map August Diary | September Diary | October Diary | November Diary | December Diary Subject: Ships of the DesertDate: 15 November 2001 11:43First off. My entire hotmail inbox has been deleated, both read and unread messages so If you are waiting for a reply please resend your message. Before you bulk at the length of this email I have included Andy Ganners account of events since he is more prosaic whereas I tend to be acecdotial. Read it if you like to get the same story from two different perspectives. Crumbs. We've made it to Beijing. Plain Sailing? No chance, here's what been happening. Leaving Ulan Ude in Russia it was 1 week to the border. At first things went well, tail winds and glorious weather as we climbed gently on the approach to the Mongolian Plateau. We had been in Russia for nearly 3 months and it was a real wrench to leave behind its beauty and hospitality but slowly the trees thinned out and the hills became strenuous. Traffic was becomming light with a dozen vehicles passing us each day. We had been given express permission to cross the border from Russia, a privalege normally reserved for goods vehicles and locals on approved transport. A private car has to be driven by an offocial while the driver takes a train or bus. After a 2 hour delay while the border was closed for lunch (allowing us time to inspect the 3 rows of electrified razor wire border fences) we were ushered through to passport control. Formalities over it was time for customs. Any Guns or weapons? We just laughed and the first two bags they inspected contained nothing but food. Then they unpacked Andys bag and found his catapult. Not sure what to make of this Andy demonstrated, quite convincingly to the bemused guards how he would use it to fight off Rabid dogs. The bemusement soon turned to humour then Hysterics as they realised that we were in fact utterly mad and got rid of us as soon as they could into Mongolia. 
BANG! we had passed the little white marker post which marks the actual border line and were now on a road of broken bricks and Rocks. We were welcomed by smiling guards in ill fitting suits who actually enjoyed having their pictures taken. Producing a camera would probably have got you arrested on the russian side. The dirt didn't last long and the well paved road that followed exceeded expectations and lasted all the way to the capital. We found a cheap hotel in a town 30km from the border and had the "new country" traditional celebratory beer. It was utterly foul so we headed out looking for food. We failed, with no Phrase book (the length of time we were spending in the country didn't justify the extra weight)we ended up back in the hotel cooking noodles. There were two bare wires sticking out of the wall above andy's excuse for a bed. On touching them together just to check that they were in fact safe, we were treated to blinding flash and a small spray of white hot metal. 2 dollars a night buys quite a lot of excitement and we left a sizable skull and cross bones with 220V drawn on the wall in marker pen. We were 4 days from Ulaan Baatar and I caught some kind of bug. The whole period is a little hazey and I didn't keep a diary but I do remember being really quite uncomfortable, compleatly loosing my appitite for 3 days, falling asleep at every oportunity and still managing to ride over 100km a day. By chance we had weighed ourselves on the customs scales at the border and by Ulaan Baatar I had lost over 6 valuable lbs. As capital cities go, irrespective of the countries poor wealth, Ulaan Baatar really was dissapointing. The people were not particularly friendly, with the odd exception traditional food was bland (made worse by my need to fatten up quickly) Drivers in the city all wanted to kill you and the only industry in the country was mutton and goats milk so everthing else was imported and too expensive even for us westerners. The city is however well entrenched on the backpackers trail and for the first time in months we met a steady stream of english speakers including another intrepid team who had boated and canoed, with much sponsership and media coverage from source to sea along one of Russia's more difficult rivers. (thanks for use of your satellite phone Ben..) While registering our route across the Govi (Gobi) desert at the British embassy we were invited by Kay (the ambassador) to their special little pub, the Steppe Inn. The feeling of Nostalga was overwhelming. Once a week, in a shed in the grounds of the Embassy they captured the essence of a traditional British pub. The popularity of which has spread across most english speaking ex-pats and staff from other embassy's. As we were leaving, Kay wished us luck and informed us like a stern head mistress, "If you get into trouble, I'll box your ears". We knew she meant it. The week was spent mainly prepairing for the Govi. We got much advise, especially from Tim who had cycled the desert the year before and all accounts plus the books I'd read painted a pretty grim picture. 