Down to Mongolia

Wow what a long time ago it seems that I had the chance to sit down and write anything. Where to begin?

One of the old Soviet tanks in the park in Barnaul

Tyres and oil changed

I got the tyres fitted and the oil changed on the bike and everything was fine. We headed south towards the Alti region and the border, through some stunning countryside.

The Russian people have discovered this area as a holiday destination and there are all sorts of cabin resorts being built, although none of them seem to be open for business at the moment. Apparently their president has built a very nice new dacha there and while you can’t see it, but the new road and gates look very nice. We found a room in a small guesthouse for the night and although there was only a shared toilet and washbasin on the landing, the lady persuaded us that a banya would be good later on.

Our accomodation at the highest point in the Alti

The ladies went first at around 20.30 and then at 21.30 she knocked on the room and took us round to the banya. For want of another name it’s a sauna, but boy was it hot. I only managed about 5 minutes the first time and one the second. I couldn’t breath!! But at least the pours were opened up and I sweated out a bucket load and felt clean after.

more beautiful scenery 

A monument to the truck drivers 

The next day we headed down to the small town just before the border and along the way picked up a third person “Tom” from Germany on an Africa twin. We found a nice hotel to stay in and prepared ourselves for the crossing in the morning. We set off early and after only 50km we arrived, only to find that it was closed!! Who forgot it was Sunday? All of us! So we rode the 50 km back and ended up with another room, although we needed to wait until 14.00 before we could check in again.

Finally on the Monday morning we made it back to the border, along with everyone else that had been waiting to cross for the weekend. What a mess. There is no queuing system and the Kazakh person in front of you might have had 12 passports in his pocket. Seven and a half hours it took us to get out of Russia and then on the way through to the Mongolian border which is about 20km away it started to rain, then hail, then snow!!

The que at the border

We pulled up at the border looking like a cross between an ice pop and a snowman, much to the amusement of the border guards and after another hour we got a big smile and “welcome to Mongolia” The tarmac then ended, and we rode our first track to the town of Olgii. Along the way we had picked up another two. Thomas from Belgium on a BMW F800 GS and Fritz an American on a G650 GS, they had been travelling together for a while through the “Stans”  

The tarmac ends and the gravel begins, and it was cold

Once we got nto town we easily found the Blue Wolf Gher camp and checked in for two nights.

Our accomodation

Inside the gher. comfortable.