We finally got some internets and its a bit brief at times with just captions but hopefully I’ll be able to fill you guys in with more meat around the pictures. We heading to our Bayanhongor, our next destination, but still a ways to go until Ulan Batar. Wish us the best of luck.
Outskirts of Altay, the last few km up the mountain pass into town seemed to last forever.
We met several other teams that were being serviced, including the Ambulance from Spain.
Graveyard of rally cars that didn’t make it.
Joel got a local to donate a few Korean Spring Spacers since the owner of the garage didn’t want to sell a part from a van in their yard. For the most part there was only one mechanic and a huge queue of teams.
Our teams were running low on water and had no firewood for our second night of camping. We came across a small village and wanted to see if they had any water and food and maybe firewood.
Unfortunately there wasn’t much and in retrospect should’ve asked for gestured for yak or horse dung, but the wood that we thought was scrap was actually being used to build a Ger (Traditional Mongolian Tent). So we apologized and headed off into the night.
A Mongolian Transport Bus had stopped an there was a young man by the name of Ghana (I’m not sure how you spell that) who was a 3rd year University Student and making his way back to Ulan Bataar, he helped translate our negotiations with the locals.
Here’s Lewis posing with a friendly local.
We had to stop in Khovd for a night because of some repairs done. Joel pretty much met an interesting mechanic that re-welded a hole in our right strut and replaced our front right spring. The next morning we headed off.
The day was warm and dry, we hit the 1km paved road out of of town and as soon as it hits gravel and sand again, we see a tipped over truck, an ominous image for things to come.
A Very British Adventure blew a tire but only had one spare and decided to run on its wheel until it disintegrated. Here’s Piston Broke towing them out of the sand.
Joel posing in a situation we hope we don’t find ourselves in.
The air was dry and dusty but Lewis and Ben decided to use their last spare. and push onwards.
Another fork in the road, we flagged a few drivers down and figured out the direction to head was left. The Phone Box team was keeping pace as well as the others, but Piston Broke’s Ling Ling started rattling apart and a few ex military truckers helped them out.
Our convoy’s cars were rattling themselves apart and tearing through our suspensions. Lallie (Our Van) was holding up alright, but bounced around more than others.
Here’s Ben the magical mechanical genius of A Very British Adventure staying positive regardless of the problems we’ve been having.
All teams gathered and hit the road at 8am. The Cunning Linguists slept in to catch up later, Pissed and Broke, A Very British Adventure, and The Professionals all took off. The first quarter of our journey was similar to the roads before Olgi, just corrugated gravel and bit and local dirt paths off the side going parallel to the main road. The weather started warm and sunny with a slight breeze, but soon proved the various amounts of terrain and the effects of altitude gave us a plethora of different weather.
A view of Lall’ and Ling Ling (Team Piston Broke: Fiat Panda 4×4).
Panda was having overheating problems making up the pass, our team’s radiator fan switch was acting funny as well joining them with other problems.
Our team facing our first River Crossing.
Lallie in 4WD roughing it through the water.
Cunning Linguists, Piston and Broke and Smaller is Better Battling the thick horizontal snow on the mountain top.
A Very British Adventure and Us, stopping to conference.
Joel stretching on the Bridge to Khovd.
Cars in the Khovd’s town square scouting out for a Hotel.
Our van had held together, with a few close calls: one thinking that we’d overheat because of a short on our battery. But all in all we’re alright.
We had just headed into town and we spotted the previous Irish team (Somboyo) we saw at the border earlier on accompanied with another team. We were stopped near an Internet Cafe having children and locals crowd our cars. Kids greeting us with an echoed "Hello" and gestured for some type of presents.
Joel and I were ecstatic seeing the other rally cars gathering, thinking we were far behind the others, we caught up. Going through the "Stans" (Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan) and other south route countries had roads only allowed their vehicles to go at crawling speeds in comparison to the mileage that Joel and I made on the Trans-Siberian.
The teams we bumped into were the "The Professionals" (Ryan and Tom), "Cunning Linguists" (Kirin and George), Team "Piston Broke" (Ben and Andy), and the very popular London Phone Booth team… "A Very British Adventure" (Ben and Lewis).
