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Diary w/e 16 July
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10th JulyMore excitement. It was actually chilly during the night for the first time since we left home. The full sleeping bags were used (and zipped right up). But as soon as the sun hit the tent in the morning, it rapidly became very warm. Once the flaps were opened, we got a pleasant breeze through. We were half awakened by some distant calling, and when we looked out from the tent we could see a herd of goats and a young lad on a pony looking after them, on the hillside across the valley about a mile away. He was alternately calling and singing to his herd. They gently drifted down the hillside towards us and the lad rode right up to us to have a look. We did lots of smiling and saying hello to each other and exchanged names. He was about 10 years old and his name was unpronounceable - something like "Chirdidr". His pony was a little easier - "Mudr". The pony was a little nervous of strangers, but with some encouragement from the boy he was prepared to let me stroke his neck. Unfortunately our conversational options were at best limited, so Chirdrr ambled off up the hill on his pony after his herd. He carried on calling and singing to them. We luxuriated in the absence of insects and took a long lazy breakfast (though the fridge was still playing up and the milk was only just ok - Richard gave the whole thing a good clean out yesterday, which has at least got rid of most of the cheesy mouldy milk smell, but it is still not right.) Then we packed up and decided to head into town again to see if we could sort out the website update and manage some emails - we have been having all sorts of problems on the communications front since Russia, and even the satellite phone would not perform yesterday, which was quite a pain. We also wanted to find out a bit more about the timetable for the Naadam festival, and generally get the feel of the city. We drove back down our track to the road and then turned towards UB. When we finally reached the airport road, we were a bit surprised by the number of policeman at the junction (we weren't expecting an escort), and then even more surprised to see policemen spaced out at 100 meter intervals along the road all the way into town. Was this a normal Monday morning in UB? None of them bothered with us, and the most any of them were doing was standing in the middle of the road blowing their whistles loudly and waving their dayglo red sticks at the traffic to make it hurry up (not really necessary with these drivers!). We were even waved through a red traffic light at a junction by a policeman! Then shortly afterwards we were flagged down and told to turn off the road, and 20 seconds later we saw why - a huge line of big black cars and police escorts were racing down the road behind us, with "VIP" stickers in the windows. We didn't see anyone famous, but putting two and two together, we guessed this would probably be Prince William or Harry (not sure which one), who we had gathered was coming as a special surprise guest to attend the official 800th anniversary celebrations later in the day. We followed the motorcade into the centre of town, and finally managed to park up right next to the main square. There were all sorts of parades and ceremonies going on there, and as a whole load of "meedja" arrived by bus just as we parked, we felt no problem about unloading our video camera and shooting loads of footage of finely dressed dignitaries doing apparently important things (often involving clockwise processions round statues and other important objects). Not sure if we caught HRH on camera, though (I'm not very good at recognising the junior members of the royal family, I'm afraid). We then spent ages looking around town to find an internet cafe where we might be able to "repair" (not just update) our website, and put it into a state where the satellite phone updating might work again. Not sure we managed it, though Richard did at least manage to get the last couple of days' diary entries onto the website. We bought a USB memory stick to transfer files from the laptop to the computer in the internet cafe, and one or other of them had a virus, which instantly rang bells and flashed lights on the laptop - but we think we caught it in time! We ate freshly bbq'd kebabs outside the big "State Department Store" for lunch and then decided to try one of the posh hotels to see if their business centre would provide us with the necessary internet connection. No joy, so we are still in trouble on the IT front and I don't know when this entry will actually find its way onto the website. After last night's experience, we decided to leave UB good and early to find a campsite. We drove past the airport and then struck across country with the GPS on. Richard thoroughly enjoyed putting the Land Rover through its paces, up hill and down dale for about 15 miles before we found a lovely wide open valley with a few gers dotted around and a couple of herds of ponies. He picked a small knoll and parked on top of it. We then sat and enjoyed the views and made ourselves a leisurely supper, actually got the camping chairs out for the first time and chatted as the sun went down. No insects disturbed us, and when it got chilly after sunset we retired up into the tent but enjoyed moonrise with the flaps open. At some point soon we will tuck up, but camping in this landscape without bugs has been such a pleasure that we will probably stay awake for a long time to savour it! Driving around the hills is immense. You don't follow signs, you follow a bearing or a point on the horizon and hold the accelerator down until you get there. The steering wheel becomes more of a tiller than anything else. Occasionally you may have to actually touch the steering wheel or the brakes to avoid a load of horses. The horses seem like really decent animals, if they could talk they would probably be some of the nicest people you ever talked to. I think that is why the Mongolians are generally quite so relaxed and content (there are fourteen horses to every person so we are informed). So tonight we are mostly revelling in pleasure at GPS ref N 47º 35' 47.51" E 106º 56' 29.22", and a dizzy height of 1,456 meters. 