Finally the Ferry had set sail for Japan and we actually made it onto the boat.. two hobo riders actually got let out of Russia.. wow we are impressed.. haha.. we thought it was some sort of trick to keep us there.. In all honesty Russia has been one of the highlights and we will surely miss it. The dramas of getting a bike with 5 punctures to the port was enough fun but all up it made it and we are glad for that. On the other hand its great to be back on the road or in this case the sea again and moving ever closer to our final destination.

The ferry Journey was scheduled to leave at 9pm but boarding was meant to be at noon, in the end boarding was actually closer to 2pm and we set sail at around 4pm. Just in time to leave the port with the sun setting in the background which gave us the perfect opportunity to take loads of photo’s of the snow covered islands as we mad our way out through the shipping channels. On board with us were the Japanese group who we had been meeting up with regularly since Mongolia and all was smooth sailing.. that was until we left the security of the harbour and the islands. The wind picked up and started to get a little rough.. the journey was scheduled to take around 36 hours so we should arrive in Fushiki Japan around 10am leaving us the whole day to clear customs.

The journey itself was pretty uneventful however what we thought was a rough sea going trip was actually seen by many of the other passengers who traveled the route regularly as being smooth.. ouch! I guess we just need to work on our sea legs.. or better yet just keep our land legs.. After struggling to keep ourselves entertained on a pretty quiet cruise we woke early to see land.. finally we had made it to Japan and the weather was beautiful and warm.. just what we needed. After breakfast we went down to our cabin to have our inspection by Japanese Customs. It was then that we found out that there was a Holiday in Japan and we wouldn’t be able to take our bikes off the boat until the following day.. not to worry we managed to stay on the boat for an additional night for $20US per person. When we booked the additional night we asked if there was food and we got told yes.. what they really mean is that its $20 for the cabin and then you have to pay extra for the food that is available.. the complete opposite to what we had done previously on the boat (cabin and food inclusive)… given that they wanted $9 per person per meal we decided against eating any of their high quality cooked cardboard and got some sushi from outside the port… Still we had to conserve our money as we only had $100USD in Yen and we had to buy insurance etc for our bikes.

The following day we got driven from the port to the local JAF office where they had to verify that our import permits (carnets) were authentic. We then had to go back and get them approved by the Japanese Customs Authority. From there we had to buy insurance and finally get the bikes off the boat and out of the port. The bad news was that Heathers bike tyre had gone flat again while on the journey and we needed to take her bike wheel off and take it to the service station to get pumped up again. While we waited in the port we had decided that we would go into the nearest big town of Toyama and look to get the bike Tyre repaired.

Snow at the Rail Station - Vladivostok

After a relaxing night in the Hotel we woke early with the intention of getting our package from DHL which included our Carnets (bike passports/permits required for entering Japan).. at the same time we would need to organise our ferry tickets for that night.. It was all going to be a HUGE rush but it was possible given that the Ferry was scheduled to leave at 10pm that night. First stop was breakfast then we went to the port to organise tickets.. The office said that it opened at 10am.. we waited there ringing the door bell until at least 10:30 before anyone was able to assist us.. Heather got the information first and ran down to me while I was trying to get a mobile top up card.. “helllllpppppp no ferrrryyyyyyyyy”.. Ferry Cancelled..  panic mode had set in for Heather and I went back to the office and asked.. The web page said you have a ferry that sails today and yet you say its cancelled.. when is the next one.. The next one is on Sunday 1st of November. Bugger that means we will need to stay in Vladivostok for another 6 nights.. there is no way that we could afford the hotel for 6 nights so we would have to down grade to a proper soviet era quality shack… At least that gave us some additional time to organise everything which was a blessing in disguise but a huge pain in the arse.. Now that we wouldn’t arrive in Japan we would miss the next two ferries from Japan to Australia… That means the next ferry would probably be on the 26th of November.. ARGHHH… it was all becoming a big mess.. too much of a mess but we had to get home and this was the only (affordable) way.. To make matters worse the ferry company had dramatically increased the cost of the ferry tickets by no longer providing availability for non-cabin tickets (e.g. just get a seat on one of the floors) making it now cost 3 times more than we had planned.. bugger.. and they only accepted cash on boarding.. plus they didn’t help us at all with trying to clear the customs paper work required.. they gave us the address for customs and went there with the hope that it was as easy as every other time.. we would have to go there the next day.. we had to find new accommodation and fast.. after searching around we found a place and managed to get a special discount for staying 6 nights.. it was a huge relief and we had sea views and a verandah too!. Totally sweet..

The sea in Vladivostok - Russia

The next morning we set out to sort out the customs stuff.. only after walking for 45minutes in the freezing gale force winds did we find out that nobody at customs knew what we needed to do.. it seems shipping motorcycles is not something that people do very often…. After going back and forwards between different people and getting the assistance of a lovely English speaking lady named Tamara, we managed to get the name of a company that could help us… we walked all the way back to the other side of the harbour to find the company… once we found them they told us that their services would be out of our price range.. they wanted 10,000 roubles for each bike to clear customs.. what a rip off there was no way but they did give us the contact details of someone else who could help us for a more reasonable rate which we paid 1,500 roubles per bike…

Yuri Melnikov

ph +7(4232) 220 887

Mobile +7 (902) 5243447

Snow - Vladivostok

We arranged to meet up with him the following morning and organise the customs paper work.. The next day everything went really smoothly and we had all the bikes put into the secure customs area. The process was so easy.. It turns out the building that we got given the details for the other day was completely the wrong place. With Yuri we went to a different building and got the stuff sorted almost instantly. It just goes to show that the shipping company Bisintour is terrible. That day it started the saga of trying to get enough money out to pay for the ferries. For some unknown reason we have never been able to withdraw the right amount of money using the ATM cards.. it always seems that they limit us to around £150 which would make it take many days to get our funds sorted for the ferry which we did not have. In the end we spoke to HSBC and they said to go around to numerous ATM’s from MANY banks and take out our daily limit at each one.. we did this and got the necessary funds… finding unique banks is a tough job there seems to be only 4 banks in Russia that accept HSBC Maestro cards… bugger and we didn’t want to cash advance our credit cards. At least we got it all sorted eventually and now had the time to relax, check out the sights until Sunday when our Ferry was “scheduled” to leave… lets hope it leaves this time.. we can not afford to spend another week in Vladivostok.. its already been a month later than we had planned to get here and the snow was forecast to start on the coming weekend… That afternoon we met a Dutch Cyclist who had ridden across Russia to Vladivostok… on a bicycle.. madness I say.. he was stranded and needed to find some affordable accommodation. We helped him out with some basic directions for the only hostel in Vladivostok.. Thankfully he found it okay and we organised to meet up for beers the following night.

