Biysk, Russia

With a heavy heart, we waved good-bye to Sibylle, Rene and the Oasis Guesthouse in UB and hit the road again. Today we were heading to Tsetserleg and we were planning on staying at a Guesthouse that we had been referred to, “Fairfield”. By taking a back road, we managed to get through UB in only 1 hour, saving 30 minutes on the time it took on our arrival and then once through UB, we turned west and started heading back towards Russia.

The road was bitumen, mostly, and whilst there were sections with potholes and chasms, we managed to make pretty good time. We reach a T-intersection, which was about 15 kms east of Kharkhorum (for the uninformed, Kharkhorum used to be the capital of Mongolia) and about 120km away from Tsetserleg, and turned right (that’s west). You can imagine our surprise to find that the road from the T-intersection to Kharkhorum was dirt, which turns to mud when mixed with melting snow. Yes, that’s right, we have climbed up as we headed west and found snow again! Thankfully, not the falling variety, but still not good for driving conditions. We had a few hiccups getting through Kharkhorum and finding the road to Tsetserleg but once we did, we were stoked to see that it was bitumen again, even though potholed and bumpy. On arrival in Tsetserleg, we took a bit to find the Guesthouse but we did, eventually, and we happy to find that the manager spoke very good English, even if rather Americanised, but we were mildly amused to learn that the owner (or Proprietor) was an Aussie. Sadly, we didn’t get a chance to meet him. However, Nick was able to talk to Sarah about road conditions south from Tsetserleg and after what he heard, we decided to backtrack to Kharkhorum and the T-intersection and head down to the southern route that way.

On reaching the T-intersection, we encountered paved road again, at least for a while until the map changed our road from purple to green. One of the downfalls of using a local language map is that you have no idea what things in the Legend mean! But we have worked out that a green road is a permanent unpaved road. Sounds ok, but the Mongolians turn this into Spaghetti roads.

Let me explain things another way – in Australia (or any civilized country), when you are driving you will come upon signs that tell you how far you are from cities or towns, you will see distance markers every 5-10 kms, you’ll see advisory signs that warn of the road ahead, eg steep hill, sharp corners, S-bends, as well as speed limit signs, warnings about work ahead, etc. Even if you are driving in remote parts of Oz, you will see such luxuries. In Mongolia, forget road signs! Yes, they do exist but predominantly only around UB. Speed limit signs – only on the approach to the toll gates into large towns or the Police checkpoint. As for what towns are ahead! HAH!! Add to these minor inconveniences, is the fact that if the road is not bitumen, then you can make your road anywhere. This track to rough, then drive next to it. You want to be near the track next to the road being built, then drive across-country till you can join the track. Just make sure you don’t hit any stock that is wandering about. There are NO fences to keep stock off the road! And goats run a close second to sheep for stupidity! And because you aren’t on the “road”, if there are any signs, then you won’t see them anyway! If you’re lucky, there will be power lines running to the next town and you can keep them in sight, but this isn’t always possible.

Anyway, I’ll get off my little soap-box now – so, we are on the way to Arvaikheer and had to battle with good old-fashioned mud! But before we got to the mud, when we first came upon the dirt road, we were a bit trepidatious about which way to go, but after about 15 minutes of driving, we passed by a Subaru Impreza. Great, we thought, we can keep his dust cloud in sight and follow him. This worked fine until we got to the mud and found the Impreza nose-first in a muddy water-crossing. We got across the crossing, and used our winch to pull the car out. We thought that as we had been using his dust cloud as a navigation device, it was only neighbourly. They set off and were looking for a way through the bog. I suppose that I should mention that we were driving across a valley floor, which had a lot of water soak and therefore it was very muddy and boggy. Anyway, Nick passed them in full 4WD mode (Low 4WD and both diff locks engaged) and proceeded to get bogged! The three male passengers of the Subaru came over to help us, as well as a Mongolian shepherd on his horse to give directions from his perch. Nick got to deploy his Maxx Trax which seriously impressed the Mongolians. After much spraying of mud and getting thoroughly dirty, the troopy was un-bogged and we all set off again. Within about 2 minutes, the Subaru was bogged again, and so this time we deployed the Maxx Trax AND the winch. They were all happy campers and Nick was happy to have used some of his toys and felt justified in the expense. So we continued off to Arvaikheer (or were we?). I asked Nick, are they going to Arvaikheer? Hmmmm, so after about 30 minutes or so, we encountered a Bongo-type tray-back bogged. The Mongolians in the Subaru kindly offered the use of our winch to pull the van out, which Nick did and everyone was happy. In gratitude, the passengers of the Subaru gave us a bottle with something in it to drink. “It’s good”, they indicated. Have you ever tried Fermented Mare’s Milk? If you haven’t, then don’t rush to do so! I’m not a fan of milk anyway (schoolyard milk in primary school is to blame) but this was …. YUK! Smiling nicely, we thanked them and hopped back in the car. Finally, after 50kms of mud and snow, we reach Arvaikheer and found a hotel. But the car was putrid! We wondered if there any car-washes in town and found one directly behind our hotel. In fact, it was in the yard of the hotel. For the princely sum of 10000 Turgrits (or $A7.20) the car was scrubbed and hosed within an inch of its life.