11th JulyOur first experience of Naadam! Naadam is the annual festival held in Mongolia every year on 11th and 12th July. Traditionally, it involves tournaments in the three "manly sports" of horseracing, wrestling and archery. In more recent years, we gather women are allowed to compete as well (except perhaps in the wrestling). And a new sport has been added, somewhat worryingly called "anklebone throwing" - but as the ankles in question belong (or, more accurately, belonged) to sheep, so it's not as bad as it sounds. This year, because it is the 800th anniversary of the establishment of Mongolia as a state, they are having a whole load of anniversary celebrations as well, and having a "super Naadam" in UB, which is spread over the whole week, rather than lasting just two days. Apparently smaller Naadams are held in all the provincial capitals and other significant towns, so this is really the high point of the Mongols' festive year. UB has two English language newspapers published every week, the Mongol Messenger and the UB Post. We bought both while we were in town yesterday and had a good look at the programme for the week. I really wanted to see some of the sport. But the first thing this morning was to spend a bit of time relaxing, repacking the car and doing some proper maintenance.underneath it. So we enjoyed getting ourselves thoroughly mucky pumping grease into various places that badly needed it, topping up the oil (again - we should really be doing a proper full oil change soon) and changing another fuse that had blown, leaving us without an inside light or horn, and leaving the time fixed at 12.50 according to our clock. We also taped up the cracks around the lids to our concealed reserve fuel supply to stop so much mud, dust and exhaust smoke coming in that way. We can easily unstick them if we need to. We had been visited by horses in the night - lots of loud whinnying and snorting as they investigated us. But when we woke up, it was a glorious cool morning with a moderate breeze and no bugs again - and no sign of any other nearby life forms, except the same birds and some rather remarkable grasshopper type creatures that would take off and fly a little way and then give a little "crack" sound in mid-air. Most strange. Also quite a strange feeling to use the toilet spade without so much as a bush to hide behind, just the contours of the land! We had everything sorted out, and had done our chilling, by about 3.00. We then headed back around the western fringes of the city and out to the west towards where we hoped to find the horseracing venue, with a race scheduled for the early evening. We didn't know where we were going, but by following the traffic (and the line of cars coming back from the earlier races) we found it easily enough - a large high plateau called Khui Doloon Khudag about 25 to 30 km west of the city (and a bit north). We turned off the metalled road following some other cars along a dirt track which led up the side of a hill and on the top we found a small temporary tented village (made up largely of the traditional gers, but with a few more modern marquees) - or, to be more accurate, a little cluster of about 4 or 5 villages. Each one seemed to be a temporary settlement for a family or community who were attending the Naadam and racing in it. As we arrived at the first village, we saw a string of horses attached to a couple of long hitching lines and some small boys obviously preparing to race (the riders in the horse races are all boys of no more than about 9 or 10 years old - we didn't see any girls, though there may have been). There was quite a ritual. They were dressed up in their bright racing clothes - a cross between traditional wear and modern jockey colours. Some wore safety helmets, most didn't. Then they would mount their ponies and start to ride clockwise (always clockwise) around a sort of show ring area in front of the tents, chanting a traditional song of some kind. It ended up with four or five young lads from the community all carrying out this circuit together, joined by a couple of very important looking elders in traditional dress. They were all given some kind of special drink from a bowl by the women as they mounted. Then after they had carried out about a dozen circuits together to the applause of all the community, they rode of down the hill towards the start of the race. We could see the large flat area they were heading for, so we drove over there, to find ourselves mixing with the main crowd. The scale of the thing was amazing. There were probably no more than a few thousand people there (including many tourists) but the last mile or so of the racing field across the plateau was lined by policemen and soldiers at roughly 10 yard intervals (even closer near the end) - no idea what UB was doing for policemen today! And we could see where the riders were assembling to be led off to the start. The whole party of horses were walking slowly clockwise around some central point and then finally they were led off across the plateau by a couple of cars and horses. The start was so far away, they literally disappeared from view, and the crowd waited patiently for at least an hour (maybe two!) before a small dust cloud became visible on the horizon about 6 or 7 miles away. As the race got closer, the crowd got more and more excited until the winner came galloping past us and over the finishing line to huge applause. There was a special winners' enclosure of blue fencing (which had been carefully guarded by a police cordon for the previous hour) into which the first five horses were led - a massive honour. But we had been there for a good two or three hours waiting for this short burst of excitement (it felt a bit like watching a rowing regatta!), so we headed off back to the car fairly quickly and then drove only a couple of miles further out to the west to find a camping spot in the hills. We stopped on a nice flat saddle with good views to the north and south but it was quite chilly so we cooked quickly and then hopped up into the tent to read, etc. The food was not up to our usual standard. The meat-filled pasta which we had bought frozen turned out to be meat-filled dough, so it had all squidged together into a soggy mass in the bag. Rich could not believe I was proposing to cook and eat it, but our other options were limited, so after a preliminary jam sandwich we ate half cooked beef/mutton dumpling. Let's hope it was well enough cooked! It mostly wasn't cooked and it looked like little brains inside bubbles of snot. So tonight we are mostly hoping our dinners are going to stay down, at GPS ref N 47º 53' 41.22" E 106º 21' 45.68", and a height of 1,576 meters. 