Thursday, August 13, 2009

August 9 - 13: Olgii to Ulaangom

There are too few words available to describe how dramatically our trip changed upon leaving Olgii. Suffice it to say, biking through the Russian Altai and through Western Mongolia are about as similar as night and day. Paved roads have now virtually disappeared, giving way to gravel washboards, jeep tracks through grass, mud and sand and our favourite, fields of rock through which many "tracks" appear to exist with usually only one or two gems that aren't impassable due to sand, stones or boulders. (I mean it, boulders.) The touristy-region feel and high (relatively) priced food has also disappeared, and we are now waved at by nearly everyone we pass, with large expanses of desert between towns and huge swarms of local children coming to help us push our bikes up the hill or offer us tea when they see us coming. We have often been dissappointed by how many very far away places feel very similar to home- this is not a concern in Mongolia. It definitely lives up to its reputation.

We started out on our first day with excited butterflies in our tummies and our first experience of very washboardy gravel. We took a very pleasant snack break on the bank of a river and literally talked about how much of a cyclists playground Mongolia is – we were sitting in the most picturesque spot ever, our bikes parked at the side of the road, still not having been passed by any cars, without any of the typical traffic worries of biking on the main highway coming out of a provincial capital.

Jen cycling out of Olgii....


The river we followed the first couple days out of Olgii (with Jen cycling in the distance)...


A very typical view, especially for the first few days, trying to decide which of the many jeep tracks would work out best with the bikes...


“Playground” may have been an overstatement, as we suffered through a gruelling next 20 km of some incredibly rocky terrain. After a couple of spills (you will later see my (Jen's) beautifully black and blue legs), some frustrating stints pushing our bikes at very slow speeds up rocky hills and a generally long afternoon, we finally landed at our planned camp spot next to a (quite mosquito-ey) river. We are coming to really love the luxury of camping by a river, getting washed up, washing clothes and getting water so easily is pretty cool, though it won't necessarily happen as often as it did near the end of Russia and beginning of Mongolia.

Day two was quite a short bike and gave us our first true taste of rural nomadic Kazakh culture. The province we started in, Bayan-Olgii, is predominantly Kazakh and has a reputation of being more authentically Kazakh nowadays than Kazakhstan. The key differences we've noticed are obviously the language (which leaves us in a tricky communication position, without a Kazakh phrasebook - 90% of people in Kazakhstan spoke Russian, so we didn't need one there) and the size of the gers, which are typically larger than the Mongolian gers.

Jen pushing through a "traffic jam" bordering the first settlement with the guanz and Kazakh gers...


Right after we had stopped at a guanz (canteen) for lunch, we rode through a cluster of gers, said hi to some kids and were about to keep on rolling when our host ushered him into his ger for tea. We were shocked as we stepped in and saw at least 30 people sitting there for some type of celebration. It took us a while to figure out what they were celebrating (we were there for about an hour before we found out that one of the ladies there spoke Russian) but then found out that they were celebrating the departure of our host's younger brother for Ulaanbataar, where he was leaving to study. Despite the communication barriers, it was an amazing afternoon getting to observe and take part in their celebration, we partook in the many toasts (with several cups of milky tea instead of vodka, given that we still had a few kilometers to cover) and ate as much as we could to be polite, even though we had just stuffed ourselves silly at the guanz.





Leaving the celebration to get back on the bikes, it was quite impossible to make a quiet exit. Everyone in the whole ger came to send us off, as well as all the kids that had been playing outside. The whole departure took about twenty minutes, with pictures all around, several repititions of our "goodbye, thankyou" chorus in both directions and a thorough inspection of our bikes.



The man on the left was the host of this gathering... given the communication barrier, the little card Mike put together has been invaluable for describing our route and what we're after (though we've been corrected a few times on our route through Mongolia already, as we drew it before we actually planned out where we would be going!)



Everyone wanted their pictures taken to see them on the viewfinder - unfortunately, we've only been able to get very few addresses (snail mail or email) that we can send them to afterwards...





That night, we ended our only short and easy day (37km) at Achit Nuur, a beautiful freshwater lake with great sunsets bordering this province and that of Uvs, which we would enter later on.







The third and fourth day were both also short, but certainly not easy. The notes from fellow cyclists we were using warned us about the first day's rocky 20 km stretch, and then alluded to the fact that "the whole way from Olgii to Ulaangom is very rough." These two days definitely confirmed that. Our third day was almost entirely a battle through rocks and sand that were right on the limit between really tough riding and bike-pushing, except for a 15km stretch across a wide-open windy plain at the end. It was a pretty fun in parts and definitely made me (Jen) want to try out real mountain biking at some point - only this time with some shocks and with about 75 lbs less or so loaded on my bike. Anyway, though parts of it were definitely interesting, the constant climbing through jagged rocks, pushing through sand to find paths that weren't quite so soft and the glaring sun beating down on us definitely wore on, and we arrived in the semi-deserted mining town of Khotgar a little tired.

The first stint pushing the bikes up a sandy pass leaving our campsite at Achit Nuur...


Cairn at the top of the first pass...


