Route : A grassland a dozen kms from Dzag, Mongolia >>> Tseserleg, Mongolia
Approx Distance : 300km

The Duduk Rally Plate...we were alive and well cos of that piece of metal. Ever so grateful to the people who put that in...

Woke up to the smell of greasy exhaust fumes…the Suzuki started its engine and spat out the remains right onto our tent…damn. Anyway, we got going on a brilliant morning…we were hoping to reach Tserserleg today early…we started off on the relatively decent terrain…the sand and grass made it a bit slippery..but nothing that we couldn’t handle…or so we thought!! Now it was my turn to lose control…we were driving on the ridges formed by heavier vehicles passing…at some decent speed…a slight turn of the steering and the car careened out of the road and bounced across the countryside for a while seriously threatening to flip over…was quite a scary 5 seconds. We stopped the car soon after, agreed that all our scores were even (Raja and Rajesh already had near misses), waited for the Suzuki to catch up and proceeded into the green land…

We reached Dzag soon and scouted a bit for some fueling option…just the low octane stuff available…we figured we can easily reach Tserserleg after our full tank at Altai. We carried on…didn’t get far beyond the next village when we heard another strange noise from the familiar region of the vehicle…the exhaust. But this time the whole car seemed to slow down a bit…hmmm…We stopped the car and braced for something drastic…we were not disappointed. The last bit of the exhaust actually dropped to the floor, probably bounced off it at the high speed and hit the car again at such an angle that it got stuck between the rear right suspension and the tire!! It was actually wedged in that tight…damn…!! We tried to pry it out for a while before being struck by a brainwave to jack up the car and loosen the tire a bit until the exhaust fell out. We did just that…and by this time we felt like surgeons almost!

Yes...it finally fell off...but not before bouncing off the road and almost breaking the wheel joint. It got stuck between the wheel and the suspension!!

We didn’t feel like throwing the piece away…it can easily be attached back with some welding…so it rode with us till the finish! Anyway, we caught up with the Suzuki and before we could move out a bit, got stuck in a big pit of really loose gravel…this time we made it out without any external help….just rocked the car back and forth a bit before it broke out loose…phew. Then we did spy the next village but Dink had a brainwave to take an off road path…he thought it might be shorter…yeah maybe…but not necessarily time saving…we got stuck again! This time, this was due to my brainwave combined with some rash optimism at being able to make it across a rather deepish stream with loose gravel banks!! We did make it across…but the car got stuck in the gravel…the gravel infact hit the underbody at around the rear edge of the Duduk plate and got tightly stuck! Damn! We tired a lot of tricks…tried digging the car out…pushing…pulling…finally a bit of manpower, as usual, did the trick…we physically lifted the front of the car up until Kristie could reverse out of the problematic piece of real estate…then she gunned the engine a bit until the car crawled out of its place…damn…another 45 mins down the drain! The children was looking at us as if we were idiots…i can imagine that…no one from their village would have got stuck at that point…imagine a fat guy getting stuck trying to pass through a narrow door…hehe. Anyway, we got to the village and asked for directions…when they knew where we were heading to, they started laughing! Actually, laughing out loud! Hmmm…it turns out that they were laughing at the Peugeot…the reckoned we wont make it. Ooookkkk…now this is something, till now no one laughed at us like this and these guys obviously knew the region…looked a bit ominous. Anyway, we left without lingering too much while dodging lucrative offers for the Suzuki…

Erm...that was me...i got us into that quagmire...foolhardy plan to cross the stream at that point. took us 45 minutes and lots of muslce to get ourselves outta that one...

Then the road disappeared…and the mountains started…we were passing through a national park and nature reserve. Of course, no boundaries, no fences, nothing. The scenery was stunning…and for us, it was just another part of typical Mongolia…we saw the occasional Ger, we saw the occasional motorbike rider, the cars/vans/jeeps dried up though, we saw loads of livestock (predominantly Yak and sheep) grazing…but what was different was the route. It was becoming almost impassable for the Peugeot…steep inclines (We had to push a couple of a times), very steep side inclines on sandy roads (ideal spots to flip the car), grass which provided no decent footing for the tires (the car kept veering off course until wrenched back a good meter or so back onto the road) and a lot more. The Peugeot was being beaten up at previously inconceivable levels…we were now on roads where the Khovd-Altai stretch seemed like the German autobahn in comparison. The duduk rally plate took massive hits as did the entire body work on the sides..the exhaust was miraculously still in place and we didn’t have any flats till now. We went on for hours like this…we had to cross rivers a couple of times…managed it nice and steady…then, the rocks started…

The road was at a point just rocks…no sand…no mud…just rocks! Punctuated by the odd grass sticking out…just rocks! From the size of a lemon till the size of footballs…smooth rocks. The smoothness of the rocks indicates that this might be the spot of a much larger river in the rainy season or maybe this was the site of a very very ancient glacier…in any case, we were going through the ride of our lives. Average speeds on this section was about 6-7 kmph. The first and second gears were groaning out their hearts in pain…there was nothing we could do but push, push and push more. If we broke down on this section, we can forget about getting the car out…and maybe might take days to actually get back to civilisation. We could have found some food in a Ger or something…but we hardly saw any motorised transport for hours. We were truly alone here…

A mini stone henge in the middle of nowhere...was captivating...especially the carved stones...a glorious past?

The car took on more hits..the fuel filter and fuel lines were protected by sheet metal on the rear right side of the car. The brake lines were dangerously exposed though…those were right below the driver…and each time we hot the left side of the car, we had to check if we still had brakes…and each time we hit the center, we had to check if the exhaust was in place or the fuel tank was ruptured. After a while, we lost count of the number of hits the Duduk rally plate took. Tensions were high….Raja had to get back to his job (for fear of losing it otherwise) by the 24th…and at this pace, it really looked like it would take a while…he was not too happy. Rajesh seemed to be half dead bouncing about like a sac of cotton at the back. Raja totally lost it after a while with these roads…he stopped and walked out!! I agree that it can get frustrating…but i told him that once we are through this, we can be proud. Of course we can be proud, i can bet a million bucks right now that not half the cars which we met at Altai would have made it through this stretch without any major issue cropping up. I took over the wheel and the pain continued…the hours slipped by….we were still rocking and bouncing and scraping and destroying the car…but it was still moving…the engine was still not complaining…the more time slipped by, the more i seriously appreciated the car, my mechanics back in Germany and the Duduk rally plate. This plate was an inch thick steel plate…it was very sound and it didn’t even bend or change its shape inspite of all the hits it took. As time passed, we began to believe that we can make it out of this horror road…we crossed a river and just then, BAM! Flat tire…

Classic Mongolia

Luckily the ground was not too rocky just after the river, we could find a spot for the jack to grip the ground. During this small respite, i looked around at how beautiful the scene was…it would take a truly romantic and possibly foolish mind to appreciate beauty when the car was this close from falling apart…but i had faith in the Tank. Yes, we have been calling our can the Tank for a while now…that was based on how it ate up the highway from Europe to Kazakhstan…we were easily the fastest and most comfortable car around. And now, in this car wrecking hell hole, it was still carrying on…the Tank indeed. We saw more Gers…more horses…and suddenly, we saw a van parked by the Ger…hmmm…a 4 wheels mode of transportation! Yippeee! Maybe the bad bit is over after all…we didn’t see anything else for another half hour though and the road was still trying to kill metal. We passed a Ger where they had about a half dozen eagles tethered to a stand…wow. Can imagine them using these for hunting the Marmot and the Squirrels which were all over the place! Anyway, we did pass the worst bit of road in an hour or so and were back on Mongolian “highways” if it can be called that…back to snowboarding the car and sliding out of control in a rush of adrenaline before fighting back…yay! It was by no means “safe”, but the joy of 4th gear…ahhhhhhh! We were speechless with joy…

It was now that i noticed that i had to hold the steering wheel in 30 degrees turned to the left to maintain and straight line….hmmm…and i guessed some of the suspension springs were broken on the right side. Luckily, clutch was working, all gears in place…and we were very much mobile…although the exhaust note was not really corvette now…it sounded more like an old beetle! Anyway, we made good speed towards Tserserleg…and we did not want to stop no matter what.

Thats the road which almost killed us...steering system, suspension, tires, rims, gear box...all were teetering at the edge after that hell. This is also my favourite snap of the rally...

The sun didn’t wait for us to reach Tserserleg though…the worst was over…but driving in the Mongolian darkness brought its own challenges with it. Our regulation headlights were still working and we couldn’t use our special rally fitted flood lamps because we didn’t have any. So, with the distance we could see, we had to negotiate the hilly roads…the Suzuki was leading now…and soon it became us just trying the maintain the size of the red dots up front at the same size breathing through dust and sand being blown at our faces by a rather unfavourable wind bearing. Anyway, we lost sight of the Suzuki for a while because we had to get out to push (or so we thought) the car up a steepish incline…after a few minutes of driving, the road dropped VERY steeply into what seemed like a solid rock wall!! I stopped, took out the torch and proceeded on foot…wanted to check out what i am getting myself into before actually getting into it (no way back anyway)…so i rounded the bend, the road did proceed…but then i saw something which i did not expect…trees…loads of them…infact, it was a full blown forest gently whispering in the wind. Standing there in total darkness with just a torch and staring into a thick wall of trees gently swaying with its curled up fingers, errr…was a bit scary…i didn’t feel like walking further on and following what looked like the road into the trees…threw our fate into the hands of god and accelerated into the abyss…

The trees almost stepped away to reveal a smallish narrowing road through them…hmm…felt very very weird…almost like harry potter driving his Ford Anglia through the enchanted forest…scary for us all. We kept on for a while…the trees got a bit thinner and we spied some tail lamps up ahead. Under the assumption that’s its not a angler fish which learnt how to walk on land and prey on cars, we followed it hoping to see a Suzuki and some friends on the other side of it. It took more than half an hour to catch up with them though…and it was the Suzuki. Phew…anyway, we kept on for some more hours until we did make it to a town which we thought was Tserserleg…turns out that it was still 25 kms that a way….groan! With these roads, a good 45 minutes…and it was already close to 10pm…anyway, we started driving that a way and suddenly, out of the pitch black inkiness, we saw something black and made of pitch among other things…TARMAC! Yooohooo!! We made it Tserserleg in about 15 mins with all smiles…found a gas station witha rather unhelpful chap to ask for directions. Realised that we had been driving with a flat for quite a while (that explained the strange noise once we got onto the tarmac) cos its quite hard to notice that after that we had been through…so we fixed the flat at the fuel station, whipped out the lonely planet and made for this English bakery/cafe/hostel called Fairfield.