12th JulyNo upset tummies overnight - a miracle! Naadam day two. We woke up around 9.00 and started the day slowly. Our plan was to drive back into UB, see some more Naadam, buy some more maps (you can never have too many of those!) and see if we could do anything about extending our visas and registering with the Immigration, Naturalisation and Foreign Citizens Office (INFC). We also wanted to stock up on food and water and make a start towards the Gobi desert in the south. The plan was derailed pretty early. We had only just got back to the road near the horse racing area when we were stopped by a traffic cop. It was nothing personal, he was stopping everyone. It was clearly something to do with allowing priority to traffic coming out of town to the horse racing. After ten minutes, there was no sign of anything changing, so I got out of the car and gestured to the cop down the road and at my watch, trying to ask him how long it might be before we would be moving again. He pointed at the twelve, which could either have meant twelve minutes, twelve hours, twelve o'clock (i.e. about a 40 minute wait), something rude to do with "up" or simply that he was bored and thought 12 was a nice number. Anyway, we decided it would probably be a long wait, and so we thought we would try out our offroad driving and navigating skills to get into town another way. We headed back and turned sharply off the road at a set of likely looking tyre tracks and then started an exciting rally drive through the hills which (to cut a long story short) eventually got us back to UB by a very different route indeed. There were all sorts of arbitrary traffic diversions all over the city because of Naadam, and we ended up having to follow a load of crazy drivers down a bumpy track through an old derelict factory estate to get round the first lot. We then navigated by feel towards where the Lonely Planet said there was a map shop, and pulled over at about the right place, to see a very unpromising load of run down buildings around us. Just as we were about to drive off and look elsewhere, we had a Monty Python moment as we suddenly saw a door in the side of what looked like a factory, with the words "Map Shop" painted over the top! We went in and bought a load of maps including their equivalent of OS maps of most of the places we are planning to visit (but this being Mongolia, the scale is 1:500,000, not 1:50,000) and something which proudly described itself as a "Road Map of Mongolia" with a picture of a posh car on the front, zooming down a smoothly paved highway - i.e. a highly imaginative and irrelevant piece of artwork. But it did purport to show the towns and villages in which fuel might be available; as this is one of our most pressing concerns, we decided to buy it anyway in spite of having no faith at all in its accuracy for this or any other purpose. Our next job was lunch, and we headed towards the Naadam stadium to eat in a Lonely Planet recommended restaurant which is built like a large ger. After fighting our way through various traffic diversions and very heavy traffic around the stadium area, we finally found it and were able to park almost outside. We sat and ate a very good salad and a "Mongolian Warrior's Battle Platter" which we thought was very appropriate (it was effectively a rather good mixed grill with real - and quite tasty - vegatables); we also drank a "Chinggis" beer and watched live Naadam wrestling on the big TV they had. It was very tasty and cost us about 28,000 Togrogs (sounds a lot, but that means £14, about as much as it is possible to spend on a meal for two, even in UB). Our next job was to try to find the INFC office, which Lonely Planet describes as "west of the Peace Bridge, opposite the NIC filling station". It took us quite a while to find, but it was quite obviously closed. There was a large tourist office next door which wasn't, and they gleefully told us that the INFC office would be closed due to the public holiday until Friday. We decided to worry about visa extensions and registration when we come back to UB in ten days or so to meet Geraldine! Next we loaded up on water, UHT milk, snacks and a few other goodies from a nearby supermarket then we headed for the Naadam stadium. There were loads of stalls and food/drink vendors outside it, and it was all buzzing with activity. At the stadium itself, we just went up to one of the entrances and gestured that we wanted to go in. They sold us a couple of tickets for £1.50 each (posh seats, high up and with shade) and in we went. For a while, it looked a bit unpromising - we had clearly arrived during a break in the action. But very shortly there was a buzz around the crowd and a load of big fellers dressed in the special traditional wrestling gear (colourful blue and red - briefs a bit like swimming trunks and a very short cropped top) came into the arena with what could only be described as a collective lollop. They weren't walking and they weren't jogging, it was something in between. They all lolloped across the stadium (which was full of loads of other official looking guys in traditional dress, mostly umpires and other important observers/score keepers); when they got to a strange looking podium thingy on the other side which was being guarded by four warriors in traditional dress (swords and all) they stopped in a gaggle and slowly flapped their arms, emulating the flapping of eagle's wings whilst still lolloping on the spot. After a short performance like this, they peeled away and went off in pairs with one or two umpires for each pair and started to wrestle. The rules are obscure, but the aim is to get your opponent onto the ground. So there is a lot of grappling for holds and pushing and pulling to get the other guy off balance. Eventually one of the wrestlers would manage to upend the other, to appreciative applause from the crowd and then after checking that the loser was alright, the winner would go off on a short eagle dance of victory, slowly flapping his arms like eagle wings and swooping around in a short circle before coming back to the loser, who would raise one arm for the winner to duck under. The umpire would then place a spiked hat with a long red tassle on the head of the winner, and it looked as if the loser got a similar hat but without the tassle. The winner would then dance over to the scorekeepers table, where his win would be registered. A bout could last as long as 20 or 30 minutes, some of it involving no apparent action. And there were about 20 or 30 bouts at once to start with, all milling around the arena, until it thinned out into the last bout, which got a special round of applause when it ended. During this time, the spectators were coming and going, and it was a bit like the preliminary rounds at any major sporting event (the finals are apparently very different, but we are not staying round to watch - and in any case, tickets are apparently very hard to come by!) So after watching a couple of rounds like this (lasting maybe an hour or so) we headed back to the car to make tracks out of town towards the Gobi Desert. On the way, I couldn't resist trying a glass of Kvass which was being sold all over the place for about 7p a glass. It turned out to be a very pleasant and refreshing fruit drink, something like a mixture of grape juice, apple juice and iced tea, with just a slight hint of fermentation about it. I wasn't yet quite in the mood for airag, the fermented mare's milk which everyone has heard about, and which was also on sale. We will meet that everywhere, so no hurry! After a short stop to top up with diesel and buy enough good oil for a complete oil change, we headed south from UB. We were starting to get the hang of Mongolian "roads", so