Days 12-13 Aktash - Khovd
25594 - 26152 558 km
These two days must have been the most adventurous, craziest and memorable days so far.
I ride together with the Swiss couple (www.offf.ch) Janine and Marius who have been traveling since June via Turkey, the Stans and Russia to Mongolia. We have had a lot of fun on our couple of days together and we are planning to continue together a while still.
We left Aktash in the morning with the most beautiful sunshine. We had about 170 km to the border and there was no point in trying to get there too early. So we took our time in the travel.
After only couple of kilometers we saw the first snow topped mountains.
We stopped for a lunch in some village and got to the Russian border at around 1 PM. Crossing the border was easy. "Drugs? Guns? Alcohol?" When the answer was "No" one can go on. 22 km later we came across the actual border fence. "Where Mongolia begins, the road ends". Couple of kilometers on a "road" which consisted of head size rocks. Then Mongolian border control. Going with small pieces of paper from one booth to another collecting stamps. And then finally they just take away that paper. Is that fair after all that work? Crossing the border was way faster than we expected. It took only 3 hours altogether. The rumors were between five to seven.
Right after the border control we had to buy a traffic insurance a change some money. The local currency is called Tukryk. With 120€ I got something like 228000 Tukryks. Now I feel quit wealthy. And off we went.
From the border to the first town, Ulgii, it was about 100 km. Mostly quite good, paved road. Some rocky sections where you can easily fall down or break your tire. In Ulgii we got to a ger camp. Only USD 10 per person including hot shower, dinner, breakfast and Wi-Fi. Not bad.
In the morning we started the day of real adventure. First we went to another Ger camp to see a Chilean girl Natalia whom Marius and Janine had met somewhere earlier. There was also a bag-packer John from Alaska (originally from Panama). Really nice people I hope to meet again. The 20 km road to this Ger camp was just an appetizer for the rest of the day. About 50 km of tarmac and then this...
At one point we had lunch in a village.
There was absolutely no real road. Basically we rode on paths following a road construction. Sometimes with better, sometimes with worse luck. I didn't even have any pictures of the worst parts. If I only had a helmet camera you could see the places we went through. When we had about 100 km to go I was getting low on fuel. I already had to go to my spare tank which should give me way more than 100 km to go. On normal circumstances. When on off road - no chance. Even though I think it was strictly forbidden we drove on the base of the new road. I turned off the engine to all the downhills just to save some fuel. It was getting dark and there was no gas station around.
We finally saw the lights of the city. According to the navigator we had like 6 km to the fuel station when the engine stopped. We even tried to fill it with the gasoline Marius and Janine had for their cooking device but the bike didn't even start with it as it was so empty. Marius and Janine went on to get some fuel and find a place to stay. I started waiting in complete darkness. I'm glad I have my headlight in the tank bag.
As there's no roads, just paths side by side leading to certain direction I saw many cars but only one went close enough I could get it stopped. The man clearly understood that I needed gasoline but he didn't have any with him. I told I will be o.k and of he went. While walking back and forth around my bike I realized there is also a harder line on the "road". I started rolling down the hill when a car came towards me. The old man I stopped earlier came bag with a bottle of gasoline. He even waited until I got my bike rolling again and drove behind me to show some light on a very soft road.
I almost got to the bottom of the hill when a big Land Cruiser stopped beside me. Marius and Janine had found a German speaking doctor and they came to bring me gasoline. You cannot imagine how glad I was to see them!
After pouring three bottles of gasoline to my tank we got in to a hotel, took our gear to our room and went to the doctor's house for some late snack. His wife and daughters chatted with us for hours. How lovely kids! So well behaving and talkative even with a strange language. The oldest one asked Marius a lot about studying in Switzerland and one of the twins wanted to know everything about Finland and my family. I even talked some German with our host. Surprisingly I even managed to create some decent sentences. It's been about 20 years since I've studied any German and haven't used it since. Janine at least got some good laugh with my talk! "Wunderschöne Kinder!"
Today we are going to have a day off here in Khovd. Yesterday was just way too hard even to consider continuing right away. According to the info I got from Christian next 440km to Altay is all paved. After that we might find some new adventures...
