Location: The East shore of lake Tolbo Nuur
Speed: 0 MPH
Status: Camped on the East shore of lake Tolbo Nuur
We left at around 10:00 and after an hour on the “road” we saw a small settlement which consisted of six Gerrs.
For those of you that don’t know, a gerr is a circular white tent, traditionally the nomadic Mongolians use them as a base whilst moving around the lands. Typically there will be a fire burning in the centre fuelled by dried dung with beds on the outer edge and colourful décor and rugs on the floor. Whilst still used by nomadic Mongolians gerrs are seen as a cost effective way of housing in towns, all around the outskirts of any city there will be “gerr suburbs” where people who can’t afford bricks and mortar will stay.
Shortly after the settlement we stopped by four Mongolians, two horses and a motorbike which had a flat tyre. Using our now patented international sign language dictionary we established that they needed some glue for an inner tube patch – trust me that wasn’t easy to establish!
Stu and Russ rolled up their sleeves and got straight in there, patching the tyre up.
Then the locals spent an hour trying to get the tyre back on the rim which proved difficult as they were doing it wrong! Eventually they asked us if we could take the eldest of them to Olgy which was around 10KM away.
The elder was wearing traditional Mongolian dress; the boots, coat – everything, we nick named him Genghis.
We loaded Genghis into the ambulance offering him prime spot on a stretcher. He smelt of yak, something we’d learn all rural Mongolians smell of.
Genghis didn’t speak a world for the entire trip. However he’d obviously been to bookshops and brought a copy of the “Gobi International Sign Language” as he knew exactly how to extract things from us. Food, vodka, cigarettes were all requested all of which we gave him. It became apparent after half an hour of driving that Genghis has a serious smoking issue, chain smoking the pack of Marlboro lights we’d given him.
As we drew close to the Olgy we asked Genghis to move to the passenger seat so he could give us directions. Moving forward, cigarette in hand he made gestures indicated which way we were to drive. By the time we’d got to his drop off point he’d smoked the entire packet of twenty, each tab to the butt!
Opting to stop for an hour we used the Internet, restocked with beer, vodka, food and of course brought an 80’s Russian motorbike and side cart!
Russ and I did the deal and for a sensible amount of US Dollars we had acquired ourselves a fine machine. So fine in fact that it broke down after five minutes, but only needed fuel.
With Russ driving I sat in the side car for our inaugural trip aboard our new steed. In a word the ride was bumpy and it started to rain. Russ drove out of town with Stu driving the ambulance whilst I played camera man.
After ten minutes it broke down, the spark plug had fallen out! With that fixed it wouldn’t start so we decided to push start it….with the ambulance! Two miles later the engine hadn’t started but it had seized – game over. We pushed our former toy to the side of the road, left the keys in it and figured a local would find and repair it – lucky person!
It was now pummelling down with rain as we drove South up and out of the valley away from Olgy. Our aim for today would be a fresh water lake called Tolbo Nuur where we’d camp, wash and continue.
As ever nothing is as simple as it seems in Mongolia. With Russ in charge of navigation we started to take short cuts away from the beaten track to improve speed towards Ulan Bator. Operating a strict democracy in the ambulance I (Mat) was out voted when I suggest we shouldn’t be taking these routes and the short cuts continued.
As time went on the short cuts were taking their toll on the ambulance. The rough roads, steep climbs and ditches were not idea. By the time we caught sight of lake Tolbo Nur our path across the landscape had got very brave. With only a few miles to go to our chosen camping spot we found ourselves at a sheet 100 foot drop with no where to go.
I suggested we looped back to the main “road” but over ruled again saw us take a route down a dry river bed at a 45 degree angle! Credit where credits due, the old girl made it down and we dropped right down next to the lake. Since it was getting dark we turned towards the lake to camp, driving straight into a bog! With two of the three cars in the convoy stuck, including the ambulance we set about recovery. First things first we open some beer and thought about how we were going to pull a 3 ton ambulance out with a 800 kilogram Suzuki jeep that has a 1 litre engine.
This is where our kinetic rope came in – allow me to fill you in: eight weeks ago back in England Russ suggested we bring a kinetic rope. We make contact with a few suppliers and eventually got one at cost price; thank Genghis Khan we brought it with us.
A kinetic rope by the way is a length of line that is very stretchy. It generates kinetic energy when pulled from slack so in effect it generates its own pull motion to give assisted power. We’d attached each end to different vehicles then flake (or coil) the rope out before driving away at full throttle, when the role becomes taught the cars energy is used as well as the kinetic energy – put simply it will allow small cars to pull a 3 ton ambulance out of the mud!
So on with the rope and the Suzuki drove off at full pelt with Stu driving the ambulance and Russ driving the Suzuki she jumped straight out of the bog.
Next up was to recover the Shogun (we met these guys in Russia and they convoyed all the way to UB with us) from the bog. Now this would be more of a challenge, sure we had twice the power in the form of an ambulance and a Suzuki jeep but we couldn’t get near it as the bog was too deep.
We dug out the wheels with spades for an hour then tried the tow using the ambulance. No joy at all, the Shogun was well stuck in the bog. By this stage I’d given up with footwear as it was just too muddy.
After filling buckets up with shingle and dumping them in the wheel ruts where it had dug into the bog we then fashioned a tow. Using various lines lashed together we attached the Suzuki to the Shogun then using the kinetic rope we attached the Suzuki to the ambulance so in effect a two car tow.
Russ stood back and counted us in, Stu in the Shogun a chap called Dave in the Suzuki and I was driving the Gobi Ambulance. “Three…two…one…GO!” Russ shouted and with that the SJ applied full throttle whilst I drove forward. The kinetic rope quickly became taught and as nearly flipped the Suzuki as we pulled the Shogun totally free!
After a some vodka to celebrate our achievement we began pitch tent when someone shouted “Ralliers” and with that we turned the sirens on to get their attention. In hindsight this was probably a bad thing to do as once the ralliers had seen us they immediately turned towards us and into the bog! We waved them away but it was just too far away and low and behold they got caught – we didn’t get to camp with them that evening. We were unable to help them with our vehicles so we walked to say hello, they had things under control.
As night fell we washed in the lake which proved to be salt water which wasn’t too great for washing but at least it meant no mosquitoes! We sat down to eat and as the sun when down and we were able to take in the beauty of the spot we’d chosen to camp. To the East, over the lake were snow capped mountains and to the South were gerrs lining the shores of the lake. We discussed out route out of the bog and agree’d we’d drive along the lake shore and send someone ahead walking to identify solid ground.
Before bed we drank some vodka and hit the sack around 23:00 ready for a reasonably early start.
Our next target was Tolbo and then Khovd which was 150 miles away, achievable in a good days driving; or so we thought. As it happened we were still two and half days away from Khovd, but more about why later!
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