Everything happened for a reason

What I really wanted was to go take my mum to see some snowy mountains but due to roads, distances and time we opted for a less strenuous route. For a 75year old on a crutch I think my mum did brilliantly, we even stayed in a ger at the always chilli White Lake. It had the obligatory stove/log burner in the centre radiating heat like a ... well like a radiator really. That, combined with the equally obligatory destination reached jager shot keeps out the cold
After a trip to the restaurant Ger for dinner, our unattended stove had gone out, so I went off to get some matches but was mistaken for the sort of person who can only produce heat with the turn of a thermostat and was accompanied back to my cold accommodation by the resident fire starter. Patronized and inflamed we were left in warmth and peace. Apart from the sound of our vodka drinking partying driver next door. Gers may be good for heat insulation but sound travels through them like an Al-Qaeda pilot through a skyscraper.
I decided that if I sleep without bed cloths every time the stove needed topping up I would get cold and wake up, there by keeping the fire in all night, I was up for staying up all night and being the keeper of the flame. It’s been 4 years since I moved from my house and log burner, and I miss it so much, only thing I miss more about that house was the shed. Which was my own western ger although not quite as movable due to its concrete base, but then, I didn’t find rodents in there like I did in this one. Hitting a rodent hiding in a bread bag with a water bottle is completely ineffective by the way, unless you want to encourage them to retreat to you spare blanket. I would rather have used him to increase the fuel and wood situation.
Any way I fell asleep and the fire went out, I spent a happy hour slicing up logs into kindling with my Swiss army knife with just my head light on so as not to wake mother, I did look up at one point and realized I had filled the ger with smoke, I opened the door and saw my driver being held up by his mate and both staggering to the toilet area. Great, that will be an interesting drive tomorrow. I got the fire a light but by 1.30am I thought bugger this and shook my blanket vigorously to evict the rodent and curled up underneath it. (the blanket, not the rodent)
At 6am I light the fire from scratch, see I’m a fire starter too and my trail of smoke from the top of my ger was my flag of victory. I was very chuffed with myself.
It had snowed in the night the mountains were beautiful with their fresh white new autumn hats on.
Couldn’t get to the snowy mountains in time but the snowy mountains came to us. How cool. Surprisingly, driver was awake and looking a lot better than he did last night, so we had a scenically enhanced drive to the town where my bike was waiting for me, I was itching to get working on it. Or was that the blanket from last night?
In the few days since I had left it at the guest house they had decided they were going to move the coal shed and so clumsily and heavy-handedly but with the best intensions my bike had been moved, picked up by things that wont bear its weight, guards and rails were bent and twisted, I can’t be angry. They put in inside the guesthouse, it was a lovely gesture. So my hope that in a week of shelter it would dry out and fire up was, I suppose, optimistic but ya gotta have hope haven’t ya? It wouldn’t fire so I start to strip it down, I hoped in the dark but private storage room I might avoid the inevitable audience but as soon as I started work on the bike along comes maintenance man with his soup and he sits on a pile of cement bags and slurps annoyingly, whilst his soup burns his mouth his eyes burn into my back. Dam it.
I have a spark. Good, check carb, I have juice running through, ok, I also have a dying battery, I was expecting that. So I get the bike out into the cold sunshine, now or driver is keen to help too.
I don’t work like this, i like to work alone, slowly methodically, stopping lots, considering, thinking, I can’t work with someone looking over my shoulder and every time I stop to think he’s wanting to pull off another part, I don’t strip carbs on dusty ground but he persuades me to and surprise surprise I drop a screw and we lose it. He had another one; does he think he’s helping? Is this for me or for him? is he being gracious or is this being done for gratitude? I wouldn’t have lost the screw in the first place if I had done it my way. We take it out the front to jump it off the 4x4 ,now we have an even bigger audience. But I do find the original screw. I have spark, I have fuel, it turns over but will not start. I rode it 200 feet from one hotel garage to this one, that was over a week ago, then I cleaned off the tar, bolted on the bits that had fallen off and that’s all, why won’t it start? I put in oil, too much? We had been working on it for 5 hours, its cooling down the light is going and the bike still isn’t. Eggy, the driver wants to try bumping it. Its turning over fine what difference will bumping make?
‘It won’t work’ ok just to shut you up we’ll try to bump it’
I start to wheel it to the road; no he wants to do it on the dirt
‘The wheel will just lock up and skid’
Ok just to humour you we will do it this way, I get on the saddle less bike, and no he wants us both to push,
‘Look its gotta have weight over the back wheel ‘
This is futile, ok come on let’s get it over with.
I put it in second gear, pull in the clutch, we push, we run I let out clutch ready to control the skidding back wheel as it locks in the dirt, but it doesn’t lock ,it turns, turns the engine over and the engine fires and the bike starts.
What the fuck? I’m simeltaiunously happy and humiliated, who would have thunk it? But why? It’s beyond any logic I have, beyond any technique I would have applied, I take it up the street, well aware that most fasteners are loose and tank etc isn’t even attached. Listen to that engine quiet smooth and strong. I’m bemused. So I turn it off and once again it turned over on the starter but wont fire. We put it all back together, push again, same method 2nd gear on dirt with no weight over the back tire and again it starts, well buggered if I know, at least this way I can get it to Ulaan Baatar. It has not been a very satisfying fix it been a stressful afternoon. Its running I don’t know how or why, what was wrong? what still is wrong? nothing has been diagnosed.