World War 2 Submarine Torpedo's - Vladivostok

The next day was all about finally doing tourist things. We went to check out a World War 2 submarine and some other sites around Vladivostok. It was all pretty chilled out and that evening went out for drinks. It was nice to catch up with some other travellers again and break our cycle of sleeping early that we had got from camping so long in the cold (the warmest place being our sleeping bags).. all up it was a nice evening.

The next morning our bikes got put on the ferry.. lets hope it actually leaves the port this weekend.. with one day until the snow is scheduled its all going to be an interesting few days. Thankfully we had organised everything in advance and hopefully we would be more prepared for the ferry than we would have been the previous time arriving from Turkey.

Ferry to Fushi - Vladivostok

Saturday morning we woke to heavy snow fall and it was still snowing.. joy we could actually take advantage of the snow without needing to ride anywhere.. which was especially important given that we didn’t need to pack our bikes or do anything important.. so we went out to take photos and have a few beers for lunch as a farewell to Russia (premature of course).. (HL: on the way back to the Hotel James stacked it on the ice feel on his bum hehe didnt have the camera handy though )…. It was a lazy evening after a big lunch watching movies and relaxing before we had our ferry trip to Japan.. On Sunday we woke to a beautiful sunny day that was nice and still… Perfect for our route to Japan.. We had breakfast and made it on board. Thankfully the boat actually set sail and we started our trip to Japan… Only delayed by another 7 days..

Long Grass Riding - Russia

Shortly after arriving in Khabarovsk we found ourselves a hotel.. as we pulled up outside a fancy white Mercedes Benz drove into the drive way.. while Heather was getting prices for the hotel I waited with the bikes. One of the guys from the car introduced himself and asked us where we are headed to and where we have come from. He was visibly interested on he details and he went into the hotel. Shortly afterwards Heather came back and had decided that we would stay in the hotel. I then started to unpack the bikes of anything that was easily to steal…. we really needed to get in and have a shower and clean ourselves up.. we looked every bit the stinky bikers… 10 days with only the most basic of washing really starts to show. Our motorcycle clothes which had been completely cleaned in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia now looked like they have never been washed… all the camping, wet snow, (HL: running away from drunk lumberjacks), grit and mechanical repairs leave stains that just look naaassstttttyyyy… but its all character building.. hahah nothing like walking down the road and people go over to the other foot path because they think your a bum! Anyway enough of our rant on personal hygiene or lack there of…

Spooky Forest - Russia

After entering the Hotel the guy who we met outside spoke to the receptionist and our she guided us to a nicer room.. we didn’t think much of it at first the new room was slightly larger. After cleaning ourselves up and putting on fresh clothes we needed to find the restaurant in the Hotel… we saw on the front that they had an Asian restaurant so we really looked forward to it. It turns out that it actually had a Korean restaurant (we are now only a few hundred kilometres away from North Korea) that did the full Korean bbq experience.. just what we needed good food.. while we sat down and ordered it turned out that they actually served Australian beef, which was a pleasant surprise. After ordering some champagne and our meals to celebrate making it this far we chilled out and chatted.. a short time after our meal we had the guy from outside this time with a Translator come and join us at our table. He wanted to tell us how when he was a boy he always wanted a bike but his parents wouldn’t let him, turned out that he owned the Hotel and was heavily involved in the “committee of the council of Federation on Defense and Security”.. he was a nice guy and he invited us to one of his other Hotels the next day for Chinese lunch. We gladly accepted and arranged to meet him the next day for lunch. He then offered us the services of his staff to help us find our way around the city and to do anything we wanted… it was all a very nice gesture and we really appreciated the offer.

The next morning we decided that we would need to take him up on the offer and use their services to sort out our visa. It turns out that the Hotel in Chita that we stayed at actually didn’t register as they had claimed to have done. That means that we are illegally travelling in Russia which was not something that we wanted to deal with… while we had the availability of people who could speak English and Russian and knew the process we should get it sorted.. The hotel organised for someone from the passport/immigration office to come out and meet up. We all then went by Hotel taxi back to their office, she filled out all the forms for us. We then had to go and pay the 3000 rouble fine each at the bank. Shortly after returning with the receipt we had our finger prints taken and had to sign numerous pieces of paper that our translator assured us said nice things… 2 Hours later we left and all up it was a real pain in the … getting the visas registered and the previous hotel misleading us making it a very expensive mistake.

We made it to the Hotel and met up with the guy who informed us that one of his meeting scheduled had changed and he wouldn’t be able to meet up. He however said that we could go and use one of his private rooms and have a feast.. One of his assistants ordered all the food we would ever want and we ate the best Chinese food I have had in years. The best bit being that it was all free!!! it was a shame that we didn’t have the opportunity to meet up with the guy again.. maybe in another life.. that afternoon we went back to the Hotel to relax on a very full stomach… the plan was to get back out of the Hotel and find an Internet cafe.. reality was that we got lazy and sleepy after eating such a big lunch and did almost nothing for the rest of the day…

The next morning we prepared early to leave the Hotel.. we needed to get to Vladivostok so that we could make it to the Monday the 26^th Ferry for Japan. That gave us two days to ride around 775km.. the bonus being that it was now warming up as we headed further south and towards to coast.. now we had daily highs of 6-10c rather than 2c or -2c… as we went to leave we realised that Heathers tyre had gone down significantly and we needed to get it pumped up. We also had to adjust her chain again so that we could reduce the already shocking wear that we had caused it.. An hour and a half later we had sorted all our stuff and got back on our way. But not before breaking the foot pump that we had bought the previous day… piece of crap broke in two pumps… Heather was leading and she lead us right back into the middle of no where.. not to worry we went back to the road the hotel was on and went the opposite direction and found ourselves on the road to Vladivostok.. it was great to see that on the sign as it marks the end of our epic across Russia..

The days ride consisted of us going between tyre pumps to make sure the pressure was okay.. we ended up buying an electrical compressor for $20 that worked only once then the fuse blew.. bugger and that day we ended up doing around 550km finishing just after dark in a little hotel… we ordered dinner at the cafe and had the best kebabs to date… it was time to sleep…. The next morning we woke and did the remaining 225 km into Vladivostok… It was amazing to see traffic again after such a long time.. Vladivostok and its surrounding cities are massive by comparison to everything that we had seen in quiet some time.

After trying to figure out how the hell the maps worked and getting lost several times we managed to find ourselves a few hotels.. Playing the price game between them we managed to find a comfortable place in what was now pure luxury (hot showers and clean sheets)… it was time to relax and enjoy the city before we got our ferry tickets and organised our next phase…. JAPAN..

Beautiful Lake - Russia

After getting back into Russia for our third time it was time to fill up the bikes with newly cheaper fuel, get some lunch and enjoy the sunshine. Heather in hIt was freezing in the wind but out of the wind it was really nice and warm at around 15c. The only problem was that out of the wind we got attacked by these bloody midges, which hung around our faces like a swam of locusts. Heather was particularly keen on them.. That’s all I can say about that.. te he he.. ohhh okay you twisted my arm.. all she could think about was how she couldn’t handle two weeks of these bugs while we crossed the remainder of Russia…. ohh and there was at least two hundred and sixty seven tantrums… okay maybe only twenty.. (HL: whatever, James was the only one having wobblies).. After getting a fire going to keep the bugs away (HL: by sitting in the smoke) we relaxed for a few hours before making our way north. The warm weather was brilliant to take advantage of it we thought we would call it a day early and found a lake to camp by.. there was what looked like an unused rail road around the edge of the lake on the eastern side where people fished. Heather was setting up the tent and I was collecting some fire wood only to be disturbed by a huge mining bulldozer which clearly used the road to get back. We had to quickly unpack everything (HL: by throwing the tent in a ditch) and pushing the bikes up a small slope to be out of the way of the bulldozer, then moving them again as it was getting bigger as it approached .. it was all very exciting as it was night so just had massive lights on us, we hoped like hell that the guy wouldn’t be coming back any time soon.. especially while we slept in the tent..

"Road" Goes here ?? - Russia

As we went to bed that night it was absolutely freezing cold. We hoped that the lake would offer us some warming, instead it just offered us a freezing fog as the lake steamed the fog that it created froze.. We woke and Heather thought she heard the bulldozer coming again and almost jumped out of the tent, though it wasn’t just a train far off (HL: dam train!). The thermometer at 6am when we woke reported -10c.. A short time later the local ranger came by to introduce himself. He said that it was -14c that night.. unusually cold. He told us that it would start snowing every day within a few weeks and that he called us extreme motorcyclists.. It was soo cold that when we washed up our dishes before we had a chance to dry them the water on the plates had already frozen. That morning we decided we needed a late start with the hope of the warmth of the previous day returning.. As soon as the sun came over the mountains sheltering the lake it warmed up and we made our way to Ulan-Ude close to lake Baikal. We had decided that we would have to give the lake a miss given that we wanted to put as little pressure on the bikes as possible. Every bit of distance covered was now on borrowed time.. at least that was how we felt given how the bikes had been in Mongolia. After setting off we met up with the Japanese group again and chatted for a while. It turned out it took them around 10 hours to get through the Russian border because they had so much film gear etc.. We confirmed our schedule and said that we wouldn’t be going to Lake Baikal. We are sure that we will meet up with them again, we have the same route and a similar schedule.. lets s

Winter is here - Russia

ee how things pan out.

That day we decided to detour around Ulan-Ude and head directly for Chita, The plan was that we had to get to Chita within three days so that we could register our visa allowing us to continue travelling east. About an hour and a half towards Chita we stopped for Lunch by a big river. Some guys from the nearest road working crew came down to have a look at the bikes and chat for a while. We cooked up some tea and relaxed for a while, one of the guys then came back with some wild yellow flowers and gave them to Heather (HL: Was sweet). We then sat back and offered him some food etc and relaxed some more. It was nice to be back in Russia but we had to make tracks to cross the 4000km to Vladivostok.. we soon got back on our way and found a campsite a few hours later in the Forest. Setting up a beautiful fire to keep us warm as the sun set… our best pit fire to date.. right beside an old rotting tree stump there to reflect the heat back at us.

The next day when we woke it was extremely cold again, we started to get a few flakes of snow falling so we left early and covered the 500km to Chita. We had to make it there for our Visa registration… (For those who don’t know, when you enter Russia you have to register your visa at a hotel or police station within three days, otherwise you have to pay a fine, then you have to register every time you stay somewhere more than 3 days). We started looking for various hotels listed in the Lonely planet guide and couldn’t find any of them. We ended up staying in a Motel which we are sure rented rooms by the hour… truly a classy place (HL: with leopard printed sheets and a picture of a woman naked, very interesting) but at least it was warm and they “registered” our visa for us… While in the Hotel I wrote some updates for our web page and organised the photo’s that we had taken.. The plan was in the morning we would find an Internet cafe and update the blog… we went in search of the Internet cafe’s only to find that none of them allowed us to use our laptop or use USB… shit we would have to leave the blog updates for another time… we should be in Tynda within two or three nights. While all this was happening we found out that the time zones had moved again making us two hours wrong which was causing us further problems. It was now 2pm and we had to get our our way.

Russian road workers who helped us - Tynda

That night we made it out of Chita with the plan to do around 200km before we called it a night.. Shortly after leaving town it started to get very cold, a change had come through and the sunny skies of the previous few days had disappeared. We soon found a small off road section where we could camp in the Forest.. By this time the virus that I had in Mongolia had pretty much gone, but it was now Heathers time to get the flu… perfect timing right when the thermometer was struggling to reach 2c… making it very difficult to keep warm and there was a complete absence of hotels on route to stay in… The next morning we woke to slightly more snow as we headed further north.. Shortly after leaving our camp site we had a car try to pull us over continually.. we refused to pull over and they persisted.. In the end we slowed right down and they pulled over.. when we saw that they were 100% not police and had been drinking (had bottles in their hand) we rode on nodding our heads no as we went by.. they persisted once more then gave up.. the whole situation was very creepy. Made especially bad by the fact that we must have been 200+km away from the nearest town or police station… The further north we went the deeper the snow on the side of the road became with regular spurts of heavy almost blizzard dumps as we rode. Our main purpose was to try and keep moving and stop every few hours when we saw a cafe or restaurant.. anywhere really to get out of the cold and warm up, defrost the toes and fingers. We knew that we had at least 2300km to cover to get to Khabarovsk.. that meant that we would take at least 7 days at our standard pace…without being too stressed.. Unfortunately in the cold we could cover only between 160 and 250km per day making the going very slow and very slippery in the cold wet and windy conditions. As we progressed further North towards Tynda the temperatures didn’t reach above -2c and the snow was now thick and with regular down pours of snow making visibility next to impossible.. not to mention the ice forming on our bikes and visors… We had to make it to Tynda though we had to stop as Heathers chain had stretched further, so we had to tighten it again and also fix her one mirror so it wasn’t moving around.. we knew that from there on it was all south with the hope of it getting warmer…. That night we camped in an old quarry and had to make some more frame repairs to Heathers bike.. another one of the bolts holding her subframe together had been sheared off the day before making it all a little dodgy.. a few hours later after a late start we headed further north hitting a pinnacle of -11c as we crossed one of the mountains coming down towards Tynda.. The new road turns south before Tynda which was a huge relief… we could see the snow getting harder and worse. It was then that I started to get a flat tyre.. we had to do a U-turn and head back to the nearest town to get it inflated… this was because the guy who gave Heather’s bike a lift into Ulaanbaatar had stolen our hand pump making flat tyre repairs impossible. We found an auto store and then had absolutely no way of getting to a pump… we ended up asking a group of guys if they could help, they invited us over to their cabin on the back of a big 6×6 truck and helped us out.. It was yet another case of fantastic Russian Hospitality. They used the compressor on the truck to give us air and offered us some food and chi to warm up… whoo hoo it was time to get back on our track to Khabarovsk… and it was only -5c.. positively baking hot.. my mankini and Heathers bikini is on their way out!!!

Snow on our Tent - Russia

A short time after leaving the guys with the Kamaz we managed to get back into the snow.. as we progressed further the snow flakes got bigger and thicker making visibility extremely poor. We managed to cover only 100km further before calling it a day.. We managed to find a little off road and camped in a Forest where a ranger dropped by to see what the hell was going on.. It turns out he was happy for us to be there.. no guns and no alcohol made him a happy guy.. he stayed around and chatted for a while then left on his way.. It seems to be the story of our trip people dropping by and having a chat congratulating us for what we are doing and calling us extreme then going on their way. It turns out we camped underneath a military aircraft flight path right near the run way so we had a few low flying jets and big military cargo planes coming and going which kept things interesting watching out for the different types of planes. The next morning was much milder temperature wise and we had an easy morning before leaving on our way.. It was just the start of a saga that didn’t seem to want to go away.. we left.. as the day cleared it got much colder and Heather got a flat tyre.. we pulled over and found that a thick piece of nail or wire had gone through her tyre and tube.. we initially didn’t have the strength to break the tyre off the rim to repair the tube.. Heather setup a fire on the side of the road to keep us warm, while she did that I focused on trying to figure out a way to break the tyre off the rim.. it just wouldn’t go.. after about an hour we managed to get it as a team effort.. finally it was now almost dark and we had to get the tube out, find the hole and repair it.. we managed to do that all in about 20 minutes and get the tyre back on.. only to find out that we had another hole in the tube that we didn’t find… this was after we had replaced everything.. bugger and worse still we had no more CO2 cells left and our bike tyre pump had been stolen in Mongolia… a loud word that starts with F and ends in UCK came to mind.. we had to find a place to camp for the night then take the rear wheel to a repair place the next morning…. at that point in time two guys who had walked past us earlier came back and asked if they could help out.. we ended up following them back to their lumberjack camp in the forest.. The camp was set out in a clearing with a big army style canvas tent and a large bull dozer near by.. it was all very clean for what we expected.. (must love preconceived ideas)…while heather setup the tent I went and spent some time being social with the guys.. it was not long before the spirits came out and we had a few shots of their (moonshine).. “medicine”… it was super smooth but went straight to my head.. they said that we HAD TO EAT…. otherwise it makes you “CRAZY”… some canned beef (yuk) and bread later I was feeling pretty toasty and it was only two shots.. it was just the right time for Heather to arrive in the tent and start being social.. the big tent had a nice warm pot belly stove in the middle which kept it really toasty… and a huge fire risk.. but that’s just when the fun started.. that night we chatted and drank until about midnight when it started to snow really hard….. Heather and I retired and they kept on going.. we woke at 7am to see that they had been drinking all night and wanted us to take them to get more booze… (and the snow was now upto 20cm deep outside) bugger now we are really screwed.. we persisted and managed to focus on getting the bike wheel off and trying to get the second hole patched. The guy’s had told us the previous night that they had a compressor in town and that they would go and get it and come back.. turns out that there is no compressor and they just wanted people to drink with.. in fact there was not even a tyre pump in the nearest town.. it was all turning into a complete nightmare.. to make matters worse one of the guys had told me several times that he was now in love with Heather.. He wouldn’t leave her alone he was hanging around her like a bad smell. When we got back from the nearest town the guys had by this time had drunk so much that they couldn’t walk properly and became even bigger pains in the arse.. to cut a very very long story short I managed to get back to the camp site, pick heather up and we went into a town half an hour back towards Tynda to find a guy who could find and repair the hole.. we got it patched and got back to the camp site… after waiting in the queue at a bank for 1h:15m only to give up.. we ended up paying the guy all the money we had with the hope of being able to get back to the bike (HL: which was £1.15 hehe).. by the time we got back to the bike we found that the tyre was flat again.. we packed up to get the hell away from the lumberjacks who by this time had drunk so much that they had serious issues standing up.. we rode down to the road and they kept on trying to follow us and ride our bikes (HL: one started throwing rocks at cars, one car stopped and decked him, then when they drove off he flashed them).. Heather flagged down a big truck driver who was willing to give us a lift to the next big town to get the wheel fixed.. we all lifted her bike onto the kamaz which had a trailor that was 6ft high off the ground (during this process one of the drunk guys broke heathers rear indicator off)… and away we went.. but not before the Lumberjacks trying to ride away on my bike while I was loading Heathers, though Heather ran over and turned the engine off and took the keys.. by this time Heather and the Kamaz had started to drive away and the guys wouldn’t get off my bike despite not having the keys.. in the end I had to get on the bike and turn the engine on to show that my break warning lights had come on to make them think it was not safe to ride.. I then said I would take it for a test ride then come back and let them ride it.. really what I meant was I was going to test how dumb they really are and ride off…

After two hours of following along behind the kamaz truck we got back to the guys house where Heather had organised for us to stay… he invited us in and when Heather was on her way past his guard dog it bit her on the leg hard enough to leave a bruise in the shape of the dogs mouth.. crazy he then took it away quickly and we packed away the bikes safely.. it was all in all a really nice night and we had a great time they have been the best hosts for us in quiet some time (since barnaul in Russia when we stayed with Victor and before that in Astrakan).. funnily enough both the worst and best hospitality of the trip comes from Russia.. 3 good experiences 1 bad experience..

Click on Photo to see the ice forming at -11c

The next morning we woke to find that everyone had already gone to work and the house was empty.. we packed up our stuff and started to figure out what the hell we had to do.. then the guy came back and told us we could make ourselves feel at home while we fixed the bike.. he gave us all the tools and patches to do the work.. unfortunately we knew that the patches didn’t fix the problem so I rolled the wheel down the road to some more professionals for them to take a look at it.. the first guys I met had a black out and couldn’t help me so they gave me a lift to the bank and took me somewhere else.. the guy then took apart the wheel and couldn’t figure out why it kept going flat it didn’t bubble in water.. then when it went back onto the rim it would go flat again.. there was nothing obvious wrong and we couldn’t feel any more spar’s in the tyre to get more holes.. in the end he went to his wife in the hospital x-ray department and got the tyre x-rayed (looked at by a computer thing (yes yes I know technical terms)) to find what was wrong.. this was when he found by looking at the screen that there was a staple in the side of the wall which only had a very small spar which you couldn’t feel with your fingers.. he removed the staple and repaired the tyre.. we then went back and put the tyre back on the bike.. Heathers excitement was almost overwhelming… we put the wheel back on and prepared to leave but not before we found a pump to fix the tyre if we got another flat.. we soon found one and made it back on our way to Khabarovsk.. a relaxing and uneventful 170km later we finally made it to Khabarovsk after almost 10 days we had finally made it almost all the way… what a relief.

