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Diary w/e 23 July
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17th JulyA disturbed night's sleep in Dalangadzad. A lot of drunken shouting in the hotel until the small hours, and at one point there was loud and persistent knocking on our door, which was only brought to an end by me shouting "we're trying to sleep, please go away, and whatever it is, we don't want any". Short silence outside followed by retreating footsteps and loud whispering in Mongolian. To our astonishment, it was still 100% overcast and raining. We hurried to get our stuff loaded into the car, then took it out of the hotel "car park" (tatty back yard) a few yards across the road to park outside the bank. We wanted to change a bit more money (hopefully some travellers cheques), do our website update and buy some more food before heading off. I went into the bank which we could see from the hotel (the Khan Bank) but there was a huge queue of people. I couldn't be bothered with a long queue so I went round the corner to the Bank of Mongolia, where a nice lady told me that they didn't change travellers cheques but she thought there were a couple of banks who would. One was the Khan Bank, so I asked her where the other one was. She immediately put on her coat, told her colleagues she was popping out and said she would take me there. It was a five minute walk across town, and when we got there she barged straight up to the counter and asked a teller if they cashed travellers cheques. She said they did, so I produced my Amex, only to be told that they only changed dollar travellers cheques. There was a conference involving my escort, the teller and the manageress of the bank, and the consensus was that I should try yet another bank across town, the Capital Bank. We trekked over there, and though they didn't change travellers' cheques, they did change Euro notes, so I was able to stock up that way. My escort was satisfied and we walked back to her bank while she practised her English on me, pointing out where the internet office was. Rich and I drove round the corner and parked outside, went in and tried to do the web update. We think we managed to upload all of last week's diaries, but there was something really weird going on with the homepage, and we are not convinced it updated properly - it really is getting to be a problem, and I can only see it getting more difficult as we go on. Still, we will persevere as people seem to like it - but the frequency of updates is going to get much more erratic. We were in the middle of one of those frustrating IT experiences when I was tapped on the shoulder by a not particularly friendly local policeman. He gestured to me to come outside, and asked whether the car was mine. I nodded vigorously, and he wanted to see my passport, the car registration document and (most worryingly) wanted the keys. He gestured that he wanted to drive the car with me in the passenger seat, and I had no idea why. So I told him to wait a moment while I ducked back into the internet office to tell Rich not to worry, but I was about to be driven off somewhere by a policeman in our car for no reason I understood, and I didn't know whether/when I would be back. In the middle of an IT "issue", Rich took this piece of extra hassle in his stride. I left him to it then went out to the policeman sitting impatiently in the driving seat of our car with the keys. I had decided that I didn't really fancy being driven off to goodness knows what fate by this morose looking policeman, so as I climbed into the passenger seat and put my shoulder bag on the floor, I surreptitiously flicked the concealed engine cut-out switch. I sat down and said "let's go then" and the policeman turned the key. Nothing happened. He turned it again, and then lots more times. Nothing happened, lots of times. I popped the bonnet open and started to fiddle about aimlessly under it, trying to look confused. The policeman got out and joined me, and a crowd of interested passers-by gathered to watch - and indeed to help. Someone suggested the starter motor must be broken, and there was lots of fiddling around to check its connections. I decided it was time to go on the offensive, so I started to say things like "I hope you haven't broken my car, I need it to get home" and so on in a slightly irritated tone. Then another car drove past and splashed the policeman, who stormed off to give the driver a hard time. When he came back, he was joined by his boss, who also wanted to check all the papers, then wandered off bored. There was someone in the assembled audience who spoke some English and explained to me that we were apparently pointing the wrong way down a one-way street. This tiny little town actually had a one-way system in the middle (a bit odd, as it only had four paved roads), and if you drove onto the road via the back yard of the bank (as we had) there were no signs to explain this. By now the policeman was beginning to feel a bit overwrought with the whole situation. He had a big audience and a clearly mad and irascible foreigner on his hands. So he thrust the keys back at me, gestured that I should turn the car round, and stalked off down the road to give someone else a ticket. I had a couple of very public abortive attempts to start the car, then opened the bonnet again, fiddled around a bit, put my bag back in the passenger seat (flicking the hidden cut-out switch back on) and then triumphantly started the car and turned it round. Honour seemed to have been satisfied and I was quite pleased to have escaped without a fine. I went back into the internet office to find Rich blissfully ignorant of all this, still grappling with "IT issues" (his words not mine). We eventually gave up, and we simply hope that the main website is ok (the homepage, most worryingly, was the one on which we were having the problems). We decided to leave the car where it was while we went to look for some food shopping. We went back to the small square where we had eaten last night, to find it an absolute hive of activity. All around it, completely anonymous doors concealed shops in which you could buy just about everything, and we had a fun half hour "door shopping" around most of them. We wondered about trying to find a bolt to replace our missing transfer box mounting bolt, but gave it up as we didn't know the size and the blokes in the car spares shops didn't look like they would be interested in swimming in a puddle under the car while we showed them. We could have bought a brand new motorbike (Rich was momentarily tempted), a whole replacement engine for a UAS (pronounced 