TravellingStrom

Mayan Prophecy Countdown

Well, I have to say that having nearly 12 hours sleep really fixed me up. I seemed to have energy and an appetite, for food only, when I looked out the window I had NO appetite for riding!!!!

And it did not stop there, it was cold, very cold and to prove it within half an hour, the wind was blowing snow horizontally across the road and covering the bikes.

It seemed like today was going to be a non riding day and we were still 650km from Ulan Batar, well what a bugger! last night Nacho had sent me a message and asked me about sharing a truck, his bike was not working very well, probably the clutch, so he was reluctant to do any more damage. Well, I was thinking about continuing, but not in the rain, nor the snow!!! Trying to ride in these conditions would be suicide, especially as I was doing enough damage to my bike when I can see the damm potholes, but when they are filled with water, and add fogged up visor into the equation, then my mind was turning very fast to getting a truck ride to UB. It would depend on cost of course.

So, we asked the hotel chap and he said he would ask a trucker at 10am, he had three people to ask and they all left at different times. So, 10am came and went, he went for a ride with David to ask the dude and came back with a negative. The next chap was not available until 11am. It was starting to cut into the day, it was 250km to the next big town, if we were going to try that section, we needed to leave soon.

In the meantime, Lorraine decided she was riding, despite the cold and rain. While she was getting ready we heard back from the trucker, he wanted $220 for the two bikes, this was very cheap and we immediately accepted the deal. The truck would be here around 2pm for loading and it would be in UB by 6pm tomorrow night.

We had of course left our check out to the latest possible, my room started out OK, but because of the rain, the other three, who were sharing had a major waterfall happening inside the room. I noticed when I went back for a nanny nap that I also had a leak, so I moved to the other side of the bed and missed getting water blasted!!!

During this time a couple of other bikes turned up, these were Chinese bikes and were being ridden by a couple of Kiwis, here for the next few weeks to ride the Steppe. That’s them behind my bike. They were cold and wet so called the day off while they dried out.

So, 2pm came and went with no sign of the truck, but after I checked my phone APP called cultures, it seemed this is correct, they will mention a time in Mongolia, but whether anything happens is a different story, if it doesn’t, this is the norm!!! But after some chit chat the truck did finally turn up and we spent the next few hours getting them loaded and locked down. Riding the bike up this dirt mound, then skull dragging the front and back around to line up with the truck bed was another story, crikey these bikes are heavy!!!

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Now, if you are wondering where the third bike came from, it is Lorraines. After she heard the price of $110, she baulked and wanted to save that money, but her bike would not start! We tried everything we could think of, even jump starting with a battery pack and still no go. To me it sounded like a very sluggish starter motor, they normally run faster than that, but it was hard to check without pulling it apart. So, reluctantly she parted with some money and we loaded all three. The trucker chap was very very good with the loading, the sheets of ply in between were a good idea and the way he strapped the bikes down and to the truck was excellent. I had made sure they were loaded parallel to the back of the cab and directly behind it, for the least bumpy ride possible. So, after an hour and a half in the freezing rain and snow we had the bikes packed and the truck headed off, maybe never to be seen again except Mongolian Ebay maybe !!

So, now we had the rest of the day to kill, we were not riding, we would all ride in the Range Rover with David, and so we had to repack the whole car to get us all in. That took a while, but once that was done it was beer o’clock 🙂 In a pig’s arse it is, it is Monday, the friggin bar was closed, no alcohol sales anywhere WTF, but they had signs everywhere, but I have no idea what it says!!!

Well, those two Kiwis had given us a hand to load the bikes and especially mine which is nearly twice the weight of the others and I had knowingly said I will shout the drinks tonight 😆 That was a challenge and a half, you get two Kiwis on the promise of free piss and one Ozzie on a beer drinking mission and we would have to hand in our nationalities if we could not find a pub. And blow me down we found a pub directly behind our hotel which was locked, but they opened the doors and served us beer and vodka ll night until closing time, with us locked inside, what a way to go 🙂 We had to be quiet a few times though as the cops did their patrols, but we survived and had a thoroughly enjoyable evening 🙂

This is Daniel, Matthew and myself and if you look closely at the first photo on today’s page above, the pub is just behind them trees 🙂

We were asked to leave around 10 and then continued in my room for a few hours, a very nice evening 🙂 Tomorrow we were heading off around 7am with the goal of 650km to Ulan Batar an unknown factor. We knew we would hit pavement after the next town, but we had heard the pavement was worse than the rippio, so we shall see what tomorrow brings 🙂

Cheers from Bayankhongor
TravellingStrom