We are now in Olgii, western Mongolia. Arrived last night. Tosontsengel was fantastic in many ways. Interesting when the hotel you stay at does´t have water or electricity between midnight and 8 at night. 😉 But friendly people indeed. The further west you go in Mongolia the rougher it gets. More stone deserts and less to see. And the western province were Olgii is located mostly has a Kazak/muslim population so also the culture change the further west you get. Some pics…..
Sorry but I don´t know who this is. Found this statue in Tosontsengel next to the internet café that we located. And they didn´t have wifi there so we could not use if with our Macbook Air computers……
Floodings caused by rain makes it hard to drive even within the cities quite often. We learned that Tosontsengel is the coldest place in Mongolia during winter. Often gets below -50 C…..
A stairway to someones house……
Eva eating traditional mongolian food at a small restaurant.
I tried to take this pic so that she would´t notice but I think she did….. Classic mongolian look and she had the most friendly face. She must be someones grandmother. She looks like a grandmother.
Eva crossing the street on the only stretch of tarmac in Tosontsengel……. 200 meters about. 4 speed bumps……
Skyline hotel. Great place to stay while in Tosontsengel. No electricity or water between midnight and 8 in the evening tho but very helpful and friendly folks.
It´s a common thing to see horses or cows walking around within the villages.
A petrol/water…….vehicle…..
A rather big part of Mongolias population still live their lives as traditional nomads and this is rare these days if one looks at all the different countries around the globe. The swedish Same population are very “westernized” when compared to the mongolian nomads but many of the gers actually have a rusty satellite dish somewhere behind hidden….. But the way they live their lives is still very traditional when compared…..
One can often find these small open air “temples” were people stop and offer things to the Earth for good luck on a journey or in life.
Another temple.
I don´t remember what village this pic was taken but it had nice decorations on the paling…..
Workshop, 10 meters to the right….. 🙂
Mongolian doormat….. 😉
The further west we got, the harder it got to ride the bikes. Sharp stones, rocks and stone deserts. There were landslides and major water crossings after the heavy rains in our way too between Hovd and Olgii and Eva had a sore shoulder and hip after her crash. So we decided to ask around if anyone could help us to get to Olgii to save the bikes and ourselves. We found two really amazing guys that took us the last stretch to Olgii on this little russian made mini bus. We loaded the bikes yesterday and they did a totally amazing job both when it came to strapping the bikes down so they would´t get totally smashed up during the VERY bumpy ride and the driving itself. Again, FANTASTIC people that did so much more than they had to.
Flat tires are very common on these roads.
Stone deserts. The locals calls this part of Mongolia for “Mini Gobi”. The real Gobi desert is located further south.
This used to belong to a horse.
Wouldn´t want to cross this river on a bike. The driver was a bit nervous first but he did a fantastic job with his little russian made 4-wheel drive mini bus. Same type of car that I´ve written about earlier in the blog.
https://birkaadv.wordpress.com/2012/07/07/irkutsk-ulan-ude-and-ulaanbaatar/
Cutest vehicle ever. I want one! 😀 And they can handle heavy abuse too. A US made car would most likely have fallen to pieces within minutes on these roads. Not a Hummer perhaps but pretty much everything else. Russian made is good shit! And easy to fix if they break…… Good fun that we got the opportunity to ride in one. Wonder if it´s hard to import one to Sweden…… 😉
The river again and a glacier in the distance…..
We haven´t seen camels in awhile but……voila…… 🙂
Eva and the lads before arriving to Olgii. Fantastic people and we´ll do our best to keep in contact. They are very welcome to visit us in Sweden whenever and we hope to meet them again on a future trip. We are happy that we found them and that they decided to help us out cause the last stretch would have been a total nightmare to ride on our big and heavy bikes. Probably saved us a couple of days too since we don´t get the same distance during one day.
We unloaded the bikes earlier this morning and they were in perfect shape. Amazing indeed since it was a VERY bumpy ride during the day. The car was pretty much all over the place, swaying like mad! We´ll load the bikes tomorrow with our stuff after a good nights sleep and head for the russian border. About 80 kilometers of bad roads left and then we´ll be on russian tarmac on sunday I think. We´ll try to be at the border early on sunday morning since it is very time consuming to enter/leave Mongolia and the russians aren´t much better. Will likely take 4 – 5 hours before we are on russian tarmac. And then the Altay region!! I really look forward to the Altay….. It´s beautiful. Russia´s Rocky Mountains/Alps….. And after that some 4.000 kilometers of boring riding through Russia. Lots of forests/trees, crappy small villages, more forests, mosquitos and then a big city…… And that goes over and over until we´re in Estonia and the ferry back to Sweden…… Pretty much. We hope to get to visit the Ural plant in Irbit where they make the Ural motorcycles on our way home. That would be fun. And perhaps get a opportunity to try one out. THAT would be fantastic. I´ve not ridden a side car bike since I sold my old Harley from -36 some years back. I want a Ural. Fantastic bikes. Doesn´t cost much and are easy to fix if they break. But more about that later. First we have to take ourselves up to Tsagaannuur tomorrow and over the border on sunday…… Oh…. I´ve heard that they have a Irish bar here in Olgii. Will try to talk Eva into a visit as for tonight….. A pint of Kilkenny would suit me fine!
Cheers//Jan
Birka Adventure Riders 