we navigated, ship like, across the plain towards what one of our maps said was likely to be a main road (!) to the south. We think we found it, but it is always hard to be sure here. At one point, we were faced with a shallow river running across the road, with the remains of what had once been a low bridge. After casting around for an easy crossing, I waded across to check it for depth and rocks, then Rich drove across with a rather large bow wave (it was only about a foot and a half deep, so no problem for our vehicle). We then found ourselves bowling across a huge plain with a line of telegraph poles for company (not marked on the map, but encouraging nonetheless). There was also the odd ger dotted around and herds of cattle, horses and goats. And an entire horse skeleton in the road like something out of a bad wild west film. We saw very few people, but at one point we saw a car with a driver who waved more than averagely enthusiastically at us. We drove across to investigate and found he was indeed in some trouble He said a lot of stuff in Mongolian and we nodded a lot. He then produced a much-used towrope from his boot and we backed up to give him a tow. It turned out that he only needed a bump start to get him going, so we only pulled him about 30 yards before he was waving wildly again and we stopped to unhitch him. He was very grateful and said "thank you" about 20 times as we headed off. Finally, we reached a nice pass in the mountains where the track and the telegraph poles cut through on their way to the next plain. We decided that it was a good time to stop and set up camp (9.30). The sun was setting and the wind was distinctly chilly. We had put about 40 miles between us and UB, and we felt like we were beginning to get out into the wilds a bit. There was an ovoo (Mongolian equivalent of a roadside shrine - a pile of stones to which people add all sorts of other things, including old water bottles, bits of wood, blue streamers and crutches) at the top of the pass, and we camped right next to it, on the only piece of level ground we can see (apart from the very tops) for miles around. After our huge lunch we didn't want a lot to eat, so we boiled a kettle to make a pot noodle for Rich (king size) and a nice cup of tea for me. We had to huddle round our stove to stop it blowing out, which was very cosy - my fleece almost melted. After sunset, the wind dropped and it is pretty much a perfect (if rather chilly) night now, with a very large yellow full moon floating in an unreal picture above the range after range of mountains out to the west. All very atmospheric! So our thoughts are now turning to what we will find as we head south tomorrow down towards the massive Gobi Desert. Rich had no joy getting the sat phone connection to work last night, and used up a lot of our precious minutes. So we are going to be more sparing and only try to update the website once or twice a week from now on, though we will try to pick up and send emails every two or three days if we can. So tonight we are mostly chilling (literally!) but keeping warm in our sleeping bags with extra layers of clothes, at GPS ref N 47º 24' 2.15" E 106º 37' 15.11", and a height of 1,718 meters, about 40 miles south of UB. 13th JulyOur first full day after leaving UB. We decided to cover about half the distance to the Gobi desert proper today (though the desert doesn't suddenly start at a particular point, and for most of the day we have seen the landscape becoming progressively more arid). We picked out a couple of places we would like to take a look at (a 10th century temple ruin on an island in a half dried up lake, and a particular mountain with - supposedly - a cave with an underground lake). We set the approximate GPS locations of both on the laptop and headed off after a hurried breakfast - it had been a distinctly chilly night and we wanted to get moving. It was a day of dust, bumpy dirt tracks and wildlife. The whole place is of course as dry as a bone (and we saw a lot of those lying around, bleaching in the sun!) and the dust gets everywhere. By the end of the day, there was a thick layer of it over us, the car and everything in it. The driving was quite hard - you couldn't afford to let concentration go for a moment as wheel-busting rocks and potholes could jump out at you very quickly. We were generally able to keep up speeds of about 30-40 mph on the dirt tracks, though you would suddenly come across a really poor stretch or a stream crossing that needed to be waded carefully at 2 or 3 mph (I took my shoes off and walked the first one before Rich drove though - it was quite a wide one). Sometimes the car took on an alarming lean as the track curved around a hillside. The navigating is quite a job as well. The maps we have on the laptop GPS are 20 year old American military ones, and they are quite large (1:1 million scale) as well as being very out of date (tracks, villages and even rivers move quite a lot over time). The 1:500,000 maps we bought in UB yesterday are topographically much more accurate, but we have to fix our position on them manually, which is a bit fiddly because the detail doesn't really match up with the US ones. So we end up putting waypoints into the GPS and then navigating towards them by general impression and feel - around here, it is generally much quicker to use the dirt roads, but there is absolutely no indication where any particular track is going, and they have a habit of veering off sharply and forking unexpectedly just when you don't want them to. So generally you pick a dirt track that seems to head in roughly the right direction and stick to it until something better comes along. We saw two buses and about 4 jeeps on the road all day and we drove about 150 miles in all. On the wildlife front, I am no ornithologist, but even I can recognise an eagle when it is staring at me from 30 feet away, and that happened three or four times during the day. They tended to flap off lazily once they had satisfied themselves we were too big to eat. We saw at least a dozen others in flight at various distances. Very impressive. We also saw a gazelle like creature, but that was about 100 yards away when we spotted it, and belting for cover around a hillock, so we didn't get a very good view of it. Then we saw what we thought was just another load of cattle or horses, but as we got closer, we realised we had stumble on a herd of camels - the twin humped bactrian variety. They were obviously not wild, and some of them desperately needed a good haircut but they certainly had attitude. I have one shot of a female (she must have been!) staring very meaningfully at me showing her teeth - she held that pose for about 5 minutes without moving at all. They sat there unconcerned as we finally drove past. We found a well out in the desert, but the water was only fit for animals. But we did finally come into a small village where the