GOATS, GERS AND GHENGIS
JOURNAL ENTRY NO. 11
Crossing the border was the easy part! Now for pain and torture! And more “Megasorearses” - a new breed of dinosaur we have discovered unwillingly! 100 metres through the Mongol checkpost we scream at the driver to stop the Furgon, unload the gear, say goodbye and begin to re-pack the bikes.
19th - 21st JULY 2007
Tsaganuur to Olgiy
Almost immediately we are surrounded by a group of children and a few adults – greeting us in a new foreign language that we now have to practice and try to use. We notice they all have massive smiles and shining, happy faces! Something different to the previous week of our journey. As we smile back and continue to pack a sense of relief falls over us and we wave goodbye and pedal off on a new stage of our adventure! What a wonderful feeling.... new country, new people, new language and food.... and we are finally on the DIRT.... that's right the sealed road finished at the Russian checkpost – we are now on pure earth baby – Yehaa!!!
To our surprise, we find that the “road”, a corrugated hard-packed dirt track, is amazingly fast and we cover the 34km to our first town, Tsagannuur, fairly quickly ....... our average speed – 20 km/hr – COOL!!!
We both sensed an underlying oppression in Siberia, even though we found the people extremely friendly and generous, there seems to be a deeply entrenched sadness, or bondage, to the old communist era that can only be felt rather than seen. For us, this pressure/ oppression/ sadness lifted almost instantly as we crossed into the ancient, fabled land of Mongolia. This land we have entered feels warm, good-natured and now peaceful – the smiles and twinkles in their eyes seem to be engraved in their Spirits – you can see it from the outside!!!
And their renowned hospitality was shown to us as we stopped to contemplate a fork in the road. We were in a tiny “town” called Tsagannuur – a semi border “town” – used to seeing foreigners as it is the first “town” you come across after the border post. The road splits here and goes North to Ulaangom (the most travelled) and South-East to Olgiy, our next destination. As we chatted on which direction to head (many tracks leading everywhere) we gazed around and realised the saying was true – “Mongolia is truly the land of the large, low slung, blue sky.”
While resting, in awe of the magnificent scenery, we also contemplated robbing the local bank ....if there was one .... which there wasn't .... and so blew our last 15 roubles on some mouldy, Mongolian biscuits. As we rode on a kilometre or 2, a young fella on a fairly swish bicycle stopped us and admired our rigs. We quizzed him on our direction and he responded by pointing in the opposite direction while saying “Olgiy, Olgiy”!!! Let's turn around and get going!!!
On turning, there stood another group of Mongolian kids with massive grins and twinkling eyes. We were invited into their 'ger' or 'yurt' or 'felt tent' depending on which country you're in. We were offered our first milky 'tsai' (tea) and homemade cheeses and breads – a common summer meal for Mongolian's as it is easy to prepare and keeps for about a million years!!! Not the sort of tastes we were expecting from “bread and cheese” ......the tea was luke warm and salty and the cheese slightly fermented and rock hard. 'Airok' as it is called should really be called 'A Rock'!!!
Our first taste of Mongolian hospitality and we have only been in the country for 2 hours .....SWEETA!!!
We camped in their horse enclosure, a grassy flat encircled by old wire, rusty tyre rims, saw blades, cutting disks and anything else metallic ......what a brilliant welcome, we were blessed and thankful ..... quiet, no mozzies and a full tummy ........sigh!!!
We had our first taste of desert sand .....we had to camp, eat and ride in it for a day .....about time we had something new! On arriving in Olgiy, we were officially broke and nearly out of food. We found a spot by a clay-clogged river and awaited our fate. To make matters worse, the bank wouldn't open for another 2 days. We can do it!!!