Day 28 - The comforting expanse
Day 28: The comforting expanse
Compared to some of the places we'd woken up (the swamp springs to mind, or the hard ploughed field), this was heaven. As mentioned in the previous blog, the place we'd eventually found to rest our weary heads was perfect - soft sand to bed down on, small dunes with towering reeds surrounding us, affording a small amount of privacy from the outside world. Yeah, there were a few mosquitoes here and there, but nothing like the swarm of blood suckers we'd considering bunking with an hour before we found our home for a night.
We all got up, bright and early, as is custom on the rally. The sunlight easily penetrates flimsy tents, and so a 6.30am wake up was the norm. For some reason, Ed was yet again the first one up, almost relishing in his first task of the day to wake the rest of us up. Not an overly hard job however, as Will once again bedded down with Ed & Emma inside their palace of a tent, and I shared with Mackey.
There we no signs of our visitors from last night, and the soft sand suggested we had no further guests as we slept. Camp was packed up, each day getting quicker and quicker as the second nature ability took over - each of the 5 of us having our own unspoken tasks to complete as our temporary homes were dismantled and repacked into Pete & Percy. Breakfast was the usual affair - water and breakfast bars, the result of the Russian supermarket venture (although only the horrible "grape" flavours remained), and before long it was time to leave our sanctuary for a single night, and push onwards through the Mongolian wilderness.
We managed 3 meters, until we noticed one of the front tyres was completely flat, and needed a change. Not bad going, only a couple flats so far, and we were nearly 8 thousand miles into our trip! Will set about changing the tire, Mackey assisted, and I went about improving Pete the Saxo with things I could find. The result of which, was a real Camel Toe, duck taped to the bonnet. Well, it was more than just the toe - more, a real Camel's Lower Leg. Perfectly preserved in the arid Mongolian sun, it added yet more sense of adventure to the already heroic car.
The wheel was quickly changed, mental notes were made to have it fixed at the first sign of civilisation, and onwards we went. Today, our target was Altai - a large city (well, for
First though, we had more desert and mountains to cross. Without road signs to follow, and certainly no GPS to answer to, we did what we did best - headed East, and followed any track we could. This sounds easy, of course. Just follow the road, or the closest thing to a road. But in
The path we followed swooped North, then swooped South; other paths seemed to merge into our own, before shattering into half a dozen paths a couple of miles further, the correct one merely an educated guess. The conditions remained shockingly bad; almost comical, we looked back as we complained incessantly about the Eastern European roads. To be fair to our original moans, they were terribly bad - but at least they were straight, at least they were tarmac'd (mostly)!
Pete the Saxo and Percy the Peugeot continued on none the less through our final country of
As we drove through the wilderness, half of the landscape dominated by the Altai mountain range to our north, and the
Before we knew it, it was lunch time - and we happened to stop by a truck stop cafe! Well, I think it was more suited for anything and everything that passed, a lone group of whitewashed outbuildings in the middle of no-where, offering much needed sustenance to anyone who passed; us included. We parked up, careful not to run over the owner's dog napping in the midday sun, and stepped inside. A long banquet style table lay inside, complete with the benches you'd find at school. We were the only guests, so we sat at one end and began to chat amongst ourselves.
As we talked about the day so far, Will seemed unhappy with the blanked that lay behind him, and so pushed it further away. Possibly more than a push - a shove would probably be more accurate, but the weight underneath it seemed to surprise him. It was only at the third shove, did the blanket move; along with the snores and grunts of the Mongolian local asleep underneath! Little did we know, we weren't alone at all - instead sharing the room with a sleeping trucker, which Will had seen fit to push out of the way. Of course, the rest of us found this hilarious, as we whispered under hushed tones as you would do at the back of a classroom.
The cafe owner stepped into the room, and asked us what we wanted. Luckily, we asked for tea - it seemed to be the only drink on the menu, and before long our host reappeared along with 2 floral flasks and cups. Emma did the honours and poured our cups - tea, whether it is beautiful PG tips or Mongolian Chai, is a fantastic thing. Very stereotypically British, we all looked forward to it.
As the liquid was poured, we looked a little disappointed at the colour - very weak, far too milky. Perhaps only a singular tea bag struggled to diffuse an entire flask of water? Either way, it was welcome fluid after a morning of dusty driving. We all took the bowl like cup in two hands, and took a deep mouthful.
