MONGOLIA - The Most Incredible Nothing

Gobi - The Most Incredible Nothing

I have seen the most incredible nothing.

Not an empty room, not a forgotten street.This was an infinite kind of nothing — vast, unbroken, and alive in its stillness.

It began in the Gobi Desert. The horizon melted into the sky so perfectly that the earth seemed endless. No fences, no power lines, no skyscrapers, not even a single tree to interrupt the view. For hours we drove through a landscape that felt untouched since the dawn of time. The silence wasn’t just an absence of sound — it was a presence in itself, wrapping around us like an old friend.

Experiencing the warmth of a Gobi nomad family's hospitality, sharing moments in and around their traditional ger under the vast, colorful Mongolian sky.

And that was why we came — to stand in the middle of nothing and let it teach us something.

In this sparse world, life survives in the simplest of ways. Nomadic families dot the horizon, their felt gers standing alone against the wind. They own little, yet they live richly — by the rhythms of the land, the seasons, and the stars.

One afternoon, a little girl , no more than seven, ran barefoot across the grasslands as if the earth itself belonged to her. She had no toys, no gadgets, no screens — just the freedom of open space. Her laughter rang out like the clearest bell. Watching her, I understood something we often forget: happiness has nothing to do with what we own, and everything to do with the space we give our spirit to breathe.

Sarmin and Bahar enjoy a picturesque day among yaks at Terelj National Park, with traditional yurts dotting the serene Mongolian landscape.

Two hours east of Ulaanbaatar, in Terelj National Park, the scenery shifted but the feeling remained. Here, the rolling hills and jagged rocks framed wide green plains. Wild horses grazed in the distance. The air felt younger, fresher, as if it had only just been made. It was here that I began to realize: Mongolia doesn’t just show you landscapes, it reveals to you the spaces within yourself you’ve been too busy to notice.

And then… the Gobi again.Standing in that desert, among sands that once hid dinosaurs, I thought about how rare it is for humans to be aware of our own existence. And yet we spend so much of that awareness chasing noise. The desert had no noise. Only wind, sky, and the slow shifting of sand.

Exploring the vast expanse of the Gobi Desert, Bhar leads a camel while Sarmin enjoys the ride under the expansive desert sky.

It reminded me of a man I once saw in Rio — homeless, sitting at the edge of the ocean, smoking a discarded cigarette, reading yesterday’s paper. He looked more at peace than most people I know. He had almost nothing, yet seemed to have found the rhythm of life.

That is what Mongolia felt like. A reminder that the most incredible nothing is not emptiness at all — it’s space. Space to breathe, to feel, to remember what it means to be alive.

At night, the stars here burn so brightly you feel you could step into them. The dunes move like waves frozen in time. And when you leave, you realize you’ve left part of yourself behind, scattered in the wind.

This… is the most incredible nothing I have ever known.