It was very late of course…the few people to whom we asked directions seemed to derive some sadistic pleasure in directing us wherever their version of Fairfield was…we went around in quite a few circles until we finally found the place half invisible in the shadows. Unfortunately it was full…there was a hotel right next food though…we didn’t complain. The roads were filled with drunken idiots who either jeered and laughed at us or simply were busy being totally useless when asked for directions…we didn’t like that too much of course. Anyway, took whatever the hotel people gave us and had some old meat for dinner at the in house restaurant and crashed off looking forward to the decent roads promised to us from Tserserleg all the way to Ulaanbataar…the home stretch baby!!

Route : Altay, Mongolia >>> A grassland a dozen kms from Dzag, Mongolia
Approx Distance : 230km

As we left the Gobi and delved into the mountains, Yaks everywhere...

Well…we didn’t want to hang around for too long in a city like Altay…it was the poorest looking among the few cities we had passed through and the guy at the bar last night who did not want us to drink on the streets didn’t add to the charm of the place. Besides, the Swedish guys from yesterday parked one of their cars with all the stuff inside at the police station after paying a small fee because its “Safer”…apparently theft is quite common here. Hmmm…we fixed the flats, welded the exhaust in place, searched very briefly for a net center (found it, but the internet was down), tanked up and set off…

Our original plan was to make to Bayan Konghor…which is the more traditional route…it even had a Mongol Rally drop off point. But thanks to some tips from the french guys, we decided to make for Tserserleg instead. Its a route to the north and promised to be much much more scenic than the one to the south as it passes through a national park among other things. The french apparently did this route a few years back in a landcruiser…and they claimed that the road from Tserserleg to Ulaanbataar was so good that they made it in 6 hours. Thats pretty darn good for 500kms. Its just the bit to Tserserleg which was a bit shady…we decided to go for it…to get out of the Gobi and back into the mountains was not such a hard decision.

A shaman post with the traditional blue cloth tied to it...this also happens to be a major junction of mongolian highways...erm...yes.

We set off and made very good speed…we covered 70kms in one hour and hit this town after which the road became a bit unclear…we spied a lake beyond this town and a local pointed us somewhere in that direction..ahhh…ok. Then, very suddenly, the road disappeared. Those darn stone shrubs were all over the place…there were a couple of smallish narrow tire tracks leading the way…the Suzuki made it through ok…but the Peugeot was too low to clear those shrubs. We had to skirt around/on those shrubs and it was not pleasant….after a bit, we made it to the lake…it was quite a good view and the water was brilliant blue. Quite picturesque i should say…anyway, we took a couple of pictures, warily noted the skull and bones of a cow closeby and went ahead.

Raja was driving now..the Suzuki went ahead. It was quite sandy track now…and we saw Kristie jump out of the car ahead to setup the video cam to capture our approach. We get close and Raja proceeds at normal speed…didn’t slow down much…and turned. He lost control of the car completely and careened head on right at Kristie!! There were also some jagged rocks between us and Kristie and me at the back was literally holding my breath bracing for some kind of impact…luckily, Kristie managed to jump out of the way and Raja managed to brake in time to avoid any damage to the car. That video would be worth a watch i tell you…thats for sure! Anyway, Rajesh took over the driving for now…

Erm...needs explanation??

We proceeded in the rough direction and it became increasingly clear that this was not really even a Mongolian road…it was not even a dirt track…it was plain and wild nature! We seriously needed the compass now…Rajesh didn’t manage to find his compass, we still had the GPS system to use as a compass…so we were not complaining. Not a soul in sight and the only solace was seeing some livestock now and then…a sign that there must be some nomads closeby…anyway, this went on for quite a while…the track was still manageable as it was predominantly grass and sand with the occasional shrub/rock combination which we could avoid easily. It became clear that we were heading into a hilly region…more and more hills…and with that, the danger of sliding and flipping the car increased. We were rounding a bend on the mountain…unlike roads back home where the road itself is level, here the road is as inclined as the hill…and of course, Rajesh took it at speeds a little bit too high for the Peugeot and suddenly we found ourselves bouncing up and down and heading into the hill at a good clip!! The car twisted and came to rest at a precarious angle with its rear wheels on the road and its front wheels on the hill and a sheer incline behind us…it was too close for comfort….really. No one moved for a couple of seconds…then i decided to get out…Raja followed suit…and we had enough sense to hold the car in place as Rajesh slowly backed onto the road. Man…these close shaves are getting a bit too close for comfort…that was the second time we lost control…and this time, there was serious danger of the car flipping. It should have flipped for sure judging by the 30 degree angle it was resting at…we then realised that the sand was so dense and deep that the tires got stuck in it and held the car in place inspite of its weight and momentum…phew…thank god for the double edged sword called sand…man…

A lake among the rocky wasteland...

I took over the driving from now…and we kept on. With the hills, the camels disappeared…and the yaks appeared. That was the one big change in the fauna along with the scenery which was breath taking at most places! We made a good pace and soon seemed to hit a road…one can judge the road’s importance by looking at how big and how well maintained the electricity/telephone poles are next to it. Of course, the bit we did till now didn’t even have those…so we were quite glad to see some signs of civilisation. We pretty much kept on till the end of the day…nothing major happened apart from passing through a smallish town and asking directions a couple of times…and more and more yaks. The yaks seemed to have their fur sheared off…makes sense for the summer (apart from the money it would have fetched the owners). Anyway, we pretty much went as far as we could and stopped at a grassland next to some Gers.

What almost killed our rally within a few seconds...narrow escape i should say.

Rajesh did try his luck at trying to ask them for some firewood…didn’t really work. The nomads were least bothered about us and pretty much ignored us. And it got frighteningly cold…we got the stove going and had our heartiest meal of the trip i would say…tons of pasta, Raja’s special Peas Masala and some Palak Paneer and bread washed down with beer cooled off in a small stream closeby! Ahhhh…felt really good inspite of the lack of a campfire. We did arrange the cars in such a way as to shield us from the wind…as much as it can…but we didn’t really shield the insides of the tent from a leaky water bottle…oops…all wet. My towel came in to drain the water out and we crashed in a slightly dampish tent and in the shivering cold….brrrr….good day it was. No flats…no problems with the exhaust…and some adventure to boot!

Route : An even more random rocky spot at the edge of the Gobi desert, Mongolia >>> Altay, Mongolia
Approx Distance : 330km

Horse milk and dry cheese with fried bread. A nomads breakfast...to us...

A new day, a new break in the exhaust pipe…on came the coveralls and out came the scotch tape. We realised that this time it was not a break in the exhaust pipe but the clamp which held 2 parts together came off. Not bad…but we couldn’t really put it back in place given the limited maneuvering space…we taped it together and hoped it would stay. And guess who paid a visit now…the camel rider from last night. I couldn’t see the camel anywhere though…he came in a horse instead and with a kid to boot. He might have liked the beer we offered him last night…he arrived  with a basket of dairy products (various hard cheeses mainly) and what looked like Mongolian fried bread. He also had some horse milk with him…this time it was not fermented like in Taldyquorghan…very very palatable…its all relative anyway. We squatted down on the floor and enjoyed this simple Mongolian breakfast offered by a nomad…

Kristie trying her hand out at riding a very dusty saddleless mongolian steed...

Rajesh always wanted to ride a horse in Mongolia after his exploits in an Argentinian ranch from last year…so he did ask the nomad if he can ride the horse. He obliged…and Rajesh was all smiles trotting around with the Mongolian horse! No saddle of course and no real galloping…it was a nice and easy ride to say the least. He jumped  off in triumph to realise that his pants were very dirty at the inner thighs…hmm…a saddle would have been good. Then it was Kristies turn…same routine! We were quite happy…packed up the stuff quickly…and pushed off. Of course, within 30 seconds of moving the Peugeot, the exhaust came off again…darn it! The Suzuki went ahead with decent speed now…we didn’t want to totally destroy the exhaust…so proceeded with caution until we couldn’t find some sort of mechanic…

We spotted a village…unfortunately the Suzuki was a bit ahead and there was no way we could call them back…but there was no way we could proceed either with the dangling exhaust. We hoped they would wait for us and dove into the village in search of a mechanic…after some aimless roaming and walking around, someone with a car seemed to know someone else who might be able to help us. Not bad…within a few moments, we realized what these guys had in mind. We were brought to a construction site!! The foreman took a look at the exhaust and flagged us to the back of the site…hmm…ok…lets see what hes got. Out come a dozen men..we spot a welding station in the site…and some tool lying around. Ok…so far so good…then a guy who seems to be in charge approaches us and indicates that we should flip the car over. What!?!

Flipcar! Fixing the broken clamp...at a construction site! Was slightly risky but what the hell...we were in the middle of nowhere in Mongolia.

After some more conversation (if it can be termed as conversation), we understood. There was this pile of sand on the side…so i was supposed to maneuver the car such that its side was bordering this mound of sand and we were supposed to flip it over onto the mound while some dudes reached the troublesome spot and fixed the problem. Hmmm…to be honest, i thought this was a much better idea than using the car batteries to weld the exhaust back in place…yes, even that idea floated about initially. Anyway, to ease the pain, we bolstered the sand mound with the tent, our bags and the spare tires. Then we went to work…to flip a Peugeot Partner on its sides in no easy thing…the car including the fuel in the fuel tank and some stuff in it must have weighed about 1.9 tons atleast. In the end, it took 7 men to flip the car over…we had to hold it in place until someone found a few logs to prop up the car. Phew! The end result looked a bit shaky and i wouldn’t sit under the thing for sure..but there was a brave soul. A 50ish old guy came forward with a spanner and a  plyer and went about trying to get the clamp unscrewed and back in place…he was brilliant in the end. Did a super job of it…even better than the mechanics in Turkey who did the same operation back then. We also found some metal wire around to lash up the exhaust at certain spots so that even when it breaks again, it wont completely fall off or drag on the ground…cool.

With a thud the car came back to its original spot, and after parting with about 10,000 Togrog (overpriced of course..but we were thankful), we were on our way. Now the Corvette was gone again…back to being the staid old Partner. Anyway, we were hoping to meet Kris and Dink somewhere along the way…but there they were right at the edge of town. I was hoping they would not be too angry at us…they had every right to. But when we showed them the pictures of the flipped car, it was the antidote they needed…no issues. We carried on with much better speed…the terrain was a bit more drier now. More yellower. We seemed to be headed a bit deeper into the desert…so far so good. And then guess who we saw…

Oh no...not again and again and AGAIN!

The 3 car convoy from yesterday. They did pass us late last night…the now they were stuck again witha flat. THe disadvantage of being in a big convoy is of course very slow progress. We said hi, compared notes, and went on. We did read that the southern route through the desert to Ulaanbataar was not very exciting. Whoever wrote that…was right. It was not as boring as the flat Kazakh plains…but it was definitely not exciting. Apart from the vacillating doubt of the exhaust falling off, a flat tire or some new problem, it was just plain going. So, nothing much to write home about. We saw so many flat tires both in the Peugeot and in other cars that we were envying the Suzuki a bit with its totally cool offroad footwear which could take anything….i must have just about said to the guys “Man…the suzuki will never have a flat!” when poooof….flat tire. The Suzuki this time…!!

