Day 6: Ulaan Baatar to Kharkhorin

 It’s a chilly day in Ulaan Baatar and the limited sleep makes it feel even colder. We wanted to get up later than planned by the organisation and skip the parade in the main square.  Having an hour to browse the town could have been a valid alternative too as we did not have the time to do so yesterday.  We were told that since the Russians left, UB has prospered from being a sleepy province of the Soviet empire to bustling city full of shops, restaurants and… traffic jams.  Unfortunately things are organised in such a way as to prevent us from verifying this and oblige us instead to be with everyone else ready for the race formalities so we took off from the hotel, as planned, at 7:30. 

After a short speech by the Mayor and the rally organiser, Philip Young, we are off to our third day of travel in Mongolia.  The first 100Km are on smooth tarmac and we travel through some wide valleys, occasionally spotting local cowboys with their herds and shepherds with flock of sheep and goats,  We reach the first passage control located next to a shut down café (the road book had given us hope for it to be open…). Thereafter the road turns into a rut with deep potholes that sometime slow our progress to a crawl, challenging our car’s integrity. We soon realise we have a big dent in our right rear wheel which we quickly hammer back into shape.

Another few miles and we have to stop again, this time on a long bridge to let an enormous flock of sheep and goats pass us by.  The amazing thing that happens is that as they are led across by their shepherds on horseback, the bridge shakes as if hit by an earthquake.

At the timed test trial we are offered the opportunity to skip the dirt track in exchange for maximum penalties so we (like most others) politely decline. It’s actually not too bad and we complete it is a semi-decent time.  From there on the road is smooth tarmac until the end of journey. The time problem we face (and will continue for the rest of our journey) is that our car is really underpowered and our top speed rarely exceeds 80km/h. This prevents us from being able to catch up or get ahead when conditions allow it.  Given the length of some of our days this becomes a real handicap.  In any event we reach our destination at a decent hour but as we approach the town and slow down for the time control our windshield falls right in our lap.  It’s welding time again.  We quickly look for a welder and soon a bunch of rally participants show up with an assortment of broken parts they need fixing. In those situations you wonder whether you should still look at them as mates or rivals.  In fact, there is a lot of good will and everyone is ready to offer help and ideas on how to solve problems.  Many of them have seen it all before and offer precious suggestions on emergency work.  We finish in time for a late dinner at the Yurt camp with a couple of Bentley boys we met at the welders with whom we share a couple of bottle of wine and a lot of war stories. 

The Yurts:  as previously mentioned, they are round structures topped by a flat cone roof with a small opening for a stove pipe (no stove, however). There are four beds and soon our two “yurtmates” who drive a Chevy similar to ours show up to occupy their two.  It’s quite cold and the bedding is inadequate so we have to resort to our sleeping bags for some additional warmth.  It’s been a long day and it takes us just a few seconds to fall into a deep sleep.

This entry was posted in Travel Diary. Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply