The scene was pretty ugly when we eventually met up and the tension never really subsided after that. But we all ended up in a guesthouse in the centre of UB - 300 metres from the parliament building - and for just $16 a night for 2 people - which other capital in the world could you do that in?Highlights
- back to friendly people and decent food again - the perfect antedote to Russia
- grasslands and glowing sunlight
- all the dirt riding you could dream about
- a mixture of medieval and modern

Rattle and Hum ( Does that sound OK to you? .MPG file 240k)

Entry into mongolia

After the fraught exit from Russia, the Mongolian border was easy, and we met up with Simon and Monika just at a cafe in the border town.

And as we rode out of town - bliss - we are instantly met by smiling horsemen riding out from gers (felt tents). So nice to be welcomed again.

The delay at the border meant that the ride to Ulaan Baataar (I'll call it UB from now on!!) would have to wait for the next day. We scrounged some water from a small farmstead and looked for a place to camp.

Mongolia is a land without fences run on nomadic principles. So in theory nobody owns any land and you can drive, camp or graze your animals anywhere you like. Mongolia is one giant campsite!! Excellent. And more importantly for our trip, the grasslands have been pounded flat for centuries by animal hooves, and there is too little rain to allow tussocky grass to grow. The result is grassland that is smooth enough to ride a motorbike on, and is easy to put tent-pegs in!

We were also to discover that our fears about water and petrol shortages were unfounded. We could always get water from a river or a well, or at a stretch scrounge some from a ger. And the big petrol tank we had fitted was only necessary for peace of mind over a couple of long rides and for supplying fuel for the petrol stove when we camped away from civilisation for a week or so.

Next day was the run-in to UB and we set off happily. We were all enjoying the new road linking Russia to UB and the other Simon was enjoying riding to the top of various hills along the route.

VERY good friends before a bust-up

Then it all went horribly wrong. The other Simon mentioned that he'd really like to ride cross-country to UB and then took off on the dirt, apparently following the road as he had been doing for some time. So Georgie, Monika and I rode on a little way then waited for him to appear while we watched a herd of horses all trying to shelter from the sun under a small bridge. 20 minutes passed with no sign of Simon N. Monika rode back the 5kms to the last point we saw him. He was nowhere to be seen and she was distraught. I left Georgie with Monika and rode back to track him across the fields (surprisingly easy on soft grass). His trails lead further and further from the road, and they took a sharp turn south. I tapped "go to UB" into my GPS (it has the same software as the GPS on Simon N's bike) and it was clear that the silly bugger was really off cross-country to UB.
His trail made it to a dirt track that pointed straight towards UB and it was obvious that I wasn't going to catch up with him given a 40 minutes head start and his faster and less loaded bike.

So I headed back to the girls to propose we all follow him in case he had an accident - not really out of compassion but more because it would require us to ride back 300kms if we were to launch a rescue attempt. But the girls had discussed it and the verdict was "sod him
- we'll wait for him in UB". I was really pissed off with how irresponsible he'd been on a team run. He'd set off with no map (so he didn't know that there was a huge mountain range in his way and he'd not make it to U B off-road), no passport, no contingency plan incase he didn't show up. And poor old Monika was left in an embarrassing position with us. Our plan to travel around Mongolia as a team goes out of the window - it was going to be difficult enough for us to ride the fully loaded bike, without towing along a loose cannon as well.

An hour later we saw 2 touring cyclists coming towards us, and as usual we stopped to tal to them. They told us that Simon N stopped to talk to them too and he planned to wait for us in the main square in UB.

The scene was pretty ugly when we eventually met up and the tension never really subsided after that. But we all ended up in a guesthouse in the centre of UB - 300 metres from the parliament building - and for just $16 a night for 2 people - which other capital in the world could you do that in?

And so the holiday in Mongolia was back firmly in our hands - which was a relief, as it was the country that I really wanted to visit and I wasn't going to compromise on this one!

The next few days were spent enjoying UB, eating good food - it has lots of different international restaurants including superb, cheap chinese cafes. Most things were cheaper than Russia and the people were far, far friendlier. Friends who had previously been to UB told us that there seemed to be "no good people in UB" but we found the complete opposite.

UB and Mongolia have a real sense of their own personality. The whole nation is proud of it's history, and the name and face of Chingis Khan are everywhere. He is a real local hero and appears on macho things like beer and vodka bottles.

