Author: thedoctorswild

UB isn’t a big city but it still manages to house almost half the population of Mongolia – about 1.5M people. Otherwise we’re in the least densely populated country in the world, with only 2 people per square km (plus about 50 sheep, goats, camels, cows, yaks and horses).

Fun facts about Mongolian traffic: Firstly, a fifth of Mongolians drive Priuses – no import duty, road tax and start from cold apparently – we’ve seen them everywhere: high on a hillside, herding sheep, fording rivers, even racing us through the Gobi. Secondly, all of Mongolians drive crazy.

Thus we were welcomed to the capital in a tide of Toyotas, a blaring of horns and a complete melee of traffic and fumes. Where do the fumes come from if so many people are in hybrids? The rest, of course, who drive what we still only recognise as Mongolian Jeep’s and Russian buses. Also the fact that there are several large power stations situated well within the city itself – huge vent stacks and all… cleaner air is something the public are currently lobbying the government about…

We battled rush hour(s) traffic across the city to reach the Oasis hotel, a favourite among overlanders. They weren’t quite ready/open for the season yet but were still very welcoming and rapidly assembled us a Ger and some dinner, even whilst the new bathrooms were being tiled and the furniture taken out of store. We’re already quite used to being in the tent in the middle of nowhere so we weren’t sure how sleeping in a Ger in the middle of a city would feel but a couple of beers and a warm stove soon showed us!

Having already enjoyed several hours playing with the traffic we decided to take a taxi into the city the next day to see some sights and run a few errands. Our list of jobs, once again, read a bit like challenge Anneka, so we first asked Tseke (our host at Oasis) for information on 1) posting large items back to the U.K., 2) getting some kind of insurance we had been told was mandatory but had been unable to find and 3) where to buy Kerosene, which is still evading us.

And so our first stop was the central post office where the staff asked exactly what this long, thin item we were sending contained. After our excellent miming of ‘bike bag’ produced only confused looks we managed to convey ‘bike bag, but no bike inside’ which seemed to satisfy them. We had been told the Mongolian postal service uses an App called ‘WhatThreeWords’ (go check it out!) because a third of the population are nomadic, and whilst they have regular seasonal camps they don’t actually have addresses. WhatThreeWords allows the post office to give a precise location (3mx3m) and therefore a sort of official address, to every Ger in the country. Or anywhere in the world for that matter – for example, I am currently at: muddled.soulful.significantly which hopefully isn’t prophetic. Anyway, it’s pretty awesome and we went prepared with Mike’s folks’ address: caskets.every.organism (!). They asked us for a country and post code and duly printed out a label.

Unburdened we headed off to explore the city a bit further, taking in Sukhbataar Square, Gandantegchinlen Buddhist Monastery and The State Department Store. Decades of communist rule have taken their toll throughout the country from brutalist architecture to enormous empty town squares to the destruction of much cultural and religious heritage. Also to now warmly embracing all things western, hence the state department store which was basically Debenhams, but doing better financially.

We also visited the awesome and, at 3 rooms, perfectly-sized Central Museum of Mongolian Dinosaurs. Here, amongst others, we met T Rex’s lesser known brother, Tarbosaurus Rex, directly translating as: alarming lizard king, which seems fitting.

After wandering around and finding gas canisters, mountain bike shops and generally taking in the odd clash of designer labels and Lexuses with obvious poverty and general decay we headed back to Oasis.

Hoping for an early departure, the next day we checked over the truck, tightened some bolts, cleaned and tidied and refilled what we could before setting off west across the city. Two and a half hours later we reached the edge of town where we refuelled and promptly leaked diesel all over the forecourt. Initially I thought the alarmed attendant was trying to tell us he’d filled the truck with petrol but soon realised he was pointing at an ever increasing puddle coming from somewhere near our rear axle. Looking like the total pros we are, we panicked, yelled, grabbed a rag, swore a little bit, rolled Giles out of the way, and worked out that it was probably just coming from the fuel tank vent rollover valve (obvs). Absolutely stricken, the attendant google translated ‘ I have broken your throat’ which went some way to lightening my mood (he thought he’d bust the neck). The tendency here if you ask for a full tank is for the attendant to absolutely brim it (and then some), so we’re hoping that was the cause and it’s nothing more sinister…

By this stage it was already late afternoon so we carried on an hour down the road to Hustai National Park where we found the Ger camp was open (yey!) but full (boo!) and it was illegal to camp within the park itself. After taking advantage of a tour guide (which required some truly terrible German) we found we could camp just outside the perimeter, so we found a cosy niche up on a hillside to hide out of the wind for the night (much to the chagrin of some onlooking cows who had clearly had the same idea…).

Those of you who’ve been watching the map will have seen we made it into Mongolia! Having received a message from Mike saying ‘Coming! Pack the chairs!’ we departed, in what was a slightly terrifying, totally hilarious, mad-dash-with-minutes-to-spare before-the-border-shut fiasco accompanied by our guide, the customs agent, a senior tax official and several border guards. The system here – which may turn out to be common for all the countries we pass through – is that only the driver can be in the car to physically drive it across the border, all passengers must walk. So the first checkpoint gave us a ticket, the second checked the car, and the third escorted us back the way we had come, this time on foot, to present our passports for stamping. Mike went back to the car, I went through to await collection, and having said goodbye to Yingchu Mike drove through to find me on the far side. The fourth and final checkpoint collected the ticket, checked our passports again, and waved us cheerily off into no-mans-land. Now just the Mongolian side…

This, we were delighted to find out, was complete chaos. Several lines of Mongolian jeeps, most crammed with so many Chinese goods they could only actually close the driver’s door, fought tooth and nail to push through the series of checkpoints separating them from home. At the first one I was once again led away, whilst Mike presented the Carnet (vehicle passport, not officially used in Mongolia but immediately asked for) for inspection. After two more ticket booths, a payment of around 30p for goodness knows what, chasing a customs lady around the car park for a quarantine inspection stamp, having the Carnet officially completed by another agent, and then handing in the quarantine ticket to someone else, we happily drove off into Mongolia. A shout of “Oi!” from yet another officer, cleverly blending into the background in his camouflage uniform, told us that we had merrily driven through the final hurdle. Fortunately he also found this funny, and having checked our passports for the umpteenth time waved us on our way. The whole process on this side took two busy, crazy hours, throughout which we were directed, mocked and assisted by friendly, if a little bemused, Mongolians. We were enjoying this place already.

We spent the first night camped just outside Zamiin Uud which, apart from the odd truck dumping loads of sand next to where we were parked, was pretty pleasant – it was great to be back in the tent. From here we headed north the next day. We’d both thought about the merits of taking things easy this early in the trip and breaking ourselves, and Giles, in gently, so after 200km on the road we turned left and headed straight out into the Gobi desert for a 500km crossing we knew nothing about…

From Sainshand there’s a mapped ‘road’ through the eastern Gobi with settlements about every 100km or so. The road, it turns out, is multiple braided tracks all heading in roughly, but not exactly, the same direction – a bit like the rivers in Canada only with much less hope of ending up in the right place. The most trafficked sections are heavily corrugated just like in much of Australia, and, as any self respecting Australian knows, there is an optimum speed for ‘skipping’ over corrugations – somewhere around the 50km/hr mark. Should the corrugations suddenly grow in amplitude, however, or a precipice open up in front of you, 50km/hr is very much sub optimal. We learnt to recognise brows of hills and converging tracks as warning signs for ‘deteriorating road surface ahead’ or ‘old dried churned mud’ or ‘chasm’.

