Friday 26th July 2013<\/p>\n
New plans<\/p>\n
Brian Rix farce continues. Just about to jump in shower. No towels. Put boiling hot towelling robe back on. Phone House Keeping. Lady understands me today. Thank you. Keep boiling hot towelling dressing gown on. Knock on door. No towels – one of yesterdays lady steps in unbidden, looks in bathroom, then main room. Oh, no towels. She goes. Still melting in stifling nightwear. Then towels arrive. Hurray. <\/p>\n
Over breakfast we are all trying to be optimistic. Tim and Atle are to be at the garage for 11am, and hopefully bringing the cars back sometime today. Tim gets a text from garage, places come ASAP. Nobody says anything, but we all fear the worst. Hilde cancels Emi the guide, and we both catch up on the blogs. Need some down time. Not sure what is happening. Wait nervously. Then the phone call comes from Tim. Engine broken. Metal shards in oil filter. We could drive a little way, but the crank shaft would probably smash into the engine, wrecking it completely. <\/p>\n
I ask Tim how he feels, and he says ok. He never was a good liar. Hard to support each other over the phone, but we try our best. The parts sent for Hilde’s car are wrong, and their issues cannot be fixed. So, decisions made for us. We will have to crate both cars, and stay in UB until they are sorted. <\/p>\n
Hilde and I had arranged to meet at mid day. She has not heard any of the news. We are both gutted, have a little cry and give each other big hugs. We decide to get a taxi straight to the garage. Neither of us really in the mood to be ripped off by the cheeky young taxi driver. Both of us sit with folded arms in the back, and say NO to his ridiculous request of 13,000T. Feel pleased with ourselves when we beat him down to 10,000T. Tim and Atle paid 5,000T!!!!<\/p>\n
Throughout the rest of the day we all discuss our feelings. We know that we have achieved our goal. We have driven our cars from home to Mongolia, and arrived in UB. That was our original destination. We have made it, and we must not lose sight of that. We always planned to ship the vehicles home, but maybe not from here. We had also discussed the possibility of driving back through Russia, now it is not so daunting. But we also admit that this is so disappointing. To be crating up two broken cars is shattering, and we have every right to be upset, cross, angry and any other emotion we care to feel. <\/p>\n
All head to where an overland exhibition is being held. Look at the camping equipment, tents and vehicles. Some conversions, a Hummer which looked as if it had been coated with sand, and Uni Mogs. It is baking hot. Hilde says we need some “funeral beer”, spots a suitable place for lunch, and drown our sorrows with draught beer and pizza. That helps. <\/p>\n
Taxi back to hotel. Hilde has more interviews, Atle still banned from their suite sits and works in the foyer, trying to finalise quotes for containers and possible flights. Tim emails family, who will have picked up from Hilde’s blog that we are now both carless. Just to let them know the situation and we are ok. We then walk to the Chinese Embassy. Someone has moved the benches to the other side of the pavement, so we can sit in the shade. We are 10th in the queue this time, but it shouldn’t take as long. Door opens at 4pm, and it is a relief to be in the air conditioned room. Queue moves quickly, too quickly for us to cool down properly. Security guard walks around redundantly, straightens a poster and looks important. We get to the window, hand over papers and receive our passports complete with Chinese visas. Very exciting. We may need them after all. Took just over 10 minutes.
\nOn way back we visit another Gobi Cashmere shop. Try stuff on. Nearly melt. No air conditioning and no lighting in area I am interested in. Fussy assistants really bugging me. Keep smiling. Tim knows the signs, and goes and sits himself out of harms way. Finally decide on styles, but there is a frantic hunt for small sizes. Credit card doesn’t work. Well it did yesterday so we try again. Success. I then go to Sky Shopping mall to try and get some cool flip flops. No success. But I do treat myself to some bright orange nail varnish. See if you like it when I get home Esme. <\/p>\n
All have a bit of down time, shower and meet for dinner. Again walk to restaurant, on Peace Avenue this time. Take life in our hands crossing main road. Not as brave as young men full of bravado. Walk around National Wrestling venue. Find Wagner Asia Indian Restaurant. Beautiful wooden floors, posts and staircases. The tables were studded with nails, the chairs really heavy. We were sitting in a booth near an open window, brightly coloured drapes enclosed us on three sides. <\/p>\n
All start with gin and tonic, and find the best red wine of the holiday. Order favourites, veg pakoras, Rogan Josh, raita, basket of naan, egg plant, rice and a couple of other dishes. Again, the waitress doesn’t write our order down. But unlike last night, everything we ordered is delivered to the table. Poor Tim, he is so emotionally exhausted that he can hardly eat or drink a thing. I know, totally unheard of. But as Atle says, it was all the more for the rest of us. Absolutely delicious meal. <\/p>\n
On way out we look at photos of all the famous people who had dined there. Hardly recognised any. But, was that really the Dali Lama? Maybe not. All the pubs we had said we would be visiting on the way home go uninvestigated. Hilde says she is so full, she wants carrying. Atle does not oblige. Once again, natter in foyer, then head to our rooms. <\/p>\n
Have a long chat with Rachel. She has had her hair cut again, and it is stunning. Paul arrives to help take stuff across to Waterland in the camper. We may not be meeting in Paris after all, if we return early and they leave later than planned. We may go straight to Plymouth from Heathrow, then to Cornwall, catch up with everybody and collect Disco. <\/p>\n
Tim falls straight to sleep, but my mind is buzzing. What happens now?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Friday 26th July 2013 New plans Brian Rix farce continues. Just about to jump in shower. No towels. Put boiling hot towelling robe back on. Phone House Keeping. Lady understands me today. Thank you. Keep boiling hot towelling dressing gown on. Knock on door. No towels – one of yesterdays lady steps in unbidden, looks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mongolia"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3bX1q-hv","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapetim.co.uk\/mongolia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapetim.co.uk\/mongolia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapetim.co.uk\/mongolia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapetim.co.uk\/mongolia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapetim.co.uk\/mongolia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1085"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapetim.co.uk\/mongolia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1085\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1717,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapetim.co.uk\/mongolia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1085\/revisions\/1717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapetim.co.uk\/mongolia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapetim.co.uk\/mongolia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapetim.co.uk\/mongolia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}