Walking The Gobi –Book Review

Author:-Helen Thayer

Published By :- The Mountaineers Books, Seattle, USA

In year 2001, 63-year-old Helen Thayer and her 74 years old husband Bill walked across the Gobi desert on an unbelievable epic journey of 1600 miles only with two camels. There was no support crew, two-way radio or any sponsors. This book is the travelogue of this fascinating real life adventure. The Gobi desert spreads across northern border of China with Mongolia. This region, where day-time summer temperature exceed  120 deg Fahrenheit, could be described as one of the most inhospitable, harshest and life-threatening places on surface of our planet.

The book reads like a top class thriller with author’s encounters with sandstorms, scorpions, snakes and wolves. The couple, strays into China and on return is arrested and interrogated by Mongolian border police. They narrowly escape, couple of dangerous encounters with smugglers operating across borders. To top it all, they loose almost all of their precious water rations, when one of the camels refuses to move along, sits down and rolls on his back from side to side. A chance discovery of a foul tasting, salty water lake on fifth day of their ordeal really saves them from certain death.

What makes this book different is the fact that it is written with a woman’s point of view. She frets about the animal carcasses they see on their way. She really loves the Mongolian culture and also the warm welcome and hospitability of Mongolians. She is distressed with the poverty and plight of nomadic people she meets on her way. Even then, she very much appreciates the mental strength and the connections these nomadic people have with their land. She thoroughly enjoys their hospitability even when the food offered is unpalatable to her.

Helen is very authentic and vivid in her narrations. However, she can make the reader laugh when she describes her antics to avoid food offered to her by the nomads. A truly outstanding and remarkable author and her equally fascinating book.  It may be worthwhile to quote here what she feels about the desert and its people.

“Although the harshness of the desert sometimes climbs beyond human endurance, a deep feeling of tranquility floods our senses as we allow ourselves to become part of the earth, wind, sand and dust that surrounds us. We can never conquer the elements; we can only experience them as a visitor, knowing that after we have passed, the desert will continue its ways both gentle and violent long after we are gone. It takes time to understand the special freedom that comes when we join hands with Mother Nature and follow her lead. The increasing weariness and outward struggle is made easier when we are at peace with our surroundings and at one with our creator.”

26th June 2008