“Hello,” He said.
“Hello, we have just escaped a terrible storm and we don’t have any food or clothes or
anything and we really need somewhere to stay for the night. We were hoping perhaps you could
help us,” said Bat.
“Of course, come in, come in, you must meet my wife and children. My name is Batukhan, I am
the village chief and this is my beautiful wife, Bolormaa, and my daughter, Odval and son, Chuluun.”
“Hello, nice to meet you, my name is Tyler and this is Justin and Eleanor,” Said Tyler
“Hi,” Said Eleanor politely, “Thank you for letting us stay in your house.”
“You must be hungry,” Bolormaa said, “Come and have some food.”
They followed the family into the small but pleasant kitchen.
“Here you go,” said Bolormaa, offering all four of them a bowl of rice with kind of exotic
vegetable. “Thank you,” said Justin.
They went back into the main room and talked and laughed and got to know each other a
little better as they ravenously devoured their meals. The next morning, when they had woken up,
they gathered the little belongings that they had brought with them and said their last goodbyes
to Batukhan and his family and thanked them for their kind hospitality.
They climbed into the jeep and continued their long journey towards the desert’s fringe.
They had to rely on Bat’s 25-year experience of the Gobi to guide them through the arid, barren
desert. As they had no way of knowing where they were, where they were heading and no way of
supporting themselves in the desert, they had decided that it was best to cut their expedition short
and return home. Luckily, all 3 of them had managed to grab their backpacks before fleeing from
the storm so they all had their passports and other required documents with them, meaning that
they should still be able to get a flight back to Calgary.
After a rough and tiring 5 hours of driving, they arrived back at the airport. It was very hard
for them to say goodbye to Bat as he had become a close friend over the past 9 days. With tears
in their eyes, they each shook hands, hoping they would see him again someday. They picked up
their things and trudged back towards the airport.
Once they had walked through the big glass doors, they wandered up to the check-in lady at
the desk. “Excuse me,” said Tyler politely, “But we have got flights booked to Calgary airport in a
few days but we had a slight problem and were wondering if there was any chance of getting an
earlier flight?”
“Well I think there may be space on a 7:00 flight this evening. Do you mind being split up?”
“No, not at all.”
“Ok, here are your boarding pases, do you have anything to check in?”
“No, we had to escape from a terrible sandstorm and this is all we had time to pack,”
explained Tyler.
After 8 long hours of waiting, they finally called their boarding number. Eleanor, Justin and
Tyler quickly got up and joined the queue of people waiting to board, eventually, they got on the
plane and began to taxi down to the runway.
It was 10 hours before they arrived back at Calgary, they cleared customs and immigration
and hurried out of the airport. It was nice to see their home again, with the busy, hustle-bustle
of the city. They flagged down a taxi and soon Eleanor found herself in her messy, 6th floor
apartment, wondering how it could have gotten more messy while she had been away.