We made good progress and arrived to a small settlement called Saikhandulaan at around 2pm. Needing a leg stretch and keen to try out our Mongolian we asked some friendly passing folk if there was a tsai ny gazar nearby (tea shop). They motioned us to follow them and after knocking on several closed doors we were led into what called itself a karaoke bar, complete with freshly severed goats head on the counter. Again we asked for tsai and did some excellent miming of tea (I’m pretty sure mike even had a saucer and pinky out) and much nodding and general cleaning ensued. We sat at table number 1, the only table, and waited. Some crashing happened in the kitchen and a recently dead sheep was hauled through the front door, where it was rapidly divested of its skin. We were then presented two huge bowls of goat stew and a plate of fried bread all of which Mike declared the best cup of tea he’d ever had. It was excellent!

The eastern Gobi is probably not what most people imagine when they think of a desert. In fact it consists of great expanses of wide open golden stubbled prairie edged by rocky escarpments and enjoyed by huge herds of sheep and goats, cows, horses and camels all grazing and galavanting together. Far from being desolate or empty we spotted Ger camps nestled into the sheltered nooks at the bottom of the ridges or tucked at the top of valleys. Also some out in the middle of the wide open plain visible from miles away. We found a sheltered campsite just off the track to spend our first night in.

The soil of this part of the gobi also isn’t sand but fine dust which coats everything and dries skin. When it started raining heavily in the night we worried that the tracks might all be turned to clay mud and make progress impossible but luckily it didn’t last long. It was enough, though, to wake the grass with fresh green shoots, send the dried sticks of shrubs into bud and cause the ground to erupt with flowers. The next day was a marvel of green tinged steppe, wandering animals and stopping for directions from surprised nomadic families. The roads, having become single lane rocky tracks in the most remote regions, became broad multi-lane corrugated affairs as we approached the town of Tsogttsetsii, with its enormous coal mine and apparently direct paved road to China. (FYI, if you’re ever lost in the desert, ignore Bear Grylls and just follow the electricity lines). A bit more desert hopping brought us to Dalanzadgad, the provincial capital and base for further Gobi exploration. The towns so far have been an odd contrast of soviet influenced architecture interspersed with Streets of gers in the winter compounds of nomadic families. Whilst we have been tourists and sightseers in the desert we feel very much like foreigners in the towns. A growing recognition of Cyrillic script and a willingness to attempt appalling pronunciations is starting to remedy that… We passed on through to find a campsite for the night and some shelter from the building desert wind which was so severe it had prompted an emergency Sand Storm Contingency planning session.

Thanks to: all the Gobi residents, particularly the ones who stayed still enough to be photographed!

Having made it to the border town of Erenhot we were keen to get out into the wilds of Mongolia, with plans to explore the Gobi desert on the other side on our way to Ulaanbaatar (at which point the frequency of blog posts might decrease somewhat…). Before reaching the town however, there are some interesting inhabitants – a large collection of dinosaur sculptures, with a pair of diplodocus kissing across the road! This isn’t simply due to a Chinese fascination with the creatures, but because a lot of the early fossils were discovered in this area. We stopped for Giles to say Hi to a T-Rex before continuing into town. We’d also passed a large bull earlier in the day, apparently representing hard work and perseverance. Splendid! Whilst we put our feet up, Yingchu headed for the customs office to process our paperwork for planned exit the next day. And so the great bureaucratic cogs of border processes everywhere ground into action….and ground us to a halt.

The processes used at this post are, apparently, subtly different to those used at the entry port of Tianjin, and some of our paperwork didn’t satisfy them. The issue seems to centre around the declaration of weight – whilst one port considers the weight of the vehicle and contents together, the other considers each separately. The numbers on the entry and exit paperwork therefore don’t add up, with each side insisting their processes are correct and refusing to lose face by altering their maths. Whilst we waited to see who would blink first, we wandered the town doing some last bits of shopping – more rice, cigarette lighters for the stove, and stove fuel, which proved the most tricky. Kerosene is pretty easy to find in most places in the world, but not China it seems, so we’re burning petrol until we find some in Mongolia.

And so whilst we write this we have checked out of the hotel and are sat in the lobby. Apparently Tianjin have blinked and the cogs are turning, but we might yet spend another night here before we are allowed through.