'waz') jeep and any number of miscellaneous cogs and funny shaped lumps of metal. We spotted a stall selling boots, and Rich tried a few on - he wants to try to get a whole Mongolian outfit, and the boots would be a good start - but they didn't go anywhere near up to the size of his feet! When you say anywhere near, you mean one and a half sizes. We looked in on the meat and veg market hall - no tomatoes or other fruit and veg we wanted (potatoes and onions are a bit complicated for us to cook), and we were again not attracted by any of the slaughtered animal carcasses lying around in bits (including a rather ghastly looking horse's head lying on the floor, even if it was for a price we couldn't refuse). But we did end up with some of Rich's (and Kevin's) favourite doughballs, so that was ok. All errands completed, we tried to find the road out of town towards the Yolyn Am gorge, on the edge of the nearby national park. We were driving in thick low cloud, with visibility down to about half a mile, so the GPS was a godsend. We never found the "real" road out of town, but by nautical style navigation towards our destination, we got there reasonably quickly - it was only about 10 miles from the town. On the way we saw a herd of wild white-tailed gazelle which broke cover and ran as we approached. We looked in on the small museum near the entrance (lots of stuffed animals, including white-tailed gazelle and snow leopards) and then drove up to the gorge itself. The last 2 km was on foot (in rain which was as wet as anything Scotland has to offer). We were walking through a spectacular gorge in a pretty major mountain range which was getting narrower and narrower, with near-vertical peaks towering a good couple of thousand feet on both sides, disappearing into the clouds. Eventually we came to a place where the gorge took a sharp bend and the stream plunged into a tunnel under a large slab of ice. Here we are in a mountain range in the middle of the Gobi desert, and there is a gorge which has effectively a small glacier in it for most of the year! Rich climbed all over the first slab of ice, confirmed there was much more round the corner, we took some photos and then walked a soaking 2 km back to the car. We decided that a 150 km drive to see some soaking sand dunes (the famous Khongoryn Els, the 300m high dunes which go on for miles) would probably not be a great idea today, and instead we would head for a tourist ger camp about 40 miles away which was recommended in the Lonely Planet guide. The visibility was still terrible, and all we had was a GPS reference for this ger camp. So we were a bit apprehensive about getting there - the terrain in the desert can vary from "plain sailing" to almost impassable, apparently at random. We found that our course ran pretty much at right angles to the natural line of the terrain, so we were having to cross dried out watercourses every few hundred yards, and there were no tracks at all to help us. We were effectively navigating blind across an unknown stretch of desert with just a direction and range for our target point to guide us. It made for very hard driving (it was still raining, and the mud we were throwing up was making a lot of noise as it hit the underside of the car) and the car was taking quite a lot of punishment from all the bouncing around. But after a couple of hours of this (averaging probably no more than 10 mph) we broke out into slightly easier terrain and then we were able to speed up a bit and head more consistently in the required direction. Eventually a rocky prominence appeared on the horizon and the GPS said we should be heading straight towards it. The ground got easier and easier, until it was almost flat sand (though some of it was quite treacherous, and we almost got bogged down a couple of times). At least the tension in the cab was subsiding as we grounded the suspension less often. But there was a fairly steady dripping from the leaky sunroof onto the driver - with all the banging and twisting the bodywork has been doing over the last few days, that leak seems to have got a bit worse; and the sand was building up on the car - it looked as if someone had been building sandcastles on the steps, for example. Suddenly, we could see that there was quite a little settlement on the side of the rocky outcrop, and we headed gleefully towards it. We were amazed to find a little outpost of civilisation in the middle of the desert, at least 90 km from the nearest town. Our GPS reference for it had been accurate to less than 100 feet. Just as well! When we arrived, a couple of people from the camp ran out to meet us, confirmed they had a spare ger (phew!) and even conjured up a little trolley to carry our bags from the car park (a large area of sand marked off with rocks) to the main complex. And what a complex. The Three Camels Ger Camp is quite something. LP (Lonely Planet) describes it as "raising the bar for Mongolian Ger Camps" and it is very luxurious. We are at last sleeping in a real ger (though rather more luxurious than most, we suspect) with our own coal stove, lit for us by our ger attendant Sukher (who is on vacation from his study of Tourism in UB). At least it has now stopped raining, but it is still chilly so we have been able to build up a nice warm fug in the ger. We went up to the restaurant ger (which would comfortably seat about 200 people) where we were served a very nice meal by attentive waitresses who all speak at least some English. The other guests are an eclectic mixture of mostly Americans, with a few Germans, Italians and English. There is a large wood-built core complex which houses the kitchens, shared (extremely good) sanitary facilities, lounge and bar and it all feels very cosy - which is just as well, as the view from the observation platform is nothing but sand in every direction for miles, with mountains on the far distant horizon in most directions (the visibility has improved now that the rain has stopped, though there is still low cloud all around; we can probably see about two or three thousand square miles of desert, and there is no distinguishing feature visible in any of it). We have solar powered lighting in the ger as well as very comfortable beds, a low table and stools and a small dresser. There is a slight homely smell of coal smoke mixed with horses (something to do with the felt which is the main building material). So tonight we have found a real pinprick of luxury in the middle of the Gobi desert and we are mostly toasting gently by the stove as the weather hopefully improves for tomorrow, at GPS ref N 43º 53' 36.58", E 103º 44' 30.82", altitude 1,529 metres. And now