21st July - Leave UB - Off into the Wilderness

Faffed around in the morning on the internet trying to catch up on my blog and pack up my things. Jenna arrive around 1 and we went shopping together for some final things and fresh fruit and veg. We organised our bags and shared the food. By the end we had serious loads. I think my bike weighs about 60kg! We are carrying loads of water and food for about 4-5 days. I was planing on doing a circular route back to UB and was going to leave some equipment in UB to pick up on my return but I am now planning on going straight to Russia across Mongolia and so I have to take everything with me. The front two panniers are mostly food and water and the back are camping equipment, food, clothes and shoes and bike parts.


It was late in the afternoon before we actually got on the road.



The road out of UB was really not very interesting for the first 20km. More text to follow.......


Herding sheep with a car. Best way. Why don't they do that in Wales?


Little temple thingy. Jenna says that it brings good luck to bike/walk/drive round the thingies 3 times. She dutifully did on the first one we saw but quickly gave up on the next few.


Racing the train will not work Jenna!


The first Yaks I have seen on this trip! Awesome :-) I wonder what they taste like?


We stopped for something to ate at a restaurant on the side of the road at 8ish. I had not tried real Mongolian food before and so I wanted to see what we could get rather than cook our food tonight.

The guy in the cafe spoke fluent English and so we had a good natter and he said we could put up our tents at the back of his place. We decided to stop earlier than planned and put up our tents.



Two boys rode bear back to the shop to get vodka and pasta and cigs. Now I feel like I really am in Mongolia!



My first real Mongolian meal. Mutton and stuff!


We had a lovely evening sitting and chatting over beer and I played with photos on my laptop. It was a ???? introduction into the wilderness. Sleeping in tents but next to a cafe with warmth and electricity.


Our first campsite of the trip!