first thing I saw was a shiny steel water pump. So I drove over and stopped by it to see what would happen (as we needed to fill our washing/shower water container). An old chap appeared at the door of a nearby ger and wandered down to us, more out of curiosity than anything. I gestured to him to ask if we could use the well, and he nodded vigorously, indeed he came roaring over to help us. He set everything up and then started to pump vigorously and shortly a stream of very clean and fresh looking water started to pour from the spout into my plastic container. I asked whether it was drinkable, and he said yes (though he probably thought I was asking if he liked a beer now and then). But we will still filter it if we use it for drinking. He was waving goodbye and shaking hands but I thought we ought to give him something for his help, so I gave him a few hundred Togrogs (about 25p) with which he was extremely pleased. As I was on a roll, I then said "diesel" in my best foreign accent, pointing at our filler cap. He nodded and pointed up the hill at what looked like a small demolition site which in fact turned out to be one of the small village's three filling stations. The only problem was that there didn't seem to be anyone at home (even though the window was open). We stood around, made lots of noise, I shouted "Hello" in bad Mongolian through the window, but no joy. We walked around the back, to be confronted by the dog (who was hiding from the heat under their car) so we legged it back to the Land Rover. In a very English way, we then tooted the horn - ever so quietly and politely, you understand. Still nothing happened, so we gave up - we weren't desperate for fuel. Unfortunately, neither of the other filling stations did diesel - it is far less common as a fuel around here. There followed more dusty bouncy driving, a quick visit to the ruined temple (which wasn't that inspiring, but at least we were able to get a cold coke at the adjacent tourist ger camp to wet our whistles) and then some more homemade navigation to find the mountain we were after. We found it alright, but could we find the cave and underground lake? No. So eventually we gave up (after driving all the way round the foot of the mountain) and camped up in a nice rocky gulley in the side of the mountain, with lots of nice rocks and cliffs for Rich to climb and a TREE (the first one we have seen since UB) which has a huge nest on top of it - we reckon it must be an eagle's nest but either the occupant has left for the season or he is very fed up at having a Land Rover parked under his home and he won't come back until we've gone - which might not be for a day or so as we decided we need a day to sort out some of the dust and clamber around the mountain a bit before we head south for the Gobi proper, and more dust. We suspect Geraldine will be very pleased at missing this part of the trip! So tonight we are comfortably parked up in a nice warm gulley out of any wind, rubbing the dust out of every orifice, all at GPS ref N 46° 12' 00.67" E 106° 03' 34.57", at the balmy altitude of 1,542m. After a hot sunny day, it tried to rain briefly, but its heart wasn't in it and there is now a fantastic view of the stars out of the door of our tent. Apart from the fact that we haven't washed properly in nearly a week, things couldn't get a lot better. 14th JulyThe sun woke us up again - very inconsiderate. Baking hot all day. We were having a slow start to the day and thinking about a few little jobs when a motorbike appeared from absolutely nowhere (with a man on it, of course - wearing the traditional dell (long coat) with bright orange sash and sturdy riding boots, all topped off (rather incongruously) with a safari type sun-hat, complete with zip pocket on the side. I walked out to greet him, and he walked up with a fairly stern expression. I had heard about guys who go around pretending to be park rangers and charging non-existent fees for camping, and I wondered if this was one. He wasn't, in fact he was a local herdsman who had seen us arrive the previous evening and had come to say hello. He had no English, of course, so we conversed using gestures and my Mongolian phrase book. I cannot remember his name (the names all sound so alien to an English ear, and I can't even remember familiar names). But he said he had five children, and he pointed at the phrase book where it says "Would it be possible to see the inside of a herdsman's home?" and made it clear he was inviting us to do just that. We said "yes please" ("Tiim") in our best Mongolian and he said he would take us there. He explained that he had to go off and do some jobs first and he would come and collect us on his way back (this was of course all in comical sign language). I asked him when he would be coming back, and he pointed at the 12 on my watch (a bit of a Mongolian habit, this) so we were completely clear that he would either be coming back in 20 minutes (at 11 o'clock) or in an hour or at 12 o'clock - or maybe at some other time. I told him we were looking for the caves, with a lake inside. He said there were caves, and he could take us there - but no lakes in them. (Luckily the Mongolian for "cave" and "lake" were in my phrase book). He drove off and Rich and I used the time to complete the demolition of our passenger side door - at some point in the last couple of days, it has become no longer possible to lock it from the outside, and we thought we would try to fix it. In fact you require the skills of a black magician to take the door lining off without breaking it to look at the lock - skills which unfortunately we do not have. But we did establish that (a) we need a new door lock and (b) we now need a new door lining. We sort of put it back together and you can still lock the door from the inside (and unlock it both ways) but it now makes a noise like someone dropping a pile of tin plates every time you slam it shut. Oh well, at least it's not going to stop us! No worries, we'll get some duct tape to it and it'll be good as new. We were in the middle of completing the swearing phase and starting the "putting the tools away" phase when our friend reappeared at 11.45. We hurriedly packed the car up and followed him up the trail. His hut was only about a mile away (we were a bit disappointed that it was not a traditional ger, but that pleasure is yet to come). As we arrived, a little girl (aged 5, apparently) shooed the dogs away so they wouldn't eat us (mind you, they barked very half heartedly in a way which said "if it wasn't so hot, I might have sunk my teeth into you, but in this weather, give me a break"). We were ushered into the main room and offered a couple of stools to sit on. Two teenage girls were asleep, one on the sofa/bed in the main room and one in the bedroom adjoining. They got up when we arrived, and Mum also appeared. One of the daughters had a little English, which