dec-2002 -- I have returned! On 1st December in bitterly cold conditions - daytime temp around -15C on the day I returned, I went back to this confluence to get the required photos, despite the cold it was a glorius sunny day, without much wind, though even a few km/hr wind at this temp makes you feel it. Anyway, here are photos - again GPS shot, then N-E-W-S views. Not much to see I feel. The dead horse was still there to greet me, its bleached skull grinning, and its remains having been savaged by wild animals hopefully sustaining them through the long cold winter. Snow leopards inhabit these areas, and I may have been fortunate enough to see one, though so fleeting was the glimpse I caught that I can never be sure.

05-Oct-2002 -- Visited this confluence after being told of the confluence movement by a friend. I will have to return at some stage to get an uncluttered photo, which will be a journey in itself. Mongolia is a punishing place to travel by land. Roads are non-existant, and a GPS, with waypoint of destination is the best road map. The Gobi, while flat is rough. Travel at an average speed of 35km/hr is good going. The trip to this confluence involved a journey of 14 hours by Kamaz. A truck built for - and better suited to - carrying Scud Missiles. With little demand these days for such things, They have been converted to people movers.

This confluence was in the middle of nowhere. And there to greet me (and the local driver I hired - Tolgaa) was the skeleton of a dead hose. A reminder of the harsh life things face in this area. Winter is coming and the winds are howling from Siberia, and out here on the Steppe temperatures plummet to -35 without the wind, which has already topped 100km/hr on certain days making the wind chill factor terrible.