Korea, Russia, Stans To East Europe (page 37)

Mongolia - Khamryn Khiid To Middle Of Nowhere To Ulaanbaatar

Leaving the centre of energy centre we made tracks back past the Scorpion which overlooks the road, picture all round of the cool monument

Getting back to the town saw us stock up and start to head west on the southern road, due to the heavy rains the ground was still very wet and caused some problems for Wonhee (Captain Korea) on his little 125 roadie bike with low mudguards.

It became apparent with the lack of pace that we were not going to make the ground we needed to cover with difficulties with differing rider levels and bikes, also the forecast was for 25 plus mm of rain in the area so we made a decision to pull the pin, bagging ourself a camp site we setup and had a great feed.

The morning sun welcomed us with a glam view across the plains, the tell-tale cloud also making an appearance as a reminder of what was to come.

While making our way back a sandpit claimed both Patrick and Lobke.

Making it back to town (again) a tank up and head north back to Ulaanbaatar, we knew we could camp at the half round structure if we needed so the plan was to get there and setup before the weather turned.

One of the bikes stopped and we spent 2 hours on the side of the road trying to figure the problem, the engine turned over on the starter motor with no effort which was a hint, the lads thought it was the carb, we took the seat off to find the carb blown off the manifold boot.

After a carb clean and put back on still no go, my theory was the rear valve as it was blowing back through the carb and there seemed to be no compression, we removed the rear tappet cover to discovery the valve doing very little, further examination revealed the two collets had disintegrated and the spring keeper was damaged so the bike was not going anywhere.

We tried to flag down some trucks but no luck, in the end we pushed the bike off the road and left it and went to the next town about 15km away for help, poor wee 45 doing pack duties with an entire extra set of luggage.

We decided to get a hostel for the night and bed down as it was getting bad in the weather and was starting to rain. Well it just pissed down forming a lake around the garage where our bikes were, we cooked in the garage as there was no kitchen at the hostel so this was a lot of fun.

The heavy rain continued through the night and by the morning there was flooding everywhere so our previous decision to get out of the cake mix area was a good one.

With a car organized to take the dead bike back to Ulaanbaatar at 9.00am….we left at midday into heavy rain and an ugly cold crosswind.

Just before Ulaanbaatar there is 25 km of bad roadworks, this was a mudbath and like runny concrete mix. Wonhee got a rear flat tyre but all his gear had been taken by the car which was already in Ulanbaatar.

I ended up with a 2 hour taxi ride to deliver tubes to the stricken bike so it was nearly 11.00pm when we ate some dinner then put the tents up.

A long struggle of a day….