Welcome to
The Red Stupa Lodge
There are places in the Gobi where the ground opens without warning and a sixty-million-year-old seabed stands up in bands of rust, apricot and chalk. Two of them, Ulaan Suvarga and Tsagaan Suvarga, the Red Stupa and the White, lie a short drive apart in the Middle Gobi. Between them we have built a small lodge of tented rooms. Beyond it there is camel country, with herds of two-humped Bactrians drifting across the plain, and the rock galleries of Del Uul, where several thousand petroglyphs were cut into the stone over five thousand years.
If you have ever wanted a desert to yourself, with a proper bed and a good dinner at the end of the day, this is the place we have been waiting to show you.
Set back from the rim on open gravel, The Red Stupa Lodge sits near the escarpment: close enough to walk out to the rim for sunrise, or to ride there on a camel, and be back in time for breakfast. By day the programme is the desert itself. Twenty kilometres to the south-east, the petroglyph galleries of Del Uul hold several thousand figures, ibex and wolves, hunters with long bows, camel riders and chariots, cut into the rock from the Bronze Age to the Mongol Empire. Nearer the Lodge the plain belongs to the Bactrian camel: the herds that graze between the two stupas are kept by families we have known for years, and an afternoon in their ger, or an hour in the saddle, is part of most stays. First among the excursions is Tsagaan Suvarga itself, the White Stupa, whose layered cliffs run through every colour they have in the last hour of light. Further afield, each within a day’s drive, lie the granite towers of Baga Gazriin Chuluu, the sand dunes of Moltsog Els, the Flaming Cliffs at Bayanzag and the ruins of Ongi Monastery. After dark the sky takes over, and there is no light between you and the horizon.
The Lodge is open from May to mid October. Spring brings the wild onion and the camel foals; midsummer the long evenings on the rim; September and October the clearest air of the year and the Milky Way standing directly over the cliffs.
Stay
Rooms & Suites
Escarpment Rooms
A handful of tented rooms, low and wide, facing the cliffs or the rocks so that the last hour of light arrives through the canvas and the first arrives on the terrace.
Room Features
- Private en-suite bathroom with hot shower
- Large double bed, or two single beds, with an additional bed on request
- Mattresses, duvets, cotton sheets and cashmere blankets
- Private terrace facing the escarpment
- Solar power with charging points in every room
Amenities & Services
- Wood-burning stove
- Wardrobe, writing table and seating
- Hot water bottles and drinking water
- Daily housekeeping
- Guide and 4×4 for excursions
Curated
Highlights
Activities
Sunrise at the Red Stupa with nobody else there, and the White Stupa at the other end of the day, when the cliffs run through their colours. In between, the petroglyph fields of Del Uul, a ride on Bactrian camels and a visit to the nomadic family who keeps them, a visit, not a performance, with a class in traditional cooking and cheese-making at their hearth.
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Where To Find Us
The Lodge sits in Dundgovi, the Middle Gobi, roughly 420 kilometres south-east of Ulaanbaatar, between the two escarpments of Ulaan Suvarga and Tsagaan Suvarga.
This is the gateway to the southern Gobi. Ongi Monastery, the Flaming Cliffs at Bayanzag, the ice gorge of Yolyn Am and the Khongoryn Els dunes all lie to the south and west, and the Lodge is the natural first night on any journey into them.
Location line: Located 420 km south-east of Ulaanbaatar / 150km north from Dalanzadgad and 180km south from Mandalgovi
How To Get There
The drive from Ulaanbaatar takes about five to six hours. The road is sealed for most of the trip; the final half an hour is on desert track, with the escarpment appearing in the last minutes. We time arrivals for the late afternoon, when the cliffs do what they are famous for.
Transfers are in 4×4 Toyota Land Cruisers from our own modern fleet, each carrying up to four guests with luggage, with air conditioning and a driver-guide. Larger parties travel in two or more vehicles; child seats are available on request. Guests on a self-drive journey receive the vehicle at handover in Ulaanbaatar with a route pack and 24-hour support.
From the south, the Lodge is a two hour drive north of Dalanzadgad airport, served by daily flights from Ulaanbaatar.
Visa
Visa regulations for Mongolia vary based on the duration of your visit and your country of origin.
https://evisa.mn/en/apply
Exclusive
Offers
Two Escarpments
Sunrise on the Red Stupa, sunset on the White, and the sky in between.
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Journeys
The Red Stupa & the Valley of Kings
Fifteen days across the Gobi and Central Mongolia: granite towers, the Red and White Stupa escarpments, the great dune fields and the Flaming Cliffs, then north along the Ongi into horse country and the Orkhon Valley, with two nights at The Red Stupa Lodge and two at Genghis Khan Retreat.
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