a trip to the moon

(High-Tech Yurt)

(Mongolia Bikers)

(More Kids)

(Gnu under the Rainbow)

(Time to pray)

(Good night)

(Little fighter)

(Big fighters)

(My friends)

It’s so very hard for me to describe Mongolia, and I’m afraid the
photos won’t do to much better. You just have to be here, to see the
sky, the clean air through which you can see so very far, the herds,
the people. Mongolia is a country where I will go back, buy horses,
ride them around and than maybe into Russia.. and.. hmm.. I have a
thought. There are so many trails crossing each other in the steppe.
If you would ask me which one to take, I would say: “Any”. None will
probably take you to Roma, but Mongolia is just about riding, about
the road, the time has so much less meaning than anywhere else.

I had to struggle with it, I had to push it because I’m actually not much of
a dreamer; or … I only dream achieveble dreams and I had a
time-schedule, and I said I will be in Ulan Bator on the 15th of July.
And I was. At noon that day, I met the asphalt. In the last days I was
reffering to my right foot as to “my Monkey”. I see the asphalt, I
ride it for a few kms, than I stop, I look at Gnu and my Monkey and…
hmmm…. “I guess  that’s it! We’ve made it! We’ve crossed Mongolia.
We’ve done it in the right way, on our own, eating the pain that comes
with the deal, we were even fast (I guess that’s our way of doing
things, otherwise, well, the things get swampy and we don’t have the
time for this style)”. And ther’s a song playing in my head now, over
and over again, today’s (15th) song:
“It was me and my Monkey,
With Evil Gnu and a Gun,
It’s me and my Monkey,
We don’t wanna kill no Mexican”
The rest doesn’t matter anymore. I was to find out that the asphalt
wasn’t going to last to Ulan Bator, that there were still another 100
km of sand to beat (and yeah, it’s a hack when you think it’s over)
but eventualy we’ve made it that evening to the Ulaan Baatar and we
crushed in Oasis and Sibylle had to say:
“If your Monkey’s got that kind of money, Sir,
Than we’ve got a monkey bed”.

The day of 16 was to relax and do some maintainance on Gnu. My let was
getting blue, so I planned to go the hospital; but well, Gnu kept me
bussy. And it’s her first, because she gets me out of trouble, she has
to run. The 17th, I could only leave UB at 3 in the afternoon
(technical stuff as well) , to find the Mongolian/Russian border
closed. We crossed it on the 18th in “decent” time, after negociating
the previous evening the price of being first across. (it was just 10$
and I wasn’t quite the first but I could make it far that day,
including having a doctor examining my foot). They wanted to put it in
gips, it wasn’t broken indeed, but that’s the way to fix it fast. Not
an option for me, so they gave me the “Apoteke list” and how to take
it/bandage it/etc.. and told me it might take a month to heal if I go
ahead like this and even after that I might need the gips but if I
take the medication and keep it clean, ther’s no reason to think at it
getting realy bad and being cut.

I had some technical problems and I left Ulan Bataar only at 3 o’clock. I’m at the border right now which is closed…of course. I’ll pass tomorrow.

Yesterday, after long battels and strong tests, at 20.30, a member of the Honciuc Dynasty, got down in Ulan Bataar !!

… in the night of the 13th I stop at the entrance of a “village”
(basically a group of 20 or so yurts) and ask a 10 y o girl about
gasoline. She starts talking and pointing to a yurt 400m away. She
talks and she smiles and I like it because she’s not shy and closed
like some other kidds that I’ve met. Soon the mother comes and I ask
her if I can put my tent near their yurt (ok, sure, I don’t speak
Mongolian… but some people are very well at sign language and they
don’t mind using it, and this woman and the girl are good at it), they
say ok and are happy about it. Another girls (maybe 8yo) shows up…
the sister and she goes to another yurt and calls the grandmother. I
start pitching my tent and they all look curious at what I do. I give
the girls some sweets and I take them a polaroid photo. In that moment
they start shouting loud, extremely happy and point at their yurt
making the “Bebeto USA 1994″ symbol with their arms. Ah, so they have
anothe baby, a very small one. I go inside the yourt and here he is, a
young Mongol, a few weeks old. I took several photos of him and the
other members of the family and they are so very happy. Now they have
a proove of how their younger member looked like when he was a baby. I
go out, continue with the tent. When I’m finished, the mother and the
older girl come to my tent and politely study what I have inside. The
girl looks at the map, she’s fascinated by it, she spells the latin
letters and she’s better than the mother. She is hungry for knowledge
and looks into all my books for photos and maps. I give them what
medicine I have with funny explanations for the symptoms, they see a
can of meat, and I tell them we can open it in the morning at 8
o’clock.

