A Busride for the Ages: a tale of woe in the heart of Mongolia

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Our broken down bus lies destitute in a small river valley, nourishing the only vegetation we have seen for 200 kilometers. We hike a mile up a hill to a small som, the bus drunk leading us in his search for "medicine" . Thunderclouds looming behind desert mountains, a couple hawks drift lazily overhead, eying the paraplegic dog, its crippled legs and tail weaving a haphazard trail thru the dirt. Minivans with 3 spare tires strapped on their roofs sit idle, their occupants wandering in between gers. Our friend Jala approacheth. "Someone on their bus has died" he tells me in the typical stoically slow Mongolian-English. "OMG wtf that stanks bAd 4 dem" I reply. A slow smile creeps up his cheeks, "Yes, we have a problem, but theirs, is much worse."

Having spent a few nights resting in our Korean ran UB guesthouse, the owner Kim bids us adieu (he actually just says " 'sup brah?" all the time) Conrad and I head down peace avenue in search of the allusive bus 26. As we wait, the commonly reoccurring swastika rears its ugly head in a most peculiar locale, on the front of the bus usually reserved for smileys. Apparently they got a nationalist movement here and have a boiling hate for the Chinese. But I digress; we pay the 300 tugriks each and head towards Dragon (pronounced dragown). There we found a kid that knew enough English to get us our two tickets to Khovd, so we 'Merica!ed our way to the front of the line, much to the chagrin of the locals.

We were told that the bus ride would take 40-45 hours. Yet that is not the way it panned out. Exiting Ulaanbataar we stopped almost immediately as the bus could not forge a river. Then about three hours into the country side the smoke begins to billow. And billow it does. We stop, and the drivers slash mechanics begin their craft. A herd of cows cross the road in front of us, and a heard of horses come hang by us on the other side of the road, dancing their heads to the rhythm of the honking horns of passerby cars. As the wait prolongs, we soon learn that this bus has gone kaput, and another is on the way to pick us up. The hours pass, the sun begins to set, and little boy comes by bare horseback to herd the horses home for the night. Three hours into our journey, and six hours of waiting, we are on the road again.

An hour later, we arrive at my first Mongolian truck stop. I order my new favorite local cuisine, goolash, and drink some salt milk tea. Feelin fresh like a million toogs we hop aboard, and I stay awake the rest of the night, sleeping only when the sun has baked the ground enough to let the warm steppe air into the open bus windows. Riding above the wheel well, my legs soon learned that comfort would only come by getting off the bus, and so with a seat screw drilling deep into my patella, I reminisce...d

Conrad and I were both virgin couch surfers on our arrival to UB, and we left with a notch on our proverbial belts. At the hostel we meet two peace corps girls that knew the guy Danny we were to stay with. We meet at sukhbataar square and had some drinks and food at an upscale restaurant. The next day we left our hostel to crash on his couch and floor. Using the peace corps lingo, his crib was one grade up from poshcore and fully fledged expat. A very nice apartment on the 7th floor, we dropped our bags off and went into the night. Our second with him we ended up getting pizza and meeting up with Becky, Nadra, and some other Americans. After, we got vodka drunk singing karaoke deep into the eve. We awoke the next morning to the blazing sun and honking horns of peace avenue. I don't get hungover that often, but that day, we felt like shit, escuzee my French. We had alot of fun tho later that night playing presidents and assholes with Danny's future wife Estella. She was from St. Louis, home town of my furvrite rapper Chingy. We alternated lines from many of his songs, like "I took a chick in the bathroom seein what's poppin' you know whats on my mind shirts off and panties droppin. niggas knockin on the door drunk, actin silly the girl said can i be in your video im like yeah ho really now she naked strip teasin, me im just cheezin she gave me a reason to be a damn heathen." I was most happy.

Our bus ride must have been cursed. Perhaps it was that old man who yelled at us at the Dragon bus station for pushing thru the line to get tickets, for early in the next morning we broke down again, on our new bus 😞 I actually lost count of the times and hours we spent waiting, but an estimate would be a full day of waiting and perhaps 7 repair stops. We timed the whole journey on the bus and the 1600 km trip took 67 hours. That's average of 15 miles an hour!!!): We stopped to fill up on gas around 7 in the morning, and stopped an hour later in the middle of the desert to fix the new bus for the first time. I never knew what was wrong with it. So as we wait another 3 hours under the relentless sun, finally we all pile back in, eagerly anticipating the exodus from inferno.

The driver turns the key. clink clink clink clink says the bus. Before I knew what was going on all the men clamor of the bus and begin pushing. We join in, the driver drops into gear and we are off. From this point I can't precisely recall what happened for the next 24 hours, but just more of the same. Brake downs at night, morning, dinner, really whenever. The only significant event came when we finally broke down near a small village.

The bus was filled with an assortment of Mongolians, including some college students returning home for the summer from Ulaan Bataar. With Jala, Agii, and a few others we ate some soyban, played volleyball in a circle, and then stole the basketball court of this village of a few hundred from the local kids. Ballin with them was fun and took my mind off the journey for a while, a small reprieve from unexpected delays. The Mongol style is to never take the ball back, if u shoot and miss, the other team can but it right back up. And if your team does score, you also get the ball back. I believe their rules for out of bounds were opposite. A few games later, we stop and begin to play Texas Hold 'Em in which the losers were forced to sing and dance in the streets. Clearly the bus ride had affected their sanity as well.

That turned out to be our last break down, but not our last time. Later that night we were forced to stop in Darvi, the fog too thick to navigate the dirt paths they call roads.
Then in the early ours we find the two buses that left UB the day after us stopped in front of a bridge. Soon, all the people walk out and cross this bridge, which has giant spans missing. Seeing them walk across with bags and weary looks on their faces, I could only liken it to the "trail of tears". Across the bridge, a new father who can speak some English takes our picture with us son. Did we just bless a baby I ask Conrad. The buses cross the missing concrete segments on wood posts and we begin the final stretch to Khovd.

Having slept an entire day away after those 3 long nights, I can look back on it with fond memories. Towards the end my legs and glutes quit seizing up and I started to almost feel comfortable. Fortunately that stretch is literally the furthest bus you can take in Mongolia, so the rest will be easy. But next time, I think we will fly.

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