Monday 15th July 2013

Bayangovi – Bayanlig

Up early. Late start. Waiting for the clothes to dry. Once again, washed, but not clean. Atle reads a contract, Hilde emails, Tim sorts ariel, I grind coffee beans. Busy, busy, busy. Not so hot in the Gobi yet, all wearing fleecies. Tim walks off with handset, hides behind a hillock. “Can you hear me?”

Hilde takes camera for photo shoot. She comes back with a magnificent pair of hand made, engraved scissors. Stone Age, we decide. Must have been left when people were packing up a ger settlement. Bet they miss them. I unearth a piece of pottery. Maybe from the Ming Dynasty? “Made In Korea.”

We missed the petrified forest by about 40kms, so not going back. Anyway, they don’t let you take any fossils home as a souvenir, so what’s the point. Heading further East. Hope to see rock engravings, Tsagaan Bulaag, but may miss those too.

Downloaded photos last night. Got great sequence of Hildefender splashing through deep, muddy puddles. Wouldn’t know we had the cars cleaned. Watched some of the videos from the muvi. Speeded up it looks awesome, death defying driving.

Tim not happy about transmission, going to keep in 1st gear and not use low range. If necessary, Atle will tow us. He’s been dying to try his new tow bar all holiday. As long as both cars are fit to drive when we reach the Chinese border, then we are ok. If one of us breaks down, the other will tow it to Hong Kong.

Tim wearing sleeveless vest, needs to ensure he doesn’t burn his shoulders. Also, dodgy zip on shorts, but he can keep an eye on that.

We were calculating how much water we have left. Enough to get us to UllaanBaatar on Thursday evening. That includes drinking, cooking, washing ourselves and clothes. If for some reason we get stranded in the desert, then we can survive for two weeks. No showers, hair wash or clean clothes. If desperate, will wash hair in beer – but we would have to be very desperate.

Warming up. Glad it is not in the 40’s though. Little goats herding themselves. A few more gers appearing. Only heard two motorbikes as we were having breakfast. We have nearly finished a pot of the more gorgeous yoghurt. Thick, creamy and only 15% fat. Must be good for us. We cooked for all of us last night, so four more packs of meals used up. Hilde cooking tonight. Guess what?

Bayangovi on plain below. Really hope we can see the rock engravings. Road ahead collapsed, try new track. Steepest angle yet, use feet to brace myself. May have squealed a little, or it could have been the brakes. More water splashing. Very slow progress. Couple on a motorbike. Approach village. We will try to get fuel, and ask about the state of the roads we are planning to drive on. Fear some may have been washed away. Woman coming out of launderette.

First fuel station not manned, but had diesel. Second one (wo)manned, but no diesel. Back to first. Woman with chubby baby sees us, and comes from house. She speaks English, and says roads ok. Hilde excited. Shop sells potatoes. Baby can’t see her mum, she starts crying. The more these strange foreigners try to placate her, the more she screams. Aunty comes to the rescue. We pay in dollars, very little local currency, Turghrik. Need bank or ATM. No change. Two sprouting potatoes.

Difficult to find route to next village, Bayanlig. Head to telegraph poles, but not convinced. Rain threatening. No tracks near poles. Lad on motorbike, not following a track, but following his goats. Back to where we started.

On edge of village large designated parking area, marked out in white stones. We’re off!! Many deep fissures, some we can traverse, others we have to find a way around. Tackled that one square on; feet braced again.

Bit concerned about speed of progress, but suddenly decide that if we don’t make Chinese Embassy on Friday, we can take at least two extra days travelling, and go there Monday morning. So stop worrying.

Put wedding ring back on, now swelling has subsided. We now have sand from the Sahara and Gobi deserts behind the sun visors. Path running parallel to telegraph poles. Didn’t need to go back into village. Twisting, interesting roads, threading in and out of poles. Driving to the left of them now.

Ariel repairs working well. From a distance, the terrain looks fairly flat and featureless. But up close is a different matter. Often we cannot tell where road goes. And we are bouncing every metre of the way. These rocks look like pumice stones. May get some to use on feet. Finally get on to what we now consider to be a main road. At home we would consider it a green lane.

Bayanlig is a large sprawling town. Modern cars, shiny motorbikes, school, bank, shops. Young drivers in shades. Wooden fences mark out property boundaries. Satellite dishes. Right hand drive Land Cruiser. Trendy young things in labels. Workmen in hard hats building prefabricated structure. Some rock engravings and petroglyphs are 40kms from here, at Bayanglin Nuruu. Shall we go?

Tim and Atle go into the bank. Disappear for over half an hour. Hilde goes to find them. No money. Change plans. Don’t like the look of the weather. Now heading to Sevrie in the Gurvansaikhan National Park. Too far to get there today now.

3pm here, 9am at home. Good luck with your last week at school and nurseries – Claire, Esme and Ned.

Off the plains and through steep sided gullies. Jagged rocks. Through and out on sandy plain. Black storm clouds seemed to have passed over. Pale boulders litter floor, smaller stones are black.

So. How do I explain the rest of this amazing day? The huge black clouds that had concerned us earlier, had left flash flooding in their wake. We came to our road, which had turned into a river. It was very fast, frothing, the water was brown and we had no idea how deep it was. A local couple on a motorbike had just sat down, smoking and waiting for the water to subside. We decided to go for it. Atle and Hilde went first. They forded at an angle, slowly, water lapping half way up the Landy. Made it. Now our turn. We go into the raging torrent and gradually creep across. Once on the other side, it is difficult to navigate, as the road has disappeared.

We have to cross a second time. By now, our low range is screaming. We decide we cannot use it any more, for fear of damaging the transmission. So, Atle has two attempts at getting out of the river. Success. We follow, can’t turn out into the river as far as we want, as we don’t know the depth of the water. Try to climb out at a steeper angle. We stall. Back end of Landy still in water. We just hang there. Atle gets a rope out and tows us up the bank. Good fun when it is all over, but bit scary at the time.

We travel on. We really want to see the rock engravings, so try to head there. The sat navs don’t have these roads on, and the paper map is not detailed enough to show contours. Hilde finds the co-ordinates in a book. We follow those. After a while we realise we are heading back towards the first river crossing. No problem.

Stop at a ger, to ask for directions. A little boy playing in the new stream which has suddenly appeared, stands stock still in shock. His two older sisters are inside, with grandparents. Hilde gives the boy a football, and we give some balloons to the girls.

Drive on. Think we are getting closer. A family is building a house. Atle asks if anyone could show us the way. A man and his wife jump on their motorbike and head off. They take us to the start of a gully, then stop, hold up five fingers and point ahead. We believe they are telling us to go that way for 5km. We thank them, and leave. Hilde tells us over the CB that we are getting close, and now only 4km to go.

When we arrive, we get out and look around. Not quite sure what we are looking for. All head off in opposing directions. Suddenly, we spot the engravings. People here 5000 years ago had lived, hunted, and drawn aspects of their life. They were amazing. Bears, deer, horses, men with hunting implements. We all crawled over the cliffs, soaking up the atmosphere and history of the place, wondering what the people would have been like, getting a little insight into their lives. It is difficult finding this treasure, even though it was in guide books and marked on maps. It was a true privilege to have been here. How many other foreigners a year see this amazing place?

We retrace out route for only a minute, and park up for the night. Huge sky overhead, crescent moon, stars and Milky Way. Can’t remember the last meal we cooked or ate
indoors. We have lost another hour today, now on UllaanBaatar time. We need an early start tomorrow. So early night. Brilliant day.