The language was a shock - Mongolia uses cyrillic so we thought we'd be OK with our experience of Russian. However, Mongolia uses completely different words to Russia, so we could read all of the signs but we could not understand any of them - bugger!

The roads in UB are full of mad drivers and are particularly dangerous for pedestians - crossing points seem to be simply to tell drivers "you may encounter slow obstacles here".

Mongolia is one of the best places in the world to find dinosaur fossils - it is where "velocoraptors" were first found. So the dinosaur collection in the Natural History Museum should have been a highlight. In fact it is full of good fossils but only if you have some idea of what you're looking at. Putting mammoth bones (10 thousand years old) in the same cabinet as to brontosaurus bones (65 million years old) really doesn't give the public an accurate view of history.

We worked out a plan for a 2 week trip to the west of UB and spent $40 on 6 of the best maps available. But at 1:250,000 they were still 10 times less detailed than those we use for dirt riding at home - interesting times ahead!

Before we left from England, we had contacted the British Embassy in UB about visas regulations and they told us to pop in for Friday night drinks at the Embassy. So hey we went got to go "to the ambassador's reception" - no Ferrero Rocher chocs to eat but there was no need to wear black tie and there were lots of interesting people to talk to. One bloke told us about the environmental problems that have come about since the collapse of the Soviet command economy - a lot of Mongolian lost their jobs in the towns and decided to become nomads again - and the sudden increase in animals grazing the land is really messing up the countryside.

We finally got to fit the spare rear tyre that we had been towing around Central Asia for 3 months - no more tying it to the side of the pannier. Its semi-knobbly tread would give us a load of grip - we just had to hope that the road tyre on the front would give enough grip to steer all the power we'd be putting down.

We only had a vague idea about how bad the roads would be outside of UB, so the plan we sketched out gave a number of options. We would head out west and aim to do a big (3000km) loop. But if the roads were to be too rough, we could cut out large chumks of the trip and either return the way we had come, or maybe cut across country.

West out of UB there is a pretty decent road. About 100kms out the weather turned sour, so we took refuge in the lee of a large, deserted-looking shed while we got into our waterproofs. To our surprise a woman popped out of the shed and insisted that we come inside to get warm. We chatted to her in Russian and sign language and she explained that the rest of the family were away in a ger and she was at home sewing up a new coat whilst brewing vodka from horses milk - would we like some? Out came two teacups full of the homebrew (poured from a fanta bottle). Hmm, tastes of cheese, as might be expected of vodka brewed from milk, and not the nicest drink we've ever had. We took a few sips and then excused ourselves explaining that we needed our balance for the bike!

Our first stop was Kharkorin - the place where Chinggis Khan had his capital and the current home of a Buddhist monestery which is just getting going again after the Russians left. Camping next to the river where "the great man" had once camped was really atmospheric - he had a good eye for a nice spot.

The next day we attended a ceremony at the monestery - it was our introduction to the religion and left us pretty confused. The ceremony took an hour - one monk chanted from a holy book while other monks did their own own thing and the young apprentice monks messed around from their pews (like kids do during any religious ceremony).
But most confusing was the local public who wandered in, chatted, bought incense and generally turned the temple into a public concourse. And the head monk seemed to be part shopkeeper and part cafe owner as he sold stuff to the public and handed out butter tea and pine-nuts to the other monks. There was little reverence and little atmosphere - we didn't really understand it - we have more work to do to get in touch with Buddhism!

Off west again and finally we had run out of road - no more roads for a couple of weeks.

After a night camping high on a hill, where we were visited by a lonely goat-herd (really) we headed towards Tsetserleg - the local regional capital. Crossing a bridge we were confronted by the sight of locals fishing and very successfully too! This was too good an opportunity to miss so we got out the fishing gear (which had previously only caught small 2 fish in the entire trip) and gave them a proper work-out. The river was full of greyling that were "smallish but worth eating" and all seemed to be suicidal. So we caught about 20 and kept the biggest 10. The locals were also pulling them out the silly little fish, but one scruffy looking kid was pulling out whoppers - about 4 kilos each. The first time he pulled one out I redoubled my efforts to attract a big one to the fly lures on my line, but when he pulled out a second - I thought that I ought to investigate the lure he was using. But no lure for him, just a bloody great grappling hook (about 8cms across) made from bent wire! He'd rest the hook on the river bed and wait for a big fish to swim over it and then YANK LIKE MAD to foul-hook the fish clean out of the water. A very effective cheat! I'll have to remember that technique for when I'm really hungry.

