Mongolia

I continued via A340 to the border town, Khyagt – Altanbulag. It was a very small border but the procedure took such a long time. It took me almost 3 hours to cross both borders. At both borders, I needed to show my passport and GD’s registration papers 4 times. I was a bit worried as I only registered myself (as a foreigner in Russia) twice, within my 1 month stay in Russia. Luckily the officer didn’t say anything. At the Mongolian side, getting insurance is mandatory. I purchased one for MNT18, 250.

It was already 4pm when I left the border and headed south to Ulan Bataar. The road was not so good and some parts were quite bad, narrow and with only a single lane . I had to hurry or else I was not going to be able to reach UB before dark. However, there were lots of vehicles at certain stretches, and I also had to be careful due to animals eating grass very close to the road. It was quite a stressful ride for me.

I arrived UB when the sun already set. Fortunately I didn’t face any difficulty finding Kelvin’s house. Kelvin was my host in UB and he’s a successful Malaysian who has been living in UB for already 20 years. He had a very nice beautiful house and both he and his Mongolian wife, Ochgi welcomed me with a nice smell of Nasi Lemak coming from the kitchen. What a relief after a long 13 hours journey without any rest nor food. We chatted over dinner and the nasi lemak tasted so good. Thanks to both of you. The next morning I followed the couple to their Gano Coffee office. They ran few businesses including doing customized tours and two wheels tours around Mongolia. Kelvin also owned a ger stay at Golkhi Terej National Park which I was going to visit later on. I told Kelvin that I wanted to pose in front of Ulan Bataar sign and he brought me to the sign. While posing with a Malaysian flag at the sign, I heard someone greeted me. Guess who it was? Aw, it was Siti Noridah Et, a Malaysian famous solo backpacker who just started her silk road trip. We had been FB friends for a couple years but never met before. It was a nice surprise to meet her here in UB.

I asked Et about her plan in Mongolia and co-incidentally, both of us wanted to visit Khovsgol Lake. A fast plan was made and I decided to be a backpacker this time. Kelvin sent us to the bus terminal and we purchased our bus ticket for tomorrow’s journey. The next morning, Mr Tserendug, my air freight agent came to meet me at Kelvin’s house. He measured GD and gave me a quotation. It was very expensive, more than USD2000. Mongolian air freight system obliged all cargos to be crated, hence the high price. Unlike my previous experience where my bike was fixed to a wood pallet only, this time, GD had to be crated. In order to reduce the price, Mr Tserendug suggested that I dismantle both tires and the top box bracket or be prepared to pay the high price. I had to agree to his suggestion, but in my mind, I was worried about fixing it back later. Ah, worry about that later, I told myself. Lack of knowledge in the technical aspect is not a big issue. There was definitely going to be someone who could help. So for the time being, let’s enjoy Mongolia and what it has to offer.

Before departing to the bus terminal, I busied myself finding a cheap flight to fly to Bangkok (after I finished with my Mongolian sightseeing). I found some cheap flights but I needed to transit and change terminal in China airports. This worried me as I didn’t have a Chinese visa. I didn’t want to face problems so I had to buy a more expensive ticket, flying via Hong Kong instead. Then Kelvin sent Et and me to the bus terminal. It was quite a search to find the bus as the terminal was very disorganized. There was no platform and there were lots of buses with the destination written in Cyrillic alphabet. After asking around, we managed to find the bus. It didn’t depart on time, not a surprise for me. The driver played very loud music inside the bus. We took the same route as the way I rode the other day before reaching UB. The bus made a left turning at Baruunkharaa.

Mongolia is sooo beautiful. It has similar weaving rolling hills like in Kyrgyzstan but it’s more yellow here. Perhaps due to the upcoming autumn. I could see more animals here too and they are not afraid of humans and vehicles at all. Some horses even feast on grass just next to a busy road, something which is difficult to see in other nomadic countries. Yaks too, and they are in large numbers here. People are friendly and always smiling. Finally, we arrived Murun after a not so comfortable long 15 hours drive. It was 6am and very cold. A local girl approached us and offered transportation to Khovsgol Lake, but we needed to rest at her guest house first while she searched for two more people to fill up the car. We agreed and was taken to the guest house to rest while waiting. We were served hot tea which was very nice. Around 9am, the girl knocked on our door. She managed to find two more people to share the car. We drove via A1101 road to Khovsgol Lake which was very scenic. The road was long, winding and very deserted. We stopped few times for pics and to enjoy beautiful Egiin River flowing peacefully down the valley.

