Storms a coming in the Gobi - Mongolia
After leaving Khovd we had our sights set on Altai which is a town that was originally built by the Russians as a stop over on the main route south. Its right in the Gobi. The road surface deteriorated faster than we could have expected. The 5km of paved road quickly turned into a rutted nightmare. (more…)
Heather on a fast stretch in the Gobi - Mongolia
After the tour we decided that we would stay in Olgii to find some time to get the unfinished tasks done.. Unfortunately our time was mared by a mysterious virus that we both caught. After a night of watching a movie and having some vodka it hit home hard resulting in being seriously ill for the next few days… Despite being ill in Olgii we needed to get going again. (more…)
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…)
Turbaza Log Cabin - Russia
After getting Heathers bike fixed by Victor it was around 9pm at night.. unfortunately we had yet to organise a hotel and needed to find accommodation. Without us even asking we got asked if we wanted to stay with Victor (the mechanic/bike god) and his girlfriend. We repacked Heathers bike, and helped clean up (a little bit)…. and then set off… Heather decided to take the wrong turn when Victors girlfriend turned away from the convoy… we soon got back to Victors place after a quick stop off at the supermarket to get some food, beer etc… After a beer and a beautiful meal we sat down and chatted (as best we could when we didn’t speak much Russian) over shots of vodka and ground black pepper… we soon got loads of great tips on where we should go and what there was to see on our route through the Altai to Mongolia… (more…)
Two Humped "Camel" ride - Kazakhstan
After such a chilli border crossing our first objective was to find a nice sheltered place where we could have lunch… It turns out that the road from the Kyrgyzstan Border on the Kazakhstan side was actually really terrible. While riding along Heather startled some dogs which chased after her…. they then gave up.. unfortunately I was coming along behind her and they really wanted a piece of my leg.. one of the dogs was running along trying to grab onto my leg right next to the bike.. I accelerated hard on the rough, wet gravel road to get away only to find my traction went on holidays and I nearly ended up in the ditch on the side of the road with the dogs… it was so lucky that the traction came back and I managed to get away… It was a true brown pants moment.
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