Graeme:
Responses to comments:
Chris - Indeed. And I think we have seen some Yak's, but only maybe 10? To make it relative, we'd have seen 500 horses and 1000 cows and 1500 goats/sheep. I'm not sure what the crops are to be honest. Some are ground vegitables like potatoes I suspect, with heaps of yellow canola I think as well.
Anonymous - Yeah pretty much, I read somewhere that it's important not to refer to them as Yurt's in Mongolia. Something to do with Russia... they really don't like the term. Check that fact however, it was probably written on an Internet.
Kerry - I really look forward to getting that book. Thanks heaps.
Scenery today has been for the most part really arid. If my map is to be beleived, where we are now is popular farming in the winter (lots of Winter Camps). It's evident with heaps of animal shelters, but no population to be seen. Passed maybe ten cars and overtook one?
We walked around Tsetserleg today for about half an hour today. We were looking for somewhere to dispose of our rubbish, buy a lemonade to replace the one consumed last night, and get a drop of fuel. We were greeted by the town policeman who wanted to check our passports, but seemed satisfied with our international driving permits. We visited a few shops, bought some bread and some choco pies... with complimentary lollies. The choco pies are like thicker wagon wheels but not as wide or as dense... quite nice indeed as I'm about to down my second. As we were leaving the store, we noticed the very same policeman flogging a young man over the back with his batton. The young fellow must have been giving him lip because he didn't run away, but willingly accepted more beating in exchange for attitude. We saw the young fellow later and gave him a nod with much kudos for fighting 'the man'. He was quite chuffed, as his friends were also impressed by his beating. One of the stores h
ad a internal celling about 5 foot high. It goes without saying that my entrance into the store bent over like a hunchback made the shopkeep crack up mid call.
We got a fill of diesel which was pumped by hand! Was probably the most expensive fuel so far, but they certainly earened it. They also took our rubbish which was grand.
A song that's been in my head for at least the last 24 hours is 'So you win again' by Hot Chocolate. Was Tom Jones in Hot Chocolate? It kind of sounds like him, but I wouldn't bet money on it.
Yesterday and today we've been asked for directions... from locals! Well, Mongolia locals, obviously not local locals. It makes us feel a little bit normal by not intuitively being able to navigate here. On the other hand, Oisin Hughes, a guy who rode his motorbike half way through Mongolia tells a story when he was being carted by truck. The driver would drive through the night, stop every hour, turn off the lights, wait for his eyes to adjust, get his bearings and continue again. How mind blowing is that?!
The last two days, the kilometers have just crawled by. We'd be averaging 20KM/Hr with stops. It's fine when the scenery is stunning, but when it's pretty 'samey', you just want to get to something more interesting. It's also crazy windy at our camp tonight which means no bugs. Mongolia doesn't seem to be plagued with bugs which is terrific. We parked next to some cool man made rock formation which does look kind of green, so it may indicate a water source?
Tonight we've realised that we will arrive at the Tsagaannuur border Sat/Sun which we assume is when it's closed. Can anyone confirm this? It just means we'll spend a bit more time at Ulanngom. We are dying to get to markets to get some coloured sash's. I wanted to get one for the car in UB but the markets were soooo far away and the public transport downright dangerous in all it's forms. I was hoping to get at least two; one for the car to get dirty, one to stay perfectly clean so the contrast between them would be Mongolia! Sounds like a very authentic souvenir but I'm running out of dirt and mud to get on it! Oh well, hopefully Ulanngom markets will yield some as it would be horrendously embarrassing to have to buy them online when we return. I'm surprised that they are not readily available. I asked in every store today, nope. They are everywhere, tied to bridges, trees and monuments - and I can't even find one!
Cassie's been feeling good all day, so thank you for your well wishes.
Position: 12-08-07 18:19:33 +0800 +0000
http://maps.google.com/maps?&ll=49.57727,95.8754&q=49.57727,95.8754&z=16
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
Monday, August 6, 2012
Gershina
Graeme:
Gershina is one name we're testing for our car. Car in Russian is Machina, and Ger's are a nomad's house in Mongolia. It's our nomadic house car! Technically it's probably spelled Gerchina. I feel decent names just happen organically, so we'll see how this fits.
I just jumped under the car to refill the front diff but to my suprise, it's most certainly full. erm. Not sure what happened there, I obviously misread the oil level. It must have been perfect body temperature because I couldn't feel it, and what I saw on my finger I assumed was just residue from the filler hole. And the oil doesn't look contaminated either. I think the breather may be blocked, or it's just closed off at the moment because the bolt came out with a little bit of back pressure. What a mystery! Oh well, we now have 4L of front diff/gearbox/transfer case oil! I'm really not worried at all.
Cassie fit right in at Moron ;-) We had lunch at a hotel which was scrumptious. Cassie had stirfry lamb and rice, and I had 'Fried Pepper Meal'. Terrific. Opposite was an auto shop where we bought the oil and wiper blades from. Three gents inside were watching the olympics. I think it was an early heat of a hurdles event. A USA lady won by a fair lead. We were all joyed in some kind of 'yay, someone won, it doesn't matter who'. We talked about Mongolia's medal tally and Australia's and told them we watched the wrestling the other night on TV between a Mongolian and a Korean with much enthusiasm as if rooting for our own contendor. They invited us to sit and watch. We hung around for a minute but were eventually on our way.
