Wednesday, August 8, 2012

There's a road!

Cassie:
Today has been a bit adventurous. First of all in the morning we found ourselves not lost, but shall we say not exactly on the right path towards the town of Baruunturuun. These roads are so confusing. You'll be on what is essentially the "main road" or the "highway" which is just a series of dirt tracks then gradually, bit by bit without you even noticing you'll be turned and heading in the wrong direction. Well, that happened a total of about three times today. The first one was a doozy. I was driving at the time and we ended up going down dirt tracks that literally would end, I'd keep driving, hoping that they would start again and sure enough we'd see something that started to resemble a road again. Some bits were a bit hairy and it really tested me and nerves. At one point when I was getting to my wits end I blurted out "Where's the .......... road!?". Well, today really pushed me. This country is difficult to navigate, even with a GPS. No wonder we've had locals stop us
and ask if they're heading in the right direction. You could spend an entire day going in the wrong direction, end up at a town and realise you've been going south all day when you should've been going west.

This afternoon when we were about 50km or so from Ulaangom, we thought we were deviating off the road we were meant to be on so started heading down another road that ended up being terrible and was getting worse. So, instead of a repeat of what happened in the morning, Graeme just cut across the open grassland (which was rough as guts!) and not before time we saw a road and both said at the same time "There's a road!". Pretty much how you have to navigate at times. We did that maybe three times today as we found we were heading in the wrong direction.

We past a fellow traveller today. Not long after we came out of the middle of nowhere and found the real road again this morning, we came across a lady from the US cycling to Ulaangom. What a goer. Just after I was thinking, far out, that was some difficult off-road driving earlier this morning, really tested my nerves and skill, here she is just happily cycling along with the sun beating down on her. We asked if she needed any water or other provisions but she just said, you know what, there's only about 40km or so to the next town so I think I'll be ok thanks. She only had maybe two litres of water on her if she was lucky, and it was a hot day today. But she just wasn't perturbed, just cruising along.

Anyway, we made it to Ulaangom today. Had a bite to eat, tried to find a hotel but couldn't find one with wifi so couldn't be stuffed, figured we may as well camp rather than not only have no internet but risk no hot water to boot. It's been a huge day and we're both exhausted. Graeme's up on the roof of the car at the moment because the bottle of brake fluid we had in one of the boxes has leaked. Apparently the lid came off. How a screw top lid comes off I'm at a loss. These roads are rough but we've been on rougher, tougher roads in Russia without this happening. Ironically, we even checked all of that yesterday and just commented on how great it is that everything in the boxes has held up so well and hasn't leaked. It seems we spoke a day too soon. It's also leaked onto the car so hopefully Graeme can clean it enough so that it doesn't corrode the paint. Ugh. Some days are very tiring.

Another thing that's a bit of a pain in the neck is the back doors are letting in a lot of dust. More than ever and we can't figure out how on earth so much is getting in. Literally everything in the car has a fine coating of dust on it. It's frustrating as hell and we've been sneezing a lot these past few days because of it. We drove on much dustier roads in Russia and didn't have nearly this amount of dirt in the car. Ugh again. All I can think of is that all the rough roads we've driven on have simply shaken the back doors to crap or the seals need replacing.

We've camped just outside the town and will re-enter it again tomorrow. We need to go to a bank to change the currency. Hopefully we can change it into Euros. You can't exchange Mongolian, Kazakhstan or Russian currency outside the country. Bugger. Fingers crossed we can change it tomorrow. This is the last town large enough between here and the border where we have any hope of doing this.

I realise I sound like I'm complaining a lot in this post but sometimes you just have to get all of this stuff out so you can build a bridge and get over it. We've really loved our time in Mongolia. I'm only complaining because it must be past my bedtime!

Not long now until we're back in Russia. We certainly haven't rushed through Mongolia which is nice. We've spent time taking pictures, taking in the serenity and exploring the towns we came across. Even still it's only taken us about a week to get through it. There really hasn't been much to see this side of Mongolia because it's very dry and barren. The population seems to have thinned out since Moron. We've had the most awesome camps through Mongolia, even though tonight's one isn't very glamorous as it's near the town's cemetery and tip. Nice. Not sure what the locals were thinking with the placement of these two things literally side by side.

We're aiming to be at the border by Friday which will be easily done from here, even if we spend some time in Ulaangom tomorrow. I'll be sad to say goodbye to Mongolia but am so glad that we've had the opportunity to spend time in such an amazing country.

3 comments:

  1. Mongolia sounds absoluetly brilliant - thanks so much for sharing it!
    Have you guys come across any wildlife? Do they have bears or wolves there, or is it too high up for them?
    Happy trails!
    N

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  2. Have you tried forcing fresh air in by fan on high it should help the dust problem

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  3. I was thinking along the same lines as your dad.
    If able, have you thought of opening a back window a bit, with the front open as well. this should create one directional flow.........out.
    I think the dust gets sucked in through the rear doors.

    Had to do some catching up on your adventures. I upgraded the OS and I lost the RSS feed. Hence not much fro me. I've just holidays of 5 weeks off. Wish I had as much time as you 2.
    Put a hole through the front diff last Sunday. The puncture happened from the inside-out. The teeth must have broken off and tried to escape.

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