20 km after leaving the city we came to a dead end at a deserted factory. We headed across to where some locals were digging coal by hand from a seam near the surface and asked for directions. After nuch vague hand waving we set off again across the desert scrub. The soft ground was hard work but after a couple of km we hit a dirt track going in roughly the right direction. Our one key reference was that we had to follow the railway all the way to the border and before too long were very relieved when it came into view. We were on the right road, well sandy dirt track and struck camp an hour before the sun went down. The weather was now quite chilly. The digital thermometer which worked so wonderfully at over 50 deg (in the sun) in the Ukraine decided that -15 was its lower limit so we're not sure how cold it got at night but keeping water liquid became a real challange. A two liter bottle of ice inside your sleeping bag is really not conducive to a good nights sleep but it had thawed to 1 liter of ice by the morning. (subsequently I heated the water a little before going to bed). We had a tail wind, the road was poor in places but despite a couple of punctures we made 80 km (50 miles) and were lulled into a dangerous sense of false security as to what lay ahead. The bikes were heavy, 12 litres of water and over 10 kg of food meant that my bike weighed more than me and the road had gone from sandy gravel to corrugated rutts pounded hard by lorries. My front rack sheared its second bolt since the city and because I had added mudguards my ample supply of spares were no longer long enough. We were in the process of canabalising a less vital bolt from Andy's bike to avoid me disguarding the mud guards when a lorry (one of 2 that day) stopped. The driver hopped out with his tool box, handed me exactly the right size bolt and drove off again. The landscape slowly became barren. The carcasses from dead cows, horses and later camels were everwhere as were the birds of prey. A large bird feasting on carrion took off as Toby and I bumped past and flew over Scott and Andy 50 yds behind. It was a Golden Eagle, the beat of its 2 meter wings unbelevably loud in the quiet desert. We saw heards of wild camels, horses and very timid gazelles. Camels let you get supprisingly close before getting irritated although some are very large and can be quite intimidating. We managed not to get lost in the Govi although we often took roads reccomended by local people which were not on our map. There was a town or settlement every couple of days and we only went one whole day where we saw no vehicle or other human being but it was not a hospitable place. You could easilly pay the ultimate price if your decision making and luck were poor. Personally I think I enjoyed the desert more than the others, the fat tyres (bought for 1 dollar in Ulaan Baatar) often suffered punctures from thorns but made riding through the soft sandy patches much less effort and my cheap russian sleeping bag inside my down one made for quite cosy nights, even at -15 C. We rode over 700 km in 2 weeks through sand, gravel, rocks, coal, slate and beautiful shining crystals but mainly just constant pounding corrugations. We lost count of the number of punctures from thorns and several field repairs were done to other equipment. Scott became known as the Fall Guy since his bike was the least suitable at coping with the invisible patches of soft sand. The wind direction changed randomly every day but interestingly never changed during the day so the light morning breeze gave a good indication of how many clothes to wear. Only on a couple of days did the temperature fail to rise above freezing. The terrain was varied from compleatly flat plain at around 1300 meters altitude to impressive hills over a mile high at 1700 meters. Despite all that I think the memory that will last longest will be one of cold and death, the carcasses were everwhere. The desert deserves its reputation as one of the most inhospitable deserts, but at least when I get to Australia I'll be able to compare it to the Red desert. The Chinese border town that we crossed into was about the size of Ulaan Baatar. It was dusk and had taken the whole day to cross the border with a full hour of questions about why we had bicycles, did we know we were not allowed to cycle in China (our bikes were in a taxi van), a thorough inspection of the passports and questions on various stamps in them. Then we were in, dropped by the taxi by a crowd of very intregued locals. Glistening glass buildings, bright