26th July - Leave Bulgan and ride 100km Northwest

We were up at 8 and had breakfast and packed up and on the road by 10. It was gray and miserable outside and so neither of us were in a hurry to go anywhere fast.

There is a climb out of town and the road is very exposed and this morning it was very windy and cold enough that we needed to put on jackets. I was not sad to see the back of Bulgan. It was a hard ride for the first 30km.


We were planning on stopping for lunch of peanut butter and jam sandwiches at 50km but about 45km we saw a little restaurant on the side of the road. It looked far more interesting than sandwiches as it was really just someones house rather than a restaurant. It turn out the right choice. The lady showed us round her small wooden house and cooked us pasta and mutton on her stove outside.


We chilled in the sun on her little veranda (which had a door to enter but no walls). I decided that I must be carrying too much stuff that I did not need and spent about 1 hour rearranging and organising my things to make room for more water. I found that I was not actually carrying anything that I did not need - with the exception of some shoes that I bought in India and did not like anyway. The only reason that I had kept them was that they are lightweight and I needed something to wear when going out in a dress or skirt (I have to be a girl sometimes). I gave the shoes to the lovely woman at the restaurant and she seemed very happy with them. In fact she then even re-threaded the cord on a bag for me :-)


The area is far more densely populated than the route that we took to get to Bulgan and there was a lot more traffic.


We hit tarmac again after 90km. Jenna bought a couple of bottles of beer and one fell out of her bag as soon as we hit the dirt road tracks. It squirted out everywhere and so she drank half and then carried the rest in her front bike bag :-)

We stopped just before 7.30 when we saw a great little camping spot. We had done 98km today without pushing hard at all (except against the wind in the morning).


It was lovely to have the tents up and diner on by 8 and then have some time at the end of the day to write this blog and faff with photos etc.

25th July - Bulgan

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/Course.aspx?course=284460
http://bikeroutetoaster.com/Course.aspx?course=284461

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.

24th July - 115km on Dirt Roads to get to Bulgan for a Shower (but no showers available)

View 24th July - To Bulgan for a Showerl.kml in a larger map

We did not have a great nights sleep in the back garden of the house. The dogs were barking and people were revving their engines until late and then at 1am the owner of the house decided to come and invite us in to sleep in his house in the same room as him and his wife and also to have a drink with them. Jenna and I had tried to fake being asleep for the first 5 minutes of him trying to wake us up but when he started shouting and shining his touch into the tents we could not to anything but respond. We told him we were happy where we were and wanted to sleep in our tents. He went away but then came and asked us again 20 mins later. He was drunk and merry and we did not want to go anywhere. He was friendly but we did not really appreciate being woken up and him shining his bright touch in our eyes.

We were up at 7.30 and had breakfast and packed up and were already to go by 9. However, we did not end up leaving town until 10.30. By the time we had gone to the shops to get a few things and chatted to some guys on motorbikes by the shops it was already 9.30.


This guy wanted a go on Jenna's bike and was surprised by the weight.


We decided to head to the river to fill up our bottles with water and have a swim and a wash. Unfortunately the river water was very muddy and so the water purifier did not work very well and I ended up walking back to town to fill up on water from someone's well. We were bothered by the same drunken Mongolian men at the river as had come to say hello by the shops. It was only 10ish in the morning but they were hammered. It was all OK until we were leaving and one wanted a photo with me and groped me at the same time. At that point we felt very uncomfortable and we left asap. There were 5 of them and 2 of us. They were doing it in a playful way but never the less well over stepped the line! I will be much more on my guard next time. I was not expecting it having been treated so well by men in China and heard so many good reports about the honor and friendliness of the Mongolian people.

This is one of the drunken men having passed out by the river.


It was a beautiful sunny day all day. I had to wear a t-shirt over my cycling top for the first time ever having caught the sun yesterday as the suncream I had used did not work! My shoulders were sore today.

Once again the scenery was amazing. We had a tough biking day. We really wanted to get to the town of Bulgan today to get a shower and supplies and we knew it was 110km from were we camped and so pushed to get there.