Mongolian Robotic Man - Mongolia

After sleeping in our plan to leave early from Ulaanbaatar was dashed. It turns out that this was a blessing in disguise given that it had snowed over night. We now found that leaving later meant the snow and ice could melt somewhat. It was bloody freezing. It took us around 2 hours to get packed up and we ended up having a nice breakfast and leaving around 10:30am.. The plan was to head to the border so that we could cross first thing Monday morning. After leaving Ulaanbaatar the feeling of relief was amazing after 14 days of frustration. However crossing the mountains to get out of the city went from freezing to freezing plus plus plus (that’s extra freezing).. the thermometer was reporting -2c with a strong cross wind making the ride particularly unpleasant.. at least once we crossed the mountains we had sunshine and warmth.

hoboworld.to - Russia

We soon passed a group of two cars and a motorcycle. They waved to us but we didn’t stop because they had been a fair way away from the road. It turns out that when we stopped for Lunch they stopped by us cooking on the side of the road.. It was a Japanese group who are travelling and making a documentary/TV Show from Portugal to Tokyo via central Asia. The rider had two support vehicles and was riding a Honda Africa Twin in very nice condition. Their route had been similar to ours and they had been travelling for a similar length of time. After chatting for some time they set back off and we continued with our lunch. The plan was that we would meet them the next day at the border between 8am and 9am…… whooo hooo an early start hopefully this time we would actually make it. That night we stayed in a forest with some dog keeping watch over our campsite… It was very very cold and in the morning we woke to a very frosty start but with beautiful sunshine to keep us warm as the day progressed. We got the the border about 30minutes later and did all the usual pre border crossing preparation… We met up with the Japanese group who had arrived only a few cars before us. We then went through without any issues. In record time it took us 2 hours to get through the Mongolian side and less than an hour to get into Russia.. a new record.. 16hours the first time, 3 hours the second time and less than an hour the third time. We met the Japanese rider at the border post on the Mongolian side.

Standard Rubbish Collection - Ulaanbaatar

After our mission getting to Ulaanbaatar with one broken bike and one grumpy driver it was time to find a Hotel. Heather took the task on and found a place which was cheap, we didn’t know how long it would take to find and fix the bizarre problems facing Heathers bike. We decided it was time to get out and get some good food… Mongolian BBQ it was then… After our first proper meal in weeks we hit the sack.. only to find out why our hotel was so cheap.. it was also a Karaoke bar… bugger Mongolians singing until 2 am… oh well we slept anyway through sheer exhaustion. The next day we woke with the plan of trying to compare the cost of fixing the bike in Mongolia vs shipping the bike directly to Australia and changing our route so that instead of going via Brisbane we would travel via Perth… After hunting around for anyone that knew about motorcycle electrics and searching the internet for any information we started looking for companies that could freight the bikes to Perth.. It turns out that in Mongolia all we found out was that they could only ship items up to 88cm in height or you had to have a complete 20ft container… seems logical to us… NOT!! you can’t even but a part of a container you have to have the whole bloody thing… I guess we could have used the remainder of the container to ship home 20 yurts… or maybe that was just a bad dream.. All of the Mongolians we dealt with seemed to be anything but helpful in trying to find a solution to our problem. Most of them just wanted to buy the bikes or would go out of their way to be a pain in the arse.. It seems that they don’t want to be paid for anything that would require them to do any work.. but they are more than happy to take your money for nothing. Its a shame because most of the Mongolians we had met that didn’t work in shipping seemed to be friendly and helpful.

Gardening in Ulaanbaatar seems to consist of burning everything

On the walk back to the Hotel we came across a BMW Dealership.. they didn’t do any bikes but they at least had experience at BMW Cars… they told us to bring the bike into them the next day and they would have a look at it.. whoooo hoooo hopefully this would be the answer to our problems.

So the next morning we pushed the bike the 3km to the dealership during peak hour traffic… talk about hard work. I was still feeling a little dodgy and pretty weak from the virus.. After putting the bike into the dealership we went back to the Internet to sort out a possible alternative if we couldn’t get the bike fixed and to see what other peoples recommended solutions were. It turns out we had had numerous posts in response to our questions on the internet.. most of them pointed to the same parts that the BMW dealership said would probably be the problem.. It was time to go back to the Dealership and see if they had any possible answers. Turns out the battery and voltage regulator had become broken. There was also a short but we couldn’t diagnose the short until we had a reliable power source. We told them to order the parts and we went out the celebrate.. we had a few drinks and retired to the karaoke hotel….

The next day I was feeling rough.. I think that the virus that I had got in Olgii was back with full force.. there was no time to waste we went back to the dealership to make sure the parts got ordered. It turned out that the parts didn’t get ordered and that the prices and delivery times came out to being outrageous.. we ordered the parts ourselves from the UK and DHL’d them to Ulaanbaatar and it was cheaper than just the battery in Mongolia from the BMW dealership. It was now Thursday so we had 4-5 days to wait until the parts arrived because of the weekend. It was time to relax and take in the city while we had little else to do. We went out to dinner on Saturday and had a bottle of wine to celebrate the parts being on their way. We could track the package and knew that it was in Korea and the next flight was the following morning… we should have them first thing Monday.. YAY..

By this time I was starting to spend more time on the toilet than I was anywhere else.. My weight had fallen significantly and I was generally feeling very weak. The virus that I had gotten seemed to be winning… I was now not only on the loo but also vomiting which was really bad as it meant I couldn’t eat anything at all.. I had to go to Hospital.. Monday morning it was time to go down to the Hospital.. Knowing that the hospitals had such a good reputation in Mongolia we went to a Korean university Hospital.. I got rushed onto a drip to rehydrate.. but this was only after we struggled to find out how the hell their system worked as nobody seemed to speak English and we didn’t speak enough Russian, Korean or Mongolian. In Mongolia there is no concept of queuing.. so when you match that with Hospitals you really find chaos. People walking in on other people during examinations of areas that most people find private etc etc.. anyway the overall service from the hospital was fantastic. After being rehydrated I had to come back the next day for further examinations… now it was time to track the packages as the online tracking had said that the packages had arrived in Mongolia on the weekend so we must have got them.. we went to the Dealership to tell them the packages should arrive that day.. we then went back to the internet to check on the progress of our other stuff.. It turns out that customs in Mongolia is the biggest scam you have ever heard, they wouldn’t release the packages until we had paid TAX on the SHIPPING of the goods and they don’t provide any way to claim it back if your taking the goods back out of the country immediately. After paying $50US in tax we felt completely frustrated and it still took us until Wednesday night to get the package. All in all our experience of Mongolian customs leaves a hell of a lot to be desired. I went back to Hospital on Tuesday and had a battery of tests done including the joy of swallowing a camera so that they could see what was going on in my stomach… ouch! It was not a nice experience. Anyway the basic story Is that they came back and said that I had something I can’t spell so I can’t put it on.. they have given me enough medicine so that I can get back to Australia and see another specialist.. I can’t drink, cant eat spicy food, can’t eat sweet stuff.. dammit what is there worth living for…