helped communications a lot. She was on holiday at the end of her first or second year at university in Ulaan Baatar, where she was studying law. Through her, we were offered yoghurt and cheese, which we politely accepted. The yoghurt was excellent (though a little sharp to our sweet tooth until you got used to it) but the cheese was a different proposition. I'm afraid we couldn't manage more than a mouthful of that. Then we were offered mare's milk and Richard declined but I accepted - and it was excellent. The little girl drank a bowl with me as well. She also counted up to ten in Mongolian, English and Russian - not bad for a five year old! They are all starting to learn English now in school, apparently. There was more conversation (ish) about what we were doing and where we were going. They were amazed that we had driven all the way from the UK in our Land Rover, and of course they required a full inspection, which we happily gave. They were particularly interested in the solar panel and fridge, and liked the idea of 240v electricity from the inverter - they have solar power themselves, but everything is 12v as far as we could tell. We explained that we wanted to spend some time just looking around the mountain and trying to find the cave we had read about. They said there was a cave which they would happily take us to, but no underground lake. So the father and daughter led us there on their motorbike - about 4 or 5 miles. It was not quite as big as we were expecting - in fact, it was only about 20 yards deep. When we came out, expressing delight at having found the cave, they said there was a monastery a couple of miles away, if we wanted to see it. We nodded vigorously, and they took us there. It was a lovely spot, and well concealed - we would never have found it ourselves. It was a shame that it had been demolished almost completely by the Mongolian KGB during Stalin's time in the 1930's (along with all the other monasteries in the country) But it was a lovely setting and you could see what a gorgeous place it must have been before it was ruined. Apparently there are two monks there now (but they weren't around when we were there) so the place is coming back to life. We then decided we had taken enough of their day, and decided to head off to get some diesel and food. So we took our leave, gave them 10,000 Togrogs (about £5) which was accepted with dignity and set off for Mandalgov, the capital of the region, which was about 30 miles away. It took us well over an hour as the tracks were pretty rough in places, and we had to do some creative navigation from time to time when the tracks ran out. On the way, we managed to get a sat phone call through to home, to wish Steve all the best on his Himalayas trip with the school. Geraldine was quite relieved to hear from us because she had not heard anything for about 3 days and the website had not been updated (we have been having problems doing that over the sat phone connection). Mandalgov was not a hugely impressive place, but we found our diesel (there was none at the first place we stopped, but one of the other customers offered to lead us to the right place in her car). We also found a small supermarket (which strangely had no fresh food). We asked a tour guide we met there where we might buy some fresh food and that ended up with us giving someone else a lift to the market as he showed us the way. We did not feel quite like buying the meat we saw there, but we did get some fruit. We then pointed the car at the southwest horizon, determined to find somewhere quiet to bed down and camp for the night. We found the main "road" to the town in the south we are heading for, right in the heart of the Gobi, and drove along it. After about 15 or 20 miles, we were ready to stop and dived off the track up to the left, where we saw a big hill - we were hoping for something like last night. No joy on the tree-lined gully, but we did find a lovely spot high up on the shoulder of the hill, well out of the way of everything. We got ourselves level, then stopped for a sit before starting to pitch camp. Again we had piles of dust on everything. Rich went off for a little explore and of course ended up on the very top of the hill. Then I noticed him running down the hill back to the car, and I wondered what amazing thing might have caused this unusual behaviour. Let Rich take up the story... Found a nest of a big ol' bird. It was a bit too small to be an eagle, but it was about three or four times the size of a falcon. Very impressive it was indeed, and it didn't seem to mind very much at all that I was climbing all around the nest (which was off the side of a cliff) within a couple of metres of it. It just looked at me as if I was a bit of a fool and carried on standing around. I got lots of photos and film of it, and then waited around to film/watch the sunset from a bird's eye perspective. Frustratingly we have yet to get any decent shots of an eagle despite seeing them relatively frequently. Dad cooked tonight (very good of him). We had noodles, Pesto and tomatoes. The reasons for which were minimal cooking time, an open pot and vitamin requirements respectively. Of course the noodles turned into one large noodley blob which mixed with pesto and tomatoes to give a noodley pestoey tomatoey stodgy blob. So at least we are eating well. And tonight, for the first time, we are sitting outside in a balmy breeze chatting, doing this diary and admiring the stars, rather than doing it all up in the tent. Until 30 seconds ago (when the herd of goats arrived) the loudest noise we could hear was the wind, and the only lights we could see apart from the starts were a couple of ger lights on the far horizon. No doubt tomorrow will be different! Tonight we are mostly planting noodle trees in the desert at GPS ref N 45° 28' 49.22" E 106° 00' 32.78". 15th JulyToday was a hot one! It started overcast, but the clouds soon went and the temperature climbed rapidly. We had just decided that we would have a slow day and do a bit more maintenance on the car when hey presto! a motorbike appears out of nowhere with mum, dad and small son on it. They drive unerringly right over to us, get off, lean the bike against a rock and walk over to the car. All very unsmiling so far. The Mongolians don't go in for big greetings. Remembering our nomad hospitality, we offer them our two chairs, which they take. We then offer them some fruit juice from the fridge, which they take. We then start the whole "conversation via phrase book" thing again. Not a hint of English anywhere this time, so quite hard to communicate at all, really. But we manage a few pleasantries - they have two older sons, and they live in a proper ger about 8 km away (how on earth did they find us?) They find the map absolutely fascinating - they have no real need of such things, but find it amazing to see their world laid out on paper in this way. They