Mongolia – Khonggoryn Els or the Singing Dunes

 

Khonggoryn Els or the Singing Dunes is  region  within the  Gobi Gurvansaikhan National Park [1]. Of course it is a touristic destination as you will find camels trodding through the sand dunes. The range of the sand dunes is about 100 km long and 6-12 km wide, they cover 965 square kilometres [2].

Only small parts of the world's deserts are sand deserts and this also applies to the Gobi plain. The go there you cross different levels of grasslands with lyme grass, sheepgrass or feathergrass [3], the steppes with grass, then wormwood or artemisia and then allicin dominant steppe, with less and less plants. There's nothing on the sand. At the foot of the dunes there are some plants and directly, where the dunes end, there's a little stream with lush grass and grazing animals. Within half an hour camels, cattle, horses, sheep, and goats have trodded with occasional feeding past you. And you may also watch the bird – or the tourists climbing the dunes.

The dunes or the sand sing, but only if someone plays the instrument, which might be the wind or someone walking on the dunes. The sound – a hissing or a murmur like a distand airplane – is produced be small avalanches of sand and the different layers of sand, some parts might have been baked hard by the sun.

Links and Annotations:
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khongoryn_Els 
[2] https://tourmongolia.com/portfolio/khongor-sand-dunes/ and https://www.viewmongolia.com/khongoryn-els-khongor-sanddune-mongolia.html agree on this number as Wikipedia – we might look at a common source.
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongolian%E2%80%93Manchurian_grassland  

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