Anyway its now Thursday and the parts have been delivered to the dealership so that they can fit them. It was now all sorted and we could kick the bike over.. Unfortunately the bike was still starting even when the ignition was off.. there was still an earth somewhere that had to be found.. it wasn’t until Friday night that they found the problem. Yet again the DATATOOL alarm had fucked up and was earthing the ignition causing the bike to start. That was the third problem we had with the alarm since the start of the trip. On Saturday morning I got dressed up ready to go down and pickup the bike. When I arrived the bike had leaked oil all over the floor of the dealership. One of the Gaskets had blown. I needed to go back to the Hotel room and get the computer so we could confirm that there was no other issue. When I arrived back we didn’t have enough Oil to refill the bike so we had to go and find more bike oil.. after being driven around Ulaanbaatar for about 2 hours we went back to the hotel and took the bike oil that I had bought so that I could service my bike and took it for Heathers… after arriving back we put the oil in the bike and went for a ride.. everything was going well.. when I got back to the dealership I stopped the Bike then it wouldn’t start again. The bikes battery voltage had dropped. The new battery was busted.. bugger now we had to find a new battery in Ulaanbaatar so that we could leave before our Mongolian visa expired in two days… after rushing around we found a dodgy Chinese made batter which would at least work for the time being. All the guys put bets on how long the battery would last ranging from 1 month to 3 months.. the advice was to replace the batter as soon as we got to Australia.. I have to email them so that they can claim the kitty of around 50000T which is a significant amount of money. Finally the bike was now working and I could ride it back to the Hotel… Whooo hooo we went out for an early meal to celebrate and retired to the hotel early so that we could leave Ulaanbaatar by 7am. After 13 days in Ulaanbaatar it was time to leave…..

Our route Gobi - Mongolia

After getting Heathers bike fixed it was time to make our way to Ulaanbaatar. With our newly revitalized selves we headed off to the petrol station.. only to find that nowhere seemed to sell 92 octane fuel. There was no way we wanted to run our bikes on 80.. it would spell disaster… the BMW manuals say never put anything lower than 91 in.. so that’s what we had to find.. eventually we found THE only place that sold 92 in town.. we are pretty sure it was probably some dodgy fuel but at least we had our tanks full and it was time to head on. The road from Altai was a huge improvement on the road coming in but it was still terrible. The sand was now very deep but there was now a distinct Buddhist feel to the route. While in western Mongolia the Kazakh’s are the major ethnic group in the rest of the country the Mongol’s are which means Buddhist is the religion of choice. We are now seeing prayer flags and monuments to Buddha which is a nice change. With Heathers newly repaired frame we can push on with more speed.

Heather Bogged in Sand - Mongolia

Easily averaging 50km/hour+ now we blazed across the first section without any issues completing close to 200km in 3.5 hours which was a record. The road quickly went back to the Mongolian Standard of being very rocky and crap. However we made good time… completing over 250km for the first time in 7 days.. whooo hooo it was time to have an early night and relax.. catch up on missed sleep from the disco hotel the previous night and get some relief from the vibrations.. At least the speed we could travel had now improved. After finding a campsite next to some horse bones we made a fire using horse poo and chilled out for the night…

The next morning we woke to get back on the road early.. we wanted to make it to Ulaanbaatar now so that we could have a few days off and service the bikes. They had been taking a beating and we really needed to give them some love and attention. We left early and got back on the sand dunes with the intention of getting at least half way. A short time after starting Heather hit sand and got bogged down. I had to help her out by pushing as she gave it some throttle.. It was then I turned around to find that my pannier had fallen off while I was helping Heather.. It was just hanging on by a thread… bugger the repairs that we had done in Kazakhstan had finally failed due to the vibrations.. not a good sign.. We ended up having to tie the pannier on using some touratech small tie straps that came with our bottle holders… we would need to look at fixing it properly when we got to Ulaanbaatar… The sand was now very deep and the going had slowed down to a snails pace… that would be if snails existed here.. it seems to be completely lacking anything except camels, mice and eagles…

A short time later after hitting a rocky section Heathers frame again broke, the repairs we had done in Altai had failed less than 48 hours later.. bugger we would have to take it slow to the next big town and get the repairs done there.. after 7 hours of riding and 4pm we rode into town it was now our job to find someone that was open to fix the bike so we could get back on the road to Ulaanbaatar.. we didn’t want to stick around.. we found a guy who had a power drill but his drill was so weak that it couldn’t even drill out the bolts.. eventually the drill got through it after 40minutes and the remaining bit of bolt was removed and replaced with a strong Russian bolt.. to this day its held out YAY.. no made in China bolts any more.

That night we camped on a hill over looking a big valley where we could see the cars and trucks so we knew which direction we had to go in the next day.. this was only after being lost twice on the same section of road.. we went along it.. felt it was wrong turned back.. then asked people they said it was the right way… we went along it again then they raced after us and told us to turn around it was actually the wrong way.. bugger..

Eventually we found our way back the next day and hit the road for Ulaanbaatar. About 5km later Heather hit some deep sand resulting in her doing an almost perfect superman/superwoman impression as she flew through the air head first into more deep sand. Thankfully she was okay but her pannier had taken yet another beating. We had been told that paved road would start in about 30km.. it turns out that paved road started in about 120km.. but at least the paved road started. We filled up with petrol again so that we had enough fuel to make it the final distance into Ulaanbaatar… we should be able to make it into Ulaanbaatar by the next morning early now that we could average 90-100km/hour without any issues.. it was a huge relief to see the tarmac again.. it had been 14 days since we last saw any real tarmac in Russia..and oh what a good feel it was. 250Km later we stopped for the night. Setting up our camp over looking the valley below a short distance from the road.. oh what a feeling

Broken F650GS Dakar - Mongolia

The next morning we packed up early with the intention of getting to Ulaanbaatar in about 2-3 hours time.. We got back on the road and immediately heathers bike stopped running. Every time she touched the clutch her engine went crazy. There seemed to be some sort of short circuit. When we checked the oil it seemed to be empty.. our worst fears were that the engine had no oil and we had just screwed it big time.. but no light came on to say there was any problem with oil and we had checked the oil level the day before… in the end we spent three hours trying to diagnose the problem and found that we could start the bike and it would run but as soon as we tried to ride it the bike would stop.. the battery was not holding any charge so it was not a good situation. Heather ended up hailing down a truck which could take us to Ulaanbaatar.. unfortunately they couldn’t and gave us only a lift to the next town. After strapping the bike down while he tried to get back on the road the bike fell over crushing her only remaining straight pannier… Heather enjoyed the trip with the goat (and bike) on the back of the truck which was on its way to the dinner table. At the next town we found a guy that would be able to put the bike (in pieces) in his van.. In the end we negotiated a price and set off… the guy took ages as he kept driving around asking for more people to give lifts into Ulaanbaatar.. picking up hitch hikers.. racing buses on the dirt sections of road all up Heather was in the back supporting the bike with no safety belt and the guy was a complete dickhead driver.. In the end we got to Ulaanbaatar and to where we had negotiated that he take us.. then he had the audacity to ask for more money.. what a dickhead he wanted us to buy him 20litres of fuel (at $1US/litre) because he felt that he got us to ulaanbaatar (the sign for the city) not where we had negotiated and there was a difference.. what a tosser.. in the end we refused to pay.. they got all the locals to look down on us despite them having people translate in the end he left with his tail between his legs… Finally we had arrived in Ulaanbaatar.. yay.. what a relief

