Day 17 Bayanhongor - Arvaikheer

This must have been the shitiest day of my trip so far.

It seemed everything went wrong from the beginning. After waking up I went to my bike to do the normal morning check. Oil, chain, bolts and nuts. I found out I have a flat tire. I put some air in it with my little compressor. In like 15 minutes it was flat again.

Marius had decided to take the off-road route to the hot springs and I was about to go with Janine by the paved route, which was 2,5 times longer.

A janitor showed me a direction to a guy who could fix the tire. After asking from half a dozen people we finally found the place. There was a great local munch who helped us with the tire and showed us the way out of town. I paid for the gasoline to fill up his motorcycle and off we went.

We saw an old couple with a motorcycle along the road. They had run out of fuel. Janine poured the fuel from the stove canister to their tank but it didn't help. We managed to stop a car that took the lady to village to get some fuel.

In a short while we ended up in a junction with a pile of sand on the route. We went around it and couple more and got plenty of kilometres behind us.

At one point Janine slowed down. I thought she would stop for some photos. Then I felt there was something wrong with my bike. I stopped and realized the tire was flat again! How can it be possible? The inner tube was new. Didn't the guy who installed it check the inside of the tire at all.

Well… I tried to pump the tire with my compressor. It seemed I drove too long with a flat and the inner tube was destroyed. No air stayed in. What to do?

While Janine was searching for the hole in the old tube, I removed the rear wheel from the bike. That was no problem.

But getting the tire off the rim was. We tried all the tricks we could ever imagine but we couldn't make it.

We had no choice but to remove Janine’s gear and put the wheel on her bike. She drove to the next town to find someone who could fix the tire.

It's funny how one starts to imagine things while waiting. So many times I was sure I saw Janine coming up the hill in the valley. Most of the times it was nothing. Not even a car. Sometimes it was a truck or something but not the one and only person I really wanted to see at this very moment. This same thing happened when I was waiting for the gasoline near Khovd a couple of days ago. I saw the headlights of a vehicle and thought it was Marius with the gasoline bottle.

At this same time I'm not worried. I know she is coming back. It might take some time and will probably change our plans but… Who cares about plans anyway?

In a while Janine got back followed by a car. She had had no luck in the village. There was nobody who could fix the tire. I had to get back to Bayanhongoor. I stuffed myself in this car with half of the family and off we went. None in the car spoke or understood any English but with hand signals and my phone's navigator I managed to tell them where I came from.

At the tire repair shop we found a nail in the tire. The guy put a patch on it.

Janine was waiting by my bike and I was eager to get there. We had about 400 km to our planned destination. The tire repair guy took me to Annie. And holy shit how slow he drove. Smoked all the time and played some local mainstream music.

I wanted him to drive at least a little faster but I didn't want to piss him off. What if he’d threw me out of the car and l’d had to walk the rest of the way. That would take even more time. Especially when carrying a tire with me.

At one point I thought I saw Natalia passing us. I thought I recognized a different kind of license plate and with a short look the bike also looked the same. And it really was her.

So, finally I got to the bike, installed the wheel and we got going to a town quite near (about 170 km). We found a hotel, had dinner and got to sleep...