10th Aug - Tsetserleg-Harboom to Asgat

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Today was really tough mentally and physically. I spent most of the time lost and it detracted from my enjoyment of the amazing scenery. Exhausted by the end of the day.

Woke up early and had a nice slow morning packing up. The storm had passed but the sun was still having problems coming through. My tent was soaked from the heavy rain over night (but I was lovely and dry inside) and so I wanted to wait for it to dry out. I spent a while on my computer transferring and organising books and music for my ipod. I am enjoying listening to new music from friend's collections. Cycling along is a great time to do this.


The low clouds this morning where really unusual and very beautiful.


It was 10 by the time I eventually got my tent dry, all packed up, coffee, breakfast and finished syncing my ipod. I headed down hill to Harboom which I knew was only 1km away. The river comes very close to the road at this point and so I spent a while having a really good wash in the river and filling up my water bottles. The view was lovely and the sun lovely and warm and I found it difficult to get on my bike and get going rather than lie there in the sun reading my book. My visa deadline was weighing on me and so off I went.


A guy from the settlement came over to say hello and suggested that I took the short cut to the Northwest to get to Bayantes I looked at my map and there were loads of contour lines on that route where as the other way which went West-Southwest for a while and then turned off Northwest was pretty much flat and only 5km longer. I decided to take the slightly longer route as the sorts of climbs on the other route really slow you down on a bike.


On my map it showed that the route West-Southwest turned off from the main track after the settlement. I could see a track that veered off well before the settlement and thought that it was a different track (which I could also see on the map) and so I headed up a massive climb in the Northwest direction thinking that the turn off would be at the top of the pass. It was not and it turned out that the right route was in fact the one that veered off well before the settlement. I had to take the bike across country where there were no tracks in order to met the correct track. It was very hilly and so after traveling only 5km (and those in the wrong direction) for 1.5 hours (some of which I had to push my bike) , I eventually got back on the right track. It was almost midday by this point! Arrgg.

My map said that the road went West-Southwest for 29km and that then there was a turn off to the right Northwest towards the town of Tes. I used my GPS tracker and from about 20km along the track I looked for a track going off to the right. I did not see a track at all (not even a small one) and when I reached 40km along the road and it started veering off more Southerly I knew that I had missed my turn off and that I needed to go the long way.


This is the track! Soft sand is almost impossible to cycle through... I had to push for a while.


I could see the huge lake of Oygon off in the distance and so I guessed where I was. Unfortunately to get on a road that then headed North I had to climb a high pass to the town of Asgat. The climb from the lake to the top of the pass was really hard work as once again there was a very strong head wind. The prevailing winds in Mongolia are from the Northwest - the direction I was traveling.


The pass seemed to go on for ever and I did not see anyone for hours. When I got to the top of the pass I expected to see the settlement of Asgat but it was no where to be seen. I had been guessing where I was on my map and now that the town of Asgat was not there I had no idea where I was. I felt quiet alone and the area felt very remote. I did not have very much water and there were no Gers anywhere (the last I had seen had been about 3 hours before). I started thinking about what would happen if I were to have a problem with my bike or fall off. No one knew where I was and there were no people anywhere to help.


The views of the mountains and the valley with the sun in the sky really were absolutely fantastic. One of the best views I have ever seen but my nervousness that evening detracted from the beauty. I think part of it was that I was really tired after the climb and my blood sugar was low.


I came to a couple of points where the track diverged to the North and to the West. I had no idea where I was and could not decide. Eventually a motorbiker came along and pointed to the Northern track to Asgat so off I went. This track when to the North but then turned to the West. I was relieved when a 4x4 came along and said I was on the right road to Asgat and it was only 5km away. It was very strange as according to the map distances I should have hit it on the track I was traveling on about 10km to the South of where I was.

I carried on West and finally saw the town to the South. The sun was setting as I arrived in town exhausted. I was very relieved to know where I was again even if I had biked much further than I had needed to.


I arrived in Asgat at 8.30. I was knackered. According to the map I had only traveled 60km but I had cycled 85km and not even managed to avoid the mountains. It had been frustrating and I had felt lost for most of the day. I did not see a single road sign and my map was very different to reality.


I asked around town for a place to eat but there were no restaurants and all of the shops were shut because it was so late. A family took me into their kitchen/store area. I think that in the day time they might sell meals to other people but I really was not sure. They did not give me any food but let me cook my pasta on their stove. I pretty much ate a whole bag to myself. I was very hungry and cold by that point and so it was lovely to warm up inside next to a stove. I gestured that I needed to leave though as I needed to find somewhere to put up my tent outside of town where no one could see me and I needed to do it before it became totally pitch black. They very kindly said that I could sleep on the floor of their kitchen/store room.



There were no other rooms that lead off from this room (it was just like a big shed really) and so the family left me to it and locked me in. They popped back and forth through the night to pick up their meat which had been cooking on the stove but by midnight they just left me to sleep. It was rather surreal sleeping next to the drying meats on the walls and being locked in someones shed. I was quite happy though was it was very much warmer than outside and I did not have to put up my tent. I felt safer than I would have left sleeping on the edge of the town.

Camping on the edge of towns in Mongolia is the worse place you can stay. You either need to stay with a family in their house/Ger in town (or in a tent in their garden) or in the middle of no where. On the edge of towns there are too many dogs, drunken men and vehicles which do not drive on the tracks and might not see you and hit your tent in the dark.


I woke up in the middle of the night absolutely desperate for the toilet. I had not drunk very much on the way into town last night as I was worried that I would not find the town and that I might be short on water if I did not make it. When I then arrived in Asgat I was then very thirsty and so I drank a whole bottle of water. It did not work its way thorough my system until about 3am.

The family had locked me into the room from the outside and so I could not get out to use the toilet and so I ended up grabbing my water bottle and peeing into that. Nice! The problem then was that I had drunk so much that it started over flowing from the water bottle and I did not have anything else to use to hand. So there I was at 3am wiping up pee from a vinyl floor with toilet tissue. Oh the joys of traveling. You have to have a sense of humor. I only just remembered in time the next morning when I went to take a swig of water from my bottle...