We had chosen to stay at a hotel in town and take off first thing the next morning.
Joel and I had been in contact through our boss Steve with this independent team that’s been doing research for the National Geographic Survey in a modified Land Rover gave us a decent route to Ulan Battar. Our first stop was a place called Olgi, about 70km from Tsunaguur. The main road that was corrugated rattled our van’s suspension like crazy. Soon the main dirt road branched into the small village which was Tsunaguur.
A 12 year old boy on a 150cc motorbike comes up and points in the general direction of South West, "Olgi" he said. Joel and I concluded we should follow the power/phone lines which should be connecting the border village to the cities or main towns.
We found ourselves on a main trail of sorts that bent around the first mountain range. It lead to another open valley with another range of small mountains.
Having no map, only a route and campus with a quarter tank of gas, my heart sank. I was just crossing my fingers to at least make Olgi by evening. We make it over the next ridge and manage to find a decent dirt path. Suddenly I noticed white posts and saw the main road again.
We couldn’t believe our eyes, it was a paved road that followed the power lines. Joel stopped and had asked a local man who was collecting something on the side of the road, and hopped on his bike and led us into town.
The rain left a decent rainbow near the mountains.
Since Joel and I had driven for the majority of the night, the last of the landscape we saw were the small villages and pine tree dotted mountains of the Altai. We were in for quite the surprise when we woke up, seeing bare mountains, with a lot of dust, and more Mongol descendant Russian/Mongolian people than we’ve ever seen before.
The Russian side took a bit, most of it was because of our insurance and registration being expired which took a bit of explaining to do. Luckily there was a Russian Border Agent who could speak English quite well and documented the whole thing, Joel had thought he may have waived a 1500RUR fine because of him saying "Don’t worry", but having to pay it in the end.
The photo above is the gate for the borderlands of Russia and Mongolia. This was the last asphalt road we were going to see for a while.
On the Mongolian side, we were surprised to see an Irish Team who had been stuck at the border overnight. I believe their team name was "Syombo", but Joel and I were happy to see another team and news that others had just crossed and were about a half day ahead in the other town.
Sadly though, they were faced with an issue with one of their passports. It had a bit of a wrinkle because of water and my passport also was suspect in being fake because air bubbles had made its way into where the photo was put in. Plus, my passport was quite wrinkled and worn over the 8 years I’ve had it.
The girls were let through and pushed on to Olgi and we were left trying to deal with mine. I followed the man who had my passport like a hawk, making sure where it was and wouldn’t be held for ransom as I heard from other stories in other peoples travels. It cost us 2-3 hours, most of which was us waiting for the guards to come back from their lunch break.
Joel and I wanted to make it to the border before our insurance ran out. We’d already had a close call with the authorities since our registration had expired a day earlier than expected. In the Altai Mountains, running out of daylight, Joel pushed on as rain started to speckle the windshield.
The villages started fading from view except the road behind us. I was trying to keep Joel awake by trying to dig for certain conversation that never really went far, I think he was trying to concentrate on the road ahead trying to make decent time.
Village after village after river crossing passed, until we reached gas stations that weren’t open but the time read 23:59, the larger village outside of the Russian Border, but still had a bit to go. It was too late, and Joel was running on fumes. We decided to try and nap in the car and head for the border crossing less than 50km away in the morning.
The cold Siberian air and tundra started clearing to the rolling hills we’d seen previously heading North from Volgograd. We had only a few days remaining with our car registration and insurance in Russia, so we had to make it to the border in a couple days.
We were originally trying to catch up with Stella Performa since they were about a days drive ahead, but also wanted to see if Cyrus from Safety Third could catch up with us so we’d be going through the border together.
Unfortunately it Cyrus had been driving by himself and had received news from his other team members of bringing back-up and he wanted to wait in Novosibirsk, so Joel and I moved on alone. Looking at our map the border didn’t look too far away only another 700km to go, but had also neglected the fact that the route to the border crossing near Tsunaguur, Mongolia was through the Altai Mountains, which meant winding curvy roads, and climbing and descending.
It also meant smaller villages with cattle that roamed wild.