After lunch and several stunning mountain passes later, we stopped by a river for a swim. The water was alright, but now we're all washed - awesome. Ulanbator aside, 90% of Mongolians are soooo excited to meet us.
Today yielded another example of the 'general direction' navigation rule. We veered right at a fork in the road when in hindsight should have been a left. We drove for maybe 30 minutes and ended up at the same place that the other road went. Another weird element is the fact that if there is no road, you need to just drive there. As you can tell from our location, we're within 10 minutes of a small town. We approached it from one side, but needed to leave on the same side, just further over... so we just drove straight. It's a foreign concept for us, but it's totally cool here. Same with our camp site, we saw a saddle in a mountain, so we just drove to it. Our altitude is 1917M - Our highest yet. Cassie is feeling a bit queasy which is sad. There's nothing I can do unfortunatly, so I'm just trying to keep busy and not get in her way. Hopefully it will pass soon.
PS. She's feeling much better. We've kept a 500ML lemonade in our fridge to sip if we feel crook. Well, Dr. Graeme saved the day, she's had a burp or two and now feels on top of the world. Warranty not included.
Cassie:
Thanks to Graeme for the update on my wellbeing, burps included. I'm sure you were all thrilled to bits to read about the details.
Today has been yet another wonderful day in Mongolia. Haha, yes moronically Graeme thinks I fit in well at the town named, Moron. Everyone has been genuinely warm towards us. In the town of Moron I waited in the car at one point and people would look at the car as they were passing by and as soon as our eyes met I would smile and there would be a quick and warm smile in return. At one point a Mongolian guy about our age stopped us in the street, all smiles. All he wanted to do was shake each of our hands then he continued on his way down the street. All the kids we've met are so cheeky! Today there were three boys on two horses, maybe ranging in age from 9 - 12 (totally guessing) and they were clearly meant to be hearding their family's livestock. But as soon as they saw our car approaching down the road the horse that had two boys on it trotted into the middle of the road and blocked our way. As we approached I grabbed the video camera because these kids were playing chicken
with us! Haha awesome! When we got to them we stopped and they were mounted up on their horse giggling away like little urchins. We were in the game so moved the car to the left and they blocked our way. To the right, they blocked our way. Haha classic! After that they moved off to the side of the road. The car was in a muddy patch so Graeme lit up the back wheels and spun mud everywhere and they were laughing and carrying on, loving the "horse play" - 'scuse the pun, honestly none intended. Ahh, such innocent fun.
Lunch in Moron was indeed tasty and I refuse to believe that's what made me feel ill a moment ago. The menu had some funny sounding delights on it, aside from Graeme's "Fried Pepper Meal" which turned out to be stir-fry pepper beef, there was also "Chicken with Tricky". I wasn't game enough to order that, even for a laugh because Graeme was already ordering a weird sounding thing. I thought at least stir-fry lamb with rice is a good fall back, worst case I could just eat the rice. Anyway I really want to know what "Tricky" is. There were a few other things on the menu that were a laugh but I can't remember them. Sorry, you just had to be there for the giggles. The beverage menu did have the staples of hot or cold water specifically.
Position: 12-08-06 18:55:00 +0800 +0000
http://maps.google.com/maps?&ll=49.54531,98.66463&q=49.54531,98.66463&z=16
All roads lead to joy
Sitting in the front seat of the car, trying to recount today. It's all been one beautiful blur.
We started early as we had a terrific sleep last night. I'd say it's a combination of a cool night and blocking out the light with our solar shades. We've been reluctant to use them because it's a 10 minute ordeal each day to put them on or pack them away. In Mongolia however, we figured we didn't need visibility out the rear and side windows, so as a result we've been leaving them on. 90KM of our drive today was brilliant tar. It also happened to be when it was pissing with rain. We made hay while the sun shone. We did 280KM which suggests to me that 200KM is a comfortable expectation in Mongolia. We had a lengthy lunch complete with coffee's beside a silent highway.
In response to Tom's comment about how it's about time we did some 4WD'ing, well... today it all got a workout. I am at a loss as to how cars are traveling this route. When I say route, this is most certainly the main road - It's the A0902. Sections today had us a foot deep in sludge and slosh... for usually around 100M at a time. My only explanation is that they know the sections that snake around the mountains, whereas we're just taking the largest route, usually straight through the guts of it.
Two sets of children made up the roadside vendors today. The first set were two sisters (maybe 8,6) and their brother (maybe 2!). They were selling milk no doubt fresh from the cow in plastic coke bottles. They didn't have lids, so if a big batch of raw milk didn't appeal, the fact the 2yo was sucking on one of the bottles made us confident in our 'nope' decision. We gave them 500T for the privilege of taking thier photo. The second set of vendors were two brothers, perhaps 8-9 had a jar of some kind of dark berry. They were quick to climb on the car and as children do, they effortlessly asked if they could have our tin of pringles? Nah. OK, how about the mobile phone? Um, nope. Camera? Nope. What about that camera?. No. Here, have a bag of lollies. They climbed off and were on there way. I got some photos of them too, but I had the wrong lens on, so I was about 3M outside the passenger door shooting across the cab at them hanging in the window talking to Cassie.