he has finished writing that dissertation on a day in the Gobi, it is almost time to wake up. 18th JulyWoke up after a night of bad sleep, the smell of camels and an over stoked fire in the ger messed about with my head and made it continue buzzing with activity for hours. Very strange indeed. We got up and had breakfast, and I accidentally put the warm milk on my cereal. Warm milk? It wasn't just room temperature, someone had taken time out of their day to get this milk out of the fridge (where it belongs) and heat it up just so some idiot could pour it all over muesli. I dunno. Next time I won't be so flippant in my choice of dairy products. I slept fine and made a conventional breakfast, thank you. We chatted to some of the other guests. They had flown in last night (apparently the ger camp has its own little airstrip, about 35 km away (the terrain isn't hard and flat enough any closer). They had flown down from UB last night during the rains and the landing had been a bit "exciting", not least because as the plane taxied to a halt, its wheels sunk right into the sand (softened to a porridge by the rain). They had got off alright, but the party of people who were supposed to be flying back couldn't go because they couldn't get the plane unstuck. We never heard how they sorted it all out, but presumably the folk were either driven back to UB (a very long journey) or taken to another nearby airstrip and flown out with another plane. I felt a bit hard done by because my shower turned out to be cold again (though at least not refrigerated like the day before). After two days with no sun, I figured they had run out of solar heated water. But Rich got a tepid shower by not bothering for a couple of hours. I found a snake on the side of the hill beside our ger, so naturally we got the camera out and filmed it while dad poked it with a stick and I prodded it with a bag. It bit the bag several times leaving tiny tooth marks and a bit of snake saliva (apparently they aren't venomous so it can't have been venom, honestly). I also tried to catch a lizard, but the little thing was too quick for me. Our very attentive ger attendant saw us faffing about and came over and told us that the snake was a Bamba, and the lizards were mainly Sheep lizards. The snake was not scooting off to hide, he thought, because it was probably digesting a big meal - something like a mouse (it did look rather swollen in the middle). So it was just feeling rather dyspeptic and stroppy. While he was at it, he (the bloke, not the snake) also showed us some 2,000 year old etchings - pictures of gazelles, ibex and deer scratched onto the rocks at the top of the outcrop behind the camp. I went in for the ultimate luxury today, I had a bag of laundry done for me! Wow, I haven't smelt clothes this clean for weeks. There was some guy at the ger camp who had a spare nut which we were missing that holds the centre differential onto the bottom of the Landy. There are four bolts, and we only had three of them. If that falls off it is really bad news so we were really very happy with getting that sorted. Actually what happened was that I was doing some fiddling on the car during the morning (mostly scraping thick mud off - it looked as if someone had been making sandcastles on the side door steps) and was admiring the Land Rover parked next to us when its driver came up - we haven't seen too many Land Rovers here (mostly Russian UAZ jeeps or, for the well-heeled, Toyota Land Cruisers).. He worked for the company that runs the ger camp. I thought it would be a good idea to ask him if we might get a spare bolt from anywhere closer than UB, and he said no. But he also asked how long we were staying. I pointed at 1 to 1.30 on my watch and he seemed to indicate that was too soon for him to be able to do anything to help us. I wasn't that worried as I had checked the other three bolts and was pretty convinced they would get us back to UB; so I just forgot about it. The next thing I saw was when we were loading up the car to leave after lunch, he had reappeared with a spare bolt (goodness knows where he got it from - there is nothing but sand for 30 miles in every direction) and was busy under our car bolting it in. All part of the service! Our aim for the day was then to drive to the sand dunes about 150km away. We had filled up with diesel (hand pumped no less) and were on our way when after about 40 miles of hard dust/sand/mud/scrubland driving, we pulled over for some reason (neither of us can remember why now!) and I turned the engine off. After a minute or two, an almighty cloud of steam erupted from under the bonnet, and all of our plans for the next week changed instantly. The thermostat housing plug had had a hole blown right through the centre of it and as we lifted the bonnet yet more steam jetted out. We were just unpacking everything to get to the toolkit and thinking about calling people for help when some Mongolian guy drove up to us on a motorbike (as they have a habit of doing). He coasted to a halt next to us and dad got the phrase book out. There was much poking and prodding to try and get the broken piece of plug out that had stayed in the hole which I finally did with an ingenious use of a knife, pliers and a washer, and we were then left with a bigger hole to plug. The Mongolian guy proceeded to make a new plug using the piece I had removed, some rubber from an old inner tube, a couple of washers and a nut and bolt. After screwing it into the plug hole we topped up the coolant and ran the engine for about ten minutes, and the new plug seemed to work absolutely fine! During this operation a 'tour bus' (a Mongolian guy, his little boy, a Chinese woman and a couple of Aussies) had also pulled up and everyone was enjoying the afternoon's entertainment. We were fixed for the moment, but we had no idea how long the fix would last for, so disappointingly we decided to give the dunes a miss and try and hobble back to Ulaan Baatar where we can hopefully get a spare plug. The rains (the heaviest in four years) have washed away lots of the well used tracks, so the going is always tough and there are often impassable stretches that have become temporarily flooded. It is going to take us a while to get out the the Gobi, but after we have, it shouldn't be more than a day or two to UB (if our engine doesn't blow up again) That doesn't quite do justice to the whole event! For several miles we were weaving between (or bouncing over) liitle mounds with scrub growing from them at about 5-10 mph. The surface was so softened by the rain that it was like driving with the handbrake on (which I actually did for one stretch