Something shimmering and white
Leads you here despite your destination
Under the milky way tonight
The Church
uhuhuhuhuhuh..ohshit....uhuhuhuh.....F!!@#K.....uhuhuhuh......wo.wo.wooo...uh.uhuhuh
(me riding a regular Mongolian road with washboard, sand and mud!)
(me riding a regular Mongolian road with washboard, sand and mud!)
Me and my wonderful luck!
I'm staring at the hole in my tyre in disbelief.......f!@#k me. First a four inch nail an hour or so ago and now a gaping cut right through the centre of the rear tyre. I'm about one hundred K's from Olgi down a stunning but reasonably difficult dirt track.....I've got I dunno, maybe fourteen odd hundred K's to Ulan Bator with another eight hundred of challenging dirt track in that. I cant go back and now have Everest to climb with thongs on (sorry flip flops to our American friends.....) in front of me. Just Wonderful!
How we set about Mongolia....
After reuniting with Beth, Shalom and now Jamie a plan was hatched to head back north from Olgi, up through a back road to the official northern road to Ulaangom. From there we followed our noses with no particular plan back down to the middle road by Lake Khyargas, Songino, Tosontsengal, Tsetserleg and finally Ulan Bator. Finding information on road conditions consists of grilling fellow travellers aaaand that's about it. Mongolia seems to be famous for bad roads and......it's true! They are building highways all over the place buuut until then a highway can consist of up to six or seven separate sand or mud tracks, all going the same way, totally unmaintained, each existing because the other four or five are now bog holes or sand or total wash board. Riding along you constantly have to pick a different track and hope it's good. The truth is they're all bad and if it rains, they're worse...and it rained...quite a bit!
And how it was.......
So you're riding through a vast three dimensional panorama.....there are different hues of green and brown as far as you can see...rolling clouds form moving dark shadows that skim over huge rounded hills, flat green prairie, ice blue lakes and deep shadowy valleys that run away forever. Gers in brilliant white dot the landscape with chimneys puffing, silver satellite dishes, and solar panels which catch the occasional sun. Some are in groups of two or three, most with children playing outside, littered with a vehicle or two and maybe some horses feeding on the lush green grass. Huge flocks of goats in multi colours, some brown, some cream, some black tended by shepherds on horse back or motorcycle move from pasture to pasture and cross the road causing you to click neutral and wait. Children sitting by the roadside in bleak sunshine sell white concoctions in used water bottles and wave furiously before hairy Mongolian yaks, feeding by the road, are spooked into flight by our passing line of mud covered bikes. The line of five move through a panorama so vast and never ending that speed seems of no consequence and the bikes seemingly stand still as the endless landscape rolls gently by. You rotate your head left to right, hour after hour and drink it all in. Yep forget the hardship and bad luck.... move Mongolia up to number one......
The first couple of days the weather was perfect. This is not far from Olgi.
The first and second days were stunning.
Even Ron looks small here although you still can't see his DR behind him!
Oh dear Deano...suffice to say no one else got a puncture!
Pick a road, any road! There's only four here, it gets worse.
Lunch. There's couple of ladies slaving away in the little white building making dumplings for five hungry riders with some very suspicious meat in them...hmm.
F!@#K me........sorry but "oh dear" doesn't cut it here. The tube bulged through and punctured. I double patched it on the inside and tried various concoctions to fill the hole with no avail. In the end crossed fingers and denial got me through to Ulan Bator
Photos just cant capture this place.
The campsite on Lake Khyargas
We had a visitor at the lake. I don't like horses and this one had me figured and wouldn't let me close enough to get in the photo.
Jamie got a stomach bug probably from swimming in the lake so we stayed an extra day in this huge concrete ger by lake Khyargas.
The old boy winds the handle and mum handles the money.......just like home really.
A rare piece of flattish trail. Don't look at the tyre.....don't look at the tyre...
This is Songino main street.....is this the Mongolian wild west?