Salty tea. Who, in their right minds, would think salty tea would be a good idea?! After Ed, Emma, Mackey, Will and I struggled to swallow the first mouthful, we all burst into laughter. Here we were, in the middle of the Mongolian wilderness, in a strange roadside cafe, sitting in front of sleeping truckers, driving hot salted tea. A slight dawn of realisation perhaps, but any frustration we had with the day soon got swallowed by the tears of laughter we all shared. It was a good feeling - there'd been good times in the last few days, but a lot of tough times as well, and almost bitter feeling amongst us all slowly simmering away. We'd pushed on and on, so close to the end, but seemingly so far. To end up drinking the vilest drink in the world, in a situation that probably no one else would find funny, was a welcome distraction from everything else. Oh, how we laughed.
Before too long, as we ordered lunch (with absolutely no idea what was to come out - just nodding when the Mongolian owner motioned for food), we were joined by the Micra lot (Hass etc, their team name escapes me). The school-esque style bench and lunch table was now full, 10 on each side, anxiously awaiting the mysterious lunch. What came out wasn't the worst thing we'd ever eaten; a bowl of watery noodles, strange vegetables and questionable meat (which we couldn't quite work out which animal it had come from), a traditional Mongolian lunch. Some of us on the table appreciated it more than others, but it was nice to sit around as a big collective and take an hour from the relentless and punishing driving.
We settled the bill, comparative pennies, and all bundled back into our cars to restart the journey to Altai. Pete the Saxo waited for Ed to reverse back onto the path, and what seemed like slow motion, helplessly watched as Ed (despite the countless thousands of empty square miles surrounding our small group of cars) reversed straight into a parked Micra! Lots of laughter, a few choked back tears, but luckily not much damage - a smashed front headlight on the Micra, and Percy the Peugeot remained unscathed.
Of course, we were all rally brethren. Accidents happen! The Micra boys laughed it off, much to the embarrassment of Ed, and the second attempt to get back on the road went much smoother - Ed managed NOT to crash into one of the only cars in a hundred square miles, and onwards we went.
The rest of the day was relatively uneventful, still at the mercy of the Mongolian landscape. The desert stretched out as far as our eyes could see, the travelling surface still nothing more than worn tracks we were becoming so used to. The only stop we took for the rest of the day was a David Attenborough style look at a herd of wild camels; a dozen or so of them, in the middle of no-where, obviously keen for some attention. Will, our roving animal expert, took the video camera and decided to see how close he could get to one…
Despite his ninja like steps, the camel didn't hang around too long. I provided some comedy commentary over the CB Radio for our small group to hear, probably the causing factor which resulted in the camel bolting (although, strangely, Will seemed to have found a camel with a Swastika on its face. I kid you not. It's in the video).
After our little break, a chance to take in a minuscule part of this amazing country, we again started up our chariots and continued on towards Altai. We'd read, in Em's Lonely Planet, that there was a hotel that boasted such luxuries as hot water and hot food. That was our target, and to get there, meant a long afternoon's drive - minimal stops (which at the moment seemed dependant on whether Percy the Peugeot wanted another flat tire), and attempting to drive along the path that would indeed lead us there.
The afternoon drive seemed never ending - the landscape never changes, desert expanse for thousands of miles fringed by some distant mountains, completely unable to gauge any sort of scale - for all we knew, they could have been 10 or 100 miles away. For hours upon hours, we drove along the desert paths - one minute along the corrugated hard surface that continually shook our poor cars (and selves) to bits, the next along a freshly worn path that seemed forgiving after the first.
Eventually though, we did approach those mountains that framed our point of view for days. Our location on our maps was nothing more than an educated guess. Perhaps even less than that - we knew we were no longer in Olgii, and not yet at Altai. Somewhere in-between. Too far north, too far south, was anyone's guess. We were in a stretch of desert hundreds of miles wide and blindly heading in a
The five of us, randomly shared out amongst the two cars, never seemed to get bored though. it's strange; in the
Music and chats filled the car as it bumped over the rough surface, the back seat passenger perhaps even trying to steal an hours sleep; but even gazing out towards the horizon, the sheer expanse nothing more than dust and sand, a random music album the only thing filling the air, you still didn't get bored. Maybe the nothingness that lay in front of us, behind us, all around us, gave way for time to think; the lack of trivial distractions like road signs and anonymous drivers gave us all a chance to appreciate where we were; what we were doing; who we were.
Perhaps that last paragraph sounds a little too "new age" - but it's very hard to put into words! Hopefully this is just another reason why you, whoever you are reading this, really do need to do the rally.
After an endless few hours, those mountains that remained just too far to make out any detail, began to burgeon before us. What was an obscure prominence of earth began to transform into tangible mountains. The thought of something other to travel through excited us all (simple things, simple minds), and that following hour or two flew by much faster. Before relatively too long, we reached the foot of them, and followed the path as it moved from the level plane of the desert to an ascending, windy trail through the peaks.