without noticing!) And most of the locals aren't even bothering to try - flash floods have turned old dry river beds into actual rivers, or huge mudbaths as the actual water drains away. The surface is so treacherous that the car drives pretty much where it wants without reference to the steering, and there are sudden soft patches where the wheels sink several inches into the ground and it feels like the brakes have been slammed on. Then there is the flying mud - when we wade across any watercourses, it is vital to keep speed up to avoid getting bogged down altogether, so we are throwing up huge sheets of muddy spray which are going everywhere. To cap it all, to help cool the engine we have the heater on full blast, so if we shut the windows to keep a bit cleaner in the cab, we boil. Our offroad driving skills are developing rapidly, but not quite in the way we had expected in the Gobi desert! And we have covered about 80 miles on about 5 or 6 gallons of fuel. But things seem to be holding together on the car, and we are parked up tonight in splendid seclusion about half a mile off the "track" (if you can call it that) from Bulgan towards UB (which is still about 400 miles away). At least we have plenty of food and water... Tonight we are mostly avoiding the scorpions, camping on the road to UB at GPS ref N 44º 21' 15.15", E 103º 47' 3.97", altitude 1,043 metres. 19th JulyA much quieter day! A bright blue sky got us up early as the tent got warm. But it still took us until 11am to get ready and move off! We were intent on making miles towards UB without blowing our temporarily repaired cooling system, and that's exactly what we did. We were coming back north by the quiet route, avoiding the busy (i.e. 4 cars per hour) main road from UB to Dalanzagdad. The main excitement of the day was fairly soon after we started off, when we met a party of Austrians in a Unimog (a big Mercedes Benz four wheel drive lorry converted into a "go anywhere" camper van, effectively). They had just come south through a really bad stretch of the road we were going north on. The road was flooded, and mudbound. The ground either side was even worse, they said. The only chance of getting through was to stick to the flooded part in the centre and keep your speed up to avoid bogging down. They cheerfully said that it was only really bad for about 3 or 4 km, then it was easy. They helpfully gave us a bin bag, which they said was the only appropriate dress to wear when climbing back into the car after having to get out to do some mud shovelling. The Austrians had an absolutely classic accent, while at the same time giving very good advice: "Go zroo zu vater, no zu left, no zu right, zroo ze vater. Right unt left very danger. Vun hundert meetre very bat, tree hundert meetre better. Kip gooing fast, tventy sirty kilomeetre, you go wuuuur, wuuur, side side, left, right, NO KEEP GO IN ZU VATER. Qvite difficult vun hour." So we tried our damndest to keep our speed up, go straight through the centre of the mud (the water) and not to slip off to the side. So we gritted our teeth and started off. Actually, the Land Rover coped pretty well and we got through ok, but not without a few hairy moments on the way. We were stuck behind a mini convoy of three UAZ four wheel drive vans with tourists in them. They were having a few problems, and at one point the front vehicle got completely bogged down, the rest of the convoy came to a halt and our attempts to go around them failed because we were stuck in their muddy ruts and couldn't steer out of them. In fact, the steering wheel was mostly irrelevant anyway - at one point we came to a graceful halt at 90 degrees to the intended direction of travel as gravity and two feet of liquid mud gently nudged us off track. By a bit of "forward and backward" Rich somehow managed to get us back pointing the right direction - I suspect mostly driven by his determination not to get out of the car and get covered in mud. I wasn't climbing into that stuff. Eventually the front van in the convoy got himself moving again and we were able to get started (thankfully - getting started is one of the most difficult bits when you are stuck in near liquid mud) and successfully out of the mire. Then we drove and drove. To start with it was very heavy slow going, and our fuel consumption for that part worked out at around 10 mpg. But things improved as we worked our way north (and gently uphill) and for a time we were bowling along a fantastic track across a huge empty plateau at speeds approaching 60 mph. But then things got slow again and we spent a lot of time weaving all over the place to avoid the dreadful corrugations which feel like they are going to shake the teeth out of your head (never mind shaking the engine out of the car). We stopped for lunch at about 2 in the burning sun (there was no shade to be found anywhere, so we just hid in the tiny shadow behind the car). Cheese and meat sausage sandwiches - yummy! If anyone finds our missing tomato, could they let us know where it is.... It's probably down the back of the seat with the missing piece of Mongolian cheese and a Pot Noodle. Then on the road again. After another couple of hours of driving through landscape that was almost imperceptibly becoming slightly greener, we felt a bit crowded by seeing two jeeps within five minutes (doubling our car count for the day) so we turned off the track and across country, heading vaguely in the direction of some mountains as a potential camping spot for the night - I was very keen to get off the plain and into some high country to sleep, don't ask me why. We initially followed a GPS bearing, straight across country - the terrain was generally pretty flat, and the worst obstacles we met were large areas of scrub where the bushes tend to generate quite large humps of earth around their base, so you have to weave around them (and that becomes pretty slow and laborious when they are really dense). Then it became slightly more rolling and before long we could see the mountains we were heading for. Rich is feeling a bit unsociable, so he was not pleased when we saw there were gers dotted around, but eventually we got close up and found a nice open valley cutting up into the mountains with wide side valleys leading gently up towards the tops, and we picked our way up one of those valleys where nobody else is in sight and parked up (driving the vehicle up onto some rocks which we have placed as wedges to get things level). We cooked ourselves a tasty meal of pasta with tomato sauce and kidney beans (for protein), washed down with beer, yoghurt and half a bar of chocolate. The sun has gone down