full tank, a map that is right more often than it is wrong, and once again the sense of adventure and challenge is full on , I stop to reduce my tyre pressure when I leave the paved road, oh right I’ve just realized something, because of all the weight I carry my bike is practically vertical when its one the side stand, I usually try to find a hole to put it in, and lately it’s been ok in Ulaan Baatar, I thought it was because I sent some heavy stuff back with mother, but now I’m back on dirt with reduced tyre pressure I realize that is the reason my bike is lower and so vertically unstable . All these misdiagnosed things, so may be my rear shock is not as bad as I thought. Pot hole, bang, bottom out, spine shatter, oh yes it is.
It’s good to go at my own slow pace, stop to drink water whenever I want, for photos of wildlife. For a while now little things that look like baby turtles have shuffled across my path and now I have the time to turn round and see what they really are. Not turtles is the answer, more like miniature armadillos, right well that’s cleared that up. And so concludes the mistaken reptile / edentata lesson.
Once again the dirt road forks, this time it goes either side of a big hill which is probably not big enough to be a mountain unless it was in Essex. I decide with the help of my map my compass and the sun to head in a northwest direction on the right hand track. It feels strange to be heading west after so long heading east but I just haven’t had enough of Mongolia yet and want to see a bit more. Then the road splits again. Bugger there is a limit to my common sense and instinct ya know, stop bloody splitting you bastard track. I pass the Essex Mountain and what happens? The tracks all come together again, one went round morning side of the mountain and the other round the twilight side of the hill, there was a ger. So now what shall I worry about? The scenery is ok but not amazing; I’m I just getting complacent? I had my first pangs of homesickness the other day, it’s a strange ailment, no amount of logic or reason will ease it. I think it was bought on by staying in the same room for a few days; I took a girl I’d met out for a ride to the Chinggis Khaan statue, like ya do. I realized for the first time I was popping out, not leaving permanently I was off out for a ride. It felt like the sort of thing I would do at home (the Essex/Suffolk boarder religion being littered with statues of 13th century Asian warriors) I also tidied a bit. Cus I was continuing to stay in the same room, these things are not in my usual travel itinerary, cleaning house and then out for a ride. Homesickness comes in many forms, one of the symptoms was missing everyone I had met along the way, on the road, but I was just in missing mood today.
I want to be doing this diversion, this indirect route out of Mongolia for fun and adventure not for the hell of it, where has the awe gone?
Off to the right a town appears,
not very big but more substantial than a ger camp. There was a distance 2 story brick building. It still amazes me that these tiny indistinct unmarked dirt tracks lead to such a significant inhabited area, but maybe that’s the way they like it.
So bearings are back and I continue on, not exactly sure how far I will get today or where I will stay, panniers are full of food, my hunger can be kept at bay for over a week but my thirst for only 24hours but there are more rivers than supermarkets so I think I’ll be ok
I head towards a mining town that was quick, I had read about this but in my haste to turn the map in my tank bag over prematurely to show my progress, I had lost track of my err track. So I head towards the mining town there were lots of piles of , the stuff that was dug out in an effort to find whatever they were mining for, I think it might be copper, and their concludes the lesson on Mongolian natural resources. It wasn’t a nice town, not a good vibe, kids panned in puddles at the bottom of piles with pales and boys rode round on motorcycles holding metal detectors across their laps, and there was heavy plant and excavating machinery. I stopped to get water and drew a silent staring crowd; yeah this place aint on the tourist trail is it?
I find the row of telegraph /power lines which usually indicate a road and head out, I find a well travel road and figure this is the way out of town. Then a puddle, not just puddle a totally flooded road, muddy water of indeterminable depth which spread to the banks either side. I decide to take the muddy bit to the left. Big mistake the mud turned out to be 2 foot deep and I sank down below my axles.
Keep going, come on, my chain was covered in mud the back wheel mainly spun but pushed me forward a little. I headed for the higher ground but that just stopped me dead. I was well and truly stuck, I couldn’t push it, it wouldn’t move, it stood up by its self, so at least I could take a photo.
