Mongolia25 | Biking Pheasant

Bikes mostly assembled and bikepacking bags loaded, we managed to get everything in the back of the loaf of bread for an early departure from Ulaanbaatar. We’d decided that two days of transport to the north of Mongolia was superior to a week of riding just to get to where we wanted to be riding. Thankfully the city wasn’t nearly as hot or congested for our exit west.

Sunday morning quietness. Warming up by now; especially in the basic interior of a bread loaf trundling along at 80 km/hr.

Out into the expanses.

Some sort of factory, which will always catch my eye.

Sportsground in a small town.

We drove alongside a large horse race for miles – quite entertaining with the speed on the surface. Some pretty young children involved as well, racing on the dirt tracks cross country. We had to wait a while on the highway as the race crossed the road.

More expanse. Just as well we didn’t get sick of it, a lot more to come.

The roads were mostly pretty good, and we made steady if not fast progress. But every so often the highway would be barricaded with piles of rocks and gravel for long stretches of construction or maintenance. In those cases, all the traffic was, not so much diverted as, left with no choice to find the best path beside what was supposed to be the road. Some mild chaos and bumpiness, but it all worked.

Pick a path!

Through Erdernet, with its huge copper mine – mining being Mongolia’s largest industry and export. Unfortunately we didn’t stop to take a closer look.

(Not a copper mine.)

We did stop for a short leg stretch at the top of a small pass – where there were a lot of stalls set up. Meat, milk products etc; the fermented mare’s milk was probably the least palatable thing (to me), I tasted in all of Mongolia – ugh.

Near the end of a long day’s driving, a little off-roading took us around the back of a small old volcano – pretty twisty, and up and down, through the trees but easy enough for our capable van. Nice to get out for a longer walk to the top of the hill and around the crater.

Late into the long evening after a even longer day sitting in the van, we had our first experience of Mongolian-camp-wherever-you-want – our driver finding a nice spot a few hundred metres from the road on the edge of a forest. As we would become accustomed to, eventually some locals came over (this time an old couple on a motorbike) to see what we were about. For the last time, we had someone who could speak Mongolia with us to explain our trip.

Thankfully the second day of driving was not as long as the first, we were well over halfway to Murun when we departed from our little campsite. Besides the ever expansive scenery, highlights of the day were seeing the proliferation of car camping all over the place, and seeing a large organised and supported cycle tour – we had to borrow one of their staff as translator when we stopped near them for lunch.

Settling in our guesthouse in Murun (a town of about fifty thousand), one of the young staff offered to show us the way to the biggest shops and find an ATM. She took quite a shine to Rachel, perhaps welcoming the chance to converse in English – with a Belfast accent. It was a pleasant distance to use the legs over, while we mulled over where to ride the next day; by this time, we were dead keen to get on the bikes and get riding after what felt like a long five days of travelling.

Wrestling stadium.

Overgrown colourful playgrounds (educational facilities closed for long summer break) always look vaguely menacing to me.

Creepy.

Mongolia wasn’t anywhere near my list of easy places to start a habit of Naseby-winter-avoiding bikepacking. Japan was top of that list, but I could hardly turn down the opportunity to visit Mongolia when Rachel suggested we start out trip a month earlier by flying to Ulaanbaatar. Ian was more easily convinced to join us, the three of us landing at Ulaanbatar airport early July.

Plenty of the expected big open spaces apparent on approach, we’d find later that the fences were an exception to the norm.

UBN – bigger than I was expecting.

First bicycle sighted?

The hostel we were staying at had sent a van to collect us and our three large bike boxes. In a sea of Japanese vehicles, I was pleased to spot a more unusual (to me) vehicle – a Russian UAZ van, nicknamed due to its resemblance to a loaf of bread.

Our ride to the city.

Three bike boxes fitted in here, thankfully, with a little thought.

Ian keeping an eye on things as we venture into the traffic, note the plush ceiling covering. Unfortunately the suspension was not so.

Big empty highway most of the way into the city.

Alas, it was not to last – extensive roadworks had snarled up the inner city traffic and we sat slowly cooking in the van for a couple of hours. Never mind, a new city to look at – with only mildly chaotic driving.

Few big coal power plants in the city contributing to the notorious air pollution in the winter. At least they also pump hot water around the city.

Should have brought a bigger wallet. About two thousand togrogs to a New Zealand dollar.

Over a bit more than a day we assembled our bikes, sorted what gear to take, bought a few things we couldn’t or had forgotten to bring, packed our gear, explored the city a bit and ate. All this was done by walking strangely elaborate, but now in various states of decay, paving. I’d been warned that Mongolian food was well below par, but in the city we mostly found good options from around Asia – Korean particularly, but also Japanese and Pakistani stand out. I expected a larger Soviet influence in the city than the small pockets we found.