and there is a gentle breeze blowing up the valley, which means you need a light fleece to stay warm. We have been struck by the numbers of birds and other wildlife up here compared to in the Gobi proper. We have seen a load more big birds of prey (though no eagles yet) and the squadrons of little birds which like to play with the Land Rover as we drive along, a bit like dolphins around a ship. We are also seeing herds of horses again, and even goats, sheep and a few cows. It feels like the country comes to life again as you move north out of the desert. Our temporary repair to the cooling system has performed admirably. We have been watching the temperature gauge all day very carefully and we only had slight concerns early on, when we had to turn the heaters on inside again. But we think that was when the car was working really hard trying to drive the wheels through porridge. So now we are even pretty confident that we will be back in UB in time to meet Geraldine off the airplane. Phew! So tonight we are mostly enjoying the cool of the evening and the last dregs of the sunset as Rich desperately hopes we can be up and away before we get the usual morning visitation from the local herdsman and his family. Fat chance! All to be found at GPS reference N 46º 38' 46.41", E 105º 45' 21.45". 20th JulyI was wrong! No visitation today, only a herdsman on the far side of the valley herding his horses on his motorbike - interesting technique! Strong wind and initially quite overcast, but things soon cleared up (though the wind, of course, stayed). Our plan was to make enough progress towards UB to give us an easy drive into the city tomorrow, so we can settle, sort out a hotel and get ready to meet Geraldine at the airport early the following morning. Our GPS software had thrown a complete wobbly last night when Rich unplugged the antenna as usual. It gave us the dreaded Windows blue screen of death and shut the computer down. When we turned it on again, there were no maps and no waypoints (all the nice and useful places we have been) though at least our daily tracks were still there. It took our IT director about an hour to reload the maps and recalibrate them to get it all working. Strangely, he was able to do it all in the rooftent while breakfast was provided. After I had made breakfast, washed up and packed the car, I spent a while with one of our big tyre levers scraping mud off the underside of the car. I think there must have been about 50 kilos of the stuff lying on the ground by the time I got bored. So we didn't get away until about noon, by which time it was a lovely day. We set off in no particular hurry, within a mile we had found a track which was heading in about the right direction (in fact, we later convinced ourselves this was the main road into UB, though we didn't see anyone else on it). We had been driving for about an hour, when some fantastic looking mountains slowly came into view ahead on the left. When we drew level with them, I could not resist turning off the track to take a peak (geddit?). We darted up a broad curving valley between a really high peak on one side and a rather gorgeous long ridge on the other. There was a small tourist ger camp at the base of the ridge, but I was more interested in the mountain on the other side. We drove about half a mile up the valley and then an opening appeared on the right which allowed us to drive right up to the base of the mountain - and it was a bit like that, one moment green pasture, the next bare twisted granite thrusting upwards at a steep angle. Mongolia (or the bit that we have seen so far) has lots and lots of hills - some of them quite high - but not that many proper full-on mountains. This was one, and it deserved a bit of exploring. It even had some trees - an extremely rare sight this far south. Rich was feeling a bit unenergetic(!), so I donned the backpack with the video equipment and slung the tripod over one shoulder, saying I was going to climb to the top and take some film. Unfortunately, I picked the wrong route up and before long I was really struggling - it would have been ok with no baggage, but fully laden I simply couldn't safely get up the way I had chosen. I saw some mountain goats really high up, peering down at me and having a good laugh. So I traversed around about 300 meters and found a better route up - but by then I had already taken over an hour and was feeling pretty bushed. So I only made it about two thirds of the way to the top before setting up the camera and taking in the view all around. It was fantastic, a horizon full of mountain most of the way around, with rolling hills into the distance towards UB and a lake at the base of the mountain with a herd of horses cooling off in it. Clambering down was a bit of a performance as well, and I arrived hot and sweaty about two and a half hours after setting off. Rich was busy whittling wood - I was concerned he might have been a bit cross at the delay, but I need not have worried. I'm not sure he even noticed I'd gone, to be honest. As I was nearing the bottom, a bloke on a motorbike turned up, parked a few yards away from the car, hitched a couple of empty 20 litre water containers onto his shoulder and disappeared into a crevasse at the base of the mountain which had a tree in front of it which was literally covered in blue scarves (the normal buddhist shrine dressing material). He was gone about 20 minutes and when he came back he had two very heavy water containers which he slung over his motorbike as if it was a horse, then he pootled off, nodding as he passed. To Rich's delight, he did not stop to ask us about our families, our livestock and our plans for the next few days, nor did he ply us with inedible cheese. We applied our considerable powers of deduction to this scenario and decided there was probably a spring in the crevasse. So we took down our half empty 25 litre can of non-drinking water and headed up past the tree. Sure enough, there was a small trickle of water coming out of a crack in a huge rock and collecting in a little pool before running off down the hill and soaking back into the ground. This is the first running water we have seen since the river at UB. We carefully filled the can and lugged it back to the car (well, Rich did while I took photos which he tried to dodge). People had pushed money into cracks in the rock around the spring, and really gone to town on the dressing of the tree - candles and all sorts - obviously a very special place. As Rich seemed to be so chilled, I suggested that as we were only 90 miles or so from UB and this was such a lovely valley, we might enjoy it properly and