Grandpa on a motorbike.......erm cant poke fun here now that I'm....erm..officially a grandpa on a motorbike!
This is Kim from South Korea. We met Kim in Songino after he'd tossed away his GS1200. We helped him straighten his front end and get mobile. He's on his way from Vladivostok to Spain and the UK on his own and is a seriously funny guy. We shared his room with four men in a two bed room.......strickly man stuff!
We stayed in Tosontsengel an extra day as the rain decided to set in. That's the hotel in the background and the fellow on the statue is a famous Mongolian wrestler. Ron commented he looked like he was on the dunny......
The little donkeys get the same deal here as in other countries.....a crap one...
These guys were on a promotion trip from the UK to Magadan in a new model Vauxhall vans sponsored by Vauxhall. They had a factory mechanic, doctor, IT guy, cameraman, all clothing and footwear provided blah blah. Might get them to organise my next trip.
It's not if your gonna fall off in the mud, its when!
There's a downhill slope over here that was scary even for a bike. Just as I got to the top a knackered Hyundai slipped and slid down with a load of kids inside. Mongolians drive anything anywhere usually absolutely packed with passengers none of which are strapped in. On the flip side there is a ridiculous amount of expensive V8 late model landcruiser and Lexus 4wd flying about the tracks and trails.
This is Jamie on the latest Vstrom not falling off again. So far he is the only one not to have a lie down. Jamie is a journalist for Bike magazine and is riding the latest thousand Vstrom from London back to the Suzuki factory as a feature for the magazine. Ron is struggling with the fact he's riding a free bike and getting paid for it!
So you're in the Mongolian wilderness in the mud and sand......of course you expect to see a couple of classic Citroens....don't you?
These two scallywags rolled up on a brand new Chinese bike while we took a break roadside. Lots of attitude and looking for free smokes.
See the text above in "And how it was...."........ and it was.....
Went to the Ulan Bator auto bazaar looking for a tyre with no luck. This place is a hoot and jam packed with everything for the array of used imported cars bouncing about the roads. The difference here is when you get the part you fit it on the spot.....no job to big just grab the spanners and rip it out! Front ends, motors, gearboxes....fitted on the ground amongst the stalls.
Ulan Bator......maybe stick to the wilderness for the real Mongolia.
Puncture number three.....spotted while patching the hole from puncture two!
We stayed in a Ger at the Oasis in Ulan Bator which is a bit if a hangout for bikers and travellers. Ulan Bator has extremely heavy crazy traffic. I wanted out as I went in.
and..Stop apologising for the things you've never done
Cos time is short and life is cruel
But it's up to us to change
This town called Malice
The Jam
And now for something different!
This is something the talented Beth who has been travelling with us on a BMW eight hundred has put together. Click on the link and it will take you to her facebook page and scroll down and click on the arrow to operate the slide show. Make sure you have your sound on as the music is awesome as well. Fingers crossed it will work and you will be in for a real treat!
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Life-Love-Motorcycles/275573535879513
Reality Check
So here we are in Ulan Bator.....we've crossed Mongolia..tick...and next back up to Siberia and home. Precious the DR is looking a bit tired but running well and Ron's bike 'old blue' has developed an oil drinking problem but runs fine. I need a tyre....nothing special just a normal rear tyre. Perhaps one where you can't check the tyre pressure by how much the tube is pushing through a large hole. But this is Mongolia...and a bit like the Stans.....you ask, you ring, you email, you visit, you stand in bike shops full of multi coloured chinese bikes pointing to rear tyres, you write the size down and look into faces that regard you like something from outer space. After day three I'm over it and after trying a second hand tyre which cracked apart when I blew it up I grab some big car patches and glue, consider joining a religion just for a sec (is denial a religion?), and patch it up to continue my riding future.....or demise!
