8/8: We leave Arviheer at 1030. The temperature is 19degC. Destination Ulaan Baatar. After some 20 miles we hit road works and 12 miles of off road patch follows. It is a breeze for seasoned off road travelers. After the off road patch we stop to take some pictures of horses in the open. A little girl about 10 brings a jug and a cup of milk and points at the horses. Why not? Love the hospitality here! While I, contrary to form, demurred after one sip baba happily had three cups. It tasted like fermented lassi. Lots of firsts on this journey. We notice the traffic and noise level is increasing as we get close to UB. We reach UB at 6:30 pm after 265 miles in 8hrs.The next three hours are spent in a crazy mad search for a hotel, in a crowded city with awful traffic. The Mongolian national holiday NAADAM starts on 10th and everything is chock a block full. Finally a young lady in Royal Hotel finds us a hotel and gives us some very sketchy directions. No road or street names by the way. No road markings just compass point North, East, and South etc. After struggling for 1/2 an hour we ask a taxi to take us to the hotel. The taxi leads I am to the right of the cab and baba right behind. The cab passes the left wheel to the left of an open manhole in the road... and who is right behind? Yup, its baba.. With an unearthly sound the handlebars start to move away from him and his torso begins to follow in slow motion and his bum begins to rise higher than my shoulders, actually its his head going down, and hr kind of tumble over the handlebars head first and lands with an unholy clattering sound of his helmet meeting the asphalt! Where the sand when u need it?! I got off my bike and ran back as do half a dozen bystanders they quickly drag the bike upright, baba manages to get up under own steam. We check hands, arms, shoulders, legs, neck all respond ok slight niggle in the left shin but nothing to loose any sleep over. I was sure something was broken on the bike. But these German beauties are made to go the distance. Not even a scratch. No leaks all systems go the bike restarts with a confidence building Thrrrrum. We lost the taxi driver who thought he might be implicated in the mayhem he may have caused. Anyway after a friendly local took us in a totally opposite direction we found another taxi person who brought us to hotel at 2230. After 4 hours of Khuwaree and some near death experience; the hotel had a nice indoor garage for the bikes. The room is spacious and comfortable; so all good. More updates to follow!
Posted on: Fri, 18 Jul 2014 18:30:00 +0000
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