find somewhere nearby to camp for the night. So we did - about a mile further on, we nipped up a gulley on the right and by dropping one wheel of the car into a large animal hole (which we're pretty sure was deserted) we managed to get it level - always a tricky operation when camping around hills. We then had a very relaxed afternoon and evening. We called Geraldine on the sat phone just to check there were no problems with her travel arrangements, arrange a rendezvous at the airport and make sure she had all the bits and pieces she is bringing out for us. All ok there. We played a couple of games of chess, watched the sun go down behind the ridge across the valley, cooked ourselves another gloopy noodly meal with tomato sauce and kidney beans and then gathered some fallen wood and at dusk we lit up a small campfire. We then sat around it chatting and whittling until midnight, which felt like a good time to retire. No moon at all tonight, but (once away from the light of the campfire) a huge full sky of stars to admire. Just for a treat, the wind dropped after dark and the silence between the conversations was so complete it was almost deafening - apart from one weird screeching bird which obviously thought a campfire was something to shout about for an hour or so. So tomorrow will be the end of our Gobi expedition - a qualified success, even though we didn't see everything we wanted to because of our breakdown (which has been absolutely fine today, though G is bringing out the proper parts for us anyway). We'll have to see those giant sand dunes another time, I guess. But we now really know what the Gobi is like, and that's pretty special. So tonight we are mostly as relaxed as can be and in reflective mood, counting stars at GPS ref N 46º 55' 42.36", E 105º 52' 22.88", at an altitude of 1,297 meters. 21st JulyI allowed my chilled mood from the night before to run over into the morning. So I let Rich get up first and make the breakfast while I dealt with emails and downloaded all our photos up to date from my little camera to the laptop. Quite a lot to choose from! So this time we didn't actually pack up and leave our campsite until 1 pm. We had a few extra jobs to do, like an all over flannel/bucket wash "au naturel" in honour of our impending arrival back at civilisation. The only problem is we then put back on the same basically very dusty clothes, so apart from the smell, it didn't make a lot of difference. We also carefully dismantled the remains of last night's campfire so you could hardly tell we had been there (but we left our firewood pile for the next visitors). We only had 85 miles or so to drive to get to UB, but we didn't help ourselves by starting off in the wrong direction - not as daft as it sounds with GPS as you usually try to find a track that seems to be going roughly in the right direction, and then hope it ends up veering towards your intended destination - and this close to the capital, we thought that a track which was 45 degrees off course would probably come right in the end. It didn't, so after about 3 miles we turned round and tried again, doing some jiggly bumpy stuff on the way. After that, things were pretty straightforward and by 5 pm we were in UB. We then needed to look for a hotel so that we could clean up properly, park the car and have somewhere nice to bring Geraldine to in the morning when she lands all confused by jetlag. We made a couple of tactical mistakes. The first place we tried (the upmarket Ulaan Baatar Hotel) were very polite, but could only accommodate us for one night because they had a big party coming the following day for the Japanese Embassy. They suggested we try another hotel up the road, but Rich decided that was a bit beneath us as it was only in the "mid tier" category in Lonely Planet I didn't hear you complaining. So we tried somewhere else and when they saw us appear at reception in our rather manky and disgusting state, they suddenly didn't have any rooms available at all! They might have seen the Land Rover outside as well, which had been resprayed in a rather wonderful shade called "Gobi Brown". So we changed tactics, and I called ahead on the mobile to another hotel. They were able to put us up for three nights, so whoopee! We took it without even seeing the place and then turned up to claim our prize. They were a little taken aback (the bell boy, when he saw the bags he was going to have to carry, went and got a cloth to clean them off a bit before he picked them up and ruined his nice suit). But a deal is a deal and we got our room. The Edelweiss Hotel turns out to be a perfectly acceptable place in what you might call an "up and coming" part of town, about half a mile from the centre. Not quite sure why they chose the name, though! There then followed a bit of farce about the car. First of all, I hadn't mentioned it over the phone (in case they added up to four) and we could see they didn't have any kind of fenced off parking. But they said this wasn't a problem as they had locked garages in the basement which we could use! The only problem was that when we tried it, the garages were far too low to take our very tall Land Rover with roofrack and rooftent. This resulted in a fifteen minute discussion in front of the hotel between the head receptionist, the bell boy, the garage man and a few other passers by. One suggestion (seriously!) was that we might unbolt the roof rack for the night! Then they thought there might be some other secure parking just up the road which we could use. They were very unhappy about us leaving it parked outside unattended as they said it just wouldn't be safe (which was interesting). We agreed we would unload our clothes and our valuable video equipment and leave it in their safe storage inside, we would then go to our rooms, shower and change and maybe a solution might have appeared by then. Sure enough, when we came back down they had done a deal with a hotel just over the road (who had their own fenced off secure parking, though most thieves would have been kept away by the sheer nausea of the hotel's mauve colour scheme). We could park in their yard for 3,000 Togrogs (about £1.50) a night. It was a deal. By now it was getting a bit late, and we hadn't eaten since our late breakfast. Rich had been doing some research in Lonely Planet and he announced that we were jolly well going for a curry (not in those words) at one of the only two Indian Restaurants in the guide book. I was a bit sceptical, as the directions to find it were "behind the Wrestling Palace". But, to our surprise, we did! It turned out to be absolutely fabulous - the best curry I can remember eating, ever. And