identify a nearby mountain from the map and explain how to get to their ger from here - head for that mountain, when you get to it, turn right and they are the first ger on the right (or indeed on either side) approximately 1 km further on. We had another invitation! Rich is beginning to get a bit shirty about this - he came to the desert to experience a bit of solitude and in spite of the fact that there is officially less than 1 person per square kilometre (and that includes the ones in towns and cities), they keep on finding us and trying to make friends! We managed to explain that we were planning to do a bit of maintenance on the car and rest up a bit, but we would try to find their ger and call in later in the day. They pootle off, satisfied at this. We then settle down to some car maintenance while dodging the sun as much as possible. This involves me lying under the car (out of the sun, hooray!) while the wind whistles through, blowing grit and sand into my face and everything I'm trying to lubricate (boo!). The end result is that the old engine oil goes mostly over me rather than in the bucket, and the drain plug drops into the bottom of 12 pints of dirty warm engine oil. There was much swearing. The transfer gearbox also proved it was still full of oil by pouring some over me when I opened the plug from underneath to check. More swearing. Then we find we don't even have the right tool to open the check plug on the gearbox, so we just have to hope that's ok - which it probably is. We'll get a mechanic to have a look when we're back in UB. All the other levels etc seem ok. The only slightly worrying thing is that I notice one of the four mounting bolts on one side of the transfer box has fallen out - I check the other three and they are still tight, but that's another thing that needs attention when we are back in civilisation. That will be the effect of all the bouncing and juddering over the heavily corrugated tracks etc that we have been doing. It probably takes an experienced mechanic in a proper garage about an hour to do the various things I did, but it took me most of the day - I think Rich and I are agreed that the combination of poor tools and inexpert workman is not a happy one. It took about an hour to get the worst of the oil off me, but my shirt is probably a goner. Rich thoroughly enjoyed cleaning the oil off my head with kitchen towel, making squeaking noises as he did. We had rigged up our sun awning and carefully repositioned our solar panel to catch the sun properly, but by now the sun had gone right round the other side of the car, so we dodged round there and made ourselves some cheese and tomato sandwiches (our first and only food since breakfast). By now it was far to late to consider trying to find an isolated ger 8 km away by the directions "go to that mountain, turn right and keep going for about a kilometre" so we wimped out and tidied up the car a bit, had a battery charging fest (video, big camera, small camera, sat phone, laptop, etc etc) and tried to sort out a few emails. Rich has managed to get the emails working over the sat phone (just about) but not the website updating - it almost works and then invariably drops the connection just before finishing, after wasting about 10 precious sat phone minutes - so we aren't going to bother trying to update the website by sat phone any more, we will just do it when we can from internet cafes and the like. The miracles of modern technology are not quite that miraculous.. The little birds are getting used to us. At one point today, a pair were playing around near us; one came and sat on the table about 3 feet from me, trying to stare me out, while the other played at hovering in the wind blowing past the car - very effective, it was able to hang stationary in mid-air with no apparent effort. Then they just flew off together and played a bit more. I think they might be desert finches, because they look a bit finchy and we are in the desert - and Lonely Planet mentions DF's in a nearby (i.e. 200 miles away) nature reserve. Cute little things. After my exertions and the heat of the day, I feel pooped and enjoy stretching out in the tent for a "rest" (which soon turns into going to bed) while Rich does more emails. We had packed ourselves up ready for a quick getaway tomorrow - we are aiming to drop in on our friends (if we can find them) and then get to Dalanzagdad, about 250 km to the south west, right in the heart of the Gobi desert. So tonight we are mostly doing what we were doing last night, at exactly the same GPS reference. 16th JulyWe wake up to the sound of the Gobi wind - we are learning that it is always blowing, night and day, and it can dry anything out (and cover it in dust) in no time flat. The dessicated carcasses of dead livestock which we keep on seeing are proof of that. I can see how it could turn you a bit funny in the head if you lived here for long (no obvious comments, please!). Anyway, we make a quick breakfast, wash up and then get on the road early (well, 9.15 is early for us, anyway). Very early. Strangely, the morning overcast doesn't clear as it did yesterday, indeed it stays with us all day - which at least keeps the temperature down. But the wind blows merrily along. We try heading for the third mountain from the left (7 km away) and then turning right for a kilometre, but we are obviously not cut out to be desert nomads, even with the help of maps and GPS. So after casting around a bit, we give up on our visit (without too many regrets as far as Rich is concerned) and steer 210 degrees true towards Dalanzagdad. As we drive, the terrain gets dryer, flatter and greyer. The corrugations on the dirt track show no signs of reducing, and we go on wild detours off it in an attempt to find smooth driving which will be less punishing for the car. This sometimes leads us into different problems, hitting the odd concealed hole and rock. But nothing too disastrous. We find that since the US military surveyed this area (presumably by satellite) 20 years ago for the maps we have on the laptop, many of the main trails are still (roughly) where they said they were, but there are lots of new ones and some of the old ones have disappeared or moved. So we may be following a marked track almost perfectly when suddenly our track on the GPS veers off sharply into what looks like open desert on the map. All very confusing, but as long as we are basically heading towards DZ, we will be ok - there are no massive mountain ranges or unfordable rivers in the way (indeed, any river at all would be a delight for the eyes). Driving continues to amuse me. We generally don't eat lunch, we just munch on Doughballs while we drive. Doughballs are a fantastic invention that we discovered in Mongolian 'super' (i.e. indoor) markets. They consist of balls of dough similar to the dough in doughnuts. These balls are much smaller than a coconut, much