Ugii Nuur to camp near Lun

Today we rode over 200km to camp within a half day ride of Ulan Bataar. Track conditions were very variable today ranging from freshly graded track to shocking potholes, wonky bridges, deep sand and pavement. We passed some ruins of a 7th century city, and although degraded, significant sections remained of two structures and what looked like a watchtower. There was a small museum about the size of my bedroom with a plump Mongolian sitting at the doorway asking 2000 tugriks. His snuff bottle was the best i've seen in the whole country, a jade colour and intricately carved. I sniffed it. It was good. There wasn't too much to see here so we moved on, and hit some deep sand on the way to the next town. I dropped my bike after hitting a deep patch and nearly fell off several other times....a bugger of a track. We stopped to lunch at another small western style town and found a small restaurant. After some amount of sign language and gesticulating we managed to order a dish of which we had no idea. It turns out to be noodle mutton soup with broth. It was nice but didn't go down well as we had a mega breakfast that morning at Ugii Nuur of meat pancakes. After after trying to chat to the town drunk, we paid up and went to the local 'supermarket' to grab some warm lemonades. A 4wd pulls up and a bunch of drunk Mongolian guys pile out to stock up on booze and vigorously shake our hands. One guy is huge and has a gut to be admired and feared. Another guy on a bike pulls up and does the usual point and mumble routine at the various parts on my Yamaha. I decide to get in the spirit of things and point and mumble at various parts of his bike while Alan gets the lemonades. After lots of pointing and mumbling and head shakes he leaves and we are both content. To our relief we find paved road shortly after the town and resume our maximum cruising speeds of 60-70km/hr on our beasty 100's. I just cant explain how good it feels to find paved road and drive on it in this country after you have been driving on crappy tracks for over 1000km. I also cant explain how bad it feels when this road only lasts 10km then dissappears again, which it did! We arrive at Lun to fill up on water and find camp but do neither because there is nowhere secluded to camp and there are hundreds of horses stirring up the river water and crapping in it. We buy water and find camp some kilometres on the other side of town. We camp a kilometre off the main track up in the hills. >>Matt