We have motorbikes!!

After a very comfy nights sleep in an authentic ger we woke to sunshine in Ulaanbataar. We met up with our guide for the day at 10am and began the search for the most important part of the trip, motorbikes...the good news...we purchased motorbikes within 2 hours of starting to look. First stop was a Mercedes Benz dealer in northern UB that just happened to have a 2 week old Yamaha motorbike dealership inside. The Yamaha place is run by very helpful Germans (and Mongolians) from the Mercedes part of the business and after a chat with the german manager of the place we had negotiated the purchase of two brand new Yamaha AG100 bikes (they were still in the box this morning) on a buyback arrangement where we sell them back to the dealer at the completion of travels. This is so perfect and couldn't have worked out better. We have bikes that weigh only 99 kilo, are extremely fuel efficient and are built for farm use so are basically bullet proof. Even better, the bikes are red and black which matches Matt's helmet, enduro suit and bags...very stylish. The bikes are being assembled today and will be provided with full Mongolian registration tomorrow, so we just sling the panniers on and ride. Battling the Ulaanbataar traffic is going to be interesting and so far my impression of their driving prowess is that they are even worse than Nepali taxi drivers which is not good. With some care and the comfort of GPS directions we should be able to make it back to the guesthouse. We also managed to squeeze in some sight seeing today around central Ulaanbataar and saw the parlimentary building that was smashed and burned in the recent riots. We lunched at an authentic Mongolian meat (makkkkkkkkkt!) BBQ restuarant, purchased snuff bottles to greet all the rural ger dwellers (some customs to get used to) and toured the black market to buy some tools. All this was achieved with the help of a friendly Mongolian driver/guide and his girlfriend interpreter. All going well we collect the bikes tomorrow and make plans to depart Ulaanbataar for the steppe. -Al-