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. It was about 50km out of town that we started to follow around the edge of a lake. The roads disappeared into a tangled mess of tracks. We kept trying to find a track without so many ruts, rocks and corrugations but we had no luck. The pace quickly dropped down to a measly 20km per hour average as we tried to navigate around the obstacles. It was after riding for 5 hours and only completing 100km that we decided to find a place to camp. It was in a huge wide valley with big 3000+ meter mountains along each side.

Getting away from the Storms - Mongolia

The valley floor was basically a mix of deep sand and loose rocks/boulders which made for an interesting time finding somewhere to camp. In the end we decided that the best place to camp was next to a grave site.. it happened to be one of the only flat areas in the valley.. So that night we went to sleep with the ghost of someone or something that died many years ago there to keep watch….

The next morning we woke again to storm clouds coming towards us.. the storms that we had reported to us must be on their way.. it was time to make tracks and get out of the storms way. We definitely didn’t want to be in bog. Our going had already been pretty slow so if it got wet we would probably have to have an extended break in some shanty town along the way while we waited for things to dry out… not something that we wanted to do.

Gobi Expanse - Mongolia

All the “towns” we had gone past since Khovd had been more like American Western movie towns with just a collection of wooden shacks along the road. All together not very inviting. The morning was pretty uneventful we still pushed on in the deep sand and rutted tracks. Our average speed had increased to around 35km which we had been pretty pleased with…. that was until the road disappeared again as we had to cross some dry river beds… by looking around we could see that it looked more like a car/truck grave yard with all the flat tyres and car bits that had fallen off other vehicle’s. Which raises another point about Mongolia… In Kazakhstan which has similarly poor roads people have flat tyres etc.. bits fall off but generally they move them out of the way of the road.. in Mongolia they just leave all the bits all over the road.. riding along you have to dodge rocks, ruts, spare tyres, engine parts, metal spikes, bits of fire wood, scrap metal, crashed car panels etc.. basically anything they can leave in the middle of the road they will..

Having a break in the shade near a salt lake - Gobi Desert

It seems that it may actually be a national sport.. so riding in Mongolia can be summarized by a severe lack of sign posts, no real main road to anywhere in the west or south, and a “game” of always trying to dodge the rubbish that they have left everywhere.. its really quite a tragedy that some of these beautiful sights are ruined by the amount of litter left… anyway with my rant over its time to get back to the story.. We managed to do a whopping 156km in 7 hours of riding which was a pretty good effort… but we had become very tired. The effects of the virus had been particularly bad on me and it wasn’t really making my Mongolian experience enjoyable.. that night we realised that the nuts that connected Heathers subframe to the front of the bike had both been sheared off resulting in the rear half of her bike being loose.. not a good sign. We had to find a mechanic that could replace the bolts which really meant getting to Altai… it was still some 300km away. That night we camped near a Yurt in the middle of a huge flat plain… only in the very far distance could we see any land formations… great for navigation the GPS was completely useless except for giving us a rough idea of the direction we are going in. The next day we had to make it to Altai so that we could get Heathers bike fixed as we had no spare bolts.. That meant a very very slow days ride to make sure we didn’t cause any damage. We had not seen very many other vehicles since leaving Khovd so getting a tow would be out of the question.

The road was still heading south and the further we got the more sand we ended up riding in.. the surrounding countryside was now becoming huge plains with sand dunes or deep sand valleys. Basically meant that riding had to be either full on throttle or taking easy.. That night we made it to Altai quiet late. Absolutely knackered.. We had to find a hotel there was no way we wanted to camp after such a tough few days with the virus/fever/tough terrain.. the first hotel we found wanted us to pay $60US for a room without a bathroom.. WTF.. this was a crap town that wanted to charge major city prices.. there was no way in hell.. we ended up finding another hotel that charged us $10 and included the disco next door being absolutely crazy loud.. the pit toilet was also a real win for us.. nothing like the experience of not a good nights sleep with an awful loo experience… people would stand outside the loo and just aim It stank so bad.. The next morning we went to the Mongol Rally service centre and they replaced the bolts on Heathers bike… also fixed her pannier bracket which had also been sheared off the previous day from Vibrations… It was time to restock and Head for Ulaanbaatar.

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.

We felt completely drained but we had to get going… Originally we planned to go north and follow the mountain ranges then head south to Ulaanbaatar. Given that we got snowed in on the mountain passes during the tour and on the way to Olgii we have decided we need to head south instead.. that means the Gobi. We had reports from other travellers that the roads to the north are much worse, the main route to Ulaanbaatar was to head south… so south it was…

High Alpine Pastures - Mongolia

While we had been in Olgii we met an italian who was staying at our hotel who was riding a Honda Africa twin.. He had come up from Iran and was now looking to try and get into China… he also met four other Italians who are competing in the Mongol rally riding vespas… crazy… we introduced ourselves and compared notes. They had been working on fixing one of their vespas drive lines while we chatted to them.. apparently it was the fourth one to break due to the poor quality roads.. they said they had planned to leave for Khovd on the Sunday afternoon and hopefully make it there that day… You can see their progress on their web page.