The front diff is weeping oil around the back side where the pinion gear enters the housing. There is maybe 8 bolts on here and about 6 of them were oily. Not suprisingly, the ones that were not weeping were tight enough, the ones that were weeping could use a full turn tightening. I suspect this has fixed it, but we now need some differential oil. If we were stuck, I'm sure engine oil would do the job, but I think we'll just leave the hubs unlocked until we get to stages where we absolutely need 4WD. We could backtrack all of 5KM to a town and no doubt get some, but Moron is about 100KM away and a lot larger, so we'll get some there.
We watched a car today traverse a staggeringly technical section which criss-crossed beneath overhead lines. He went back and forth, turning around heaps in this front wheel drive car. TWICE we returned to our car to go and help him out of what seemed like a dire situation (motionless with mud and water above the front spoiler), but when we'd look back, he'd somehow got it moving again. They came over, offered us some assumed alcohol from a big 10L yellow plastic container which was politely declined. Out of astonishment, they gestured 'we just came over to say hi'... YOU MEAN YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO CROSS THAT?! We get the impression they were just out for a drive as they stopped and chatted to another car down the road, obviously in no hurry.
We were treated to a sunset that defies words. That really is all I can say about it.
Dinner was bacon, eggs and tomato. Ohhhh how good it was. We've not had that meal in ohhh so long.
We took 250 pictures today which sounds absurd I know. To make things worse, that was just the still camera! Half the problem with viewing photos on laptops, is I don't know if the exposure of the photos is correct. Tilt the screen one way, they look too bright, tilt it the other way and they look dark. I can only hope some of ours turned out ok.
I'll probably post this tomorrow night now, as it's nearing 10PM and it's pitch black outside. Good evening.
Position: 12-08-05 20:57:05 +0800 +0000
http://maps.google.com/maps?&ll=49.46608,101.4185&q=49.46608,101.4185&z=16
#END
We started early as we had a terrific sleep last night. I'd say it's a combination of a cool night and blocking out the light with our solar shades. We've been reluctant to use them because it's a 10 minute ordeal each day to put them on or pack them away. In Mongolia however, we figured we didn't need visibility out the rear and side windows, so as a result we've been leaving them on. 90KM of our drive today was brilliant tar. It also happened to be when it was pissing with rain. We made hay while the sun shone. We did 280KM which suggests to me that 200KM is a comfortable expectation in Mongolia. We had a lengthy lunch complete with coffee's beside a silent highway.
In response to Tom's comment about how it's about time we did some 4WD'ing, well... today it all got a workout. I am at a loss as to how cars are traveling this route. When I say route, this is most certainly the main road - It's the A0902. Sections today had us a foot deep in sludge and slosh... for usually around 100M at a time. My only explanation is that they know the sections that snake around the mountains, whereas we're just taking the largest route, usually straight through the guts of it.
Two sets of children made up the roadside vendors today. The first set were two sisters (maybe 8,6) and their brother (maybe 2!). They were selling milk no doubt fresh from the cow in plastic coke bottles. They didn't have lids, so if a big batch of raw milk didn't appeal, the fact the 2yo was sucking on one of the bottles made us confident in our 'nope' decision. We gave them 500T for the privilege of taking thier photo. The second set of vendors were two brothers, perhaps 8-9 had a jar of some kind of dark berry. They were quick to climb on the car and as children do, they effortlessly asked if they could have our tin of pringles? Nah. OK, how about the mobile phone? Um, nope. Camera? Nope. What about that camera?. No. Here, have a bag of lollies. They climbed off and were on there way. I got some photos of them too, but I had the wrong lens on, so I was about 3M outside the passenger door shooting across the cab at them hanging in the window talking to Cassie.
The front diff is weeping oil around the back side where the pinion gear enters the housing. There is maybe 8 bolts on here and about 6 of them were oily. Not suprisingly, the ones that were not weeping were tight enough, the ones that were weeping could use a full turn tightening. I suspect this has fixed it, but we now need some differential oil. If we were stuck, I'm sure engine oil would do the job, but I think we'll just leave the hubs unlocked until we get to stages where we absolutely need 4WD. We could backtrack all of 5KM to a town and no doubt get some, but Moron is about 100KM away and a lot larger, so we'll get some there.
We watched a car today traverse a staggeringly technical section which criss-crossed beneath overhead lines. He went back and forth, turning around heaps in this front wheel drive car. TWICE we returned to our car to go and help him out of what seemed like a dire situation (motionless with mud and water above the front spoiler), but when we'd look back, he'd somehow got it moving again. They came over, offered us some assumed alcohol from a big 10L yellow plastic container which was politely declined. Out of astonishment, they gestured 'we just came over to say hi'... YOU MEAN YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO CROSS THAT?! We get the impression they were just out for a drive as they stopped and chatted to another car down the road, obviously in no hurry.
We were treated to a sunset that defies words. That really is all I can say about it.
Dinner was bacon, eggs and tomato. Ohhhh how good it was. We've not had that meal in ohhh so long.
We took 250 pictures today which sounds absurd I know. To make things worse, that was just the still camera! Half the problem with viewing photos on laptops, is I don't know if the exposure of the photos is correct. Tilt the screen one way, they look too bright, tilt it the other way and they look dark. I can only hope some of ours turned out ok.