UPDATE:

Well, yesterday came and went and shortly before 5.30 we admitted defeat and checked back into the hotel. No one is completely clear as to what the problem is or where the paperwork buck stops but the result was another night in Erenhot and dinner courtesy of NAVO, which is nice. Nothing against the town itself but Erenhot isn’t exactly somewhere to cherish a few extra hours in when the wonders of the Gobi stretch out ahead of you, and when Yingchu delightedly announced she’d found somewhere extra special for dinner serving sheep’s eyes stew I had to contain my horror. In fact she had said sheep ice-stew which is something else entirely, also delicious. Phew. She then broke the news it seemed everything was ready for our exit the next day but, in a slight deviation from normal protocol, we needed to go to the customs warehouse first thing and proceed from there. Which is where I am now, enjoying the warm sun and cool air of late afternoon… Mike recently bundled into the back of a customs agent’s car to see if he and Yingchu could speed things along because the truck, it seems, is not allowed to move. Anywhere.

First border crossing: 2 days and counting, and that’s with the help of an agent. I think we’ve nailed it!

Thanks to: customs officers officers all over the world for so diligently protecting our borders…

Twenty four million people live in Beijing, and we reckon we were pushed and shoved by, waved and smiled at, or beeped at by most of them in our brief time there. At least that’s how it felt. It’s an incredible place, full of energy, vibrancy and modern industry alongside obvious poverty and some beautifully preserved ancient history. Driving here is not for the faint hearted, but most of the signs on the metro are in English so it’s pretty easy to get around. Especially if you have a guide!

We hadn’t really thought much about what we wanted to do here, but the Forbidden City is a must. After spending some time wandering around Tiananmen Square, and avoiding the slightly morbid temptation to view Chairman Mao lying in state, we joined the weekend throngs crushing through the front gates and into the Imperial Palace. Security is tight, bags get scanned entering every metro station and tourist attraction, so everything takes longer than you expect, and there are security cameras everywhere (the national television station is ironically called CCTV). It was a busy Sunday too, though nowhere near the 80,000 visitors per day capacity that public holidays attract.

The City is, quite simply, staggering. It consists of 980 buildings covering 180 acres marking the centre of Beijing and was built between 1406 and 1420, during the Ming dynasty, with impressive speed given the complexity of the structures. It served as the emperor’s residence and centre of the imperial government from 1420 until the Chinese Revolution in 1912, and is surrounded by an eight metre high wall and 52m wide moat. The outer court consists of the Halls of Supreme Harmony, Central Harmony and Preserving Harmony, whilst the inner court includes the Palaces of Heavenly Purity, Earthly Tranquility and Tranquil Longevity, among many many more. Each of these performed a different role in the ancient court. Some of our favourite names included the Bower of Well-nourished Harmony and the Hall of Abstinence, though after three hours in the general melee we felt the Palace of Heavenly Coffee and Ice cream, the Hall of Sharp Elbows, and the Pavilion of Celestial Gifts and Trinkets might be more modern interpretations. The last stop is the Imperial Garden, which is a serene and relaxing place despite the crowds, and from where you are spat back out into the general chaos of the modern city.

After lunch we headed up to the temple in Belhai Park from where you get an impressive overview of the old city, and wandered among the old hutongs getting a feel for the great disparity of wealth which exists right in the heart of Beijing.

The following day we headed for the Summer Palace, west of the city centre and the summer residence for the imperial court to escape the stagnant heat of the old town. This was generally a quieter experience, involving a boat trip through the water-streets of Suzhoujie and across Kunming Lake, though by the afternoon we were feeling that it was time for us to escape. It is a myriad of lakes, gardens and palaces with equally grand names as those of the Forbidden City, though whoever named the Temple of Timely Rains and Extensive Moisture had perhaps visited Wales at some point. The main attraction is the impressive Buddhist Temple sitting on Longevity Hill. Much of the site has been carefully restored, having been burnt down by Anglo-French forces in the Second Opium War of 1860.

