30th of June 2011
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The sun was bright and the sky had an intense blue when I woke up early in the morning. So, move! Once I had left Choibalsan I did not meet one single car on the next 250km to Ereentsav. Two days before on the 340km from Ondorkaan to Choibalsan I met 4 cars, which is also not that much…but no car at all, wow.
But I met lots of birds, weasels, marmots etc. on my way into no man’s land. The mammals fled on the ground in front of me, the birds some kind of crazy firstly made a turn and loop towards me and last moment turned away. I observed this before and in the evening it gets worse…my guess is that they go for the last insect hunt in the evening close to the “roads” because it might be a degree warmer there…Today one of these birds bumped into my arm but I guess "he" was fine because I was not that fast.
When I saw that my cart track drifted too much to the east (I was already more than 10km right hand of my planned track) I just crossed over the hilly steppe towards the north-west in order to find another track more suitable. After approx. 10km I found a power line which headed more or less the direction I wanted to go…I decided to take this “landmark” as my new guideline. After all this driving in Mongolia you get somehow cool about navigation. And the power line guided me in the end to the track I missed somewhere in the beginning. But one flash I had: if something happens to you out there it might take a very long time until somebody finds you.
And then I reached this nest Ereentsav and crossed over a wooden bridge to fuel up and to change my Mongolian Turug. Fueling went well (the gas pump nozzle was reached through a metal fence:-) quite common here) and in the bank (I first had to find it…you should have seen the “building” the entrance and the interior) they had only 200 Ruble (5 Euro) to offer me for change. So I won’t get rid of my Turug because nobody outside Mongolia will take it. I still have this bunch of paper and I still hope:-)
First I couldn’t find the border crossing and nobody could tell me where it is. They simply didn’t understand me. Not even the word Russia, pronounce Rassia…hand signs…pointing the direction…nothing. And then somebody said yes and you “this way or this way pointing in different directions?”; yes and yes. Exhausting. Or they didn’t know where Russia is. Well, Ereentsav is 1km away from the border :-)
Sorry, that is nasty. My apologies!
I found it, right at the railway track, growing green in between the concrete flagstones. Friendly officers, great.
And then this Mongolian customs officer took apart my luggage, piece by piece, every pouch, every bag, every plastic bag, every tube, sniffed my toothpaste, checked my magnesium pellets, checked all my medicine, asked about every single item, painted my iodine on his rubber gloves… all my clothes on the ground. I was kind of pissed, really pissed (still tried to be cooperative) and he continued stoically. This procedure took 2 hours and at the very end he told me in his friendly manner that the Russian border will be closed at 4pm (well it was 4pm!), aeh no, at 5pm, smiling. And he shook my hand, a very important sign for the Mongolians, means to make peace with someone even though “one cannot smell the other one” :-)
The Russian side went well but all in all the entire border crossing took 4 hours. Puuh!
After the border crossing 3km of asphalt, followed by awful Wellblech gravel and later pothole asphalt to Borzya. First I couldn’t find a hotel but then somebody told me to look behind the railway line and I found exactly one hotel which was newly build and was good. And again I had the problem with my Visa card. I can pay anywhere but not in Russian hotels with this thing. No international ATM in Borzya at least I didn’t find. Only way out was to pay in Dollars with a real bad exchange rate. It was already late so luckily I got some food (but only some) in the hotel restaurant and after I finished they put the bill on the table. We close now. I wondered…10pm. Only the next day I found out that I lost 2h between Mongolia and Russia! Now I am 8h away from Germany!
But I met lots of birds, weasels, marmots etc. on my way into no man’s land. The mammals fled on the ground in front of me, the birds some kind of crazy firstly made a turn and loop towards me and last moment turned away. I observed this before and in the evening it gets worse…my guess is that they go for the last insect hunt in the evening close to the “roads” because it might be a degree warmer there…Today one of these birds bumped into my arm but I guess "he" was fine because I was not that fast.
When I saw that my cart track drifted too much to the east (I was already more than 10km right hand of my planned track) I just crossed over the hilly steppe towards the north-west in order to find another track more suitable. After approx. 10km I found a power line which headed more or less the direction I wanted to go…I decided to take this “landmark” as my new guideline. After all this driving in Mongolia you get somehow cool about navigation. And the power line guided me in the end to the track I missed somewhere in the beginning. But one flash I had: if something happens to you out there it might take a very long time until somebody finds you.
And then I reached this nest Ereentsav and crossed over a wooden bridge to fuel up and to change my Mongolian Turug. Fueling went well (the gas pump nozzle was reached through a metal fence:-) quite common here) and in the bank (I first had to find it…you should have seen the “building” the entrance and the interior) they had only 200 Ruble (5 Euro) to offer me for change. So I won’t get rid of my Turug because nobody outside Mongolia will take it. I still have this bunch of paper and I still hope:-)
First I couldn’t find the border crossing and nobody could tell me where it is. They simply didn’t understand me. Not even the word Russia, pronounce Rassia…hand signs…pointing the direction…nothing. And then somebody said yes and you “this way or this way pointing in different directions?”; yes and yes. Exhausting. Or they didn’t know where Russia is. Well, Ereentsav is 1km away from the border :-)
Sorry, that is nasty. My apologies!
I found it, right at the railway track, growing green in between the concrete flagstones. Friendly officers, great.
And then this Mongolian customs officer took apart my luggage, piece by piece, every pouch, every bag, every plastic bag, every tube, sniffed my toothpaste, checked my magnesium pellets, checked all my medicine, asked about every single item, painted my iodine on his rubber gloves… all my clothes on the ground. I was kind of pissed, really pissed (still tried to be cooperative) and he continued stoically. This procedure took 2 hours and at the very end he told me in his friendly manner that the Russian border will be closed at 4pm (well it was 4pm!), aeh no, at 5pm, smiling. And he shook my hand, a very important sign for the Mongolians, means to make peace with someone even though “one cannot smell the other one” :-)
The Russian side went well but all in all the entire border crossing took 4 hours. Puuh!
After the border crossing 3km of asphalt, followed by awful Wellblech gravel and later pothole asphalt to Borzya. First I couldn’t find a hotel but then somebody told me to look behind the railway line and I found exactly one hotel which was newly build and was good. And again I had the problem with my Visa card. I can pay anywhere but not in Russian hotels with this thing. No international ATM in Borzya at least I didn’t find. Only way out was to pay in Dollars with a real bad exchange rate. It was already late so luckily I got some food (but only some) in the hotel restaurant and after I finished they put the bill on the table. We close now. I wondered…10pm. Only the next day I found out that I lost 2h between Mongolia and Russia! Now I am 8h away from Germany!