I'll probably post this tomorrow night now, as it's nearing 10PM and it's pitch black outside. Good evening.
Position: 12-08-05 20:57:05 +0800 +0000
http://maps.google.com/maps?&ll=49.46608,101.4185&q=49.46608,101.4185&z=16
#END
Saturday, August 4, 2012
Waoww!
d. The height of the grass just hides it from view. Although we'd done a lot of reading to prepare us for this fact, there's nothing quite like having 6 tracks in front of you to choose from, and just having to relax to the idea that they'll all get you there.
I think I can sum up navigation here. Firstly, I don't have the skill to navigate this place without a GPS and secondly, general direction is usually good enough. If it looks like you've missed a left turn, over the next 10 splits in the road, if you keep taking the left fork, you'll end up where you wanted to be.
We do have two GPS's, one physical map and three digital maps, so I'm not too worried about getting lost. If the US government disables GPS, then it might be slower going ;)
I was surprised to see fields growing crops, occasionally with fences.
We're camped atop a small hill, but sheltered on three sides by grassy hills and rocks.
We're staggered at how many Ger's there are. Atop our hill top lookout we can count more than a dozen. They sit so effortlessly in the landscape, like they are meant to be here. The scene is so idyllic that I can't pretend to capture it. It's a utopia!
One last thought to finish my post. I sat up on the rocks after dinner overlooking the valley. It felt weird somehow but I'll try and explain. Everything looked picture perfect. Like in a National Geographic magazine, or on TV. It looked that perfect that it doesn't feel real! Why doesn't it feel real?!
We zip through these countries. 'Ohh, isn't that nice, lets take a picture' You look back a few days later and pat yourself on the back - excellent photo... but it feels like we're a bit disconnected from the environment. I've heard of photographers refer to this disconnection as part of the game. They can be in a war zone, capturing something horrible, but can return seemingly unfased. This I suspect is the curse of the camera. Has anyone else struck this?
Our car is the perfect example of that will to disconnect from our environment. It's geared to provide an environment completely separate to that of it's surroundings. It's warm, it's dry, it's soft and quiet. Sitting out on the rocks, they felt hard, the wind was cool, the sounds of livestock evident. We'll retired later to some TV. See what we're missing? The exposure!
Hmm... we have a lot to learn.
Cassie:
I was a bit relieved to be leaving Ulaanbaatar today if I'm honest. It's a rough city with lots of crazy traffic, but thankfully the people we spoke to individually were really lovely. There was a staff member at the hotel who spoke a bit of english and she took us under her wing and spoke english with us every chance she got. I get the impression the people who speak english in this country like to practice it every chance they get. It makes me feel bad that I can't speak their language! The Mongolian language to my ear has the lovely sing-song cadence of many Asian languages with a hint of Russian sounds mixed in. A bit difficult for me to get my tongue around the correct pronunciation.
Driving the dirt roads today hasn't been as taxing as driving dirt roads in Russia and at points they've been just as rough if not more so. Not sure why it's more enjoyable. Perhaps because there's no traffic to worry about? Perhaps the scenery is calming? The drive through this country is going to be slow going. We average probably between 30 - 40km/hr. But in a strange way that's ok. So long as we're completely through Russia before the temporary import for the car runs out on 22 September, I'm a happy camper.
Another wonderful thing to know about this part of Mongolia is that the air smells like lavender. I found the plant that I thought had the fragrance, crushed some in my hand and sure enough it smells like lavender. The only resemblance this plant has to lavender is the silver foliage, other than that it's entirely different. The fields are full of this gorgeous little plant. In areas that have this plant in abundance the air is thick with the scent. Isn't lavender meant to be a relaxing scent in aroma therapy? Perhaps that's why I'm feeling so relaxed here!
Here we go
So tomorrow morning we’ll take off for the Mongolian wilderness. Our route roughly consists of heading west to Bulgan, Moron, Ulangom then the border, then Barnaul in Russia.
Tell us if you think this was a scam?
We’re both exhausted today, it’s really hot and 1300m above sea level. It sounds very unfit of me, but a set of stairs knocked me around today! Because we’re exhausted, we were easily startled by the ~13,000KM remaining. We’re not quite half way KM wise, but the driving should get easier from here… maybe. Kazakhstan is another story. I’m trying really hard to ignore it just now until we get our head around Mongolia.
We did find an awesome supermarket directly across from the hotel which stocked everything… even refills for out little magic washing up brush thing. Very nice.
About ₮1,000,000 (pronounced: Toogrik) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongolian_t%C3%B6gr%C3%B6g or roughly $700AUD. Even the largest centres we’ve been in (haven't tested UB) don’t take card for fuel, so cash will be king. Most towns have ATM’s. One opposite our hotel dispensed ₮400,000 in a single transaction which is good for saving on bank fees. Neither major banks could work out getting money from our cards, but the ATM’s could.
It’s been wicked cheap here. Our dinner last night cost $11 at a fancy restaurant, and tonight's with a huge red wine steak, and some other significant dish with drinks was less than $20. We filled a trolley tonight with chocolate, pringles, milk, biscuits, bananas eggs, plums, bread, and everything else you can imagine for ~$50. Sounds like a cheap ass I know, but it’s nice kind of getting ahead of what will be a European financial crisis as our fuel cost will triple and free camping may be a thing of the past.