It was quite something for the Suzuki to have a flat…so it was a bit surprising and also a testament to the kind of terrain that we were driving through…seriously. We fixed it, checked the tire pressure of the Peugeot just in case and carried on…maybe after about 50 kms progress, we heard the familiar scratching noise and this time the exhaust broke clean at the rearish end…unfortunately, the strategic lashing up didn’t work for this bit of the exhaust and it was dragging on the ground. We stopped of course…and guess what, flat tire! Shit! We pretty much didn’t have much drive or energy to fix things…but we plodded on…while jacking up the car, the sand underneath didn’t really provide the needed support for the jack…the car fell down after the tire was removed. Oopsie…there it was…resting on the brake drums at the rear. In a way it was good that the ground was sandy…it provided a bit of cushioning to the brake drums…anyway, we started jacking it up again and this time, also started digging the ground from beneath to sneak in the fresh tire while still working with the single original jack. It worked…and thats one crisis managed. Now to the next one…the omni-problematic exhaust…

The undulations in the mongolian highways...they might look harmless...but they slowly shook the life out of us and the vehicles!

We knew that the tape wont really work this time as it was a clean break of the pipe…hmmm…we tried bringing the 2 piece together…we couldn’t manage it better than a 2cm gap between the 2 pieces. So what did we do? We brought out the tow belt with the tensioner…and belted the exhaust back to the under-body of the car. I use the word belt because it was exactly that…the tow belt was running by our feet, past the gear stick and under the car to prop up the exhaust and all the way back into the cabin!! It seemed to work and it was tight…so we set off again. Made good speed in the sandy section coming up…and we met the french guys again! Stopped for a bit to say hi and as we were, they were also headed for Altay…cool…chances of us crashing together seemed high…until something happened…

It would have been an hour and a half since the belt came on…too long apparently…the belt (made of nylon probably) melted. Yes…gasoline exhaust temperatures can get very high…a few hundred degrees celcius atleast…the belt melted through and the exhaust started dragging again. We were about 60km from Altay and the light was very quickly failing…we knotted the melted ends together, lashed it up again and set off…it melted faster this time! Stopped again, knotted it again, set off…and the knot came off! Damn! Applied a reef knot this time, lashed it up at a point a bit before the main muffler…the hope being, less surface area of contact, longer time required to melt through hopefully. Anyway, by now it was dark…the Suzuki raced ahead and we could not see them anymore. We were hoping they would wait for us somewhere ahead…thanks to all our stops we made damn slow progress…after the last stop, we made a fast rush for Altay…we knew we could make it if the knot holds! We saw the Suzuki ahead…rejoined…and pushed on as fast as we could…half an hour later, lights!! City lights!! Altay, ladies and gentlemen!

Ahhhh...the sunset piss from the top of the car...bliss...

After a brief consultation, we voted against camping in tents or a Ger…we wanted a shower…a warm one if possible. We found a very bad hotel (where the lady tried to rip us off as usual) and more importantly, a trickily shower which worked…needed to wait for the geyser to heat up but we aint complaining…the water was not very cold. Yoohoo! We met the Swedish teams with the pimped up Skodas here…the same team which we met in Semey and the Kazakh-Russian border. They were headed out to the main square (ahem…thats an overstatement among overstatements) to record a music video with their crummy guitar…hehe. Their starter motor was gone..so i helped them push start the vehicle…anyway, my team mates didn’t really wait for me to complete my shower…grrrr….we headed out for some dinner. Couldn’t really find any at that time of night…found some beer though…after a weird exchange with a lady who thought she knew English…had it and the instant noodles for dinner. On the one side, today has been the hardest day as far as the car problems were concerned and on the other side, we showered for the first time in Mongolia. So we went to bed with the sheer bliss that only a real bed preceded by a shower after 4 days of Ger, Gobi, dust, hunger and broken exhaust pipes could bring…amen.

Route : A totally random grassland about 70km from Khovd, Mongolia >>> An even more random rocky spot at the edge of the Gobi desert, Mongolia
Approx Distance : 220km

The ashes from our campfire...a bit pimped up with a horse skull. Skeletons were all over the place throughout Mongolia...

Woke up, nice cold river water washing your face does wonders…we said our goodbyes to the french guys (they wanted to swim in the river with their rubber duck!)…Khovd shouldn’t be too far away and we can make it easily that day assuming the car holds up of course. We make good speed…roads seemed to get a bit better. I don’t know how we manage to do it every time…we always managed to camp just at the end of the bad (or in this case, worse) roads before the good ones start. And then we saw it…

Camels!! Mongolian double humped camels!! They looked awesomely cool…we stopped to take some pics with them. Those camels are so much more impressive than the dromedaries from the rest of the world. We then ran into the Swedish guys (filling up their tank from a jerry can)…they seemed to be fine…car also in surprisingly good order. They are one of the few teams we knew who drove just like that after buying the car a week before the launch. They informed us that Aya (the lone star chick who lost her car keys) had found a Toyota Landcruiser from Olgy to Ulaanbataar…for guess what…80$!! That’s a very good deal we thought…wow. Some chicks get all the luck…seriously.

This little shepherd chased us down on his horse...he was not too slow mind you compared to us on the mongolian roads...

