I knew there was a catch to our hotel. When we got to bed we found out why. Next to the hotel a crane started digging around 10pm! We told the receptionist and she told us they would stop after an hour or so 🙂

In the morning we made a little walk through town before leaving.

Our plan of the day was to visit the city of Karkorum where we would see the temple of Erdene Zu Khiid. This is said to be the first budhist monastery in Mongolia. It had between 60 and 100 temples at its glory days. But the soviets destroyed most of them. So we could only see three of them now.

We had to decide which road to take, offroad again through the mountains, but a lot shorter. Or follow the main asphalt road. My back was really almost broken by now, so I decided to take the asphalt. Read on and see if it was really asphalt all the way.

The first kms were asphalt indeed. It was a bit bumpy but ok. I had to be careful as the rear spring would act like a catapult if you go to fast in a bump.

After an hour we saw a roadsign pointing to Khujirt. Only 44km and then another 30km and we would be in Karkorum. But there was so much water we quickly went to the main road again. I still don’t know if it was a good option.

After a while there were roadworks again and we had to ride through the fields. They were quite muddy. Some trucks and cars got stuck in the mud, but we got through. It felt almost like riding on ice I guess but we didn’t fall 🙂 We kept going until we stopped at a yurta to say hello. The woman was working with the khimiz, she offered but we politely refused.

As we were riding on, still in the mud, people were pointing us how to go. I think we did at least 20km, so I was seriously doubting that we should have taken the short cut through the mountains. We got through the fields ok and hit on asphalt again.

It was pretty bumpy and there were big potholes, so care had to be taken always. We reached another crossroad. One pointed to UB, the other one to Karkorum.

We were happy as it was all new asphalt. We even road up a hill to enjoy a great view.

Our happiness was short though as after 5km the asphalt stopped again and there were more roadworks. The last 70 would be a bit difficult.

I got really angry at some point because of some idiot driver. If you overtake some people, then they start racing to overtake you again. I can’t go too fast, so it happened. Then once you are overtaken they go really slow so you can eat their dust. I almost went as he hit the brakes real hard and we fell over. No big deal but he better come not to close to me this guy! Anyway I guess I was getting tired.

We reached the temple in the evening and had a look around. There were also some stone turtles to see. One was well hid on a mountain top outside of the town. There was also somekind of phallic rock. I rode up to it with the bike, and a mongol started shouting really loud to me. No idea why but we took off. I guess it was not my day.

We stopped at a hostel called Jim Morin, but we did not see Jim. We had some warm food and slept in a ger. A bit touristic but what the heck. At least we knew there were many spiders now in a ger 🙂

We went to bed early as tomorrow we had a big ride. It would be the final one for a while!

 

I felt sick in the morning, headache, backache, stomache… So I stayed in bed most of the morning. Lárisa went out to do some shopping. In Mongolia it is normally better to ride early as in the afternoon there is a very big chance for rain. Indeed around 12 o’clock or so it started raining heavily.

We discussed the last night with Adrian what is interesting on our way and we saw the ancient capital called Karakorum was not so far and seemed interesting. There is a big temple, which was mostly destroyed by the Soviets in 1937, but still was worth to visit.

We also needed to decide what to do with the bike part. Should we use a company like DHL or spedition or go ourselves. I checked with spedition in Germany but they were slow in response. I guess because in our case we have to bring back the old part and leave with the new part it is more complicated. So we decided to buy airline tickets. The only one who could do it was Lárisa. I need a visa to enter Mongolia. She does not. So we bought tickets with Aeroflot. Lárisa would flow via Moscow to Brussels next week.

One worry less, we decided to push on. Our daily average in km was around 200km. The next big town of Avaikheer was exactly 200km so we decided to move. It was already 2pm by now and still raining. The guys in the hotel tried to convince us to stay.

We wouldn’t listen and moved on. After the first few km there was off road again. Uphill in the mud, not very cool. Luckily only 5km or so. Then again asphalt. We advanced well but it was very wet!

After a while we still had 50km to do or so when I saw road construction. No way the asphalt was not completed yet. Normally no problem, but it had rained so much that the offroad almost looked impossible. We decided to continue through the road works but then we first had to go over a small hill. Hmm the cluth smelled a bit burnt after doing that!

We gently continued and finally reached a temple, still in the rain, with a big horse statue. We had to pay 500 Togrog to get in. At the statue we met people in a jeep. It were belgians! One was actually the consul of honour of Mongolia in Belgium, named Paul Van Wouwe. He gave us his card, just in case I guess. The statue was of a specially fast horse. The next town Arvaikheer was actually named after it.

We reached Arvaikheer soon now, and searched a hotel. Same drill, no English, too expensive… Ok after the fourth one we found a good one. We took of all the wet clothes and had a warm shower. There was a nice little restaurant on the other side of the street and we had a good meal.

Tomorrow we ride to the old capital which was built by the son of Ghengis Khan.