I was very happy today because we were leaving the ger 🙂 After almost two weeks in a ger I was silently dreaming of a hotel room again, or my own tent. A ger can be nice from the outside but if you live in it for a while, you will find out that you are living together with mother nature. Spiders will be your best friends here!

So we got up early. Today would be a big test for the bike. The new rear shock was in place, but also the valves had been tuned. We left early also to evade the big traffic jams in UB.

We rode outside of the city to the roundabout where we came almost two weeks ago. Now we didn’t take the turn for Olgii, but the way to Suukhbatar or the Russian border.

It was asphalt all the way, so an easy ride. It felt great to ride with working suspension again. After fifty km’s I stopped to check my cylinders for oil leakage. During the last bike maintenance I had also checked the valves and the intake valves had to be tuned.

Indeed I saw some oil on the bottom of the gaskets. I will open them again, and really dry clean them. If it does not help I will have to replace the gaskets, which I have as spare parts.

Under the way I was riding together with a CD car with a red license place. Apparently it was the ambassador of China in Mongolia. He stopped at the same place we did, and was very keen on the bike. We got another business card from a diplomate 🙂

While we stopped, there was this little dog who came by. He was really cute! We were eating some Khuushuur we had left over from Broadway’s in UB. So we treated him.

We reached the border of Russia with about 2 liters still in the tank. I know the Russian fuel is a lot cheaper so I really pushed it on. The border crossing was easy. First we could overtake all the lories. Then we had to do the usual paperwork. Passport control and bike control on the Mongolian side. We were out of Mongolia in like 30 minutes. There was Polish jeep and a German van, but they had to wait in line behind the other cars.

Next was the Russian border. It was the third time in three months! There were a lot of Mongol cars before the checkpoint. As always they put themselves in some kind of zigzag way so you pass them very hard. I asked politely if they would move their cars 20cm or so, but no way! So I just went over the grass and then they all started to horn, funny 🙂

The checkin for Russia went smooth as well. We just had to create a new document for the bike, my previous was only valid until 5/9. Our luggage was not checked.

We rode into the first city looking for benzine and found 95 easily. Next we saw this large military base, and under the way a lot of tanks and infantery units training.

After riding 420 km or so I was starting to fall a sleep on the bike. Not so good, so it was time to stop at a stolovaya. Luckily there was one.

Once in Russia I think the landscape has changed a lot. We saw this big forrest with soft sand, hills. It was a robuust terain, but beautiful.

Before reaching Ulan Ude we also witnessed a nice lake. Suddenly it is in front of you.

In the evening we reached the city of Ulan Ude, and just before the city we saw the road split. Following east would lead to Chita and further on to Yakutsk or Vladivostok. Following west would bring you to Irkutsk and lake Baikal. The latter was our destination.

We rode into town and checked in our hotelroom. It was a ride of 570km today. The bike had done fine, we were in our final country of the trip.

During the trip we had lost some time here and there. Now the big question is will we go to the dalnii vostok or the far east or play safe and stay at Baikal and head home afterwards. It will be decided in the coming days…