Anyway, after the Swedish guys raced past holding a kitten (erm…as much as i hate to admit it, yes.), we reached Khovd! A whoop of joy and some aimless revving of the engine later, we spy a sign on the roadside…Western Mongolia Rally Camp it said…hmm…this looked a bit fishy. The Adventurists were actually trying to help us? In spite of their brilliant efforts in letting us know that we are on our own? Anyway, we went there (we spotted the symbol for a shower and beer too along with the rest!!)…met this Mongolian guy who called himself Raina…he was helpful…gave us direction for a fuel station, a mechanic and the city center. We didn’t hang around for too long there…had some tea…saw more of the kitten (which is totally adorable btw) and went straight to the mechanics. He welded the exhaust pipe back in place and jacked it up a bit until it fit the under-body of the car like a thong between a plump arse! It did keep making a funny rapping noise later on…we suspected friction…quite obviously…ahem. Anyway, we also fixed our flats, got some money, filled up the cars, visited the local market shortly (to exchange money and to fix Dink’s unbreakable shoes which broke), did some grocery shopping after being guided by a french backpacking couple and we were well on our way…

CAMELS! Mongolian CAMELS! Such a beautiful albeit dumb looking creature...the start of the Gobi??

We did have hope for just a moment…hope for tarmac…we did pay the 1500 Togrog before entering Khovd as part of the tarmac/road tax. We hope too much…no roads within a km of leaving town and the shaman stone hill. Hmm…ok…no problemo. We knew that the Gobi started after Khovd…it was true. But not quite like what i imagined…no sand dunes…no burning heat…it was a flattish and VERY VERY dry scrub-land. Ok, this is of course the northern edge of the Gobi. We saw many a camel from now on…those things somehow seem to dumb..the way they look at you with the open mouthed dribbling stare…yeah, but i guess you wont be playing the same tune if you are stuck a thousand miles from nowhere in the Gobi with a camel. One could survive with its milk, blood and of course, its wonderful strong padded desert prone feet. They were quite beautiful creature at the end of the day…we still didn’t see a camel rider though…many shepherds on horseback reared the camels…but no camel rider…yet…

We kept on…the roads…contrary to popular expectation (based on the 1500 Togrog tax) conformed to the more conventional wisdom of being back breakers, bone shakers and of course, nerve wrackers! The road was sandy in many places…which is the good part…it was hard to maintain a straight line at the speed at which we were attacking the road…we were in a sense “snowboarding” (or maybe sand boarding) along…imagine a snowboard riding on both its edges gently alternating between the 2 edges…similarly, the car was losing its traction first on the left, then the right, nice and gentle slides away from the straight line…it was not alarming by any means…just a little bit unsettling until we got used to it i.e. Anyway, that’s the good part. The bad part which was for the most part, obviously, was the thousands of mini speed bumpish kinds mounds all across the road including the bit off the main road…we sometimes traversed a good 50 meters to either side of the main road in search of bits without those bumps but to no avail…hmmm…ok, might as well take it like men. We took it…as must have many other teams before us. Talking of teams, we spied a rally car way off the road surrounded by a small assortment of what looked like a couple of trucks with some equipment…hmmm…Kris and Dink went on to explore…we prudently stayed behind on the excuse of a road.

Thats the abandoned rally car...the water drillers were there too. We had a flat right then...grrrr!

It turns out that those guys were water miners…they are towing back to Khovd an abandoned rally car…ruptured fuel line and the end of the line for that team. Also one of the water miners has a big hole in his stomach…so they had to hurry back in any case….brrr! Anyway, Kris and Dink returned to the road…just in time to spot a very flat front left tire. Hmmm…great timing…we were standing around admiring the brownity for about 15 minutes without noticing this…anyway, onto work. We fixed it (looked like a very small bird went through the tire…judging by the furry thing sticking out of it…ok kidding, it was not a bird! OF COURSE NOT!), turned left on the fork towards Altai/Ulaanbaatar. We wouldn’t have gone a km when we saw 3 cars parked by the side…looks like they just finished fixing a flat…among them were people who were driving out of Olgy when we cracked our radiator…their car completely broke down somewhere and had to be towed by the other teams to Khovd. They did briefly try buying a motorbike…they almost sealed the deal when the motorbike had a flat…the deal went flat as well after that…and now they are hitching a ride with the 3 car convoy. Among the convoy was the British mother-daughter team who we heard about in Turkmenistan…cool. Anyway, we set off together now…and within another couple of kms, BAM! Another flat…hmmm…we went on anyway following the mother daughter team..they turned back much later for the guys…hehe.

Getting the tires and the exhaust pipe fixed at khovd

Now the sun was close to setting and we were much closer to some hills…the whole scene had a nice pleasant hue to it and we were impressed by the colours. It looked beautiful. The lack of real heat made things very bearable. We realised the need for wood for a campfire…of course, no real shrub with any chance of wood…and no trees for thousands of miles probably. Hmmm..we decided to find someone to borrow some wood from. We spotted a couple of mud houses along the highway soon thereafter…we stopped…a really old lady, a youngish girl who was constantly chatting on the cell phone (signal…there was a signal? huh!) and a very slow guy turned up. I tried my luck first…no luck. Dink stepped in with his version of sign language…no real luck either. We really couldnt get our point across to them…Kristie to the rescue, she walked straight into their house and pointed at the wood…ahhh…touche. They did point back at some torn up furniture outside their house and very big log. Hmmm…looked good for us. But they looked VERY poor and we didnt have the heart to take stuff from them for free…so we gave them a few thousand Togrog.