Back on the road into Tsetserleg where the first stop was at a cafe that is run by a British couple and serves up the sort of nosh you'd get in a tea-shop in England. Steak sandwich and chips, followed by cinnamon buns, all eaten while reading trainspotting magazines and
Womens Weekly. I have to admit the scenes of trains puffing their way through autumnal British countryside brought a tear to my eye - the first pang of homesickness on the trip. All very bizarre, especially walking out from that little piece of England into the dusty streets lined with tatty wooden shacks.

To the market to stock up on provisions and to investigate the skins being sold by various traders outside the market. And there - just what we were looking for - the skin from a fat marmot, so fresh that the pads on the poor buggers feet were still soft. At $4 the hunter made a good sale and we got a (somewhat smelly) bargain.

The road out of town was under repair so we had to follow a diversion up the side of a steep valley, over a road that had been so boggy at some point that the locals had paved the surface with small logs - good fun on a loaded bike. Later we dropped down to the side of a river and Georgie fried up the suicidal fish to be eaten with boiled potatoes. For the first time we had managed to catch our supper.

Next morning we had a long stretch ahead of us. Well in fact it was only about 140kms, but it took us about 8 hours to ride because of the poor roads. And whoops we fell off (riding through a ditch to get off a seriously bumpy track) and broke the pannier rack again. Luckily we had enough webbing straps to hold the luggage together, but we would need to get the rack welded up pretty soon.

And so to Tsagan Nuur - a beautiful, remote lake at about 1900m above sea-level. The lake was formed when a volcano erupted 300 years ago and a lava flow choked the river. At one end is a poxy little town where the shops sell a few provisions but no eggs ("there are no chickens in Mongolia"). We picked a place to camp up a small side valley overlooking the lake. We shared the valley with a group of gers and their herds of yaks, sheep and horses.

The next 5 days were spent around that camp. We watched yak-trains pulling medieval carts (with massive wooden wheels made with mortice and tenon joints), and the comings and goings of the livestock. The local kids came up to to visit us (at some considerable length!!) and later they brought their parents and older siblings up too.
Sometimes it was really difficult to do private things like having a pee or having a wash because there was always someone hanging around wanting to see what the crazy foreigners were up to. Lots of tea was shared and pictures of home shown.

We discovered that super-dry Mongolian dust really fouls up plastic zips - every day one or two zips would get derailed and me to shout obcenities at them for 10 minutes. I found that the application of vaseline only made things worse - it just cemented the dust into the zips' teeth! Dry graphite from a pencil is better.

One day we arranged for a local to take us out horse riding. The horses were pretty docile compared to the frisky beasts we had ridden in Kyrgyzstan, but that was not too bad a thing as the saddles were the traditional Mongolian jobs, made from wood, with a high front and back - probably one of the least comfortable ways of travelling that has ever been invented. The best part of the horse ride was bumping into one of the gers folk who had visited us a few nights previously. He was cutting and collecting wood using a yak and cart. A little bit of gentle persuasion and a couple of polaroid photos later and we were allowed to ride the yak. It was a fantastic beast - hairy, broad and sweaty.

At the end of the ride we were invited into the family ger, and given tea. Then we got the opportunity to show off a bit - the ger owner offered me snuff from an ornate little bottle. This is a tradition that we had heard of before so we were ready. I pulled out my ornate snuff bottle (bought in UB) and exchanged it with the correct hand-shake. He was astounded that a tourist got the etiquette correct, and even more so when he offered snuff to Georgie and she
replied with snuff from her antique snuff bottle!

One night we decided to ride over to the volcano across the valley. It was a like a geology field-trip. We rode over ropey pahoehoe lavas, past gnarley Ah-Ah flows, through fields strewn with magma bombs and across trails crushed into the pumice. Everything looked very fresh and uneroded, which testifies to the lack of rainfall in
Mongolia. We walked up to the caldera along a path lined with blue
prayer scarves and later shared some "Yak-brand" vodka and tinned fish with some locals who were out honouring the volcano.

The day came when we knew that we had to try to get the pannier rack fixed - we reckoned that the town would have someone with a welding set, as the roads were wrecking local vehicles as well as foreign ones. 2 hours later, having followed up 4 red-hot leads, there was no welding kit to be seen - everybody pointed to a place called Gagnoor, about 55kms away - a serious ride with the rack broken in 3 places. So we decided on another approach - BODGE IT!

Two of our red-hot leads had taken us up to a group of road workers who were building a concrete bridge over a dried up river. There was a load of concrete reinforcing rod hanging around so we went up to scrounge some of the 12mm stuff which I thought would make a really good splint for the inside of the tubular pannier rack. And indeed it did fit nicely. But how to cut it into the right lengths? I had a junior hacksaw in my kit, but that would have been hard work, so I asked the roadcrew to cut us some off - they agreed to and I expected them to get out an angle grinder or a set of bolt-cutters. Nope - out with a big hammer and a piece of flat steel (from a leaf spring).
The rod to be cut was laid across the thin edge of the flat steel - 4 good whacks from a sledgehammer - one neatly cut piece of rod! Great technology! I got them to cut 5 pieces of metal and then headed back up to the campsite.

The next stage was to bend the rod to the correct curve (using a hard rock and a rocky outcrop) and then the splints were glued with epoxy resin inside the broken tubes. Finally the rack was tensioned with bootlaces cut from the 93 metres of bootlace we bought in Istanbul (yes we're still working our way through it). Hey presto - a really strong pannier rack repaired with a mixture of stone-age and space age technology.

We were ready for the next stage of the trip. Packing up we realised how much space we suddenly had, as we'd eaten most of the food that we'd brought along. As we suspected the original route that we'd planned was too ambicious, especially as the tracks were still getting worse as we got even further from UB. So we decided head back a bit and then cut across country to the south towards a place Bayankongor, on the edge of the Gobi desert. It would take us 3 or 4 days to get there, but it would be silly to come to Mongolia and not see and ride the Gobi.

But first back to Tsetserleg, via the famous (but notably "not on the
map") Gagnoor. After 3 hours riding we arrived and found that place was just a couple of shacks, a couple of gers and a road construction yard with a welding kit flaring away. The pannier rack seemed to be holding up very well so we decided not to get the welding done there but instead press onto Tsetserleg after getting some food in one of the gers that had set itself up as a Guanz (cafe). Big plates of noodles and mutton - very tasty, filling and most importantly solid enough to stay in your stomach when you're getting thrown around on the Mongolian roads.

Next day we arrived in Tsetserleg and while Georgie stocked up on food again, I went to get the rack welded. And the place I was directed to was called Gagnoor - a road construction yard at the edge of town! So obviously Gagnoor is the Mongolian name for road depot! No wonder the other Gagnoor was not on the map!

$4.50 and an hour later the pannier rack was strong enough to support a Chieftain tank. Back to the British cafe for beef in beer followed by carrot cake - to hell with the silly notion that you should only eat local food while you're travelling!

Off towards Bayankongor - a 2 day trek over a mountain range that is not described in any of the guide-books. A bit of a gamble as the road might be impassible or the countryside might be ugly, but at least we would have seen parts of Mongolia that most tourists would not have been near.

Instantly the roads were less well sign-posted and we really had to study the maps hard to find our way. All the small tracks looked equally unofficial and the small off-valleys all looked similar. There was no-one around to ask directions so we settled down to using the GPS to find our way.

When we set-up camp that evening I decided to use the GPS to prepare a detailed route so that we could do the next day's trip without constantly refering to the map. I reckon it took an hour to input the route and it saved us about 6 hours over the next 2 days

The next day dawned and we set off up valleys not knowing what to expect. The route that we'd picked from the map seemed to be wandering up and down the side of valleys for no apparent reason, sometimes heading in the general direction of Bayankongor, sometimes going in a completely illogical direction. But the map and GPS bearing always tied up with the map so we pressed on. It was a glorious feeling, like just drifting around with no real aim, and always being lucky enough to find a trail that would take us roughly in the right direction.

The trails became more committing, with serious ascents and descents, and the valleys contained deep gravelly river crossings. Each ford had to be rekkied on foot (wet feet for 2 days) to find a stretch without huge boulders or deep pools. All would have been a blast on a light dirt bike, but a fully loaded big trailie was more serious.

The first crossing was only attempted because a local guy on a horse (herding about 20 other horses across the river) told us that he takes his Eesh motorbike across - so we did it too. The next crossing saw us get the rear wheel bogged down. Lots of wheel spin, Georgie pulling on the front wheel and a bit of swearing got us out.
I suspect that it was that crossing which bent a number of spokes and tore one spoke out of the rear wheel. There were certainly a few rocks jammed in between the spokes when we finished!

The valley rose and we did more river crossings. We passed a few lonely gers and their herds. And then we started slithering up tracks crushed into the gravel of dried out river-beds.