Mike getting water from a well in a quite decrepid little settlement... (There was only one ger, and a few storage buildings and/or winter homes.)



Mongolia is very beautiful in the rural areas, where little pockets of gers populate beautiful spots by lakes, streams or even at the top of mountains sometimes. That said, any time permanent buildings are put up the look gets alot less picturesque, be it in the windswept often deserted-looking cities or tiny settlements like these.

More pushing, this time a little later in the day and slightly less enthusiastic...


We were pleasantly surprised by the two open guanzes (we heard there weren't any) and the two open stores for supplies AND the first of what would be many young Mongolian boys that decided to help me push my bike up the various hills and passes we would encounter. (Our strategy now is to switch bikes right before the next pass, so that I get the help with the significantly heavier bike when all our little helpers come out of the woodwork!)

The first of many young Mongolians that helped Jen push her bike up the hill, this time up a small one into the town of Khotgor...


That night after a very satisfying supper of yet some more buuz (big mutton dumplings), we got a ways out of town to camp to avoid too many visits (and honks of our bike horns) by the friendly but VERY enthusiastic young boys of town.



A little blurry, but you can see the horses that started grazing right by our tent just as we were going to bed...


The next day (day four) we set out for what we knew would be a tough day, starting with Bairum Davaa pass, a tall, steep, rocky pass we had heard much about from our route guides. First, we passed through this ger settlement. It is amazing to see the difference from one settlement to another - the kids in one will be absolutely fascinated by our cameras, while the next will be quite blase. In this town, unlike Khotgar, kids actually waited in line for some candy we brought out to snack on and share with them.



You can tell some of the richer families from the poorer ones by their gers - this one was very well maintained. Nearly all the gers have solar panels while about a third have a dish for TV reception.



We had budgeted a couple hours to get to the top of this pass, but between finding a decent jeep track to push our bikes up and these helpful young horsemen that helped Jen speed right on up to the top, we actually arrived at the top very quickly, probably after just over an hour of climbing.

The younger boy on the left (in the suitjacket) held on to his friend's horse while the older one helped me push my bike to the top.


At the top of the pass, we could see Ureg Nuur, the lake we would see for the rest of the day's bike and camp near to. The picture, as usual, just doesn't do it justice - the lake actually had this deep almost fluorescent blue colour, brighter than any lake I've ever seen before...


Despite the fact it was downhill, we ended up doing alot of pushing on the way down the pass too, as it was very steep and very rocky terrain.



Once we got to the bottom of the pass, thinking we had kicked this tough day's ass, we were quite pumped. It had only taken us a couple hours to get up the pass, eat some lunch and get back down, so we thought we were in for a pleasant 15km to a beautiful campsite on the bright blue lake by a nice freshwater stream.

After the pass, the afternoon started out with a nice and easy, smooth downhill...


We had two options to choose from for camping - either continue on the slightly longer route to the (saline) lake where we had GPS coordinates for a freshwater stream, or go a slightly more direct route into the hills, where we didn't know how good of camping we would find, or if there would be anywhere to get water. Easy decision - right? Unfortunately, what we didn't know was that almost the entire way to the campsite to the lake was pushing through very deep sand, and we ended up (after "kicking the pass' ass") finishing the 45km of biking and pushing that day 10 painful hours after we started.

A view of Ureg Nuur and the big sky overtop...


One of the few rideable bits that afternoon by the lake... (we were too grouchy during the pushing parts to stop for any pics!)


Because of the very strong winds coming off of the lake, instead of camping by the stream out in the open on the beach, we stopped at a ger and asked to stay there, using their ger to shelter our tent from the wind. This is where we learned how Mongolia really does live up to its reputation. Everywhere you visit as a tourist, it seems like the "classic [insert destination] experience" is something that is packaged up nicely for the tourists and charges admission, something that isn't really reflective of the day-to-day there, but that they know the tourists love so they keep a bit of it around - like Leiderhosen at Oktoberfest in Bavaria, perhaps. But here we were, knocking on a random door in a random ger, and we got it all - unbelievable Mongolian hospitality, wrinkled old men coming with their horses to visit over vodka, airag and goat cheese, tiny little girls who milked and herded the cows in the morning. We stayed with the grandparents who served us supper, breakfast and goodies in between, visiting with the invaluable help of our phrasebook and their dictionaries with them, their two daughters and sons-in-law & their own kids (who all seemed to live in the ger about 25 meters away, although I think the littlest grandkids actually slept in the grandparents' ger) and the numerous visitors that came by on horseback that evening.

The youngest grandkids, Zaija (7) and Uriwe (8) (though I know we got the pronounciations wrong, they always just smiled...) who were so polite that they asked Mike for permission to stop listening to his MP3 player and go eat when supper was served...


Our campsite. Unfortunately, the best shelter from the wind was also right beside the bag of dried sheep dung they kept for fuel for their stove. Oh well!


The kids playing ball - the older brother/cousin showed off quite a bit of his English vocabulary...


Grandma and one of her daughters, separating the goat's milk into milk and a soft butter after suppertime... the process lasted about an hour and a half.