Mother has been in the restaurant all afternoon chatting to an English/Malaysian girl, I love that she can just get on and do this travelling malarkey, so I shower with the hot water and dry on the IKEA towels (yes, that guest house) and with jager in my blood , buzz in my head, bike on my mind and grease down my nails, we 4 go have dinner, its arranged that our new friend will take my seat in the 4x4 tomorrow as I follow on the bike, she will keep mum company and it will save her the bus experience.
So next morning for first time in over a week I put on my bike cloths and helmet, check over my bike and with the audience of well wishers, and passersby I sit on it and with my eternal optomisium , turn the ignition and press the starter button and it bloody starts. WHAT THE FUCK?
Everybody’s happy, I suppose I’m happy, intermediate faults which disappear are not good for confidence in the reliability of ya bike. But its running and I keep it running whilst I fill up with fuel, I have obviously trapped a throttle cable under that tank cus the throttle wont snap back I now have cruise control but under the circumstances that’s not a bad thing cus I don’t want to be stalling or Turing off the ignition.
And we’re off, bloody hell look at that, the adventure is back , I’m independent, I’m free, I’m riding again, navigating, negotiating the terrain, I’m vulnerable again but on the plus side i can fart freely, I’m out in the big wide open country and the sky is blue the day is warming I’ve got my fingerless gloves on and my heated grips, and over my shoulder is snow capped mountains of wild Mongolian weather and in front of me is a 4x4 support vehicle, carrying half my luggage, hang on a minute that sounds familiar, oh my god all I need now is an extra cylinder and a Scottish accent, neither of which are likely but I do fall off in the mud so it’s quite an accurate re-enactment.
I keep the engine running and lift it up by myself, sloppy mud all over my screen and monklet. In the the last week my confidence had gone and my hardened arse has lost some of it hard seat endurance. After a few hours it’s like I was never off the bike, I’m up and down the gears, loving the dirt roads, racing the 4x4. i beat him on the bumps but he loses me on the smooth bits.
Standing on the pegs splashing up the mud, Other from being on the back of my bike my mum is seeing firsthand what I my ride has been like. Some time we are on adjacent tracks and side by side she can hear the thumping exhaust see the dirt fly and best of all photograph it too.
After about 80 miles we stop, Eggy encourages me to kill the engine, well ok I suppose we can always bump it, but it starts again on the button and continues to do so for the next 300 miles and 8 hours to U.B.
There are things called Ovoo’s they are stone cairns covered with offerings of scarves and money, it’s a Buddhist /Shamanic thing, you can walk round them 3 times for luck of if you don’t have the time you just honk ya horn 3 times, Eggy does it all the time, now with a fully charged battery I indulge in the ritual.
Everything happened for a reason, because of my bike not starting last week, I am now riding the stunning scenery in beautiful weather, I’m escorted by my mother in a 4x4 I’m appreciating the bike all the more, and I don’t know if its coincidence or not but somehow since I hooted at that Ovoo the day just got a little brighter, not overexposed brighter, just awareness brighter. It’s also a very auspicious day, its 5 years since my dad died, and if he could ever see I’m sure under this bright blue sky ( i know i keep saying that but is really is bright and blue) in this vast expanse of land framed between hills, unlined by rivers, he’s looking at me and mum as she leans out the passenger window with her camera taking photos of me riding by her side and he’s rolling his eyes and thinking ‘good on ya’ see I always said we were goanna be ok, me and mum.
As I get nearer to Ulaan Baatar in-between thoughts of booking hotels, bike parking, luggage removal and what the possibilities might be of getting into our new travel companions knickers, I realize I’m about to get to my destination, I’ve been here a week ago but that wasn’t on the bike. This was always the plan, I sat the winter in the freezing trailer saving money and researching the trip and telling anyone who would listen I was going to ride to Ulaan Baatar. It was a world away and now it’s only an hour away and not only am I about to achieve the dream, but I’m accompanied by my mother on the anniversary of dads death. How cool is that? Fuckin cool, that’s how.
It would also be a great little bonus if I can get laid too, the last time was the day before I bought the bike, it’s been a great year for adventure and achievement but a shite year for sex, having just accomplished the mission the bike was bought for wouldn’t it be brilliantly, poetically, ironically, perfect to get a little more nookie before the next destination, it’s a bloody long way to come for a shag.
It all goes well , bike is garaged rooms are booked jager is consumed, meal is eaten, mother is off to bed, bar is attended, beer and cocktails are drunk and so are we, conversations get more personal, body piercings are mentioned but not revealed, but it’s a good sign, isn’t it? The bar closes we get into the glass lift on the outside of the hotel, isn’t this romanti... floor is reached, door opens, and girl is gone. Fuck it, dam and shit. Oh well off to the room and crash on the couch.
When I come back to get him, monklet smiles
When the intermittent fault comes he smiles
And when it goes he smiles.
When we bump the engine into life monklet smiles
With ritualistic horn honking monklet smiles
And when the sleeps in the garage of a good hotel and I pass out on the couch, monklet keeps on smiling.
Ok let’s see if we can make it to Vladivostok.
Love Flid