the waitress was nice as well - when we were doing the old English trick of starting to order one main dish each plus rice, naan bread, etc, she quietly said "I think you will have enough already" and she was right. We thoroughly recommend the Hazara Restaurant, address "Behind the Wrestling Palace, Ulaan Baatar". Don't think they'd do takeaways to Worcester, though. We had made contact with Eamonn of CNCF from the hotel, and we suggested we might be going to the Grand Irish Pub for a drink after our curry, and might we meet him there. He said that funnily enough he was already there, with a World Challenge party of students and their teachers from the UK. So we went over and joined them after we had eaten. The students rapidly disappeared - old people have that effect - but various others turned up (it is one of the main social centres in UB in the evening, by the look of it) and Rich and I had good chats with most of them, including Eamonn's assistant Aisling and a couple of Irish dental students who were helping out at the CNCF dental clinic as part of their elective (as well as Fabrice, a French dentist who had shaved his head at the world cup result). We would have gone on all night, I fear, but at about 1.30 I managed to drag Rich away on the basis that we had to be up in 5 hours to meet Mum off her flight. In the meantime, we had found out by chance that there was a WiFi hotspot at the pub, so as we always carry the laptop around with us we gave it a go and the IT director got it working! So we can update the website properly (which we did, with the diary up to date). So later that night we were to be found in the Edelweiss Hotel, Ulaan Baatar (GPS ref N 47º 54' 53.71" E 106º 55' 41.26", altitude 1,253 metres) lying in bed attempting to sleep in spite of the effects of a huge curry and four pints of lager (or, in Rich's case, a pint of lager and three pints of Guinness). Not a pretty sight, or sound! A first note from Geraldine - this is written retrospectively as I have been unable to release the laptop from the men! Rich has now added lots of pictures, some with direct links from the diary. I had the best night's sleep for days at the air conditioned hotel near Heathrow - a welcome relief from the heat-wave! I felt a $1,000,000 and ready for the journey ahead. I was flying with Aeroflot, which instantly conjured memories from my youth of rattling ancient aircraft with holes in the floor and one too few parachutes for the number of passengers as the plane nose-dived into the desert. Thank heavens I bought that scarf at Heathrow - very useful in sandstorms; also necessary for entry into Islamic temples and Catholic cathedrals, useful as a scarf or shawl on chilly nights, could be used as a towel at a pinch and vital as a veil if a spot of belly dancing is required. The aeroplane was immaculate and appeared brand new. Things began to go downhill from Moscow. A one hour delay for mechanical problems, (I had instantly crash landed in the desert), stretched to two and then three. When we finally boarded the 'plane it was clearly very old and pretty grim. 22nd JulyAn early start - the morning call we had ordered for 6.45 materialised at 7.15 as a telephonic apology, but luckily I had also set my phone alarm, so we were up anyway. Geraldine's flight was due to land at 7.15, so we had said we would meet her at 7.45. Just before we left, I had the brilliant idea of calling the airport to check there were no delays on the flight. Useful fact for the day - the enquiry line number at UB International Airport is UB 198 - so I'm not sure who has the other 998 telephones in UB! They told me that the flight was delayed and not expected to land before 10.25. Joyful collapse back into bed for a very valuable extra couple of hours' kip and gastric calming! We then nearly managed to oversleep again, and didn't leave the hotel until 10.15 (it should be a 20 minute drive to the airport, so we were cutting it a bit fine). The other issue was that the main bridge across the river in central UB was closed for no apparent reason, so we had to take a detour and we had carefully left all our maps back at the hotel. But more by luck than good judgment, we made it to the airport at about 10.50, before any of the passengers came out. Geraldine came through as about the second or third passenger, and she looked mighty relieved to see us there. We jumped into the van and headed back to the hotel, giving her a gentle introduction to the mad UB traffic. I was thrilled to see two gorgeous men at the airport looking quite well fed and reasonably clean. I proudly presented them with the much requested muesli, 'Shreddies' and pasta and the vital thermostat housing plug which I'd carried in my hand-luggage all the way. After hosing her down (well, letting her have a shower, anyway) we deployed our tactic of helping her conquer her jetlag as quickly as possible by keeping her awake for as much of the day as we could. So two slightly jaded dusty looking bearded things were to be seen leading a red-headed zombie around UB for much of the day. We went to the State Department Store to get Mongolian SIM cards for our phones, so we could stay in touch with each other reasonably cheaply, and make calls within Mongolia without incurring the massive O2 roaming charges which I pay (better than them, though, Virgin has no service at all here). An absolute snip - for £8 each we bought SIM cards which are valid for four months and have 60 minutes of call credit on them. We had heard the previous night that there was a free WiFi hotspot at Le Bistrot (sic) Francais as well as the Irish Pub. We thought we should try it whilst attempting to cram further food down on top of last night's curry and this morning's hotel breakfast. We managed it - just - and also found that the WiFi worked ok there. Very good steak, too! We had planned a few other activities as well, but after these efforts, Geraldine was crying for mercy and threatening to fall asleep on the spot (not at all like her!), so we finally took her back to the hotel and she fell into bed at 6 pm. Rich and I then watched dodgy films on the hotel TV in his room - "Merlin" with Chinese subtitles and some awful Stephen Seagal martial arts revenge film (same thing - but sometimes the Chinese subtitles clashed with the English subtitles in the original film for some of the Chinese dialogue!) - both were on some awful Hong Kong satellite station 'Holywood'. Also saw some news on BBC World, our first inkling of what has been going on in the Middle East. So we finally fell into bed ourselves at around midnight, with Rich saying he couldn't wait to go for another curry as soon as possible. GPS of course is the same as last night. 