The girls doing chores in the morning as we packed up (and took pics)...


Mike and Grandpa in the ger. Grandpa had a very large collection of medals from his time in the Mongolian army.



Jen with the whole family, except the sons who had already left earlier that morning in the car.


The next morning, we set out on our last day into Ulaangom, a much longer one (76 km) but we knew that the last 37 km was on pavement and everything but the first 25 km or so was downhill. The first bit of the morning continued with alot of pushing, though it was interrupted after only 3 km by another family in a ger "up the road" that invited us to tea. We just couldn't say no, as they already had the tea out before we got there, having seen us approaching the ger.

As we drank our tea in their front yard, one of the ladies was busy with her sewing machine, repairing the ger...


They also (probably having met curious foreigners before) showed us in their empty ger for a picture once we whipped out the camera...



As we climbed out of the Ureg Nuur valley, we saw some of our first camels in the sandy hills around us...


Most of the morning was a nice smooth ride on excellent trails through a big clearing and another ger settlement. (Luckily we managed to speed on through this one, otherwise we may never have made it to Ulaangom!)



The morning ended with another big pass, the last one before Ulaangom. Luckily, as we were nearing the top, these two guys on horses (tending a herd of camels and sheep) appeared, just in time to push Jen's bike up the last 100 meters of the pass - nice!!



They couldn't help taking a bunch of photos with their cell phones of themselves with Mike's helmet on...



At the top of the pass, we stopped with them and shared our quick lunch of deep-fried bread dipped in sugar and hard cheese curds (which Mike is now addicted to), which the grandma of the family we stayed with had made us take with us before we left the ger that morning.


(We're not actually sure where the younger boy came from. He showed up on the pass just as we were taking the picture.)

After the top of the pass, riding got ridiculously easy. It was all downhill from there, first on a very well maintained steep, wide and smooth gravel road and later on almost 40 km of glorious pavement. After an amazing but difficult five days, those last 40 km felt like floating as we glided on the smooth pavement through a very empty steppe (seeing only one or two gers the whole way.)

It gave us some time to think, now that we didn't have to concentrate 100% of the time on the road. I couldn't help thinking of how, over the past five days, it had been so easy to get used to things that were previously so foreign to me - jeep tracks now seemed normal instead of a highway, and it didn't seem weird at all that we had just knocked on a random stranger's door the previous night, asked to stay there and received a response of "of COURSE" and the warmest hospitality they could provide. That's why I'm loving the blogging, it kind of gives us a chance to reflect on how much things have changed and how many new things we've seen in such a short amount of time. It's also why I love how slow we travel with these bikes - it gives you a chance to absorb so many little details - I can't imagine being anything but overwhelmed if we travelled any faster, as it is it still seems like we're zooming on by!

Several times so far this trip, Mike and I have noticed a weird phenomenon to do with the passage of time - with absolutely no routine to follow, each minute of our lives being decided as we live it, you realize just how very many minutes there are. As we approached Ulaangom (some pics of it below, another example of a quite rundown-looking Mongolian city), it felt like it had been much longer than five days between here and Olgii. If it continues at this rate, you can likely expect us to come home next year with some wrinkles on our faces and at least a little grey on our heads in what may feel like decades from now.

This picture below I (mike here) took as we entered Ulaangom. Gers are amazingly suited to nomadic Mongolian life and feel very at home there, but Mongolian cities have an this odd mix of gers and traditional homes which feels very uncomfortable to me. I don't imagine that gers are particularly well suited to the city life, but as the people migrate into cities they bring their gers with them resulting in many gers even in the down town of large cities.

Our next posts will likely be from Moron, a town northeast from here that we will travel to by van and then first bike west for a loop around an enormous beautiful lake bordering Russia (Khovsgol), after which we will continue on eastwards toward Bulgan, Erdenet and then eventually Ulaanbataar.

For now though we are off for breakfast which I (mike) find very unsatisfying lately. When we first left Canada, I was seriously enjoying a cup or two of really black delicious coffee every morning. Upon arriving in Kazakhstan it became clear to me that coffee made of real ground beans would not be obtainable (for some unknown reason) but being a trooper I managed to suck down the instant nescafe shit they sell around these parts. Now the problem is that just as I was getting accustomed to the nausiating taste of nescafe, even that was taken away from me in Mongolia. What they try to pass off here as "coffee" is the most rediculous invention ever called "3 in 1" which is one packet containing a small amount of instant coffee, and heapings of sugar and coffee whitener. This is an impossible problem too because from the moment these three are combined it is impossible to separate out only the instant coffee (I tried). I have dreams of the beautiful espresso machine that we got for our wedding sitting in its new box, unused! So all this rant is here to say is that if you ever visit Mongolia, it is an amazing place, but bring your own coffee!


1 comment:

chris said...

Hi Mike and Jen,

We must have just missed each other. We biked past Achit Nuur on August 10th heading the other way! We didn't go through Ulaangom but instead took a more direct route from Hyargas Nuur. It would have been great to share stories.

Chris and Krystil (sainyavaarai.blogspot.com)