It’s a pity our car doesn’t run on 95 octane as it seems we could pay with love.
Wandering around the markets today, unable to find any rubber bushes, we were approached by an English speaking man said ‘For a landcruiser, you won’t find it here, this is all Chinese, Russian and Korean cars/trucks’. He asked us to follow him to his car as he had one for us. Oh well, sounds good. He had an 80 series land cruiser. He had the most accurate and clean storage system of his car parts behind the rear seats. He put his hand on one container, and uncovered his set of 6 rubber bushes. He gave them to us… refusing payment. We managed to force whatever note I had in my pocket to him (around 70 cents). Amazing huh! I feel bad being a freeloader and just hope we can help others in the same way we’ve been helped. You never know, our collection of bolts, fuses and washers may help someone on the road?
Well, I’m going to bed now, enjoy and hope to see you on the road.
Friday, August 3, 2012
UB–First night (Video now fixed)
Graeme:
Just recapping a post from yesterday about us crossing the border. I forgot to mention how we approached the border town on the Russian side, and in the distance was something quite remarkable. From this perspective, the Russian border town was terminated in a perfectly straight line, and on the other side was grass… endless horizon of grass! Quite the spectacle. As it turns out, there is a Mongolian border town which makes up the other half of that urban scene, but from a fair way back, it looked like the end of the earth! What a smashing sensation! I can only imagine the Tsagaannuur border at the other side would do an even better job of this.
Woah, Mongolia countryside is out of this world. Vast and free. Nothing feels off limits. If you want to drive to the top of that hill – go for it! If you want to camp there – go for it!
This video isn’t particularly interesting, but it’s only of like three days between Chita and UB
Up until UB city, the drivers have been brilliant – not a Russian action to be seen. Courteous, slow, safe. In the city, it has been bedlam – worst drive ever. We spent over an hour in traffic which moved possibly 10 blocks. Improvised lanes varied from 2-6 lanes (7 if you count the footpath), Buses were rude, drivers were rude. Ugh, a nightmare. Horns were continuous, often out of frustration at no one in particular. Idiots would drive up the sidewalk and driveways of petrol stations only to cut you off one car ahead. It was futile and stupid rolled in to one. On several occasions when standing still I would touch cars, trucks and buses next to me, just to confirm, ‘Yep, that’s certainly close’. If that wasn’t enough, there were perfectly cut holes in the road, the exact size big enough to swallow one of our wheels. That would not have been cool!
Whilst sitting in traffic my heart sunk to see our sub tank reading below empty. Oh ‘damn’ I thought. It only had 1/4 in it, but it’s no doubt in a stream behind us due to a damn rock having rubbed it’s way through. As we were at a standstill, I got out and tapped the tank. It sounded like it had fuel in it and I couldn’t see any leaks, but I was in no place to make the call. Thank goodness we were not drawing from that tank at the time. Having to prime the engine in that traffic would have been dangerous. Five minutes later, having resigned to the fact that I’d have to drop the tank and repair it, the gauge reading had returned to normal. Go figure? Perhaps it was a warning to get back in to the habit of drawing down each tank evenly rather than keeping all of our eggs in one basket.
We stumbled on a motel which looked way above our price point, but it had parking which enabled us to get out of the madness. We saw four digit prices marked on the walls which were in USD$. Um, before we knew it, we were shown a room before any prices were discussed. It felt like one of those ‘If you have to ask, you can’t afford’ moments. In the elevator ride the lady said $35 per night plus $5 for breakfast. Um… Seriously?! Needless to say we were booked in soon after. It’s clean, modern and has the Olympics on TV. Why is Australia so far behind in the tally?!
Our hotel room did have a horrid smell which has been exorcised with epic quantities of airflow. No doubt a result of the unchanged bucket of ‘waste’ paper. It has a terrific bed with one pillow being like a sack of wheat. Like those weird things people put in the microwave. It does make it easy to sit up in bed and watch TV however.
Our sleep last night was rubbish as it was too hot to close windows, but tiny micro bugs which could have marched 5 abreast through our flyscreens climbed over us all night. Covering with the doona helped, but resulted in overheating. I hope out sleep tonight is better, but the endless horns won’t help.
Tomorrow I will upload the video of the suspected border scammer. Let you mob decide if she was legit.
We’ve received some lovely comments from a couple in Greece – Let us know if you have any specific questions and we’ll be happy to answer them. Thanks to everyone else that’s commented as well!
Photos are online: https://picasaweb.google.com/twomagadan/ChitaToUlaanbaatar02?authkey=Gv1sRgCPXJifqSteWlkwE
Here’s a video for the boys of us 4WD’ing into our camp site, boring for normal people.
Cassie:
I have only two things to contribute to today’s blog:-
1. Hotel Restaurant Review – a “glowing” review that the hotel restaurant thought prudent to put on their advertising brochure reads:
“Food was overpriced and greasy, service was alright and seating was quick. Essentially it is everything you expect from a restaurant”
And, just to prove I’m not telling fibs, here’s a picture of said brochure
I think they’ve lost in translation the essence of what they were trying to say. Anyway, we gave it stab and ate there tonight. How could we pass up the opportunity for “overpriced and greasy” food and "alright” service? As it turned out, the chicken and beef salads we had were lovely and tasty (no sign of unwanted grease), the service was exceptional, yes indeed the seating was very quick and it cost us a total of $AUD12.73 including two drinks and a fee for ‘table service’. Ummm, overpriced?!