The other two passengers got down at Mankhan while Et and I continued to the lake. The paved road disappeared and was replaced by offroad for about 30kms. There were some inclines and declines and I kinda regretted not taking GD with me. After about 1 hour of slow drive, the blue Khosgol Lake emerged from the horizon. It was very beautiful. The driver drove us around to find accommodation but since it was off season, very few options were left for us. We settled down at one which offered MNT35000 per cabin with breakfast after bargaining. It was a good choice and we stayed there for 3 nights, just chillaxing and enjoying the blue serene lake. Indeed a very good place to find inspiration to write. However the weather was not very good on the 3rd day. It was very cold and raining at times. Thus we couldn’t laze by the lake and boredom started to take over as there was no entertainment at all. There was no TV and wifi signal from the sim-card which Kelvin lent me was very slow. Electricity for lights came from the solar panel and we had to burn wood in the oven to heat up our cabin. Against all odds, both of us still managed to go for a walk in the woods after the rain stopped, but not for long as it was freezing cold.

I said goodbye to Et as I had to go back to UB while she was going to stay for a while in Murun to find transportation to venture deeper into Mongolia and later to Kazakhstan. It was a very boring 15 hours journey on the bus as the person who sat next to me (and same for everyone else in the bus) couldn’t speak a word of English. I returned to Kelvin’s home and the next day sent my bike to Mr Tserendug’s garage near the airport. Kelvin led the way so I had no difficulty finding the place. My actual plan was to fly GD from Vladivostok, but through my research, I found out that it was not possible because Vladivostok’s airport is small. So GD has to be flown out from UB instead. Since there were no cargo flights from UB, GD was going to fly with commercial flight, which means that the cost will be higher.

In order to reduce the air freight fees, I had to dismantle almost everything so that the package size was smaller and wouldn’t cost me a bomb. During my previous freighting experience, GD had only very minor dismantling. However this time, I watched Kelvin and Mr Tserendug working on the bike, and got involved until everything was done, including drying the fuel tank. I learnt a lot in the process. The final costing for air freighting GD (in a crate) from UB to Bkk was USD1700. Imagine if I hadn’t made the package smaller? GD will fly on the 9th and myself on the 8th of Sept. See you in approx a week’s time, baby. I’m going to miss you.

I spent my last days in Mongolia visiting Gorkhi-Terelj National Park, which is a must place to visit in Mongolia. It is not very far from Ulan Bataar, only about 70kms. This place is famed for its beautiful and unique rock formations, amazing views and definitely its spectacular milky way up in the heavenly sky. Since I no longer had GD with me (already left it under Mr Tserendug’s care), Kelvin was kind enough to drive me to the place. We stopped for pics at Genghis Khan Statue Complex (Tsonjin Boldog) and by the road side to admire the pride of Mongolia, the eagles. Then we continued to the National Park. I stayed two nights at Magic Rock Camp inside the park, which was owned by Kelvin. I really loved this place as it was very quiet. It was located at the end of the road, so one could enjoy the serenity without any disturbance. During my stay here, I managed also to see wild squirrels and marmots. The ger (Mongolian tent) here was very comfy and the toilet (they have western type toilets) was the cleanest in the whole of Mongolia. Seriously spotless, something which was difficult to find in this country. The concept at this camp was traditional but with high western standards.

The food served here was very delicious. Since Kelvin is Malaysian, he understood the need for halal food for Muslims and he could arrange that too. I had a feast with delicious BBQ lamb which he made himself. At night, the spectacular milky way will definitely blow your mind away. This place was indeed a million stars heaven and strongly recommended. Kelvin also took me for sightseeing around the park. I saw lots of beautiful rock formations around the area. The yellow grassland and the animals scattered around made this place seem like heaven to me. So beautiful. On my last day in UB, I visited the famous square, Genghis Khan Square. Since it was a beautiful day, there were lots of people around. I took some time to just laze here and tried to imagine Genghis Khan and his troops during his golden days.

As the Mongolian Airlines aircraft took off from the runway, I silently whispered to myself. “Bye2 Mongolia. Bye2 Uncle Genghis. I’m going to miss you. I know that you are going to haunt my dreams after I’m back home. And the more frightening to me is to realize that GDR is going to end very soon. Yes, very soon. Can I cope? Can I adapt to being back to normal routine after living life on the road for a year? I’m afraid to even think of it…”