Ikh Tamir to just short of Ugii Nuur

After a fantastic night camping amongst trees by a river perfect for swimming and skimming rocks on, we packed up camp and began the first extended off-main track section of our return to Ulaanbataar. Our first destination was Battsengel and the farm tracks were well defined, hard packed and fast. We covered the first 60 kilometres with no troubles and found that our GPS tracks were almost perfectly matching the real life tracks making navigation easy and allowing plenty of time to look at the passing grassland land and river plains and distant hill. We negotiated a couple of river crossings and opened all the vents on our fantastic BMW enduro suits (the best motorbike purchase ever) as the day started to heat up. At one point in the middle of nowwhere we pass a Nissan GTS Turbo Skyline blocking the track and precariously perched on the lip of a steep slope with nobody to be seen. Some duffer must have driven this low slung sports car to this point and then realised 'maybe it isn't a 4WD after all'. We eventually crossed a pass and could see Battsengel spread out in the distance on a river plain below us. Battsengel was a true western style Mongol town with a dusty main street and a strong hot wind blowing. People in heavy leather boots and cowboy style hats lingered around and eyed us curiously. We couldn't find a restuarant so settled for a lunch of bread, pickled cucumbers, cheese and margarine. Now I thought I purchased cheese from the local shop, but I actually bought a very large block of butter, so no cheese. That block of butter plagued us for the rest of our journey and eventually melted in Matts pannier and covered all of his treasured belongings. So no more cheese purchases unless I taste test first to ensure it is cheese. We made some calls home in Battsengel and rode on towards our next destination, a lake called Ugii Nuur. With the day coming to a close and our concentration starting the waver, we pulled of the track and rode towards some distant trees beside a river we had been following most of the day. The wind was howling and we tried to find some shelter amongst the trees and found a perfect camp beside the river with an impressive view across the river plain to a very flat horizon. After dinner and a swim we were almost ready for bed, but could hear the thunderous roar of a big group of horses in the distant darkness. They all crossed the river and out of the night a Mongolian on a horse with a big stick rode towards us, stopped and silently watched us, which was a big freaky. We said 'hello' in Mongolian, he grunted and left. Very strange. We slept well though. Alan.