One of the difficulties of getting a room in a hotel in Mongolia is Wi-Fi. We had been rather spoilt in UB and Tsetserleg because the guesthouses where we stayed were run by either Europeans or Australians, so asking about Wi-Fi was not a problem. We’re standing at the Reception Desk of the Arvaikheer Palace (truly!) and asked if they had internet. “Internet? Yes”. “Wi-Fi?” we asked. “Wi-Fi, no. Wireless.” In my understanding, isn’t Wi-Fi wireless? Anyway, in Mongolia “wireless” means that you plug an Ethernet cable into your computer! Yes, that sounds like wireless, doesn’t it?

Next stop for us was going to be Bayankhongor – Nick had originally planned to drive here directly from Tsetserleg but the road (dirt again) was still covered in snow and so wasn’t passable. We found a hotel and stayed in the Luxe Suite which gave us a bedroom and a sitting room but no internet and not hot water! Nick was not a happy camper! But seriously this was the second hotel that did not have hot water! Is it so difficult to get? From Arvaikheer to Bayankhongor was more dirt but we were becoming more comfortable with the guesswork navigation, using powerlines or distant dust-clouds, but if we couldn’t see any of these, then we were on our own!

Still on the road, driving through a valley, which usually turned out to be boggy, we found a poor Mongol with his motorcycle bogged! So Nick valiantly offered to winch him out. It was funny because the Mongol thought that Nick was going into the river to help pull the bike out, but Nick was wearing his (not so clean) Moleskins and just handed him the winch cable! Finally, we decided to camp! The weather was warming up and we were seriously disillusioned with the hotels! And there were no towns of any size in the near vicinity (or within 100kms). The landscape we were driving through more closely resembled a moonscape, but we found a
quiet place to set up camp. I cooked Spaghetti Bolognaise with some “beef” that I had bought in a supermarket in UB. I’m not sure if you can have Horse Bolognaise, but it certainly didn’t taste like beef!

We survived the night under canvas and headed off to the next town, which was Altai (Altay?). One thing we have noticed is that the price of Diesel is going up. When we first hit UB, it was 1830 Tgr/Litre but in the Western Steppes, it has gone up to 2050 Tgr/Litre. And when you have to buy 100 litres then it becomes expensive. Everything else in Mongolia has been relatively cheap – except fuel! We reached Altai which looked like a biggish town on the map and we thought that as it was a provincial capital then it wouldn’t be too difficult to find a hotel – WRONG!! After driving up and down all the streets and being looked at like we were the new freak show in town, we found hotel where no-one spoke English (again!) and there was no Internet (again!). But then we heard some magic words, “Hi, where are you from?”. Yes, a woman had heard us speaking English and come into the hotel to help us out. Through her kind interpretation services, we worked out how to get hot water in the shower (primitive put & take system), that there was no breakfast and there was an Internet Café in town. She introduced herself with an unpronounceable (and unspellable) Mongolian name but then said “But everyone calls me The Happy Lady”, so we did too! She took us down to the centre of town (about 2 minutes walk) and showed us where the Internet Café was and also showed us where we could get some lunch. After a quick check of emails and update on Facebook, we went off to have lunch and got some sort of Mutton and Rice, with Vegetables dish – it was very tasty, but Mutton is rather fatty in texture. As we walked back to the hotel, The Happy Lady stuck her head out of her lounge window and called us in to see her home. She was having a type of Mongolian Afternoon Tea with some friends and so we had a really great afternoon chatting, answering questions and trying Mongolian Tea (milky & the tea looks like it contains more chaff than tea leaves). She invited us back for Breakfast the next morning and even promised us coffee and peanut butter for breakfast!