And number 2. Cold Shower *sad face*. Yep, there’s pretty much no hot water to be had. It tricks you and starts to heat up past the point of freezing cold water but that’s all you get. So, the one luxury other than internet that I love about a hotel stay is a hot shower. Oh well, at least it’s still a shower. But, we can’t complain for $40/night including breakfast delivered to our room at 9am in the morning.
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
We got scammed... $7.44
Cassie:
We got scammed of a whole $AUD7.44 at the Mongolian border today. Certainly not a bank breaker but doesn't make for a very nice border experience. The Russian side of the border was painstaking but nevertheless a breeze in comparison to the Mongolian side of the border. The Russians scrutinized every piece of paper we had, particularly our customs declaration form for the car, we then had to fill out two new customs declaration forms for the exit of the car to Mongolia. Our car was then searched top to bottom including the engine bay, all the main storage containers in the car and the boxes on the roof, they tapped the sides of the car (presumably to make sure they were hollow, the joke is that they're stuffed full of insulation batts. Would've been a pain if they made us remove all of that for inspection!), they even went so far as to have a sniffer dog jump in the car. We then had to drive a few metres up the driveway, park again, stand at another window so that our passpor
ts could be processed. Cool, another stamp in the passports!
Then came the Mongolian border crossing. OMG. Bit of a mess really. There was absolutely no signage to let us know what was happening or where to go. We drove through a pit of water, presumably an agricultural dip to clean the tyres or something. Lucky I had my window open at the time because I heard someone insistently whistling. I poked my head out the window to see a guy whistling and gesturing at us to go into an office. Ok, so Graeme went in whilst I waited with the car. Then out of nowhere an official looking lady came up to me with a receipt and asking for 50 roubles. No problem, that was legit. Then a guy in camo ran up to me with an "Arrival Card". Cool, thanks for that. So I filled out that form while I waited for Graeme to finish in the office. Then we drove towards what looked like a main building, again, no signage. When we got to a covered parking area we thought it made sense to drive up to the line that said "STOP". But again, lucky I had my window down, becau
se a different guy (seemingly didn't even work there) whistled at us and gestured that we stop where we were. Ok. So we stopped and out of nowhere a lady in camo came up to us and inspected the car by repeating what the Russians did except this time we didn't have to open the bonnet or have a dog walk through the car. She then gave us a small slip of paper and gestured that we follow her into the customs building. In there we filled out the form surrounded by 4 staff whilst another staff member walked up to us wanting to see our passports (seemingly just to serve his curiosity). By now we had been given a total of 4 tiny pieces of paper, all serving a different purpose and some with official stamps on them. Then we lined up (we were the only ones in the line), got our passports stamped. Cool, that was easy. Then we were told to go to another desk, that guy then told us no, you need to go over to that desk over there first, then come back to me. Ok. So we trotted off over to
the other desk where a lady stamped one of the forms we already had and gave us yet another tiny piece of paper which turned out to be another form to fill out. As I'm standing there filling that out, some random guy gives me two more forms which were customs declaration forms and says they're for each of us individually. Ok, so by now I've lost count of how many little pieces of paper and forms have been handed to me and which form is for which person at which desk. OMG. Then as I'm filling out the customs declaration forms, the guy tells me to hand them over. But hang on mate, I haven't finished filling them out yet! Gees, pressure! Graeme then gets told that he has to go out to the car because it needs another inspection by the guy who stamps one of the forms. So while he's out there I told the customs guy that this is hard work. I couldn't help griping at someone, it was such a stupid, disorganised process. I quickly bit my tongue because we were beholden to these people
to let us into the country. Yikes, so after all that paper work was done and everyone had finished going nuts with the stamps we could drive out to Mongolia. Ummm, not quite. We get to a closed gate where a guy in camo jumps out of a little side office and tells us to pull over. Damn, so close! We had to buy compulsory insurance at that point. Cool, a very important piece of paper we were expecting to have but absolutely not obvious that this office was for that purpose. All through this process there was a lady who had been sticking to us like fly to....you know what, asking for money. Clearly a scam. We were trying to ignore her and walk away but her and a guy kept blocking our path. So we argued with them outside the car, managed to get in the car and drove towards the gate that the official had opened for us but the lady went up and closed the gate on us! Bitch! (excuse the language). We nudged up to the gate with the bullbar but everytime the official tried to open the
gate the lady held on to it so that he couldn't open it. Far out, it was so stupid it was like an episode of Mr Bean! What the hell is happening! In the end, after much arguing back and forth we paid her a total of 250 roubles, about $AUD7 and she handed over a scam yellow receipt that tries to look official but somehow misses the mark. I have to admit, the whole process was a bit stressful but I would've been cool with it in the end if it wasn't for that stupid woman. I jokingly said to Graeme afterwards that it would be hilarious if we got to the other side of Mongolia and they ask us for this yellow receipt as part of our exit. Totally not going to happen, but we'll keep it as a memento. Funnier still, we inadvertently caught most of the post-border scam on camera!
