Oki. A short update before departing tomorrow morning……
Ulaanbaatar has been very interesting in many ways. CRAZY traffic, most likely the most fucked up roads on the planet but truly fantastic people! We´ve stayed at the Ramada hotel on the main road (Peace Avenue) during these last days since we needed some good rest before departing. Definitely not the cheapest hotel in the city but did not cost more than a regular road side motel back home in Sweden. But the staff has been totally amazing and have helped us out with so much than one could ask for. And we´ve not even had to ask. We´ve explained what we had to get done before departing, asked if they know some place that can help us and they more or less said that: “We fix that. Don´t worry. Go and have a rest”. The last things just this evening was that I noticed that the guy located on the other side of town (Shitty road and hysteric traffic so I did not want to drive out there again today) that helped us fit the off road tires on the bikes yesterday had forgot to screw the valve caps back on the wheels on my bike again. So I asked at the hotel if they knew where to buy valve caps and also explained that valve caps are kind of (very!) important to keep the air inside the tires. Especially on shitty roads. What did they do? They walked outside and screwed off six valve caps (I needed two but initially said that it´s good to have some spare ones) from the wheels on two of the hotels own cars and gave them to me for free. And then they said that: “We fix caps to our cars after the Naadam-festival. You need these now”. Very kind indeed. I talked to the assistant manager just before he went home from todays work and thanked him for all the help and fine service they have provided for us and then he gave me his business card and said we can call him on his cell phone whenever on our way out west if we needed help to communicate with local people that hardly ever speak any english. I almost got tears in my eyes. Amazingly friendly and helpful. They´ve done so much more than they had to and are willing to continue to do so even after we´ve left the hotel. That would NOT have happened in Sweden! Amazing. And that is only what they’ve done for us this afternoon/evening. Hats off for the Ramada hotel.
Some pics….:
Eva has loaded a really cool little girl on the bike. Cutest thing ever.
I don´t know what it says but one can often see things on hills outside towns. This is the hill outside Ulaanbaatar.
We got the off road tires that we´ve had with us all the way from Sweden fitted on the bikes yesterday. The guy was running his business out of a rebuilt container.
And so did many, many others……. Small companies that sold parts, tools, cheap chineese bikes and other things…..
Adrian! We´ve met him during the last two days now. Always a good laugh to meet up with old friends in remote places. Adrian is great!
From left to right…… Swedish kronor, russian rubels and mongolian tugrik….. No coins here in Mongolia. The smaller bills here are not worth shit so when you change money you get a BIG pile of money…… Doesn’t fit in the wallet, that´s for sure…..
All for now. Might have internet access again soon but it won´t happen every day when we´ve left Ulaanbaatar.
Cheers//Jan
Birka Adventure Riders 