By now, we were only two nights away from the Mongolian-Russian border as we left Altai and headed to Khovd (Hovd). After talking to the Happy Lady, her friends and her husband, we thought that we would have a bitumen road between Altai & Khovd. No way! Instead we had 450kms of bad roads and corrugations. Poor Nick was whacked, so I drove the last 120kms. Would we camp or would we hotel it? We thought that if we could find another nice spot to camp that we would but the landscape was still very moon-like and VERY rocky so it was back to hotels. Whilst in Mongolia, we have encountered a variety of beds, but they were generally hard and some mattresses were remininscent of a kapok mattress from my Grandmother’s old house. But the hotel in Khovd took the cake! The mattress was a timber box frame, covered with 1cm of wadding and fabric stapled in place! We used the doonas as extra padding and had what was probably the worst night’s sleep so far on the trip! Couldn’t wait to get out of there, could we?

Our last day of driving was another long day (460kms) but we had decided to stop in a small blip on the map called “Tsagaanuur”. We went to the shop to ask about a hotel and we met a guy outside the shop who spoke English. He offered to take us to the hotel if we would follow him on his motorbike. He drove for about 100m and stopped at a small building and said “This is my home, you come inside”. We thought that he was inviting us in to see his home and offer maybe a cup of Chai. Which he did, but he also offered us a bed for the night. So we spent our last night in Mongolia in the home of Robert & Clara (English versions of their names) and their three little children. They were actually from Kazakhstan and Robert was an electrician working with the Mongolian Army. He spoke quite good English and his wife Clara spoke some English. We had a great afternoon but the hit was when Duggy came inside. For those of you who don’t know Duggy – he is a stuffed Dugong that travels with MJ. The boys (2yrs & 3yrs) loved Duggy!! We had lots of Kazak Chai (take a refectory-sized teapot, add 2 teaspoons of tea and 3 teaspoons of salt, then mix in 3 tablespoons of coffee-whitener), which is drinkable if you add lots of sugar! We had a lovely evening with this incredibly generous family.

So, it is our last morning in Mongolia and we had a short drive of about 26 kms to the Border, which opens at 9am. We got there at about 8:30am and expected a bit of a wait. After paying another tax and another toll (??), we went through a gate and thought, “Is that all for Mongolian formalities?”. No, we then did the Immigration, Customs Clearance, Car Clearance dance and drove through another set of gates, but we couldn’t see the Russian half of the procedure. We set off up and over the hill for about 1km before we reached the first Russian gate where the guard took a long time to look at every single page in our passports and then we kept going for another 18 kms until we reached the Russian border at Tashanta, did the Immigration and Customs Clearance and then started the Car Clearance. After four attempts to fill out the forms (1 Russian set and 3 English sets), the Customs officer filled out one form and told us to copy exactly, which we did. Back into the car, through another gate and then I had a panic moment – we still had the Arrival half of our Immigration Form, so I went back to the gate and spoke to the guard who pointed further down the road and said Immigration Control. So we arrived at 8:30am and FINALLY getting our last stamp at 12:15pm, we were back in Russia! Hooray!! Time to play “Back in the USSR” by the Beatles! ☺

We set off enjoying the glorious bitumen – no potholes, no dirt, it was lovely! But after about 160kms of driving through some of the most glorious scenery, we found a flat spot next to a river and set up camp in the early afternoon. After the stress of the past few days, we needed some R&R. It was a lovely sunny day and we got to take the boots off and wear our Tevas and enjoy the sunshine, as well as do a bit of maintenance to make sure that the car wasn’t about to fall apart after all those kms of corrugations and potholes. Looking at the weather, we consigned the winter sleeping bags to the not-required pod and went to bed using our summer sleeping backs (rated to -5°C). BIG mistake! I woke up at 2am with two blocks of ice at the end of my legs and we were both freezing our asses off! But it was a lovely spot to camp!