lights, people, bicycles, rickshaws, traffic, noise, smoke everywhere. After two weeks of desert the contrast was overwhelming. Andy's first instinct was to get out of the city but listened to reason when we pointed out that he may be able to wash his socks if we could just find a hotel. We did. Then we found a cafe. It seemed like 1 shop had more variety of food than you could get in the whole of Mongolia. It slowly dawned on us all that we were going to seriously enjoy this country. The cafe's instantly understand the word for vegitarian (for Toby and Andy) and it is probably the most bike friendly place in the world. Half the next day was spent just walking round soaking up the atmosphere then we left. The Chinese had very generously just finished building a brand new road to Beijing, a road so smooth that you could feel a sweet wrapper stuck to you tyre. The desert hadn't finished but now we surveyed it as if we were sitting in a luxury limo, after 700 km at an average of 11 kmph the km posts now flashed past. Things were just getting better and better. I felt a bit tense as we encountered the first few police but before we got to beijing a policeman had even saluted me. Outside of restricted areas the police are not aware of the law reguarding international cycleists. I just hope we don't stray into any restricted areas (the location of which, of course, is secret). It stayed very cold and we spent 5 days climbing through the mountains which surround the mongolian plateau. One day we rode through gale force winds comming most of the day from our right. Turning down wind on a section of road we were blown (uphill) at 45 kmph and the wind was blowing the sand past us. Visability was about 30 yds. We made Beijing in just over a week, eating splended food all the way (a reasonable meal costs 1 pound). Saw the original ramparts of the great wall and generally stunning scenery. Since being in the city Andy and I spoke at the International Business and Economics university to about 150 students who produced a very diferent set of questions from their Russian Counterparts (No "do you have girlfriends") with coverage by the countries main news station (cctv!) and have done a couple of interviews with national and local papers and a travel journal. We have been joined by the 5th member of our team: Stephane from Canada who originally broke his leg in a car crash a week before the start of the ride. Believe it or not another Canadian, Nick has bought a bike, bags and a tent and is also coming along for the China section. So now we are 6, its becomming quite a party. Goodness knows what will happen when we get to Hong Kong, If we can get the BBC or CNN involved we'll keep you posted. Although it can be fun the whole media thing uses up a lot of time and effort. Unfortuatly I have missed loads out but It feels like enough for now!! Love to you all Rory *******BELOW IS ANDY'S EMAIL********** ULAAN BAATAR - THE GOBI DESERT - THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA - BEIJING Monday 12th of November 2001. Total Distance: 8,185 miles. (about 14,000 km) Latitude: same as Madrid and Washington DC. Longitude: same as Perth, Australia. Hello Friends..... This email can not possibly convey what we have experienced in the last few weeks. But I'll try my best to describe the feelings, the frustrations, the hardships of our jouney to Beijing.... here goes... We left Ulaan Baatar on October the 13th, the weather was cold and clear as we left the eastern suburbs of this the capital of Mongolia. The road was good for 20 miles, paved, then concrete slabs, the bricks, then nothing. It ended at a coal mine! We asked directions to the main road south and the people just pointed south easterly over barren grasslands to a dirt track..... this WAS the main road to the Chinese border! After climing for a while we became tired and decided to pitch tents. When the sun went down the temperatures started to plummet. Rory with his digital thermometer in his tent proudly shouted out, "Its zero degrees guys". Then.... "Its minus 5 guys.... minus 8.... minus 10...." When it reached minus 15 the thermometers limit, it was no joke.. it was bloody freezing. I had on all my clothes and candles burning in my tent just to give a little extra heat! There was another problem in the morning... all our cooking and drinking water was frozen solid and we were miles away from anywhere. This is how it would be for the next two weeks. The road just became horrendous in parts, not a road at all really, just this sandy corrugated dirt track where you were lucky to see one vehicle a day. The scenery became dead flat desert after a couple of days, the only signs of life being the ever present Trans-Mongolian railway, the odd yurt here and there, and the wildlife..., hundreds of camels, marmots, golden