Gold in Mongolia....

Jill and Janos….of the famous Silent Green Bubu bus. We first met them enjoying themselves trying to get their Russian visa in Tashkent. Then they left before us on much the same route to Mongolia. We caught up with them when we rode into Olgii, in western Mongolia, but we were too knackered to be very coherent! Then we met them again ,twice ,’on the road ‘ in Mongolia. We almost woke them up for coffee one morning…In Ulaan Bataar we finally caught up properly, so good times with food, beer and laughing,….In their green bus (an old Mercedes 208 diesel van) they have been places you wouldn’t have thought they could have. Now they are in Russia on their way to Vladivostok to ship Bubu to Bangkok. Good travellers!

The boys!!!! Up to no good again.. as you can see from the laughter..Thats Gregoire on Jon’s right,and Arnua is the other one.After cycling with them in Syria/turkey,then meeting them during their “resting”phase in Uzbekistan,we cycled together in northern Mongolia for 9 days.They now feel they know us well enough to take the mick out of our “English”,despite the fact that their pronouciation is as dodgy as ever![Yees,it isss!]They spent hours with jon discussing various bike mechanics,and then when we left them still both of them had put their tyres on the wrong way round.[Ask Jon if you want to know the technical details of mud elimination etc].

We stopped to wash and get water at a stream… We noticed something shining in the river!!! Thinking that we had found GOLD!!!!!.... Nic got her hat out and started to use it as a pan.. I thought it was fool’s gold…. but who knows? May be it was gold and we have just thrown a fortune away?

But we have marked the position on a map…..so….next time we are here we can check it out again.

Last day in Mongolia [til next time]….so I took my chance to ‘borrow’a horse from a group of boys.Whilst Jon amused them by being stupid [wiggling his ears etc…this works with me too !] I gave the horse the Mongolian go fast command [which is ‘tcho’ ,like choo choo train],and it went ! At this point I appreciated the skills of Mongolian horse riders;we’ve seen very young boys staying on their bucking horses bareback at speed. When I applied brakes it was as if my brake blocks were worn out….no initial response at all….then slowly,slowly slower.I did’nt dare gallop back…trotting was fine. The next day I could hardly lift my leg over the crossbar. Neither of us can do anything other than cycling these days.

Clickers, clackers, buzzers and whirrers etc.

What is this? Do you remember eating chewy coloured snakes as a child….here is a live one. We have had a few problems with insects and other small creatures. Jon doesn’t much like “creepy crawlies” and includes ants in this category whereas I like ants…always busy doing something and they NEVER give up, no matter how much too big a bit of bread you have put in their way. We had a night in a ger [Mongolian yurt ]where it literally rained beetles, inside as well as outside [like a locust plague….there were piles of them all over town next morning.].We’ve had moths so desperate to lay their eggs at night that we are still finding eggs in our panniers. We have accidently run over loads of different kinds of grasshoppers; sometimes there have been so many, particularly the ‘clacker’ flying ones, that they’ve smacked us in the face, gone down our necks ,got squashed in between sock and shoe….its their own fault, they have no directional flying /hopping skills.

But of course by far the worst is that pointless invention ‘the mosquito’. Woe betide you if you ignore that lightest of tickling sensations. It is a mosquito tip toeing across your face in search of a new drilling site. If you don’t whack yourself and kill it you will have a huge itching sore lump the next day….to go with all your other ones. Being nice to mosquitoes [incense etc]is for wussies…….we must have killed 100’s by now [each]and made a decent dent in the overall population.