The Gobi: Ikh Gazrin Chuluu to Baga Gazrin Chuluu

After a sleepless night due to the wind, the wind is a bit kinder this morning and not blowing a gale so the riding on Gobi tracks is a bit easier, but still challenging with banks of small gravel and sand. Initial going is slow and we leave behind the amazing rock formations of Ikh Gazrin Chuluu and continue west. After 30 kilometres or so the tracks harden up and we set a good pace into the first major town, Mandalgov. Mandalgov is one of the best maintained towns we have seen with well looked after gardens and relatively nice buildings. We stop at The Gobi Hotel for lunch and find that as usual, there is only one meal available from a menu of 10 meals. After lunch we head north out of town with our GPS set for the rock formations at Baga Gazrin Chuluu. The rock formations appear in the distance across a sea of green grassy plains...the Gobi is turning green again the further north we ride. After dipping into shallow valleys and crossing small hills we arrive at the rock formations and search for a camp. There are many grassy places for camp hidden among the rocks and we find a secluded spot to pitch the tent. This place is amazing and the landscape is dominated by the rocky and mountainous peak of Baga Gazrin Chuluu. There are vultures circling the ramparts of the peak and we see occasional heards of goats walking precariously on the rock formations. We eat some pasta and go to sleep looking forward to a well-earned rest day tomorrow.

The Gobi: desert camp near Choir to Ikh Gazriin Chuluu

We start the morning in the shade thanks to our bunker hole and ride the last stretch of paved road to Choir. This town is like many other Mongolian towns, dusty, not attractive and a maze of roads. We turn west at Choir and stop outside a fire station that happens to be the best looked after place in the entire town. The firefighters appear in crisp clean uniforms and one of them even speaks english! We ask directions to our first waypoint town, Gov-Ugtal, and ride into the desert on a gravelly track with a completely featureless and barren horizon in front of us. As we leave Choir the wind starts to strengthen from the north provided a challenging crosswind that causes havoc with my riding later in the day. The tracks are initially fast and easy to navigate. We past lonely ger camps and abandoned buildings of long forgotten settlements. Surprisingly the air temperature is cold and and we need to zip up all vents on the enduro suits to keep warm. After about 3 hours riding we reach Gov-Ugtal which is hidden amongst sandy hills. The desert is getting a little greener now and we see herds of goats and horses. As usual a renter-crowd of locals swarms on Matt to check out the bikes as I am searching for food. We are pretty good now at saying 'Yamaha is good bike' and 'no you can't buy my bike' through hand gestures and broken english. I find no places to eat, so we are reduced once again to buying a jar of pickles and eating these with biscuits while watching goats snack on other green edible things in the distance. The pickles tasted all right. The wind was really getting strong now and blowing a gale. From Gov-Ugtal we rode to Ikh Gazriin Chuluu, a small range of granite rock formations to the southwest. On this stretch we had the most challenging riding yet. Tracks were sand or a thick layer of pea sized gravel which made handling the bike at any speed perilous. Add to this the gale-force cross wind that we were fighting against and it was lucky if we actually stayed on the track. At one point a dust devil crossed the track into the path of Matt's bike and pushed him into the sand and shrubs off the track. While crossing a section of loose gravel, a gust of wind swept my front tyre from under me and the bike and I spun 360 degrees to a stop in a pall of dust. Luckily no damage or injury thanks to my padded knees and I continue on a little shaken up and riding slowly. Thankfully we eventually see the rock formations of Ikh Gazriin Chuluu in the distance and breath a sigh of relief. We find our ger camp for the night without trouble and have a good meal before wandering to explore the rocks. The place is fascinating and a perfect spot to see the sunset over the desert. We head to bed exhausted and sleep restlessly to the sound of the wind. Alan.

