Advertisement
Published: October 28th 2006
One-Camel-Town
Sainshand - middle of the southern Gobi. Desolate, but to us an oasis of pleasures: flushing bogs, hot bath, and a comfy bed.We woke up from our slumber, opened our tents, looked around us at the featureless landscape, and said, "Where the f*** are we"?
Day 149, 27th October
Ulaan Chatsay - Saynshand
After a kind of warm and rainy night we woke up to a fresher and a strangely humid sort of a day. The tents dried out fine in the morning sun and I noticed that my bike had another puncture. After repairing it, it was only a short ride into Sainshand City - more like a dusty town in the middle of nowhere. But to us it was a paradise - there was a sealed road from the railway station into the town, and hopefully a place where we could give our bodies a well needed scrape under a shower. We also needed to stock up on much-needed supplies again.
Finding somewhere to stay was a mega hassle. One geezer wanted 5,500 togrog per person. So we hung out near a shop where locals argued about who should put us up for the night. The haggling turned into an argument and a fight nearly broke out. During the melee, one lady said we could stay in
Hotel Chaos
Four smelly cyclists, and their bikes, in one small room. And so cold outside that you ca'n't open the windows. Pheww! her hotel for 3,000 per person. It ended up being the first one we’d checked out for 5,500! We had a dorm together, and lovely hot baths. Then I washed my stenching rags (dirty clothes).
Afterwards, we did some shopping for the journey to the Chinese border. There wasn’t much to do in Sainshand, except to hang around our room reading, writing, and repairing stuff. We haven’t heard any news for weeks either, actually since Irkutsk. We last heard that George Bush was considering attacking some Islamic country for the attacks on the world trade center last month. Scott reckons Iraq is in for it, even though they probably had nothing at all to do with it. The rest of us reckon the US can’t be that stupid to start a war over that, but, lets wait and see? We ended up having an early night after discussing world politics, we were just too knackered to talk anymore….
Total Miles: 7591.20 Todays Miles: 14.77 Average speed: 9.0 Time on bike: 1:38
Day 150, 28th October
Saynshand - Senj
I like the concept of hotel guests getting huge flasks of boiling water for free in
Trans-Mongolian Railway
The view from my tent one evening as a goods train rumbled over the desert just after the sun set. Cool! this country, getting up with a lovely fresh cuppa is heaven. When the time came to leave, Mr Chulun - the Coacher of Bicycling of the Youth Sport Committee of Dorngobi Aimak, guided us out of town and back onto the dirt road which would take us south to Zamyyn Uud on the Chinese border, maybe a week away. My bike was loaded to the gunnels like everyone elses. I was carrying; 8 litres of water, 12 packs of noodles, 1 kilo of rice, 550g of gretchka, 500g of spaghetti, turnips, onions, bananas, and loads of sticky doughy things.
Today was a “wait for Toby day”. He got lost, had a puncture, had things constantly falling off his bike, and was generally tired and forgetful. I feel sorry for the guy at times, and respect him too for trying so hard to do this trip. I thought he would have caved in by now and be back in England, but no, Tobes has a mission…. We rode through ever desolate landscape. It seems that the thorns in the sand have gone now, no more punctures. However, there were plenty of camels, herds of them. After 30 miles of rolling
Goin' South
Does the colour GREEN even exist out here? Are we on the right road. I need a cafe! hills and bumpy tracks we camped as the sun set and the moon rose high above the desert in the south east.
Total Miles: 7622.19 Todays Miles: 30.99 Average speed: 7.8 Time on bike: 3:55
Advertisement
Tot: 0.334s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 19; qc: 105; dbt: 0.1327s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb
