Thursday 28 May 2015

Cycling through Clouds in Central Asia: Town but no Town ; Today: 85 km; Total: 4310 km



July 18, 2014

I woke up around 6, thinking about a way to get my iPad back. When I told Fausto about my idea of getting a Jeep and going to Bulgan to get my iPad back, he said that it was possible, but he thought we would not be able to find each other later if we departed . He thought I should have gone to the town at 6 o'clock while he waited for me. Reluctantly, I decided to forget about my iPad and enjoy the trip. It was a tough decision to ride farther from my iPadonly 100 km....

After 10 minutes of riding, we saw two guys standing next to their broken motor bike with a flat tube. Fausto managed to patch two big holes in the tube. They wanted to pay him for that, but he smiled and gave them some extra patches. 

Three hours later, when we were having coffee and biscuit by a river on a break, Fausto thought I could still get a Jeep to Bulgan in the next town 80 km farther. If I did, the distance to Bulgan and back would be 180 km. With this hope, I kept riding stronger for 60 km as a long part of todays route was asphalt by a river. We kept going up and up on the mountains until the river turned into a small creek, where there was supposed to be a town. But instead of a town, we saw a couple of houses some 500 meters off the road. I searched the area for a car, but I didnt see any. We checked a yurt which was supposedly a shop and bought some groceries and water. I asked if there was a jeep in the town. They gestured horse. We camped very close to the "town" and did the usual to prepare for a cold night close to 3000 m. 

 
Coffee Break