Well I’m stuck here nothing I can do. A minivan came by, full of gold toothed miners or possible polished copper. Not the kind of people I really want to be in the debt of. But once they sailed through the puddle they stopped and produced a rope. I put it round my forks and 3 of them pulled like miners verses a force that wouldn’t budge (like a Thatcherite government) tug of war. The rope was at an angle and it took all my strength to not have the bike pulled over. Out it popped, now I’m really at their mercy, I’m in a very vulnerable position, I say ‘thank you’ and they repeat ‘thank you’ back to me. I show them my map and they point back the way I came, oh shit, really? Back through the mud?
‘No dumb arse on the other side?’ I’m pretty sure that’s what they said in Mongolian , well it needs washing anyway, so I turn around and went through the puddle that I now know for sure is not as deep as a minivan and I break on through to the other side. Phew, well that was exciting, or something.
Back to the mining town there was a little police box with a couple of coppers in it I take them my map, no one seems to be able to point to where I actually am, this place is not marked at all, but he writes downs 11km and points so I go off not quite the way I came, I go the other side of the hill and oh would ya just look at that? A ‘T’ junction and a bridge, if only I’d have gone the twilight side of the hill. Back on the right road, I go through a few puddles to wash off the mud.
I meet a cyclist from Spain, ‘need any water?’ His English is poor but he, makes up for it in enthusiasm, ‘err, how um, did, da, you, errm, ship, your, eh, bike here?’
‘I rode it here’
‘Oh wow, like em, ya know, have err, you seen that, um, Ewan McGregor, em...’
I know what’s coming
He’s very nice but I just want to ride.
So I say goodbye, and headed straight into the setting sun, I just don’t do that on my east bound journey; actually it’s a pain in the arse. I could really use both hands on the bars but one is keeping the sun out of my eyes.
Crops? Crops in Mongolia? How am I supposed to camp when they are growing fields of wheat, I think its wheat, and so concludes the Mongolian arable lesson.
It’s getting dark the hills have throw a much appreciated shadow over me. I find a little spot away from, but still insight of a ger camp. I park my bike put my bike trousers over my reflective panniers, and pitch my tent behind the bike, in a attempt to be low profile, pretty stupid really when I’m camped in their garden. For the first time in weeks I get out my stove and hide the flame behind the bike I really don’t want visitors, vodka wielding visitors, I cook my pasta and crouch in the fading light to eat it, washed down with water, my liver is a little confused and probable relived, take the night off and may be tomorrow too, I’ll let you know one day at a time.
A full moon rises and illuminates me like a big neon arrow saying foreigner camping here, bugger, but no problem no visitors.
I lay in my tent, it’s like listening to a sound effects tape, the barking dogs protecting the gers and heards in the silent night, the horses winnie (is that what they do? Yeah or nay?) Then the cows defiantly moo, geese fly over head making their call to the straggles to get back in arrow formation,
but what keeps me awake is the sounds I don’t recognise.I never sleep well camping alone, particularly when I’m not well hidden
In the morning a big mushroom has appeared by my tent, I’m sure that wasn’t their last night. I bet that was one of the sounds that startled me in the night a mushroom popping out of the ground. If no one is around to hear it does it make a sound?
I heard of cattle wonder past,
I pack up and off I go, a river comes and meets the road, bugger, that would have been a much better place to stay the night, I stop and wash in it anyway.
The road ascends away from the river it doesn’t seem that steep but the bike is struggling
It’s really sluggish, when the town of Bulgan appears the bike is reluctant to descend the hill into it. I stop to find the rear break smoking the mud must have dried and seized it on, it’s really hot, and I bet if it was dark the disc would be glowing. If I put water on it, it may crack if I don’t all I can do is sit and watch the rubber seals burn. Bollocks. I prise the crumbling disc pads away from the disc.
I go into town. Ever optimistic I hope all will cool and be ok.