I go to bed, I sleep very well. The next morning, at 7 o’clock, the
women is “knocking” my tent’s “door”. Oh, we are on another time zone;
I show her my watch, she laughs and comes back in 1 hour putting her
fists in her eyes and showing me the yurt. Aha, she wants photos with
the kids just waking up. Good. Before that she gives me warm milk, a
hot fresh tart made out of grain and poors some water for me to wash.
I go than and take some photos of the “just waking up” girls. They
come out naturally after me… still yawning and I start to pack the
tent. The older one starts helping, she had noticed all the steps from
the previous evening and she tells the young one what to do. She’s so
good that she even knows how to separate the inner and outer covers,
though I put them together by the fingers, without having visual
contact. Both parts are separated now and I let them dry. Than I see
the young one holding one side of the inner cover and looking at me
seriously. Hmmm.. it takes me a second to understand.. but.. sure,
yeah.. I go and take it from the other side and she starts throwing
her hands up and down. Sure!!! this is what you do to clean the dust
away fom any blanket, from the wollen walls of the yurts when you
pack! She knows, it MUST be the next step! So we do it, all is packed,
all so natural, I say good bye (yes, we opened and “cocked” the can
before leaving as well) and I head my way.

I didn’t get to fix my GPS till now. I had 3 days of
rest in Olgi, in which I “treated myself” how I though better. Than,
on the 9th of june, I gave my pierced aluminium canister to a local IJ
motorist, had a proper lunch at the Pamukale Restaurant (some say, the
best in Mongolia outside UB and it wasn’t at all a treat:) ), had some
photos with a bunch of american women turists (the husbands were
taking the photos so I thought that’s all right) and I headed to the
est. It was hard, dam hard. Pain in the foot and the right hand, the
“road” was bumpy gravel, sand, and sometimes mud. It was so much
easyer to hit it dirrectly through the steppe, but it was as easy to
loose your way without a working GPS :). I experimented that a few
times and gave it up. Well… I can write a lot on Mongolia, on every
day’s experience, but the time is short and I have to rush.

In short, the western part, the mountains, the steppe, pitching the
tent by yurts (gers), falling in sand, crossing rivers (no bridges of
course), orienting by “the flight of the eagle”, seeing the horse race
and the wrestling at the Nadam festival in Chovd, it has all been
wonderful. I expected a lot from Mongolia and it delivered.

I’m ok, I’m on my second
day of rest in Ogli, yesterday morning I couldn’t go to the toilet and
today I can move around the town by myself. My right foot has almost
the normal size and both hands are healing from the wounds. I have
some strength in the right fist now (I can open a bottle of coke now)
and the back hurts, the hip is bruised but all for the better. At this
rate, tomorrow I shall ride :). I’ve somehow fixed the GPS, the arrows
don’t work so I can’t track, navigation is not gonna be as easy as
desired but It should do. I can mark points and relatively see where I
am compared with other waypoints and the compass and altimeter are
also working. Gnu: fine, the minor things are fixable. “Someone”, I
know who replaced some of the gasoline in my canister with water so
I’ll have to take care of that in the morning… but I think I’ll be
in Chowd tomorrow night (only 190 km away, just enough to check if I’m
healing overall or that I should take more rest) and I’ll continue to
Ulan Bator in the next days.

I have found an Internet Cafe and now I realize a bit harder one
thing: there are several that head east on motorcycles or other means
of transportation each year on a more or less similar route with the
one that I have taken. But there are some questions (like shipping the
bike from the far east to US/Canada) to which there are very few if
not none answers by example. And there is a good reason for that.
Mike, one of the 2 British guys that headed to Vladivostok this summer
had his leg broken in Kazachstan and they had to go back home; Don,
one of the 2 Czechs that had a similar plan just wrote me that he’s
back home with a broken with complications hand (On the road from
Chita to Khabarovsk). It seems there are some shipments from US to
Korea every year, but few (again, if none) of those bikes make it to
Europe. Yes, it seems that reaching Rome takes it’s toll. I am quite
aware now. There are a few that started ahead of me this year, and
none made it to Vladivostok yet and I can’t say any better for the
last 2-3 years. Most of them are teams of at least 2 and most of them
are sponsored. Will I make it? I guess we’ll just see