The Gobi: Ulaanbataar to desert camp near Choir

After another relaxing mini-holiday at Oasis during the heaviest rain we have seen in Mongolia, we loaded up the bikes in sunshine and steered south towards the Gobi desert after a lunch of spaghetti bolognese. Our plan was to get a taste of the Gobi by riding a six day loop. The ride out of Ulaanbaatar first took us east and then south. Slowly the country changed from green hills to green plains to brown featureless plains. The riding was easy as there is a paved road all the way to the point at which we turn west, Choir. We also had a strong tailwind which made the journey a bit quieter on the ears as a buffeting wind can sound like a steam train in the motorcross helmets. About 20km short of Choir we stopped in to look at an old abandoned Soviet air force base just off the road and in the middle of nowhere. The base is complete with abandoned apartment blocks used to house hundreds of people, an old MIG fighter plane on a pole, abandoned hangers and lots of derelict buildings. We have a look around and get some photos. Some Mongolian families have set up house in the ruins and eye us off carefully as we poke around. We ride towards the abandoned hangers in the distance and are followed by a Mongolian on a motorbike with a little girl who warns us off lingering too long. Not the friendliest welcome, but Matt gives the little girl a toy koala to try and break the ice to no avail. We decide to ride on and find a spot for camp amongst the endless flat plains. Our idea is to find somewhere out of sight off the main road and railway line that we have been following all day, but this proves to be a little difficult due to lack of anything bigger than a large rock to camp behind. We spot a hill about two kilometers past the old air force base and look around there in the process finding an old Soviet bunker. We are tempted to explore inside, but goats have beaten us to it and left and thick trail of droppings into the dark depths of the bunker. We look around a bit more and find a huge hole near the bunker that was used as the source of soil to cover it. Thanks to the Soviets we had a perfect place to camp in the base of this hole out of site of anyone. We have a dinner of pasta and fall asleep to the sound of half-hourly coal trains on the train line and the occasional truck rumbling by. Alan.

Return to Ulaan Baatar, again.

Today is a pretty smooth run but Alan cops a rock on the tip of his boot and jars his big toe and second toe badly. We are initially worried that he has broken something, but nothing swells and after he gets over the shock we are riding again. He will lose his second toenail though. When we reach the sweet kiss of ashphalt all is well and we cruise into some of the worst traffic we have encountered in Ulaan Baatar. A couple of days of rest is in order. We have done 3500km so far.

Forest camp to camp 200km west of U.B

As seems to be the way, I did not sleep well from strange animal noises and Alan was comatose. The insects are out to play tagteam again for breakfast (i have never been bitten by such a biodiverse population of insects and we both look like we have leprosy or something) and we feast on an array of black tea and bland buscuits. We reach Bulgan city by 11am and for some reason this city doesnt feel dreary like a lot of other Mongolian towns. We like it. We stop to use the internet, buy a phonecard and find somewhere to lunch. There are a lot of very pretty Mongolian girls in this town. We head south then south east along an earth road along some more broad valleys. The wind is hot. Sometimes there are big ditches running at right angles across the track in one particular section which can be terrifying because you done see them till the last minute. I rode straight over one which i think i must have been going fast enough to skim across the top because i only managed to plow my back wheel into it and bottom out but stay on the bike. Alan shares the same joy behind. We climb a pass then descend into another valley and there are a couple of trucks ahead of us. Trucks are bad and play with my mind. They kick up stupendous amounts of dust and are diffucult and dangerous to pass so we try to avoid them. I was behind one today and i found myself imagining the driver laughing hysterically and screaming "..try pass you fool!!" like a madman and steering his truck here and there to make all the more dust and make this situation more dangerous. This is of course not correct and is probably part of my own madness from having my brain shaken by corrugations and rocks all day and i think Alan will understand my madness. I still find myself angry when i am behind a truck getting drenched in dust and feel like i have 'given it to the man' if i do eventually get past him. We get beaten by the trucks however (i'll bide my time) and make camp up a small valley out of sight in the arid landscape. The sunset is brilliant from the top of a nearby hill. We smell very bad.

Ikh-Uul to camp 40km west of Bulgan city

Today we decided to head off the main track so we dont have to ride the same road twice. We got away fairly early, waving to our Mongolian friends, one of which was throwing up on the ground to send us off (perhaps a gesture of good luck??) and made for the floating bridge upstream of where we were camping. It looked like an old military instant bridge that can be constructed quickly and had a small camp of gers next to the river. The bridgemaster (as i like to refer to him) was an interesting fellow. A man of little words, an iron stare and a bleeding lip, like he had drunk too much and got into a fight the night before. He eyed us intensely and looked us up and down for a long while. Finally he declares he wants 500 tugruks each to pass. Alan doesn't like his look and slams the 1000 tugrik note on the bikes front rack in defiance so that he doesn't have to hand it to him...i nearly chuckle. We pass and ascend the steepest pass we have been over so far. With all the weight on the back of our bikes i feel like the front wheel is going to lift over my head so you have to lean forward up the steep hill to keep it all balanced. I had to use first gear on this hill....which is surprising because first gear is walking pace on these little 100's. The pass would be impossible in the wet. We passed through the town of Rashant, dusty and western style like the others. A guy comes up and says hello in Mongolian (Sain-bainuu) and i am pleased because i know how to say the equivalent of 'fine, how are you back'. The conversation stops quickly however and we revert to mumble point. After some confusion as to which direction to go (this happens regularly taking back tracks) we find ourselves riding south on an immensely broad valley and looking for a track heading east up another smaller valley to a pass. We take what looks like to be a minor track and head east and thankfully find the pass we are looking for. There is always more than 1 option of track in this country and part of the knack of navigating is learning that as long as you are heading in the right direction you will probably arrive where you want to be, abeit from a different way. It looks like we are riding into a big storm and the wind goes cool and you can smell wet soil and grass on the breeze. I see a beaver looking creature emerge from a hole and regard my most colour co-ordinated riding gear then dissappear underground unimpressed by my fading cordura. We pass a small monastary that looks stuck in the middle of nowhere and we stop to regard where it is framed and the timelessness of the landscape. We eventually hit a section of road that we rode on the way to Khovsgol which is quite bad, dusty and rough. We make camp in a place we have camped before in a dense forrest of conifers with a dense blanket of patchwork grasses and flowers, and an insect population that likes to play tagteam attacking your flesh while you try to make dinner with an insect net stuck over your head.

Lake Khovsgol to camp near Ikh--Uul

We ride back to Moron the same way we came. We are lucky with the weather as you cross dry river beds several times on the way back. On this northern route it is possible to get stuck if it rains too much, and a Scottish women we met had done so last year when the dry river beds ceased to be dry. We lunch again in Moron and i have peppers in my meal of meat...ahh sweet vegetable! We havn't really had any bad food in Mongolia (apart from bad food we have cooked or lunched on) but its just very simple food. We make good progress from Moron west, but i manage to pick up a nail in my rear tyre going over a pass, and it is a good 10cm long. It kindly puts multiple holes in my tyre and tube and goes flat instantly. We remove the tyre and repair the tube but just like last time it goes down about 100m down the road. Repairing flats can be frustrating because there is a lack of shade in this country and the sun is very hot! We remove the tube again, repatch and replace. It goes down again. Arghhh! There is a leak we just cant find in the tube. I bought spare tubes at the black market but they are Russian and not the right size (best we could do). We have to file the valve and cut the edges with a knife to make it fit the rim. over 2hours later and we are back on the road, but not after a couple of Mongolians stopped to play mumble point with us before leaving. We find a camp 27km before Ikh-Uul on a large river. And this brings me to a perculiar Mongolian habit that we have encountered before. The plains are vast, space along the river aplenty and we feel remote. However a car appears in the distance and heads right for us. They pull up right next to us and set camp. Mongolian families like to do this which can be both good (as in our experience at the Great White Lake) or a curse (as in this case when we are tired, irritated and feel like being left alone). It humours me now though, because they got drunk and a women was wailing and singing through the night preventing sleep. Alan has however revealed a most remarkable capacity to render himself comatose through these occassions and i stay awake all night. Remarkable. We are however, treated to an amazing full moon and clear sky which leaves an impression on you like no where else i have been.