Anyway, we went on..the GPS showed some kind of lake closeby…we wanted to camp by the lake of course. After a while, we saw it…but it was way off the road…maybe a km off the road. The Suzuki might have reached it…but no chance for the Peugeot. We did scout the road for the next half hour or so for some kind of exit to the lake or some break in the scrubs to make a dash to the road…no luck again. Kristie was not too happy not camping next to the lake…sigh…anyway, we found a rather plain clearing among all the scrubs by the highway…looked like enough space for 2 tents. Cool…just when we were easing the car into close to the place, the Peugeot became a corvette again…vocally. Hmmm…man…exhaust pipe again. Of course, we had no interest whatsoever to fix it in the failing light…just parked the car not too off the road and resigned ourselves to try to pump in the tent nails into the stone hard ground with some rocks nearby…gave up after a while and weighed down the tent with some rocks at the corners which were still flapping about and prayed that it wont blow away in all the wind.

The crossroads...

There were a couple of Gers about 300m from our tents…we spotted loads of cattle, horses and sheep grazing about…hmmm…some of us (guess which ones… ) were willing to walk upto the Ger and ask for a nights rest inside. We decided not to in the end and got the campfire going…man…it was a wonderful fire. The stars were much more visible tonight…and we feasted on some pasta and some instant Mutter Paneer. The suddenly, just like that, out of the darkness…came this HUGE camel. It was a bit scary at first…because we could hardly see beyond a dozen feet from the light of our fire and then this camel looms into view suddenly…then we saw that its nose was pierced and it had some reins hanging off it. We spotted its owner almost immediately too. We were for a moment clueless…so we offered him some beer. He took it, squatted down and gulped in down in 2 minutes flat! We were trying to act quiet and nice in the meanwhile…he finally warned us about the fire…we were pretty close to the rather dry scrubs and he warned of a fire starting. We promised to be careful. And just like that, he turned away and walked into the darkness…he was gone within a second. I wonder how he walked in that terrain in the darkness…maybe the camel in tow might have helped somehow…no idea. This was our first sight of a camel rider…cool.

We relaxed for a bit…spoke about stuff for a while…and decided to crash. Dink and me pissed on the fire with all our might to put it off…the big log was still smouldering…so we used some river water left over from the last campsite. Kris watched some Bridewars and i watched the stars for a while…zzzzzzz it was then…

Route : Olgy, Mongolia >>> A totally random grassland about 70km from Khovd, Mongolia

Approx Distance : 220km

Berjhan and his lovely family in their Ger

We woke up to the smiling faces of Berjhan and family and took some photos with them! He generously offered to show us the bank and the supermarket (a slight overstatement obviously). He jumped into the cars and showed us around a bit…Olgy city ain’t much of a city really…it had a handful of concrete buildings and tons of Gers in a fenced plot of land. It was a bit funny to see…cos Gers are supposed to be the sign of nomadic life and yet here they were, like a cheap replacement of a concrete house in a fence…actually, i think that’s exactly what it was. Anyway, we finished our stocking up and tried to exchange some money in the bank…in the bank, this mongolian guy comes up to Rajesh and Raja and asks if they were indian…upon positive confirmation, he starts talking in Hindi!! Wow! After Kazakhstan, this is the next occasion where a non-indian has spoken in hindi..its always a nice feeling to see people from other countries learn ones language…

Anyway, his name was Khudhubudhin, a preacher of Islam. Hes been all around…Turkey, the arabic world and also has studied in Delhi. His hindi was not spectacular, but here was someone with whom we could communicate relatively well…he showed us this black market money exchange (it was a guy in a car parked in the shade) where we got a great rate and also the net center (which was not functioning at that time!)…nice guy. He was relatively well dressed and carried himself differently from a local trader like Berjhan. I dropped Berjhan at his workplace…he arrived in more than usual style of course…he even got a couple of cheers from his colleagues. Said goodbye and joined the others…

The wonderful Twingomisdudas...who helped us out with the cracked radiator

We did not loiter around Olgy too much…decided to head to the next town Khovd ASAP. As we went on, we ran into the Lone Star Chick. She was driving alone in the rally…not cos she wanted to…but cos the other lone star chick, her team mate, sorta eloped with another rally guy, cheated on him for another rally guy and is god knows where! Some girls! Humph! Anyway, Aya (thats her name) was fully sponsored by the GenghisGrill which was a restaurant chain in the US. Lucky her…till now at least. Her luck ran out cos she lost her car keys last night when she crashed a marriage party with the Swedish guys from the Milan launch!! Oh shit! Anyway, we really liked her and wished that she would find them…the Swedish guys stayed back to help her find the keys…

We set off in the meanwhile…wouldn’t have driven a few kms when we saw a huge convoy of 9 cars heading right for us from somewhere on the right…guess they must have slept in the hotel on the other side of town…well, good to know that we will have company on the drive. We kept going on…the road was wider…much much better defined than the roads prior to Olgy…but very very bad quality…typical Mongolian. There were these small bumps which repeat at an alarmingly high frequency…they are almost like the speed breakers in India…and imagine those for hundreds of kms! Anyway, we wouldn’t have gone about 10kms when i noticed the car overheating…we were dangerously close to the red line..we halted. We could still see Olgy town in the distance and could also see the convoy catching up. Upon a brief investigation, it became clear what the problem is…the clamp holding the radiator grill in place dug into the radiator body from the vibrations and cracked the radiator…the coolant couldn’t find its way back into the circuit and was leaking all over the place…hmmm…thankfully we caught the problem before it could turn malignant…

Trying to makeshift repair the fallen exhaust pipe...did manage to clamp it back in the end.