We met a European guy named Stefan at the Mongolian border who was on his way into Russia. He had some Mongolian Tugriks that he wanted to get rid of so we exchanged them for some Russian roubles we still had. Good outcome all round. He then told us that we would love Mongolia but he found it hard going. To be fair, he is travelling by bicylcle towing a little bike trailer. Kudos! Stefan is on his way to Vladivostok...lucky fella! On a side note, I think he sounded Swedish or something like that, but Graeme thinks he sounded Irish. With a name like Stefan, I'm sticking with European!
I can't believe that we woke up to a misty morning at Lake Baikal in Russia this morning, and have now setup camp in Mongolia. It's blown my mind! We had a celebratory borsh for lunch in Russia today. It was actually quite good and I think I'm going to miss borsh, particularly as we don't know what to expect in Mongolia but have been told on a couple of occasions that the food is nothing exciting. Ugh, hopefully it's not all boiled meat and canned fish here. Hello 2 minute noodles if it is! We've stocked up on "safe" food for this part of the trip, so we should have enough to see us through with the odd supplement from a cafe or supermarket. We're only ~300km from Ulaanbaatar so we'll definitely get there tomorrow on the tar highway. We plan to stay there at least one night, suss it out and see if we'll stay more or not. From then on, who knows how long it'll take us to get anywhere, because I'm not sure how far the tar roads extend past Ulaanbaatar.
Graeme's been a tad concerned that we haven't got a planned itinerary of where we'll be and when. I think he feels like that's a reflection that we haven't planned properly. Meh, I think it's great that we don't have that. It takes some of the stress out of it and means we can trot along at a more casual pace.
Graeme:
The drive out of our Baikal camp was uneventful, but the tricky bit took two stabs to get through. We drove all morning bar stopping for fuel and arrived at the border. Cassie said it all. She was somewhat nervous but I was as cool as a cucumber. We have some OK footage, but brilliant dialoge (mild coarse language) with the scammer. Before anyone jumps up and down about filming at a border, we re-installed and started the filming AFTER we'd left the border compound, the scammer was outside, but behind a traffic gate. I'd be surprised if we found it was legit, but after watching the video ref, the scam was revealed when the border guard didn't take part in her nonsense. Oh well, makes a good story to tell. We're parked in somewhat of a telly-tubby land, with quite tight steep rolling hills with light forest atop them. We're backed into some pines for shade which no doubt will litter all manor of bugs and pine cones on our roof in the night. Did I mention we are in MONGOLIA?!?
! wo00000p!
The rubber bush at the shock absorber mount we installed near Yakutsk is now missing! wow - what's going on?! It lasted a while considering it was the wrong part, but I did expect it to last the rest of the trip.
I've fitted no. 2 of 3 that we bought, and swapped the washers around. The other side doesn't have this configuration, but it's only got to last ~300KM of tar road to UB.
We're now two hours behind Canberra for those who are interested.
See you on the flip-side!
We got scammed of a whole $AUD7.44 at the Mongolian border today. Certainly not a bank breaker but doesn't make for a very nice border experience. The Russian side of the border was painstaking but nevertheless a breeze in comparison to the Mongolian side of the border. The Russians scrutinized every piece of paper we had, particularly our customs declaration form for the car, we then had to fill out two new customs declaration forms for the exit of the car to Mongolia. Our car was then searched top to bottom including the engine bay, all the main storage containers in the car and the boxes on the roof, they tapped the sides of the car (presumably to make sure they were hollow, the joke is that they're stuffed full of insulation batts. Would've been a pain if they made us remove all of that for inspection!), they even went so far as to have a sniffer dog jump in the car. We then had to drive a few metres up the driveway, park again, stand at another window so that our passpor
ts could be processed. Cool, another stamp in the passports!
