Air, Water

I didn't write much about the Gobi. It was at the end of my visit to Mongolia, and I was busy between there and Korea and getting to Singapore. More importantly, I didn't, and still don't, know what to say. The sand dunes were the most awe striking thing I saw there, or have ever seen anywhere, for that matter.

Khongryn Ells

The desert, and the sand dunes particularly, are so like the ocean. In, large quantities, sand behaves like water.

the dune I climbed

As I climbed to the peak of a dune, up an eighty degree face, I saw the sand loosened by my feet roll down with the same speed and shape as honey from a spoon.

my shadow

I loosed enough sand, and a singing vibration arose from the dune. A harmonic wave beneath me, it was frightening at first, and then after the earth did not dissapear beneath me, amazing. I stood still and listened until the sound moved across the dune and away, and then died out. It was awakened again with my next move.

the other side

The view from the top was worth the long crawl up the side.

I'm on Tioman Island in Malaysia at the moment. I just returned from snorkeling, where the pattern made by water on the sand of the ocean bottom is the same as the pattern made by air on the surface of hot, dry dunes.