Mongolia and the Altai mountains
Sunday, September 20th, 2009
Mountain Pass - Mongolia
Ahhhh finally we had reached Mongolia.. The border crossing out of Russia was fairly easy except that they had closed the border for lunch… we managed to get into Mongolia 5 minutes before their border had closed at 5pm… we had hoped to be able to get through a little earlier so we had time to get a good campsite when we got into Mongolia.. Unfortunately it wasn’t so… Immediately after getting into Mongolia the road went from Asphalt on the Russian side to a rutted, corrugated mess of gravel and sand.. the road was in such poor shape that the locals didn’t even bother to use it.. Instead they used one of the 40 alternatives… this made navigation very difficult and we had to keep asking the shepherds where the hell the road went.. on several occassions we had to back track to find another track so that we could make it to our intended destination Olgii…. After 3 hours of riding we came to our first mountain pass… In most countries the road upto a mountain pass goes through a series of zigzags or follows the river up a gradual slope….. (more…)
