As it used to be, everything ends once! Unfortunately, our time in Mongolia and the Asian part of our tour are coming to an end. But, before that, we had a good time in the Gobi Desert with our faithful companion, Crocodile!
After Gobi we drove to Ulaanbaatar, a dirty, smelly and not at all beautiful city. Plus, traffic is worse than any big city we’ve been to! Unfortunately this is the case, we did not find anything attractive, so we did not take much pictures. On the other hand, we’ve got the must-see rounds like shopping, a new sim card for last week’s recharges, and most importantly, a little crunchy wrap from KFC! Don’t laugh!
Although we brought a lot of food with us, our living space has been dwindling for quite some time, and local stores do not have the same selection as our home. We dare not buy eggs, and because of the pestilence infections of the recent past, we have not forced the meat (well, three very stupid Russians have died from the infected marmot meat, so that is not entirely true, but there is virtually no sympathic meat in the shops). Don’t dream about cheese, dude! But even a simple breakfast served with fresh baked goods is such a curiosity that you talk about it like it was a Michelin-starred restaurant for as much as the monthly food cost of the trip for both of us.
After Ulaanbaatar, we headed north to the Mongolian-Russian border, and thought we were going to see some more exciting places along the way, and a little riding could fit into the rest of the time. The way to the border, there is no better word for it: catastrophic. I don’t understand why they call it a road. In Mongolia we got used to not having asphalt, just a dirt road by cars, but rather a few tracks on the grassy hillsides. Well, it works quite well as long as only a few cars pass by and the weather is dry.
You can imagine how much traffic there is from the capital to the border, and it was all night raining! Not much really, just enough to the road to became a mud sea … Half of the Mongols wrecked their car in the mud, wheels broke everywhere, so much for the capabilities of the Prius. To prevent them from getting stuck, they tried to push the car like an animal, which is very dangerous for the car. The other half, though simply stuck, pulled each other out or stayed there for who knows how long. The truckers, no better thing to do, camped and cheered on the wrecks of their vehicle until it dried up.
Fortunately, we were prepared for such situations with the right tires, high clearence and a four-wheeled Crocodile, so we went wherever the others got stuck, so I enjoyed it! There was some slipping, clowning, as you could see in the video.
Regardless of the rugged terrain, we had some technical problems …
After a long research and the exclusion of possible causes, it was found that the starter cable burned out. No problem, after some phone help, we got it together to start the car and get to the first Russian big city for a simple cable change. Tricky, but it works! Ignition, then connect a jumper cable to the car battery, and then reaching deep into the right wheel, using a dedicated metal device cinnected the other side of the jumper cabel, I touch the negative pole of the starter, and then the negative and positive pole at the same time and the motor starts.
A bit difficult, we have to save the startings, but it gets us to the service across the border. Goodbye, Mongolia, it was an unforgettable experience for us and Crocodile!