Then came the Mongolian border crossing. OMG. Bit of a mess really. There was absolutely no signage to let us know what was happening or where to go. We drove through a pit of water, presumably an agricultural dip to clean the tyres or something. Lucky I had my window open at the time because I heard someone insistently whistling. I poked my head out the window to see a guy whistling and gesturing at us to go into an office. Ok, so Graeme went in whilst I waited with the car. Then out of nowhere an official looking lady came up to me with a receipt and asking for 50 roubles. No problem, that was legit. Then a guy in camo ran up to me with an "Arrival Card". Cool, thanks for that. So I filled out that form while I waited for Graeme to finish in the office. Then we drove towards what looked like a main building, again, no signage. When we got to a covered parking area we thought it made sense to drive up to the line that said "STOP". But again, lucky I had my window down, becau
se a different guy (seemingly didn't even work there) whistled at us and gestured that we stop where we were. Ok. So we stopped and out of nowhere a lady in camo came up to us and inspected the car by repeating what the Russians did except this time we didn't have to open the bonnet or have a dog walk through the car. She then gave us a small slip of paper and gestured that we follow her into the customs building. In there we filled out the form surrounded by 4 staff whilst another staff member walked up to us wanting to see our passports (seemingly just to serve his curiosity). By now we had been given a total of 4 tiny pieces of paper, all serving a different purpose and some with official stamps on them. Then we lined up (we were the only ones in the line), got our passports stamped. Cool, that was easy. Then we were told to go to another desk, that guy then told us no, you need to go over to that desk over there first, then come back to me. Ok. So we trotted off over to
the other desk where a lady stamped one of the forms we already had and gave us yet another tiny piece of paper which turned out to be another form to fill out. As I'm standing there filling that out, some random guy gives me two more forms which were customs declaration forms and says they're for each of us individually. Ok, so by now I've lost count of how many little pieces of paper and forms have been handed to me and which form is for which person at which desk. OMG. Then as I'm filling out the customs declaration forms, the guy tells me to hand them over. But hang on mate, I haven't finished filling them out yet! Gees, pressure! Graeme then gets told that he has to go out to the car because it needs another inspection by the guy who stamps one of the forms. So while he's out there I told the customs guy that this is hard work. I couldn't help griping at someone, it was such a stupid, disorganised process. I quickly bit my tongue because we were beholden to these people
to let us into the country. Yikes, so after all that paper work was done and everyone had finished going nuts with the stamps we could drive out to Mongolia. Ummm, not quite. We get to a closed gate where a guy in camo jumps out of a little side office and tells us to pull over. Damn, so close! We had to buy compulsory insurance at that point. Cool, a very important piece of paper we were expecting to have but absolutely not obvious that this office was for that purpose. All through this process there was a lady who had been sticking to us like fly to....you know what, asking for money. Clearly a scam. We were trying to ignore her and walk away but her and a guy kept blocking our path. So we argued with them outside the car, managed to get in the car and drove towards the gate that the official had opened for us but the lady went up and closed the gate on us! Bitch! (excuse the language). We nudged up to the gate with the bullbar but everytime the official tried to open the
gate the lady held on to it so that he couldn't open it. Far out, it was so stupid it was like an episode of Mr Bean! What the hell is happening! In the end, after much arguing back and forth we paid her a total of 250 roubles, about $AUD7 and she handed over a scam yellow receipt that tries to look official but somehow misses the mark. I have to admit, the whole process was a bit stressful but I would've been cool with it in the end if it wasn't for that stupid woman. I jokingly said to Graeme afterwards that it would be hilarious if we got to the other side of Mongolia and they ask us for this yellow receipt as part of our exit. Totally not going to happen, but we'll keep it as a memento. Funnier still, we inadvertently caught most of the post-border scam on camera!
We met a European guy named Stefan at the Mongolian border who was on his way into Russia. He had some Mongolian Tugriks that he wanted to get rid of so we exchanged them for some Russian roubles we still had. Good outcome all round. He then told us that we would love Mongolia but he found it hard going. To be fair, he is travelling by bicylcle towing a little bike trailer. Kudos! Stefan is on his way to Vladivostok...lucky fella! On a side note, I think he sounded Swedish or something like that, but Graeme thinks he sounded Irish. With a name like Stefan, I'm sticking with European!
I can't believe that we woke up to a misty morning at Lake Baikal in Russia this morning, and have now setup camp in Mongolia. It's blown my mind! We had a celebratory borsh for lunch in Russia today. It was actually quite good and I think I'm going to miss borsh, particularly as we don't know what to expect in Mongolia but have been told on a couple of occasions that the food is nothing exciting. Ugh, hopefully it's not all boiled meat and canned fish here. Hello 2 minute noodles if it is! We've stocked up on "safe" food for this part of the trip, so we should have enough to see us through with the odd supplement from a cafe or supermarket. We're only ~300km from Ulaanbaatar so we'll definitely get there tomorrow on the tar highway. We plan to stay there at least one night, suss it out and see if we'll stay more or not. From then on, who knows how long it'll take us to get anywhere, because I'm not sure how far the tar roads extend past Ulaanbaatar.
Graeme's been a tad concerned that we haven't got a planned itinerary of where we'll be and when. I think he feels like that's a reflection that we haven't planned properly. Meh, I think it's great that we don't have that. It takes some of the stress out of it and means we can trot along at a more casual pace.
Graeme:
The drive out of our Baikal camp was uneventful, but the tricky bit took two stabs to get through. We drove all morning bar stopping for fuel and arrived at the border. Cassie said it all. She was somewhat nervous but I was as cool as a cucumber. We have some OK footage, but brilliant dialoge (mild coarse language) with the scammer. Before anyone jumps up and down about filming at a border, we re-installed and started the filming AFTER we'd left the border compound, the scammer was outside, but behind a traffic gate. I'd be surprised if we found it was legit, but after watching the video ref, the scam was revealed when the border guard didn't take part in her nonsense. Oh well, makes a good story to tell. We're parked in somewhat of a telly-tubby land, with quite tight steep rolling hills with light forest atop them. We're backed into some pines for shade which no doubt will litter all manor of bugs and pine cones on our roof in the night. Did I mention we are in MONGOLIA?!?
! wo00000p!
The rubber bush at the shock absorber mount we installed near Yakutsk is now missing! wow - what's going on?! It lasted a while considering it was the wrong part, but I did expect it to last the rest of the trip.
I've fitted no. 2 of 3 that we bought, and swapped the washers around. The other side doesn't have this configuration, but it's only got to last ~300KM of tar road to UB.
We're now two hours behind Canberra for those who are interested.
See you on the flip-side!
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