Heather crossing yet another river - Mongolia

We left Olgii early on Monday morning with the intention of getting to khovd around Lunch time as it was only around 250km away… shortly after olgii we realised that the “main roads” are actually main tracks and there was little to distinguish which road was actually the right one… signs are non existent and it seems that people just go their own way… about two hours later we stopped for lunch by the side of a beautiful lake, while we sat back eating we noticed a group of four other motorcyclists going slowly.. Heather bet that it was the Italians however I had seen them leave the day before… It turns out she was right they had yet another drive line failure on one of the vespas and had to stay the night in a ger to fix it… their final parts had been used. We wished them luck and set off.. The whole time thinking WTF.. Vespas this was now more offroad than road the corrugations are the same size as their scooter…

GPS says road goes here.. - Mongolia

it would be very slow going for them as the day progressed the quality of the road got worse and worse.. not to mention that there was a few 2400+ meter mountain passes that they would have to push the scooters up.. ouch! Anyway they get our respect that’s for sure That night we camped early but we didn’t make it to Khovd… in total we did around 120km of the 250ish km and we had only been riding for 6 hours… not a bad effort.. we had got lost several times following the “road” where the GPS said the route was.. if we had continued to follow the GPS we would have blindly ended up in a ditch somewhere that is for certain. It was back to asking for directions… The thing with asking mongolians for directions is they expect everyone to be riding a horse which can go up cliffs and over mountain tops… not ideal for a motorcycle so you needed to ask them where the road is not “is this the way to…”.. it was just a sign of things to come. The following day we woke to dark clouds so we had an early start and made it into Khovd just before lunch after an early start… they charged us 1500T per bike as road toll to use the 500 metres of surfaced road in the town.. what a con. We restocked on our supplies as we had been told that there would be no fuel for at least 450km+ we topped up all our fuel containers, fuel tanks and bought a 2L coke bottle for good measure.. while I waited for Heather to go and get some fresh vegetables from the market I got surrounded by about 20 mongolian drivers from the bus/taxi station/stop.. all asking me where the chain was on my bike.. “what no chain is your bike broken”.. “me mechanic me fix”.. umm no sorry it has no chain its called a drive line.. their look of bewilderment was rather amusing.. they all said that it was around 420km to Altai and that we should be able to make it in a day… however we also got told that there was 3 days of rain forecast and we would be screwed if the roads got wet.. They all wished us luck and when Heather got back we set off on the road to Altai and the Gobi…

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…..

Flock of Animals - Mongolia

well in Mongolia the road goes along the valley then straight up the steep side of the hill.. The slope on this particular mountain pass must have been at least 50-60°. The crazy thing was that the slope was soo steep and yet this was the main road from the Russian Altai into Mongolia…. We had a convoy of at least 15 semi trailers following us… how the hell are they going to get up.. the view from the top was spectacular… overlooking the valley as the sun set it was amazing, but we still had to find somewhere to camp.. and find somewhere fast before it got dark..on the other side of the mountain pass there was snow on the ground, as we descended down into the valley… a short time later we crossed a snow filled gulley and Heather decided that we should go off the road and camp further up the hill… no problems.. we rushed to get the tent setup, then Heather went to collect some stuff for a fire… horse and cow poop… and I prepared dinner… it was very cold so we hit the sack early with a plan to make it to Oglii early the next day… that night we had our first snow on the tent… we had a mild panic attack hoping that it wasn’t rain.. I couldn’t imagine riding on these roads if it was wet.. when we go out of the tent the mountain on the other side was covered in a fresh coat of white snow.. luckily we had only a small dose so we left early… continuing on our dirt track for about 30 minutes.. then we realised that about 50 meters away there was a nice fresh asphalt road…. why the hell are we still riding on dirt??? the new road was fantastic and we arrived in Oglii about 20 minutes later… the temperature was sitting at 2°C.. we had to get money and we had to restock on our food so that we could head north again….

Old Lady with her Ger - Mongolia

We managed to get into town and find a bank.. one thing we didn’t realise was that there are no banks in Oglii that accept Mastercard or Maestro cards.. we had to transfer some of our emergency fund US dollars to Mongolian Currency… it was while Heather was doing this that we got approached by a Tour operator who offered to take us up to see the Glaciers and lakes in the restricted border zone with China and Russia.. It was something that we wanted to do but with the poor quality roads had decided it was a little tough.. we said that we would go and get some food, then after an hour meet up again to discuss it further… An hour later we had agreed on taking the tour, organised the route and started to prepare..it was all very rushed because we had to get some permits from the Military to enter the area, we also had to get some national park permits to use the park…we locked our bikes up at the tour operators sisters place in her secure garage, got prepared and set off…

Mountain Passes on the way to the Glacier - Mongolia

First of all we headed off towards the Glaciers.. on the way we stopped at his Mothers ger, then stopped at his Uncles house for some tea.. we ended up spending our first night on the tour at his uncles eating horse head, horse sausages, horse tongue, and drinking tea.. the next day after 6hours driving we finally made it to the Glacier.,.. the road there was crazy.. Anyway going into Details about the tour will take up a load of time so I’ll be quick and nasty and put it all in point form..

• Walked up to a Glacier at 3000+ meters above sea level…

• on the way back from the glacier we walked through knee deep snow

• had Yaks cream

• Tried Deer

• Had fresh Mongolian pasta.

• Had loads of tea

• had more tea

• got sick of tea

• drove along rocky roads for 24 hours in 3 nights…

• had temperatures down to -12c

• Had balsak which is a local doughnut style bread which you have with butter of fresh cream… we know its balsak because it reminds us of ball sack.. haha

• Heather spent hours teasing a kitten…

• watched some terrible Kazakh TV

• witnessed some amazing off road driving..

• Saw Turkish stones

• crossed crazy rivers

• Saw eagles being trained for Hunting.

• Had a diet that consisted of traditional Kazakh food… meat, cream and noodles..

Heather and Russian Van - Mongolia

All up the tour was well worth the money.. we called it our Holiday away from our Holiday… it was nice to have someone else navigate.. he didn’t have or use any maps but knew the area so well that we didn’t get lost or have any issues finding any of the sites that he said we would be able to see. There was no way in hell that we would have been able to make it up many of the roads with the sand and our bikes fully loaded that he could with his Russian 4wd van… I would highly recommend anyone wanting to go on a tour to use this guy.. Do the tour in 5 or 6 days not the rushed version that we did over 3 nights… it was a hell of a long way on the crappy roads..

two humped Camels - Mongolia

After the tour was over we checked into a hotel.. yay finally we could have our own privacy.. One thing I would say about doing a tour in Mongolia is to make sure you bring your own tent. The Ger experience is great but there is no privacy and everyone just stares at you.. its all very odd and uncomfortable but well worth experiencing at least once.. having your own tent gives you some freedom to go to bed when you want. Not get woken when wolves attack their flock of goats etc…

It was so nice to have our own room in the hotel.. unfortunately we both got sick and ended up spending most of our time in the room for 3 nights to recover… which is why its taken so long to update the blog…

Oglii is definitely a meeting point for tourists.. we have seen more westerners in Oglii that we have seen for our entire journey since leaving Istanbul…

• Paolo an Italian who Is riding a Honda Africa Twin places

• 4 Italians who are riding 4 vespas from Milan to Ulan Baator.

• 2 English and 2 Finn’s who are back packing from St Petersburg to Vietnam

• a group of French who have spent 3 weeks travelling from Ulanbaator to Olgii and the Altai

It really is a cross roads for anyone who is coming overland to Mongolia.. Its recommended as a stop off.

If your looking for an experienced tour guide who knows his way around the Altai in Mongolia very well. Speaks good english and has a reliable 4×4 van then we highly recommend Jupar Abzal email: aktayulu@yahoo.com tel : (mongolian) 95424044