After some essential food shopping, a dash around town to find some gas cylinders for one of our stoves (most outdoor shops are allowed to sell the stoves, but not the cylinders…) we eventually left Beijing on April 23rd heading north-east to the Mongolian Border at Erenhot. After driving through invisible hills, the smog eventually cleared 250km out of Beijing itself as we reached Inner Mongolia. After a night in Ulanqab the landscape flattened out and the temperature plummeted to 2deg as snow fell around us, before reaching Erenhot in mid-afternoon. We were somewhat nervous about our decision to ship the vehicle to China, but we are immensely glad we did and would love to come back and explore more of the this vast country. Hopefully getting out will now prove as straightforward as getting in….

Thanks to: everyone in Beijing, for making it such a memorable experience!

We made it! And more impressively, all our kit made it too!

We arrived at Beijing Capital Airport in the early hours of Friday morning, having flown direct from Edinburgh and flush with confirmed jobs for when we return home. After a slightly nervous wait our luggage and mountain bikes appeared in the terminal and, at first glance, appear in tact. And so we headed through to meet our guide….which some of you are probably thinking is not our usual style….

To drive your own vehicle in China requires you have a guide in your group, which for us means having a guide in the car for all our exploits until we reach Mongolia in a few days time. Having posted Giles to China we also had all the customs processes and vehicle and driver licensing to do. Complex at the best of times, and near impossible in a completely alien country and language. For all of this we have employed the services of NAVO Tour, the industry-leading self-drive tour specialist for China, whose delightfully cheerful guide Yingchu was holding up a sign for “Wild Michael” as we bundled our way into the arrivals hall at 5am.

Cue the most whirlwind day we’ve had for while. Bikes and big luggage left at the airport we jumped in a taxi, on a fast train (350 kph fast), a metro, and another taxi, to arrive in Tianjin Port, the closest port to Beijing, a couple of hours later. Our aim was to get as much of the customs and licensing processing done as possible before the weekend, but with little hope of managing this until Monday. First stop – go and see Giles and try and get him out of customs. We had had various communications with NAVO about some items of electronics in the vehicle which could cause problems, so we were a little nervous what might have been removed. In the event, the container was still locked when we arrived. We opened it up, connected the battery, pumped up the tyres and drove him out of the compound without anyone uttering a word about the contents. We don’t know if this is normal, or we just got lucky, but we were free, delighted, and heading to the closest diesel pump for a drink.

Next up, licensing. Of him, and us. This was in Tianjin City, a short drive away without any checkpoints, hence fine to do with an unlicensed foreign car and severely jet lagged drivers, apparently. This would be the slow part and might take all day and more. Whilst Yingchu went in to the Chinese equivalent of the DVLA, we went to sleep.

She appeared again an hour later saying they needed to speak with us. Hmmmm….. We were shown into a board room and sat opposite a very stern looking policeman who, with the most severe look on his face, said (via translation) “first, welcome to China)! As we both cracked grins to rival Freddie Mercury the atmosphere relaxed, and we received a brief course in the rules of the road in China. These were mostly sensible and included things like not to hit scooters, bicycles, pedestrians or police, but at no point, in any context, gave any clue regarding rights of way. Having now driven here for a couple of days, we are none the wiser.

Vehicle licensing completed with a drive through an inspection bay it was time for us to become legit. Once again, we were told we might as well wait in the car. This time Yingchu reappeared with instructions that we must visit the local hospital, which was a little alarming. Even more alarming for Mike was the test for colour blindness, given the subtleties of some shades can leave him a little confused… Having had no clue what was on Cas’s charts he was grateful to recognise some vague patterns on his. A quick photo, for which Mike had to slouch considerably to get into the frame, and we were off to a series of rooms, all with barely discernible differences in function, to finally obtain….a certificate of health for driving. And so back in another taxi to the DVLA, for another hour and a half wait, before finally, and quite miraculously, becoming legally allowed to drive! Achieving this in a single day was without doubt due to the tireless perseverance of our guide. We now plan on spending a couple of days in and around Beijing before heading for the border…