The Gobi Desert - Expedition journal page 1

We've arrived in Peking after an 11 hour flight. It is 8 am and our plane to Inner Mongolia is only leaving at 6 pm. We seize this opportunity to visit the Summer Palace of the Chinese emperors.

It is 6 pm and we are on our way to Hohhot! From the airplane window we see the deserts that will keep us company for the whole length of our mission.

The following morning, we meet Shao Qinglong, director of the Museum of Inner Mongolia, to discuss further arrangements for our journey. While we are walking through the museum, an energetic guide acts out the battle between two dinosaurs in front of an audience of uniformed pupils.

In the evening, Shao Qinglong invites us to a formal dinner, where we see the curator of the Ibariki Nature Museum, the second largest museum of Japan. He has come to Mongolia to borrow a few dinosaurs for an exhibition. But he is choosy and prefers dinosaurs discovered during previous Sino-Belgian expeditions. So Thierry has to improvise a speech. The interpretations from French into Chinese and finally into Japanese weren't entirely simultaneous...

After two days of waiting, we receive our permit for the Gobi desert. It's time to dig!