I'm staring at the hole in my tyre in disbelief.......f!@#k me. First a four inch nail an hour or so ago and now a gaping cut right through the centre of the rear tyre. I'm about one hundred K's from Olgi down a stunning but reasonably difficult dirt track.....I've got I dunno, maybe fourteen odd hundred K's to Ulan Bator with another eight hundred of challenging dirt track in that. I cant go back and now have Everest to climb with thongs on (sorry flip flops to our American friends.....) in front of me. Just Wonderful!
How we set about Mongolia....
After reuniting with Beth, Shalom and now Jamie a plan was hatched to head back north from Olgi, up through a back road to the official northern road to Ulaangom. From there we followed our noses with no particular plan back down to the middle road by Lake Khyargas, Songino, Tosontsengal, Tsetserleg and finally Ulan Bator. Finding information on road conditions consists of grilling fellow travellers aaaand that's about it. Mongolia seems to be famous for bad roads and......it's true! They are building highways all over the place buuut until then a highway can consist of up to six or seven separate sand or mud tracks, all going the same way, totally unmaintained, each existing because the other four or five are now bog holes or sand or total wash board. Riding along you constantly have to pick a different track and hope it's good. The truth is they're all bad and if it rains, they're worse...and it rained...quite a bit!
And how it was.......
So you're riding through a vast three dimensional panorama.....there are different hues of green and brown as far as you can see...rolling clouds form moving dark shadows that skim over huge rounded hills, flat green prairie, ice blue lakes and deep shadowy valleys that run away forever. Gers in brilliant white dot the landscape with chimneys puffing, silver satellite dishes, and solar panels which catch the occasional sun. Some are in groups of two or three, most with children playing outside, littered with a vehicle or two and maybe some horses feeding on the lush green grass. Huge flocks of goats in multi colours, some brown, some cream, some black tended by shepherds on horse back or motorcycle move from pasture to pasture and cross the road causing you to click neutral and wait. Children sitting by the roadside in bleak sunshine sell white concoctions in used water bottles and wave furiously before hairy Mongolian yaks, feeding by the road, are spooked into flight by our passing line of mud covered bikes. The line of five move through a panorama so vast and never ending that speed seems of no consequence and the bikes seemingly stand still as the endless landscape rolls gently by. You rotate your head left to right, hour after hour and drink it all in. Yep forget the hardship and bad luck.... move Mongolia up to number one......
This is inside the ger. It had multiple beds all in a circle and was pretty cosy.
What the hell are two ordinary types like this doing in the middle of Mongolia?
See the planks here on the bridge.......what happens when you go the other way?
This is the white lake and just an awesome campsite. After dark the weather broke and blew a gale and poured with rain.
Not the worst place to camp huh....
and..Stop apologising for the things you've never done
Cos time is short and life is cruel
But it's up to us to change
This town called Malice
The Jam
And now for something different!
This is something the talented Beth who has been travelling with us on a BMW eight hundred has put together. Click on the link and it will take you to her facebook page and scroll down and click on the arrow to operate the slide show. Make sure you have your sound on as the music is awesome as well. Fingers crossed it will work and you will be in for a real treat!
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Life-Love-Motorcycles/275573535879513
Reality Check
So here we are in Ulan Bator.....we've crossed Mongolia..tick...and next back up to Siberia and home. Precious the DR is looking a bit tired but running well and Ron's bike 'old blue' has developed an oil drinking problem but runs fine. I need a tyre....nothing special just a normal rear tyre. Perhaps one where you can't check the tyre pressure by how much the tube is pushing through a large hole. But this is Mongolia...and a bit like the Stans.....you ask, you ring, you email, you visit, you stand in bike shops full of multi coloured chinese bikes pointing to rear tyres, you write the size down and look into faces that regard you like something from outer space. After day three I'm over it and after trying a second hand tyre which cracked apart when I blew it up I grab some big car patches and glue, consider joining a religion just for a sec (is denial a religion?), and patch it up to continue my riding future.....or demise!