Had some sealant material with me…applied some of the black gooey substance at the spot and was waiting. It was then that i noticed that its hardening rate was 3mm per 24 hours….hmmm…not optimal at all given the circumstances. Anyway, by now the convoy stopped to ask us whats going on…some carried on…and some went back to Olgy (from the broken oil tank…major problems compared to ours)…and a few stayed back. Among them a team from the Barcelona launch…Juan and Nuria…Team Twingo Misdu das! They had this magic substance…mix up magic component a with magic component B and within minutes, we had this stone hard thingy which could be shaped into anything we liked. Perfect. We filled up the hole with the magic…waited for 10 minutes…and put more of my slow acting sealant on it just in case and started the engine…no leaks. Good news. We hoped it would hold though…lets see. We profusely thanked the Spanish guys…nice people…they headed back to Olgy to support their convoy mates though. We drove on…

Another 40 odd kms…and we heard this dragging noise. We stopped right on our tracks and hurried to see what it can be…as expected, the exhaust was on the floor. This was expected because it has traditionally been a popular problem among mongol rally cars in Mongolia. The rubber part holding it up was torn…there was no way we could stick it back together. We did have some metal clamps with us which are usually used to build rubber tube circuits for cooling liquid…we used a couple of those to clamp the exhaust back in place…and just in case, stuck in a piece of rubber tube to dampen the whole deal from the vibrations. To see Raja and Rajesh in their Schlumberger coveralls made them look like real mechanics…hehe. Those things came in real handy in the mongol terrain where air can be replaced by dust at road level…trust me…really useful those coveralls were.

The most picture perfect spot to have a flat...beautiful lake with snowed in peaks in the background and the distant dust trail of an approaching vehicle...perfect.

We drove on…past this beautiful lake to our right. The scenery was awesome…the temp repairs were holding great. We built up good speed…Raja was driving…and he went over this scrub sorta shrub without paying much attention…i mean, it was a plant…but turns out it was as hard as rock…probably evolutions answer as protection against the  ravenous livestock of the Mongolian steppe…end result, car thrown up in the air on one side at high speed and we almost tipped over. Raja was too shocked to accelerate anymore and the engine died slowly as we were looking at each other with a mixture of shock and relief…we laughed it out of our systems and kept going. Good lesson learnt…avoid those things which masquerade as plants!

We kept on and on…it was not boring by any means…just repetitive. Sometimes it paid to get off the main road and the dirt on the edges provided much better cushioning to the car…we spent most of our times off the main road…strange eh…not so strange when one considers how many snowboarders go off-piste for precisely the opposite reason…but the similarity is not at all uncanny…to me at least. Anyway…it looked increasingly like we wont be able to reach Khovd that day…it was a solid 290kms from Olgy and the roads were not too conducive to a Peugeot Partner and a very very watchful Dingeman in the Suzuki. As we kept going, we saw another team fiddling around with their cameras in the middle of this very scenic spot with snow capped mountains around. It was the same team who we met at the Russian-Mongolian border…the french team. We carried on while they continued the fiddling…their skoda was already so low down to the ground (they were 4 guys), we were wondering if they would make it.

The first tree in Mongolia that we saw...it was the only tree we saw too in more than a couple of days and hundreds of kms of driving.

Turns out that they did make it…one of the reasons being, the Peugeot had a flat. Damn. Anyway, we fixed it and kept on…the french guys informed us about this big river which was coming up. Ok noted. One, camping next to rivers are usually great and two, this might mean than i have to cross some rivers…uh huh! And soon after, water…and more water…lots of streams started appearing across the road…the first few ones were ok…but we almost got stuck in the last one. We did power our way through the stream but couldn’t get traction on the gravel soon after. Nothing like man power eh…luckily for us, some Mongolian shepherds were close by…they jumped in as well and we all pushed the car out of the gravel trap! Phew…

Anyway, we passed this small…erm…a bunk village…with a couple of structures including a shop and a gas station (with very very low octane fuel). We stopped here to let the Suzuki catch up…the whole place was infested with kids…and what truly astonished us was the older ones among them spoke great English! Again, 12-14 year olds are the ones who surprised us…its been the story throughout this trip…they have the maximum shock impact…they usually leave us speechless (i didn’t know what to say when she asked me what i am doing here and where my friends are)…hehe. Anyway, my friends did turn up and we kept on for a brief while…i saw the FIRST tree in Mongolia now..by the river…interestingly it was a lone tree. It quite obviously caught the attention of many a traveller through these roads…it was draped in the blue scarves which are the tokens of shaman beliefs. Nice. We saw the french guys camping out a few kms from there and promptly joined them in setting up camp there…

Frogs go wild east...we camped with them alongside the river!

The river with its crystal clear cool water made life easier for the cooking and the washing. The french guys, they call themselves Frogs go wild east btw, seemed to be a very well organised team. They had loads of gizmos, GPS trackers, cameras, laptops, food, camping gear etc. They have also worked on the car quite a bit although it was not  apparent in the first glance…wow. No wonder they made it through these roads…anyway, we got the campfire going and the pasta boiling. Raja stepped in with his instant paav bhaji masala…was heaven with bread and onions in lemon juice. Yum Yum! We got to know the guys better and hit it off with them really well…was a nice night. The stars were not too clear though…which was a bit odd considering that the air was almost pollution free…anyway, it got really cold really fast after a while and we crept into our tents with pull overs on and coaxed ourselves into sleep between the intermittent shivering…brrrr…