An IJ motorcycle appears, with 2 Kazachs on it (most of the population
in this side of Mongolia is Kazach). Cool looking, I’d love to take
them a photo, but it’s not the best moment now. I’m not sure I want
them to stop, they won’t probably help and I’m not into condensed
experiences right now. Well, they do stop and as I’m putting mu
luggage back on they don’t give a hand but one of them opens the lock
of one of the side-cases and looks inside, the other one just looks at
the whole scenary, I have to go to their bike and show them by signs
that I’m not going through their things, he laughs, understands and
goes back but after 3 minutes he opens the other one. Than they look
at the canister and I hear the word “benzin” a couple of times. Than
the same one going through my things introduces himself and is very
polite and asks me if ther’s benzin in the canister. I tell him: “-
Da” so he shows me his motorcycle and tels me: “-Eta Mototzycla,
benzin nietu!”. Yeah, right! I’m telling them I need my own benzin to
get to Ogli, they hand around for a few more minutes while I almost
finish putting all my things back on the bike (ah, in the meantime, I
managed to get the key in and of course, she started as soon as the
carburator got gasoline), they ask: “-Tugri est?” “-Niet!”, “-Dolar
est?”, “-Niet! Bank, Ogli!”, “Aaahaaa…”, they get on their bike and
leave. Why wasn’t I surprised of their behaviour? Such a classical :).
… Was I after a crush? Yes! Was I bleading? Yes! Was I limping,
pooling my leg and using my elbow instead of my hand? Yes! Could I
have used some help, at least for lifting the luggage back on the
bike? Yes! … but that’s European mentality. For them, I was just a
foreigner, and because I was a foreigner I had money, and because I
had money, I didn’t need any help, the money would have helped me. And
because I was a foreigner, maybe they could have gotten something from
me, some money, or at least some gasoline. And I understand them, I
don’t blame them and I knew it was going to be like this before they
stopped. And they amused me, for which I thank them.

Now… back to where I was.. yep, I could feel the shock now, the
contracted muscles and I took out my foot from the right boot and took
a look at it. It was a bit bigger, not big enough to believe there was
a broken bone and not enough concentrated pain when pressing each bone
to believe that as well. That’s good. Just ligaments. Soon it’s gonna
grow bigger than that so I need to move. I at least need water and a
shaded place for the tent. So I did move. I stopped by a lake in the
next 15 minutes and the story goes….

It took no more than 6 kilometers of pure joy when Gnu started to
wobble. I was in the 5th gear and looked at the GPS’s spedometer: 85.
That was way to high for such a road. I shift down, pull the break and
throttle for control at the same time but the wobbling trend
continues. It just gets worst. In that moment I know it’s gonna
happen. I’m wearing full gear but no gloves (I said to myself I will
as soon as entering Mongolia, but it was so much easier to take photos
without them, so I delayed the moment). I just wonder how it’s gonna
end and how I should handle it better. The answer is fast: the body
knows much better what to do in these moments, much better than you
can consiously think, coordinate and act. And it does happen: I fly, I
scratch the gravel with my hands and I see blood on my right one. I
see a lot of sand and rocks in my helmet, where the chin is. I wonder
how they got in here. The acceleration of my body seems to keep them
away from my nose and mouth. I feel pain in my right foot and can’t
explain why. And I wonder where Gnu is so I turn my head to the left
side and I see here coming…. faster than me. Dam, will she? Yes, she
does, she hits me in the back and left hip and than continues ahead
scratching some part of her on the top of my helmet. We come to a
stop. I can move my back, legs and hands and I don’t feel any striking
pain and I know that’s good: probably nothing is broken. The adrenalin
kicked in so I might be mistaken but I know this (as far as I am
concerned) is not ending here. I stand up and leap to the Gnu: I don’t
care about the ripped off tank rucksack, rollbags and the 5m away
sidecase. This is all fixable. I look at her and I don’t like the look
of the fork. Ther’s sand all over the controls but It can all be
cleaned, it’s just mechanics and the GPS is beeping like crazy (it
means it’s just bad contacts and some pressed at the same time but It
can be fixed).. but I really don’t like the fork. I have to lift her
up and see how bad it really is.The wobbling took about 10 seconds,
the crush probably about the same time, assessing myself about 5 and
the bike about 5 as well. Dam, sometimes things happen very fast. I
first take some photos (I know that after getting out of the flowing
adrenaline I might not want to move that much and the pain from the
shock will be in my whole body so I’m not gonna take any latter). I
start stripping the luggage away (dam.. my hands hurt, ther’s sand and
blood on them.. but the blood is not pouring out, strange) and at the
same time I say to myself that I can ride to a broken fork and
evaluate how I’m gonna arrange for a fork to be DHLed to Ulan Bator in
the next days. Aha, the Russians are behind, there are options. I lift
her up (dam… now I feel the right foot, the back and the left
hip…. but well, ain’t that bad) and see that the fork and the
handlebars are alligned as they should. It was just the gravel and
sand deceiving me. Excellent. Will she start? Of course she will!!!
She’s made to crush. Good girl. I try to reinsert the key in the
contact ( I took it out to cut the engine when first near her) and it
doesn’t go in. Ther’s sand and small rocks everywhere. I know it’s
gonna start, I just need to put it on direct. Wher’s the electrical
scheme? I wonder now, a running thought: ” Hei, you should have though
that everything could be over now! The Russian border is close, you
could get a lift there, the bike as well, cross it, get into a
hospital, than the bike and yourself shipped back home! Why don’t you
think of that? - Well, that’s not the plan! The plan is to cross
Mongolia by bike, than get to Vladivostok, than over into Alaska and
than home… on the bike! And there is no reason to change it.
Everything can be fixed!”