Finally at the head of the valleys we saw a fearsome sight - a line of snow covered mountains that we would have to cross. We were already cold, wet and tired, and it was getting late in the afternoon, so we would have to get over these hills quickly if we were to avoid a really cold and miserable camp. Luckily the Mongolian authorities had spent a large part of their small road maintenance budget on getting the next 3 kilometers of road right. Up to the top without the problems we had feared, to be greeted by the usual ovoo.

In the UK we would call an ovoo "a cairn" - a pile of stones marking a path. In Mongolia these piles are revered in a typically Mongolian way. As travellers pass they often add to the piles. Usually they walk round the ovoo three times and add a rock or two; sometimes they tie on blue prayer scarves and often they add something that has bad luck, so that its replacement will have good luck. One ovoo we saw had a dozen or so walking crutches leaning against it. The ovoo at the top of this pass had a range of truck parts (brakes, axles,
radiators) and a discarded plaster cast from someones leg. The whole thing was topped off with the radiator grill and bonnet from a Russian truck. You wouldn't get away with that in the Lake District!!

In the valley down we saw people preparing for winter. Many were collecting animal dung using a long handled rake/scoop which they used to flip each turd into a basket on their back. They then stacked the poop in giant pillars for use as fuel during winter. It occured to us that these piles were "built like shit briquette houses" - huh huh!

The gradient reduced and we continued down the valley. It became obvious that we were not going to make Bayankongor in the daylight and fording rivers in the dark would be dumb so we set-up camp.

As usual our presence attracted the attention of the local ger owner who walked about a kilometer to see who had moved in for the evening. He was shy at first, but soon settled down to watch as we prepared dinner, put all our bedding into the tent etc. We supplied him with fags, tea and the odd piece of information and he was happy. He even found the translation page at the back of the Lonely Planet and started to ask questions by pointing at the English words!

Wet socks off and so to bed.

Next morning was to be the final push on Bayankongor, but not before eating and entertaining the locals again. No sooner had we got up than the ger owner was plodding over bearing a pop bottle full of milk stuffed up his sleeve. We should mention the Mongol coats - they are made with incredibly long sleeves; about 6 inches (15cms) longer than the tips of the persons fingers. Normally the excess length is turned up as a thick cuff, but often the ends of the sleeves hang low and flat about. This looks bloody stupid until you find yourself out in the wilds when the weather changes and all of a sudden your hands are nice and warm in their long sleeve. In fact we saw plenty of horsemen and motorbike riders using their sleeves as mittens. Similarly the Mongols were all amused by our biking gloves - they'd not seen anything like them before!

By the time ger bloke was with us I was well into making tea and dough for sweet soda bread (to be cooked on the skillet). The milk he brought went into the tea and then he produced a carrier bag full of other goodies from his jacket. Out came a a slab of very immature yaks cheese, a pot of clotted yak cream and a bag of cheesey nuggets. All these where welcome additions to the breakfast menu, with the exception of the nuggets. These are the hard residue from the cheesy vodka brewing process - they are so hard that they are practically inedible - we never saw any of the locals eating them.

While we waited for the bread to bake we drank tea and ger bloke showed us how the locals do things. He cut a thick slice of the yak cheese and then spooned on the clotted cream - like we would prepare a slice of bread and jam. One slice each - it was very good; the cheese was light and not very cheesy and the clotted cream was thick and sweet. As my mum would say "should put hair on your chest"! We repaid the lesson by putting the clotted cream on fresh, sweet bread (well it was pretty much like a scone). He approved and came back for more.

After a few polaroid photos of him on the bike and more cigarettes handed over it was time to pack up, our audience now swollen by 2 horsemen and finally by a little old lady. She seemed quite animated and it turned out that she and her son were on the way to market on their motorbike and they'd got bogged down in the ford that we were about to attempt. We had heard "bike revving furiously in a river" sounds around dawn that morning and it seemed that they'd been stuck there for about 5 hours - just waiting for someone to come along and help. So we all trotted off to rescue the boy and his Eesh. Lot's of ferrying people (including Georgie) across the river on horse-back and then the Eesh got pulled out using a piece of rope and the silk sash belt that was part of the bike rider's traditional Mongol dress. My turn through the river saw our bike bogged down at the same place, but this time Georgie came to the rescue and helped to extract the bike using the 2-wheel drive technique

There were many more fords before we got to Bayankongor. It was market day (Sunday) and the market was full of locals gers people selling their produce and townies drinking vodka and picking school-boy fights.