We made good time by lunch time and stopped for peanut butter and jam sandwiches on moldy brown bread and then pushed on.


Jenna had fun again chasing animals.


Jenna won the bet on whether we would see tarmac or peanut butter in a store first when we passed over the bridge! Kinda cheating if the tarmac is on a bridge I think.....

The roads were easier today as the ground was drier and harder than yesterday and although the road was certainly not flat there were no significant passes.


At about 6.30 we biked into a small town 22km South of Bulgan. It was the first settlement since this morning and we had only seen a handful of cars and very few people. We stopped to get some water and Jenna popped into the shop to ask them to fill up the bottles. I waited outside. There were some other customers outside the store, 2 guys and one of their daughters in a truck with horses in the back. They had bought some vodka. One of the guys walked over to me (after they had just posed for photos and been laughing and joking) and shook my hand with one hand and grabbed my breast with the other. I was to shocked to respond and slap him before he had turned and walked off back to get into his van with his daughter watching. The lads standing round seemed to think this was very funny. I did not. I said "really not fucking funny" and they got the idea and stopped laughing. Jenna then returned and asked if I was OK. This photo was taken before the gropping when they were all friendly!


So much for the friendliness of the Mongolians! 2 groppings on one day. So far I have been far more enamored by the Chinese rather than the Mongolians. The Mongolians are far more like Russians than I thought they would be.

We arrived at Bulgen about 8.30 and followed the instructions in the Lonely Planet to find a hotel with a shower. Apparently there are at least 2 in town. Unfortunately, one of them had closed down and the other did not have toilets let alone a shower. We faffed around for ages then looking for a place with a shower and eventually gave up and checked in at a place were they said we could have a bucket and some hot water! Better than nothing but we were both really looking forward to a shower.


The toilet with a sink was really small and standing in a bucket pouring dirty water over myself was not quite the shower I had in mind but better than nothing! :-)

It was 10.30 by the time we had both got clean and changed and we managed to find somewhere that would serve us a meal. Bought and OK bottle of wine and enjoyed getting merry in the room and chatting with Jenna till 1.30ish. Long day. Disappointed to find the town really not great and the people not overly friendly but a great biking day through awesome countryside and 115km on dirt road tracks.

It is great that Jenna and I are about the same in terms of speed and fitness. We were told that biking in Mongolia would be really tough and that we would only manage 50-70km per day on the dirt road tracks but we have averaged over 100km a day over the last 3 days and we have not been really really pushing. We did feel nicely exercised by the end of the day today though.

I bought Jenna a beer and a packet of cigs as she won the tarmac or peanut butter first debate!

We found out that we could actually have traveled all the way to Bulgen on a tarmac road if we had taken the other route out of UB and traveled North and then West. The route would have been 100km longer though and we enjoyed the route we took. .

What we have learnt today:

• Even provincial capitals don't have hotels with showers
• Beware of drunken Mongolian men

23rd July - Remember not to camp next to a small town

View 23rd July - Remember not to Camp next to a Town.kml in a larger map


Entry in Draft form - yet to finish!

Up at 7.30 but by the time we had packed up, had breakfast of porridge and coffee, fixed a couple of small issues on my bike it was 10.30 before we got on the road.


The views were amazing. We stopped to fix my saddle and these 2 horses either fighting or playing (not sure) ran close to us and gave us a great show for about 10 minutes.


We did not see any civilization for about 4 hours until we arrived at a single farm house on the top of a pass. We had lunch on the top of the pass and then rode to the farm house to get some water. The people were very happy say hello and show us their horse and give us some extremely clean water. We had stopped for lunch about 1 but it was 2 ish by the time we left the farm house. We had only done 25km by this point. It had been a reasonable climb up the pass.


Text to follow :-)


It was a beautiful evening.


The excitement of the day was stopping for chocolate at a bridge over an empty river.


Chasing the horses/sheep/goats is a great break in the day from biking.


Fortunately we missed this storm in the distance.



We pushed to try and get to the petrol station and the bridge before dark...

98km today.