eagles, rabid dogs, goats, and herds of gazelles. Now and then a horseman would come up to us dressed in traditional garb, and eye us curiously. I think the Mongolians are probably the only people so far on this trip who can relate to our nomadic lifestyle. The days went on and nature tried her best to test our spirits. Each day the wind howled in a new direction, when there wasn't sand to slow us down there were thorns that punctured our tyres. The landscape just kept getting more and more desperate, the bleached bones of entire camels and horses lay everywhere as a reminder not to give up. Each day seemed lik "groundhog day", the same routine, the same landscape, the same 20 or 30 miles along horrendous roads. After 2 weeks we reached the Mongolian border town of Zamyyn Uud and vowed never to cross the Gobi again. The town was a motley collection of grubby buildings, undernourised cows roamed the dusty streets, some eating rubbish out of dumpsters. Packs of rabid dogs walked around looking for a cyclist to chase. The only way across the border from here into China was by taxi mini-bus to the Chinese border town of Erlian 4 miles away. This was because of the fact that its technically illegal for a foreigner to bicycle in the Peoples Republic, the communist regime likes to keep tabs on where its visitors go to, there are many forbidden areas and we had heard plenty of stories of foreigners being arrested and detained by the authorities!!! So off we went in our mini-bus, through Mongolian customs, past the rows of barbed wire fences in no-mans land, to Chinese customs and immigration where they went through our passports with a fine-toothed comb asking loads of questions about where we were going, where we'd been, what the bikes were for? After a hour of interrogation, our passports were stamped and we headed into our 17th country, China. The border town of Erlian blew our minds! Suddenly there were good paved roads, hundreds of cyclists, shops where you could buy everything, bright lights and advertisements. I stood there open-mouthed, like the country bumpkin whos arrived in the big city for the first time in his life! Honestly, it make Mongolia positively 'Stone-Age' in comparison. We were in the region of China known as Inner Mongolia, and still had another 200 miles of desert to cross. To our releif the roads from here were paved and brand new, as smooth as a billiard table... it was luxury. But still, the desert was colder than ever and it took 4 more days until we saw trees and some forms of agriculture going on. If we thought that people were curious in other countries, well, we had seen nothing yet. Everytime we stopped a crowd would soon develop around the foreigners. The Chinese people are great though, always smiling and genuinely pleased to see us.... even the authorities which suprised us. And the food.... gone were the days of peasant food and in-edibles, the Chinese know how to cook up excellent meals, we are going to get fat here, I know it. About 100 miles from Beijing the Mongolian Plateau gives way to the ring of mountains that surround it, we climbed to over 5,000 feet before our great descent towards the capital. On distant peaks we saw the watchtowers of the Great Wall and our spirits lifted. Our road plunged down a gorge as the sun was setting over the left side. It was here we rode past the ancient ramparts of the Wall, no tourists, just naturally crumbling and clinging to the edges of the bare rocks. We carried on downhill, the temerature stedily rising, until our last descent 30 miles from Beijing, over 10 miles fre-wheeling down a beautiful gorge util we reached the fertile fiels on the edge of Beijing. On November the 9th at midday we arrived in Tiannamen Square, we'd made it after 8,000 or more miles, time to find a hostel. Right now we are chilling-out for a week in the capital, doing the sights, we've already visited Chairman Mao's Mausoleum, seen his waxy body in the tomb, visited the forbidden city with all its wonderful imperial palaces. We have also been joined by our 5th member of the group, Stephane from Canada who will go all the way to Singapore with us. From here we go due south through Wuhan and hope to be in Hong Kong within 5 weeks, you'll get another intallment from there. Hmmmm... hungry again, this Chinese food eh! I only ate half an hour ago! Once again, Thanks for all your encoraging emails, I love to read them, sorry I can't reply personally to them but I do promise I'll try and send you all postcards when we arrive in Singapore... Best Wishes and Take Care, Wherever you may be in the big Wide World of ours ANDY (: *********ABOVE IS ANDY'S EMAIL, ABOVE THAT IS MINE******** Rory James August Diary | September Diary | October Diary | November Diary | December Diary | top |
|