Stop for fuel, ‘good morning’ the attendant says
‘Good morning, how are you?’
‘I’m fine thanks, how are you?’
‘Oh I’m ok’ I’ve deviated from the phrase book and he has no answer to that, I could pick it up with ‘what lovely weather it is we are having for the time of year’ but I really can’t be arsed.
Out of town on paved road and I have no back brake, I stop and change the pads
Still no break I stop again and pump it hard and watch fluid pour over the disc. Bollocks.
On top of that Monklets’ helmet has started to crack. It’s all going pearshapped.
Just as the scenery was getting good. Just as the road had turned to aphelt. Shit this is big, very big; turn around big, what now big, new plan big.
My Mongolian show was over I had decided to do a little encore before I hit the Russian stage and now its curtains.
Well, might as well turn round, there is paved road all the way,
But to where? do I go north to Russia? What is the likely hood of a Kawasaki dealer there? Or back to the familiar UB, I have a couple of hours before that ‘T’ junction to think about it. Is this small black seal going to be the end of my trip? I’m tired, really tired, I’m dirty I’m hot; researching the next phase of Russia has seemed more like a chore that excitement. May be I should just call it a day; after all I achieved my goal. Do I ship the bike, selling it is unlikely and means paying duty and taxes, scraping it is just so wrong, bureaucratically the easiest option but I just can’t do that to it, financially it doesn’t owe me much but I owe it more than a death of disembowelment in a Mongolian scrap yard. All these indecisions, all these options, solutions and no real plan, I get to the ‘T’ junction, I’ve decided to go back to UB. I stop to get fuel; the girl speaks good English, ‘where are you from?’
‘England’
‘You rode all the way here?’
‘Yes’
‘Are you tired? ‘
‘Yes, really tired, exhausted, and dirty, and my bike is broken,’
‘You want hot tea?’
‘No thanks I have water’
‘How do you ride if your bike is broken?’
‘Carefully’
‘May be you can get your part in this town, stay here’
‘No I think I will go to Ulaan Baatar’
‘Your monkey has a pretty smile’
‘Thanks’
‘He is always smiling?’
‘Yes exactly, he is always smiling’ but not me, I’m too tired to indecisive, exhausted from the road, weary, dirty, unappreciative. Baby I’m just totally fucked.
If this was an opportunity I passed it up, actually as I write I realize of course it was an opportunity, oh well.
I don’t like this part of Mongolia it’s paved and industrialized. It has train tracks and even signposts
Back to town just in time for rush hour. I’m riding far too aggressively for one brake and after such a long day on the road as well as being sleep deprived.
I try to slow myself down, despite it all I’m not hurt, don’t fuck ya self up now, when ya so close. I over take a car on a bridge, I should have given a warning hoot, it’s the way it’s done but I don’t bother and as I over take him he swerves into my path to overtake the bus in front of him, I jump over further, we may have made contact, I jerked so violently out of his way I’m not sure if was jumping or was I pushed I stay on the bike and blast out of the situation too fast for a heavy bike with only one brake, I make it back to my guest house, I should have done it slower, more carefully, I just wasted a life.
They offer me a shared ger with a deathly ill and incoherent French man,
No, I don’t like sharing, never have I hate dorms no matter what form they come in, back packing 20 years ago I hated them and I still do now. I get a ger to my self
I contact my a riding buddy in England to get the ball rolling on my parts and sleep for 12 hours
Do I ship it, abandon it, fix it, sell it; do I go home, or onward?
I realize I’m just exhausted, the week off with mum was not a week off it was just different travelling.
I’m sleeping 11 hour nights.
Everything happens for a reason, the brake, has broke, I need a break. I get a break whilst I wait for my brake.
When we are faced with tugging miners' monklet smiles
When mushrooms make me jump he smiles
When his helmet cracks monklet smiles
When he sees me miss an opportunity he smiles his prettiest smile
And now we wait for and take a break, he has his relaxed smile.
When I’ve had a rest I will smile again too.
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