25th July - Russia to Mongolia!!!

Full of anticipation, we headed to Tashante (the border) after a grocery and a fuel stop. Truth to tell, it was an awful day at the border. I didn’t get stamped for exit, and the border guard at the final Russian check point insisted that I rode the 13 kms back to the Russian border official. Under normal circumstances one would think that he might of alerted them to let them know I was coming and to just give me the stamp to clear me. But no, after the ride back to the Russian side, the Russian official locked the gate in front of me and told me to wait, and motioned they were going to eat. So, I had to hang around for over an hour until they all got their scran in, and I baked in the sun, refreshed by the warm wind blowing the smell of human excrement from the pit under the ‘toilets’ outside the gates. Eventually I got a stamp and the same guy stopped me asking for my passport. Now, if he’d been doing his job right in the first place, I wouldn’t have had all of this hassle, so when he asked, I was at less than my politest best. Russian officials were no longer scaring me and my Ulster ‘thranness’ was coming to the fore. He’d no idea what I was saying, but he could tell I was pissed.

Getting through was not smooth. While I waited at the Russian side, the rest of the guys had a long wait at the Mongolian side. We had to pay 50 rubles for a medical check, which was not so much of a check as a signature on a piece of paper? A scam, no doubt. At this point it was clear that the 2 fellas from Manchester were going to have problems getting the car in and leaving it there. The officials were not one bit interested and insisted it wasn’t going to happen. Pavel, who had far and away the best Russian of us all, spent quite some time translating. All in all the process was 6 or 7 hours and the thrill of getting into Mongolia, a dream I’d had for a while now, was a bit of an anti-climax. We left the guys there and pressed on, instructing them to text us when they had figured anything out. It seemed that they’d leave the car at the border that night and sleep in it. In the morning they’d call the church responsible for it and see if they could get it through. Later addition: they paid a several hundred dollar bribe and got it through the following day.

While I was sitting around waiting for Pawel and the boredom set in for us all, I rode a hundred yards or so and fulfilled the obligation that I had to Jon Fox (everywherevirtually). It was the least I could do for him functioning as the HQ back home. I stuck one of his stickers on the Mongolia border post and put it high up so that he might find it there some day. Perhaps if you pass here, take a photo and send it to him.

We rode in, and sure enough, no roads and out of your mind beautiful scenery. We got to the first village where we were ripped off on benzene, by two guys who seemed the epitome of friendliness at first but who turned when we didn’t tip them. They looked at us with murderous intent and attempted to stop us. I rode at them and decided to give them the option of standing there and taking the weight of a quarter ton bike plus passenger, or move aside. They chose the latter, and we wondered if this would be par for the course for a country we’d heard so much about in regard to hospitality. Our conclusion was that from now on we’ll negotiate hard before buying fuel. We rode some way out of the village and found a place to camp by a lake. It rained hard all night and so much so that the ground softened and Pauli’s bike toppled off the centre stand. He could be heard trying to sort it out in the lashing rain in the dark. Kristian got up to help him, but he’d snapped a wing mirror. Can this bike depreciate any more? There was lightning so intense that you could read a book in your tent. An eventful start to a place which would soon fill with promise and adventure…