A welcome change from the straight lines of the desert, this new road/trail/path was a lot more interesting as it snaked through the hills and mountains. We ascended and descended, the cars never faltering in their mission, and we all felt as if we were getting closer. Perhaps a skill picked up, what with us being veteran adventurers now, but we all felt it - Altai was close.
The 20th hill/mountain we passed over/around, and there it was - the great city of Altai, one of the top 15 cities (by population), the welcome oasis in the desert; except, of course, it wasn't the sprawling metropolis we expected. In fact, it looked more in size like a sprawling village. The number of houses/buildings with more than 2 floors could be counted on one hand, the majority of the place filled with gers and tents of some sort. We did though embrace the tarmac that weaved through this shanty-city. As soon as we reached the city (!) limit, the dirt and dust gave way to this black carpet of indulgence (well, still containing pot holes of alarming proportion, but beggars can't be choosers!) and we rode further into the city like triumphant voyagers.
Following the rudimentary map in our Mongolian guide, we set sail for the hotel, which promised a large number of rooms (touching into double digits) and a restaurant. Perfect, we'd all agreed - such as we wanted. As mentioned a lot in the last paragraph, it wasn't a large place - but the complete lack of road signs or recognisable, navigable signs or marks meant we were driving blind (again).
A couple of trips around the entire city (literally, driving around the entire thing in 10 minutes and ending up back at the start), we began to get a feel of the layout; Ed & Ems then successfully located our hotel for the night. Understandably, what with the country nestling under
The receptionist seemed surprised to see such a motley crew enter the double doors, but that look passed when she closely examined the state of us and our vehicles. No doubt many a Mongol Rallyer had passed through those doors in their quest for the finish line. We enquired about rooms, and were told 3 were available; an ensuite, a double and a single. The happy couple took the ensuite, the cousins took the double, and I had the single.
If you'd visited this hotel as a regular holiday maker, two weeks in the Summer holidays at a nice Mongolian destination, you’d probably have stored right back down to the reception without even unpacking, demanding they upgrade you from these shocking rooms. Whereas in fact, you were in the deluxe suite already. But for us weary adventurers; they had everything we needed; a bed, 4 walls, and a roof.
Anything more than that, advertised or not, was lacking; the “en-suite” rooms consisted of a toilet, and a shower that didn’t work. The other rooms shared a bathroom with half the hotel, a dribble of lukewarm water fed by a hosepipe was the promised shower. Still, it had Western style toilets – no more digging our own hole in the desert!
After a quick shower and freshen up, the five of us headed down to the in-hotel restaurant. Not overly big, probably six tables, a couple of which already in use. We sat down, ordered some cold beers and shared an unspoken satisfaction with the world. The beer tasted surprisingly good, we were comparatively clean, we had a roof above our heads for the night, and were about to eat something that hadn’t come out of a foil packet.
It wasn’t a huge menu, a single sheet of paper listed with Mongolian dishes; puntuuztzee khuurga, narnee maksan khuurga, chochgnegei bansh, tomcnee khuchmal, ondogtsee bnooteic, uzzngei budaa. No, that isn’t me haphazardly smashing my hands on the keyboard, that’s some real Mongolian cuisine there. Luckily however, the menu did offer a translation – of sorts. They’d made the effort to translate into English, although the translations didn’t always make sense:
- puntuuztzee khuurga
Great string of noodle the beef
Still, it was hot, it was fresh, and we didn’t have to cook it on a stove the size of a tea cup. It looked great.
The waitress came over, somewhat amused by us, and asked us what we wanted. Instead of reading, and no doubt failing miserably at the near impossible pronunciation, we resorted to the point and nod. It’s a universal constant – everyone knows what the point and nod means.
We started off with the nice things – “great string of noodle the beef” sounded great, as did “breast chicken cheese nice”. But, as we went through the motions and chose our meals, the waitress uttered “no have” all too many times. In fact, out of 15 items, I think they only had 3 dishes available! It would have been much, much quicker for her to have just pointed to the ones we wanted first, rather than let us go through everything else. Maybe that was her evening’s entertainment!
Still, what came out was lovely, as what that evening – the five of us, sat around the table, still ecstatic with our progress so far, very happy with a good day’s driving, and inching closer and closer to Ulaan Baatar and the finish line that awaited us. We didn’t have a late night; contrary to popular belief, sitting down for 12 hours a day is very tiring! With a few beers and a good (yet unknown) meal inside us, a couple hours of chatting about the day (and journey) so far amongst company you couldn’t tire of, we all retired for the evening, ready for the final push to UB.
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