23rd JulyAfter yesterday's zombie day, today was going to be Geraldine's first proper day in UB. It had rained a bit overnight, but had now stopped - but it was still overcast (G said this was a bit of a relief after the heat back home, which seems a little odd). We spent the morning generally catching up (she was listening properly today) and tossing around ideas about how we are going to spend the next couple of weeks. Then I went out in the car to the bank to change some more travellers cheques (there are some banks here that are open 24/7 - very useful, Lloyds take note!) As I turned out from the Hotel road onto the main road, a policeman decided he wanted a bit of entertainment and pulled me over. This was the first time this had happened in Mongolia, and I was frankly a bit surprised - and also a bit cross as I didn't want to waste too much time. He started by asking for passport, which I handed over. Then it was "car papers" and I showed him the UK registration document. He said this wasn't good enough, he wanted to see Mongolian registration documents. I told him none were necessary, as we had been through all that on the border (he didn't understand much of what I was saying and it was entirely reciprocal). He was pretty insistent, and we were reaching a bit of an impasse. Then he invited me to blow through the pages of my passport (very strange) and when I did so, he said "beer" - presumably suggesting I had been drinking. I said "no". So he said "vodka" and I said "no" again. For good measure, I also said "Whiskey no, gin no, wine no, champagne no, alcohol no". I think he got the idea I was not in a mood to be browbeaten. He then tried the simple approach, and said "Money". I said no, I had done nothing wrong and wouldn't be paying him any money, thank you. He was still holding my passport, so I then grabbed at it, saying he had taken a good look at it, and though the picture wasn't very flattering, he was not entitled to keep it. He held on and a rather unseemly tug of war followed, which he eventually won. So I said "let's go to police headquarters to sort this out, they will know I don't need any more papers". He was beginning to get the idea that I wasn't just going to roll over and pay up, and short of arresting me for absolutely nothing, he wasn't going to get anywhere. So to save face he said I should go to the Traffic Police office to get some Mongolian papers for my car, and we spent an earnest couple of minutes poring over the city map while he showed me where it was. Then he put on a broad smile, gave back my passport, grabbed my hand, shook it, said "Welcome to Mongolia" and waved me off. All very bizarre. So I drove into central UB to change the travellers cheques - no problems (I am still amazed by their ability to count notes in tens by feel, rather than individually - she was a bit miffed as I checked it all note by note and found no mistakes). Then I went on to the State Department Store food supermarket to buy some bottled water, fruit juice and other essentials. I even managed to find some fresh milk (only UHT up to now, so real luxury, though they do sell it in plastic bags, which feels a bit odd). When I got back to the car, a couple of lads were busy washing it. I hadn't asked them to, it was just one step up from the "clean the windscreen at the traffic lights" scam. But they had done a reasonable job and it needed doing, so I wasn't that bothered - it was just a question of how much I should give them. There was a Mongolian bloke sitting on the fence by the car, who saw my theatrically surprised expression and said "did you ask them to clean it?" I said no, and I wondered how much they would ask me for. He asked them in Mongolian, and laughed at their reply - he turned to me and said "you won't believe it, but they want $5" in a voice that said "what a rip off". I said "I didn't ask them to do it, but I'm happy to give them 1500 Togrog" which I did. They didn't seem unduly fed up with it, and I asked the guy what he would normally pay to have his car cleaned. He said "about 1500 to 2000, to clean it inside and out" - so I had got it about right. They hadn't quite finished, but it was pretty good and I needed to go so I said my goodbyes and drove off. Rich was hungry (again!) when I got back to the hotel, so we decided to walk up to the French Bistrot to put some pictures on the website and have lunch at the same time. Success, we think. We had promised him we would go for another Indian tonight, so we didn't eat a huge meal. We then headed off for the "Black Market" (just a name, nothing to do with corruption) which is the biggest market in UB, where you are apparently able to buy absolutely anything. It's absolutely massive, and there are literally thousands of stalls selling everything from "all you need to build your own ger" to wooden horse saddles, proper Mongolian boots (Rich couldn't find a pair that would fit him), old Soviet lapel badges and medals, clothes, hardware, tools, carpets, fishing tackle, food, bayonets to fit an AK47 (no, really) and pretty much anything else you could imagine. We only spent a couple of hours there, but Rich came away with a rather nice leather belt (he paid £3.50, but could easily have beaten them down to about £2.50), G bought a nice bag (£3) and a Columbia Gore-Tex anorak (yeah, right) with detachable fleece for £15 and I bought a face flannel for 30p (I could have had the whole pack for that price, but I only wanted one). It cost us 3p each to get into this Aladdin's cave of treasures. We will certainly go back and spend a bit more than a couple of hours there - we hardly scratched the surface of that amazing place. I'm gonna get me a bayonet for an AK. Then a walk back to the hotel. We had planned to go for another fabulous curry, but by the time we were ready, they were shut. Then Rich didn't want to try anywhere else, G didn't know whether she wanted to eat or sleep or just climb into a hole (what time is it?) so at midnight she and I ended up at a 24 hour cafe round the corner eating flaming boots with Mongolian tea again - not the gastronomic extravaganza we had in mind. Still, it was only 75p for both of us. Tomorrow, after (hopefully) dealing with our visa extensions, we will head out to the Terelj national park north east of the city and sample the delights of that part of the countryside, hopefully in a tourist ger camp. But our plans have a habit of changing, so who knows... In the meantime, we are mostly trying to work out whether we want to eat or sleep - or possibly both - at the same GPS ref as last night. |