Georgie had a craving for fruit, so she went into the market while I emptied the water out of my boots and chatted to the locals. One of them spotted a "benzine leak" which turned out to be water leaking out from the paralever (driveshaft housing). Hmm I didn't know I had a water-cooled driveshaft - shit! Investigation showed that a rubber gaiter had been ripped by one of the rocks stuck in the rear wheel spokes, and the paralever had filled up with water as we'd gone through the fords. A quick check of the gearbox and rear bevel drive oils showed that they had were "yoghurty" - water had got in there too. So we bought a 2.8litre bottle (!?) of transmission oil and headed for the gobi desert.

That evening while I changed the oils (difficult to do when Gobi sand and dust are blowing around) Georgie cooked up a cracker - apple and sultana sponge cake, done in a saucepan over the petrol stove. Obviously we had been able to find a supply of eggs (so chickens do live in Mongolia). The pud was eaten overlooking the Gobi desert, golden at sunset.

Next morning we had a visit from a couple of horsemen, bored with herding their sheep and then off towards UB, with the realisation that we had 4 days ride ahead of us - 3 and a half days of these on slow, dusty trails. The feeling of "we're doing something new and exciting" had gone and the ride was difficult and tiring. But we did get to ride through some of the Gobi desert - it was similar to the rest of Mongolia but noticably more sandy (more slippery!!) than other parts we had ridden through.

At this point I should put in a plug for the bike - massively overloaded with a semi-dirt tyre on the rear and a road tyre on the front - and it was so stable that we didn't fall off. OK there was a bit of skill, balance and plain good luck involved, and some of the slipping and sliding we did were outrageous, but overall the bike was so stable that it was (almost) a delight to ride.

The rest of the trip back to UB was pretty uneventful, save for a few silly things like the lemmings that swarmed everywhere and a truck load of locals with their 2 gers on the back who shared a watermelon with us (tasted SO GOOD after eating dust for days).

A section of road that had been a dust bowl 2 weeks previously was now a dust bath, with the wheels sinking in so far that the engines cylinders were ploughing through the dust - and at that point we had a tailwind so we had to either do 20kph to stay ahead of the dust (pretty dangerous) or keep stopping to let the dust swirl away ahead of us.

Our last campsite in the countryside overlooked a piece of new tarmac, hazy in the twilight, like a mirage seeking to fool us into thinking the way ahead would be easy. Infact the road was easy from that point, except for the odd section of dirt just to keep us from getting complacent.

Finally we rode into UB, proud to have survived the Mongolian countryside, and almost as proud of the dirt we had accumulated (we are still scraping dust of the bike in Japan to give to people as a "little bit of Mongolia"). We had done 2000kms out in the sticks, and thank heavens we had decided not to do the full route that I had originally planned - we might be still out there.

By the time we got back it had been about a week since we had washed our bodies and over the 2 week trip we had only washed once - with all that dust and sweat we were pretty ripe. But first things first - off to the Austrian Cafe for a cup of coffee - yes - NO! - the bloody water was off and there was no coffee to be had - shit! Oh well,
we'd better scoff a doughnut or 2.

Back to the guest-house and we find that Simon and Monika have spent the same number of days out in the wilds and done the same distance - obviously a good average! And our choice of the older model BMW rather than the newer one is vindicated when we find out that Simon's bike's rear sub-frame has broken under the load of just one person and baggage! Ho ho, one to the "ride a tatty old bike brigade"!
Luckily they managed to find a little man with a welding machine - unfortunately they didn't disconnect the battery before welding and managed to fry the bike's fuses and battery.

Just a few more days in Mongolia. We finally got clean, ate enough food for a change and caught up on sleep. Exhaustion seems to hit us at different times - which is lucky as we can cover for eachother when we collapse.

More time to do touristy things including a turn round the central market and another monastry with another Buddhist ceremony over-run by people wandering in and out.

Ready for the off we decided to use all of our available visa time in Mongolia, and leave the country on the last day of our visa. It's about 350kms to the Russian border from UB so we set-off the day before crossing the border, planning to camp half way to the border.
Good plan, until the weather changed and a fierce Artic wind blew in from the north, bringing snow to our overnight camp and terrifyingly icey roads for a few hours on our final day's ride. The ill-defined procedures at the Mongolian border posed no problems and the dead marmot and local snuff-bottles didn't get discovered as we left. And whoosh - one of the best parts of our trip was at an end and we were back in jolly old Russia.