larger than a peanut, but still smaller than a walnut. Possibly the size of a Brazil nut... but round. And they are covered in sugar. They seem to cope with the desert conditions slightly better than other food (bread for example goes hard, toasted and curly in about three minutes). Another distraction from the monotony are dust bowls, they are depressions in the ground where dust gathers forming a pool of very fine dust that inevitably covers the path you are driving along. They are generally at the bottom of a dip between two hills, so you come racing towards them and have to slam on the brakes as soon as you see them. Of course brakes don't really work out here because of the loose layer of gravel and sand on the surface so you go charging nose first into the dust bowl kicking up a huge dust cloud which envelops your now stationary vehicle suffocating passengers and engine alike and covering everything with yet another layer of dust. The only way out of this is to rev the engine, take your foot straight off the clutch and leg it as quick as a suffocated engine with rubbish diesel can carry you away from the dust cloud. After a good seven hours of driving, we finally get to DZ. We have decided that after a week on the road, we are so filthy and smelly that we really need a good shower, so we are going to check into a hotel in DZ for the night and hang the expense. Lonely Planet has a couple of recommendations, and we settle on the Devshil Hotel (described as "one of the best deals in town"). I would be worried about the others. We do have a three room suite, but salubrious it ain't. We discovered after we had agreed to take the room that there is no hot water; the toilet cistern is broken (but if you have an engineer's mind, you can work out a way to flush it) and we musn't use the lights in the bedroom on pain of electrocution. On many of the plugs and sockets they haven't even bothered with front covers, so the bare wires are laid out for your inspection. Yet there are nice rugs and the walls are covered in rather nice silk wallpaper. Still, what do you expect for £8 a night for both of us (plus another £1 for parking the car out the back - when we could have parked it anywhere else within 300 miles for free). And it is reasonably clean - there seems to be an army of cleaners fighting a full time permanent battle with the Gobi dust along our corridor. The lack of hot water is a bit of a problem, though. We are so horribly dirty that we are forced to shower cold - and I mean cold. In the Gobi, you would expect the cold water to be at least tepid. But I swear they have this water specially refrigerated downstairs somewhere before pumping it up to us. We grit our teeth and turn from dirty brown to blue - but at least we smell nice now (except for Rich's new shoes, which have been banished to the balcony). No plugs in the bathroom, of course, but we will do some serious handwashing this evening - I dread to think what colour the water will be. Brown/black. As soon as we have showered, we decide it's time to head off and find something to eat (they don't do food here, it's not that sort of hotel). There is just one Lonely Planet recommendation in the town, so we head for it hopefully. We find it (miracle!) but it is closed (after all, it is Sunday evening). But a local sees us looking crestfallen, and shows us another place just across the road - we would never have found it, it is a single room, about 8 feet square, inside the ground floor of an ordinary apartment block. We are surprised to see the room full - of what turns out to be a tour party of 7 German women and their Mongolian tour guide. They are busily tucking in to something, and gleefully tell us that "boots" are the only thing on the menu. We assume "as in tough as old" but as it's the only choice, we ask for a plateful each. It arrives, along with a bowl each of Mongolian tea (like warm milk with a bit of salt in it - not unpleasant once you have got used to it). What we get are quite tasty little steamed dumplings filled with spiced meat - very similar to the ones which I boiled in water a few days ago (only much nicer and, for obvious reasons, a bit less gloopy). My Mongolian phrase book comes to the rescue as it identifies "booce" as a traditional Mongolian steamed meat dumpling - so the German women weren't having us on after all! As we leave (restaurant bill 90p for both of us) there is another party of tourists coming in - English speaking this time. Obviously this is the culinary high spot of DZ. We warn them about the bewildering choice and high prices, then head outside to go back to our hotel. Now we are in the Gobi desert, right? One of the dryest places on earth? Only 4 inches of rainfall in a whole year (in a good year). So what are the odds of walking out of the "restaurant" into a downpour? Bizarrely, that is exactly what we did. Apparently people who bring rain here with them are good luck - so we must be surefire lottery winners. We felt quite at home ambling back to the hotel in a refreshing shower, showing the locals how it's done when you are British and used to proper rain all the time. They were all rushing everywhere in a panic trying to stay dry, the woozies! We managed to dodge the vodka drinking Mongolian chess master and his friend who we met on the way out to dinner, and who had told us we had to play chess against him when we got back. I suspect that shouting and banging along the corridor is them arguing over something - there are some famed drinkers around these parts, many of whom can turn quite nasty after their second bottle. So now Rich is watching Mongolian TV (Japanese Sumo, dubbed into Mongolian, we can't understand a single word and don't have a clue what's going on, but he'll still watch it - it's the only channel there is actually I tinkered with the aerials and we can now get two channels, one of which very lazily uses entirely BBC World footage in its news programmes), and we are about to start an industrial cleaning process on our filthy clothes (apart from Rich's socks - I think I'll just get them burned they smell better than Mongolian cheese at least). The great irony is that 364 days of the year, we could just hang our wet clothes out of the window for 20 minutes and they would be crackling dry - but today..... We are currently in the interesting position of being the only two sober people in the whole hotel. Apparently there isn't anything else to do here but drink Vodka. So tonight we are mostly holding our noses and dodging the rain and the drunks in the heart of the Gobi Desert at the Devshil Hotel, Dalanzagdad, GPS ref E 104º 25' 38.20", N 43º 34' 28.13", altitude a lowly 1,429 metres. And someone who thinks they are clever and creative and a bit of a performer has decided to start bawling (or singing perhaps) in Mongolian not far from the window so we will see how much sleep we get. I'll get the Bushmills... |
