2017/08/12

Day 14: Khovd - Ulaangom

250 km offroad. Gravel, sand, deep sand, shallow sand, deep gravel, deep trails - a challenging ride. And three fall downs: the first is Dan, who turns around and for moment does not take care. I am the second one. I got into a deep lane in the sand and flying off the bike rolling off with a classic volleyball movement. Too bad nobody has seen or even filmed that. The third one is Orvar. But everything without bruises or even damages. In a few places Dan supports Sara, because it is very difficult today and very strengthing. But sometimes we can also pace over the gravel or the wide meadows.

Everybody has to find his own way. So it happens that Trevor, Orvar and I are gathering together at some place, waiting for Sara and Dan. A Mongolian car driver joins us and after a while Trevor goes back to look for the other two. When Trevor was just getting out of sight, we see two and after a while then three motorcycles parallel to us in a distance of about 2-3 kilometers - but we can't see who it is. So Orvar goes after them. And I wait together with the Mongolian guy. We have some talk somehow. He offers me some water and I offer him a German cereal bar. He tells me that he was traveling the 1400 km from Ulaanbator in two days and is not far from his hometown (I ask him about where his Ger is).

The landscape it is breath taking, changing constantly wiht wide views to mountains, lakes, vastness. Reminds me a little about Morocco, but is even more intense. 

This morning, the electricity in the hotel and town was gone. I had unfortunately closed the room door when I was bringing some of my gear to the bike - without electricity, of course, the door does not open again. Nevertheless we had breakfast, though it was a bit poor of course. And we were not able to refuel because of the power failure.

I am enthusiastic about the people here and on the fact that they are so pleased of us. They are waving and coming towards us, are curious about us. When we were fuelling up, people collected together and examined our bikes. We had to fuel up with 92 octane - will see how my bike can handle it. If necessary, I will fill in some of the octane booster.

Lunchtime is late today, because we couldn't find a place to eat for a long time. Since food is always freshly prepared, Orvar and I preceded to order already something. And at the onliest restaurant in town, we met two motorcyclists, Lee and Veronika, an English-Slovakian couple with whom we exchanged informations.

When Orvar and I stopped for some photos, a shepherd on his horse came to us and offered us to climb on his horse. Orvar dared to be the first. And then me - the first time in my life on the horse. A really funny situation. We offered the shepherd a little bit of money because we did't have cigarettes for him - he asked us about cigarettes, maybe we should buy a some for such occasions.

As the weather worsened, we decided to ride to Ulaangom instead of camping. We decided not to take the 40 km detour on the better road, but to take the 20 km of gravel road, on which we had to pass two large water crossings.

The hotel is very basic: cold water, you have to ask for towels. The food is acceptable. And then it's very late again. We were on the road for eleven hours.