These two days must have been the most adventurous, craziest and memorable days so far.
I ride together with the Swiss couple (www.offf.ch) Janine and Marius who have been traveling since June via Turkey, the Stans and Russia to Mongolia. We have had a lot of fun on our couple of days together and we are planning to continue together a while still.
We left Aktash in the morning with the most beautiful sunshine. We had about 170 km to the border and there was no point in trying to get there too early. So we took our time in the travel.
After only couple of kilometers we saw the first snow topped mountains.
We stopped for a lunch in some village and got to the Russian border at around 1 PM. Crossing the border was easy. "Drugs? Guns? Alcohol?" When the answer was "No" one can go on. 22 km later we came across the actual border fence. "Where Mongolia begins, the road ends". Couple of kilometers on a "road" which consisted of head size rocks. Then Mongolian border control. Going with small pieces of paper from one booth to another collecting stamps. And then finally they just take away that paper. Is that fair after all that work? Crossing the border was way faster than we expected. It took only 3 hours altogether. The rumors were between five to seven.
Right after the border control we had to buy a traffic insurance a change some money. The local currency is called Tukryk. With 120€ I got something like 228000 Tukryks. Now I feel quit wealthy. And off we went.
From the border to the first town, Ulgii, it was about 100 km. Mostly quite good, paved road. Some rocky sections where you can easily fall down or break your tire. In Ulgii we got to a ger camp. Only USD 10 per person including hot shower, dinner, breakfast and Wi-Fi. Not bad.
In the morning we started the day of real adventure. First we went to another Ger camp to see a Chilean girl Natalia whom Marius and Janine had met somewhere earlier. There was also a bag-packer John from Alaska (originally from Panama). Really nice people I hope to meet again. The 20 km road to this Ger camp was just an appetizer for the rest of the day. About 50 km of tarmac and then this...
There was absolutely no real road. Basically we rode on paths following a road construction. Sometimes with better, sometimes with worse luck. I didn't even have any pictures of the worst parts. If I only had a helmet camera you could see the places we went through. When we had about 100 km to go I was getting low on fuel. I already had to go to my spare tank which should give me way more than 100 km to go. On normal circumstances. When on off road - no chance. Even though I think it was strictly forbidden we drove on the base of the new road. I turned off the engine to all the downhills just to save some fuel. It was getting dark and there was no gas station around.
We finally saw the lights of the city. According to the navigator we had like 6 km to the fuel station when the engine stopped. We even tried to fill it with the gasoline Marius and Janine had for their cooking device but the bike didn't even start with it as it was so empty. Marius and Janine went on to get some fuel and find a place to stay. I started waiting in complete darkness. I'm glad I have my headlight in the tank bag.
As there's no roads, just paths side by side leading to certain direction I saw many cars but only one went close enough I could get it stopped. The man clearly understood that I needed gasoline but he didn't have any with him. I told I will be o.k and of he went. While walking back and forth around my bike I realized there is also a harder line on the "road". I started rolling down the hill when a car came towards me. The old man I stopped earlier came bag with a bottle of gasoline. He even waited until I got my bike rolling again and drove behind me to show some light on a very soft road.
I almost got to the bottom of the hill when a big Land Cruiser stopped beside me. Marius and Janine had found a German speaking doctor and they came to bring me gasoline. You cannot imagine how glad I was to see them!
After pouring three bottles of gasoline to my tank we got in to a hotel, took our gear to our room and went to the doctor's house for some late snack. His wife and daughters chatted with us for hours. How lovely kids! So well behaving and talkative even with a strange language. The oldest one asked Marius a lot about studying in Switzerland and one of the twins wanted to know everything about Finland and my family. I even talked some German with our host. Surprisingly I even managed to create some decent sentences. It's been about 20 years since I've studied any German and haven't used it since. Janine at least got some good laugh with my talk! "Wunderschöne Kinder!"
Today we are going to have a day off here in Khovd. Yesterday was just way too hard even to consider continuing right away. According to the info I got from Christian next 440km to Altay is all paved. After that we might find some new adventures...
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