Route : Tashantha, Russia >>> Olgy, Mongolia
Approx Distance : 100km
Mongoli beyond those gates...
Woke up to some wild horses right outside our tent…soothing somehow. Packed up fast and went through the Russian border quickly..in about an hour and a half i think. Really wanted to reunite with Kris and Dink. Came to the Mongolian side…and we were greeted by this semi drunk officer who was supposed to disinfect the tires…he also exchanged some money…at a half good rate…took it anyway to get rid of the 5000 Kazakh Tenge which i still had. Anyway, my Mongolian visa was still on my old passport…so was my Kazakh visa..but that went smoothly. Here, there was this female passport officer who totally refused to accept this…hmmm…since few people spoke good english…i had to roam around for an hour in the office running behind a million people until someone finally understood that i had to get the new passport because of the old one being badly damaged…in the end, i was stamped through…but not before making me write a letter explaining what happened…sheesh!
The teams at the border posing after successfully having won our freedom!! This was even bigger than the Milan lauch!!
Anyway, it turns out that the Adventurists didn’t payup the import tax and the customs duty and all that for the import of the car. So our cars were impounded in this cage of sorts…some teams have been there for 5 days now! 
We were expecting some sort of delay…that was well known. People were of course allowed to walk into Tsaanganuur town to buy food, sleep in hotels etc. Some people simply played music out loud and played poker in the parking lot…some played frisbee…etc. Spirits were not high…but weren’t really low either…as we did reach the final country successfully. Some people did call the adventurists about this…and the guy in England actually asked us to keep the noise down because someone was there…hmmm…in the end, as usual, the guy couldn’t give any concrete answer…so we gave one concrete “Fuck You!” to the guy and hung up…hmmm…some of the guys were becoming really restless now…so some of them took their cars and blocked the border and about 40 of the guys walked into the office, hands locked and started demanding our “release”! It became a full blown protest and as with all protests, some people were man handled out of the room, a camera confiscated, a single handcuff produced (to arrest some 40 odd people…so that didn’t really happen), threats to call in the army (errr…) and much more. Eventually, the officials got tired of us and gave us a piece of paper with an official stamp on it explaining that we were allowed to pass through…it was not really the “pink slip” which we were supposed to get indicating the import status of the car…doesn’t matter, we just wanted to get out ASAP. We did have to pay up 17$ per car though. When questioned as to why this 17$ was not mentioned 5 days back, the official had the guts to say that he waited for more cars to pile up to lighten his load…hmmm…we were seriously agitated at that…but anyway, nothing really mattered anymore as long as we got out of that place…
Beautiful view from up there...this was after scaling the hill which the Peugeot couldnt really scale on its own power. R&R got out and pushed!!
Anyway, we got out of the border by late evening…synced up with the Suzuki and made our way to Olgy, the nearest big town. The initial enthu was high…people were racing about at speeds much more than recommended for the road quality which was frankly, shit. The word road was an overstatement…seriously…we were going at about 50 kmph max…there was no one designated path…the paths veered off into many branches…people seemed to take whatever direction they wanted in the end…leading to many “highways” to Olgy. The teams split up as a result of this…but for sure, all will reach Olgy. The Suzuki was very slow…so we waited for them somewhere and took in the scenery…very beautiful. Gentle slopes covered with greenish brown grass and not a person in sight…we were truly alone now (apart from the rest of the rally teams i.e.)
The road, as mentioned, was crap. At a point, it got so steep that the Peugeot couldn’t pull itself up anymore…we had to actually get out and push the car along. Clutch plates burnt as we made our way up the slope…man…but the view was worth it! Anyway, we pushed along until we hit this totally unexpected patch of tarmac after about 50km of non-roads…we almost fell on our feet and kissed the road. We made it to Olgy without any issues…but since we were let go from the border towards the end (last come last go policy), many hotels were full already thanks to the other rally teams…we really didn’t know what to do. We decided to go around asking people for accommodation…we turned off into this random street and asked this lady if we can find accommodation somewhere…to our surprise, she invited us in and offered a place to stay there. Wow!
Rare piece of tarmac which materialised out of nowhere...thats Olgy in the background btw...
There lived a family there…the head of the family was called Berjhan. He was a goatskin trader…was not rich or anything by any means. He lived with his children and the family of his brother in law in a compound with 2 Gers. We checked them out…they were awesome! Very colourful..fully carpeted…with small beds all around the perimeter. We loved it. We were given cushions to sit on while something was brewing outside…tea, as we later found out. We were invited for tea…we went into this smallish dining room kind of place to see a table fully laid out with all sorts of stuff…forgot their names now…but basically cheeses, some hard stuff which resembled the indian dish called boondhi, some sweet powdery sugary stuff, bread of course…was really nice. Tea tasted very good. Meanwhile…the neighbours came in to peek at us and the brother in law arrived. In the meanwhile, dinner was being prepared apparently…Kristie didn’t really feel like sampling the Mongolian food…so she settled for the soup we carried along…the rest dug in to the lamb meat Berjhan offered us. It was crudely offered…grabbed by the hand, carved out with a dirty knife…but tasted delicious. We were served the flat noddles with meat in it for dinner…delicious too.
Sunset over Olgy....
All through, we were trying to communicate using the russian phrase book (they spoke little russian) and the mongolian language index at the back of the lonely planet…hehe. We did get through somehow…and vice versa. We were so happy with these people that we offered both remaining bottles of vodka to them. Interesting to note is…they very vehemently stated that they were Kazakh (which is typical of this region) and NOT mongol. So i guess we have to wait a bit for real mongolian food and people. Anyway, one of the kids performed this dance…she danced similar to one of the dances we saw in the wedding…Kazakh it was! 
Anyway, more talking and laughing later, Berjhan showed me his skins drying out in a shed on salt. Looked cool. Meanwhile, the guys got very interested in the Suzuki and wanted a ride…tomorrow is a new day eh. So on that note, we crashed off in the Ger with the family sleeping around us…was a very peaceful night and we were really happy on meeting these people.
