Lovely fast internet connection in Bulgan today.....Off into the wilderness again. Next major town is 350km away (4-5 days)!
We have packed loads of food etc and are on the way again.
Might not have any internet for a while.....
These are the routes we are doing across Mongolia:
http://bikeroutetoaster.com/
http://bikeroutetoaster.com/
We still have 1380km to go... (I hope I get there before my visa expires)!
The plan was to get up late, do internet stuff and shopping for supplies and then leave town. It did not quite end up that way.....
We had been chatting until late and although I woke up at 7.30 I went back to sleep and we got up about 10 ish. Niether of us really wanted to race anywhere this morning and we had coffee in the room and I faffed with my photos and blog for a few hours before we packed up and checked out at 1 (£1 extra to stay from 12 to 1).
We went for a large brunch of sausages and rice at the poshest place in town - 2 doors down from our hotel and then wandered round town looking at a couple of stores for things we need and then went to use the internet. It was a really fast connection and so I uploaded all my photos to FB and tried to update my blog as much as possible in the time (at this point we were still planning on leaving town at a sensible time today). I tried to upload a funny video to the blog of us sitting soaking wet in my tent in the middle of a hailstorm but even on the fast connection it did not upload in time and after 1 hour of waiting we gave up and went to do the shopping for supplies.
After visiting the 2 main supermarkets in town and finding them conciderably lacking in the items we needed, we actually found one tiny shop which sold nearly everthing we needed. There was a very bubbly lady in there that wanted to help us get everything and kept on giving us samples of things to try. We also found a fruit and veg place and a make-up shop for sunscreen.
Lots of people were wondering round eating pine cones so I bought one to try. It tasted like it smells - like a pine cone. You only eat the seeds in the middle.
This ladies shop was open but she was dead to the world.
Between all of the different shops we actually managed to get most of the things we needed on our shopping list. The next major town is 4-5 days away and so we needed to stock up on fresh fruit and veg (as this is not available in small towns), suncream (as the stuff I bought in UB does not work), insect repellant (we had not managed to get any in UB and the insects are really bad here), fresh bread, jam and peanut butter for sandwiches and also oats, peanuts and dried fruit for breakfast. We failed only on the peanut butter and oats front. It is unlikely that we will be able to get either of these in Mongolia now.
It always takes a little while in each new country to find out was is easily available and what is not. Pasta and wheat are the main staples here. Chocolate, jam, chocolate spread, bread, canned fish, peanuts can all be bought anywhere (i.e. the smallest settlement), as can beer and vodka! Fresh fruit and veg is harder as is brown bread and oats.
Once we had all of our supplies we decided that it was silly to leave town today as it was raining and we could see a major storm approaching so we decided to go for dinner and then check back in to the hotel were we stayed last night.
We went back to the same busy restaurant - the poshest place in town, for Mutton with egg and rice.
While we were in the middle of our meal a man carrying a carsus walked right through the middle of the restautant. Unfortunately I did not quite get my camera out in time.
It was interesting to stay a day in Bulgan. It really has an ex soviate feel about it and is rather run down. I really would not like to spend a winter here. It would be really tough. The people must be as hard as nails to exist here. The lonely planet says that this place is worth a visit on a stop over to the lakes but the other towns along the way are not.... If this is a lovely town I dread to think what the other ones will be like!
The town probably has not changed much since the 90's. The fashions still seem the same. It was like a time warp. The decor everywhere is 90's as are the tvs and shops. It feels like I imagine Siberia to be.
After another bucket shower (which took ages in such a small space with out very much water) I did actually feel really clean again! Last nights attempt had only just made me feel less muddy rather than actually clean.
Jenna's water filter broke and so we spent some time trying to fix it and boiling loads of tap water for the next leg of the journey.
The land lady is a funny character. She kept on popping into our room to see what we were doing - without knocking, and would just sit there and watch for a bit and then leave. Jenna says that it is normal in Mongolia for people to come into the room without knocking.
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