Ulaanbaatar to Zuunkharaa

We had a wonderful 3 day break in Ulaanbaatar, staying with French Warmshowers hosts Antoine and Aurelia. We cleaned ourselves, our clothes and our bikes after the desert, and checked out the brilliant Mongolian History Museum between snow flurries. But it was time to hit the road again, before we got too comfortable and never left the apartment.

We stuffed our bags full of water and food again and psyched ourselves up for the brilliant forecast day of 1°C.  True to its word it was freezing, there was snow on the building roofs and plenty in the hills we were heading for. Perfect. We had cold fingers, cold toes, cold noses, more sniffles and a cold bum. We climbed out of Ulaanbaatar through the endless suburbs. They call these the Ger Districts, but there were actually a lot of nice houses and much less gers.

We started out on lovely sealed road that soon acquired pot holes, and even more quickly turned to gravel road. We had climbed a fair way by now, and after about 30km of biking we turned off on to 4wd track (aka Mongolian roads). We climbed in the slippery mud, lined with snow, for about 400m until we were eventually surrounded by snow. No sign of the road, and Calvin's brakes stopped working due to being clumped with snow. It was the perfect time to set up camp and get into all of our clothes and sleeping bags in preparation for the -6°C that hit that night.

It was cold

Progressed was slowed a bit with a layer of snow

A few times during the night we heard vehicles pass us and head up the road. Crazy Mongolians drive anywhere!

We woke to the condensation of our breath frozen to the top of the tent and dampness around the egde of our sleeping bags. We lay there for a while contemplating if we should pack up and push on or decide on a new route and also to allow the tent to defrost and the temperature to rise above 0 before anything should be done. We packed up in the midsts of snow flurries and decided on the sensible option to continue on our original route over the hill into the snow and the unknown not quite sure if we would be forced to turn back. Luckily, we realised that GPS doesn't help Kate's map reading skills, and we had veered off track 50m in the snow so our path was much clearer than expected.

This turned out to be our first day of off road riding and we had a blast! It started with a sweet descent on a road slick with ice. It was like mountain biking, but really slowly to stop the bikes being damaged under the load and to stop ourselves slipping on the ice. It then opened out into a beautiful valley floor scattered with tracks. As there are very few roads in Mongolia the land is marked by loads of tracks where people have driven. When one gets too bogged, too rutted, too corrugated, they just drive to the side of it to create a new track. We were spoilt for choice. We rode through packs of horses, goats, sheep and cows with eagles (or some kind of awesome bird of prey) soaring above us and passed many a gers.

Luckily we had spikes in our tyres. Oh no wait we didn't. Just happy there was some track to ride

The beginning of the glorious valleys we got to ride

We finished the day with a beautiful view of the hills and a valley just outside the township of Batsumba.

From here we started the day following the train tracks. However, this led us through swamp land, so instead we followed a small track up what would be the first of three big ascents that day. The day was filled with Calvin slowly pedaling his way up tracks, and Kate laboriously pushing her bike. At the top of our second climb we were met by a man and woman in their truck. We dutifully communicated where we were heading, and all our climbing efforts were rewarded with chocolate! The woman then extracted a syringe, a bloody big syringe, from the truck and squirted some thick yellow fluid from its end with a big smile on her face. We thought 'uh oh'. Then she pointed at the cows. We think, and hope, they were vaccinating.

Off the beaten track

One of the many steep climbs of the day. Great rewards at the top.

Following our third descent we headed into the town of Tunkhal. This was one of those towns you ride into and think 'where is everyone?'. Calvin described it as 'what you think Afghanistan would look like'. We eventually found a shop and restocked on dinner before heading further up the road to find a spot to camp. Luckily for us before our home was set up, a goat farmer on this motorbike, carrying a kid goat, came down to point out dead animals we hadn't seen in a near by ditch. We promptly moved to higher land, upwind of death ditch and replaced it with grand views over the vast valley in front of us.

The last day of this section of the journey started out hot and ended even hotter. After more great track riding we made it to the town of Dzüünharaa to restock on supplies for the next section. 10km out of town and the sun was still beaming like it was midday at 5:30pm. It is hard to believe that we started out on this exploration in (not enough) layers of clothing to fight the cold, and only days later were hiding in a tent to avoid the blazing sun, sitting in our underwear trying to cool down. Mongolia.

Tunkhel

Which track to choose?

Uh oh. Cows.