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.
