Date: September 12th, 2016
Distance: 76 kilometers
Song of the Day: Touched - VAST

After spending yesterday doing logistical crap, I still wasn't done. I spent all morning trying to wrap up loose ends as well. I can't believe how much time I spend getting organized. Planning is trying to predict what your future self will want and need, and who can predict that entirely? It gets harder in situations that you have never been in before. Since I don't spend a lot of time in Siberia in winter, it takes no small amount of guesswork.

I finally got all packed up and on my way by the afternoon. Leaving the city was good, although a bit hilly. The roads were pretty rough. I think I'm going to have to get used to that. I don't expect the paving to last very long in this region.

It was a beautiful day. Fall colors are starting to come out. I was still riding along the Selenge river, which is just a wonderful place. I've noticed an unusual superstition here, though. At the top of most of the big hills the road is littered with coins. At first I thought it was just that people were losing change, maybe as they got out to stretch their legs. It's so consistent, though, that I can't believe it's just people dropping things. This is done on purpose. And it isn't just money, either. I have also noticed cigarettes. Not the butts, full un-smoked cigarettes lying on the ground. It feels like an offering people leave when passing a big hill. I'm not quite sure what to make of it. There are local shrines here, too, that don't seem to be either Buddhist or Christian. This is something else. Whatever it is, I am a bit fascinated by it.

The last few kilometers of the day were terrible. A construction crew was working on the road so it was all torn up, dusty and bumpy. Not my favorite. As darkness came on it was time to get off the road. I found a good place to camp near the top of a hill in a vast stand of trees. The area felt a lot more like bear country than anywhere I have been camping on this trip. So I took all my food away from camp to hang it in a tree. Not sure how much that helps, but I would rather not have a surprise companion in the night.



-Dravis

Date: September 11th, 2016
Distance: Rest day
Song of the Day: Winds of Change - Scorpions

I wanted to get back on the road today because I don't have that much time before my sister arrives. I was able to confirm that she will be in Yakutsk on the 7th of October. That's about 4 weeks away and I have more than 2,600 kilometers to cover. It also means I don't have enough time to see lake Baikal. That was something I was really looking forward to, so I'm a little bummed. It's the largest lake in the world. The problem is that the lake is 100 kilometers away. In other words, it's a two day round trip. Sadly, I don't have two days to spare. Oh well, I can't have everything. It also gives me a reason to try and come back here someday.

Of course, I didn't actually leave Ulan-Ude today. I was trying to get myself registered here, which is another stupid government rule. Except no one wants to do it! I am supposed to be registered by the hostel I'm staying at. They say I don't need it. I understand why, they have an incentive not to do the registration. It takes time and not all of the businesses here are 100% registered with the government the way they're supposed to. The problem is that they don't bear the costs for this. If they don't do the registration, I end up paying the penalty for it. In the end I wasn't able to get registered. I hope I can find a place in Chita to do that.

I did at least get a bunch of stuff that I really need. I got some pepper spray for bears. I also purchased some rope for hanging my food, which was something else I stocked up on. Finally, I spent most of the evening ordering things I will need to have for the winter portion of this trip.

In the evening I went out with a few people from the hostel for a drink. It was fun. We had six people from five different continents. That made for some very interesting conversation.



-Dravis

Date: September 10th, 2016
Distance: 149 kilometers
Song of the Day: Crazy - Gnarls Barkley

This morning is nothing like yesterday. I awoke into a thick, cold fog. At least the weather was keeping the mosquitoes lethargic.

The fog continued through the morning. It made the highway seem mysterious and remote. Things all around me were obscured and fading into the mist. It reminds me of the last days in Italy all those months ago.

Just before noon I passed through the town of Gusinoozyorsk. Now, there isn't anything that special about this town. It's just another place that I passed through and never would have given a second thought to most of the time. The thing that amazed me was that this town looked as big as any town I went through in Mongolia other than Ulaan-Bataar. It just seemed to show the difference in size between Russia and Mongolia. Here, even small towns that looked insignificant on the map could be fairly large places.

As the afternoon wore on the clouds began to burn off and soon enough it became a nice sunny day. That also brought out how much autumn is starting here. It certainly isn't in full swing yet, but the trees are just beginning to turn yellow. I imagine things are going to continue to be very beautiful as I head through this area.

When I headed into Ulan-Ude I was again struck by the disparity in scale between Mongolia and Russia. Ulan-Ude appeared to be almost the size of Ulaan-Bataar. It's a huge city. It seems to have a lot of industry, and it helps that it is on the trans-Siberian rail line. This is probably also a place that you have never heard of. I'm always shocked by how big a place can be without me ever knowing anything about it. It sort of blows my mind.

As I headed into town I had a strange altercation with a driver. I was riding in a lane that was ending in about 300 meters, but there was another lane next to me. A driver came up behind me and started honking. Using the horn in this way just flabbergasts me, so I did my usual thing. I turned around, slowed down, and gave a friendly wave. This did not calm the driver. Instead the guy moved into the other lane (I don't understand why he didn't do that instead of honking...) and rather than just passing and moving on with his life, the driver felt it necessary to slow down and yell at me for a while. I am getting better at understanding Russian but I'm still bad at fast, angry Russian. I think the fact that I didn't understand what he was saying quickly became apparent. This didn't make the driver any less annoyed. He started driving closer to me, and I was afraid for a second he would try and smoosh me against the guardrail as the lane ended. Instead as he got close enough he weakly punched me in the shoulder. I guess that was under the rationale that even if you don't speak a common language everyone understands violence. The dude then drove off looking actually a bit scared. I was so relieved that I just started laughing. He could have used his big car to crush me, but instead he ineffectually punched me and then drove off like a 5 year old afraid of being caught stealing an extra cookie. It was just so comical. I didn't stop laughing until I got into the center of town.

I found a good place to stay right near the giant head of Lenin. It is wild how popular V. I. Lenin still is around here. I think it's also fitting though that the giant bust here is mostly used for taking amazing photos. Like people pretending to pick his nose...



-Dravis

Date: September 9th, 2016
Distance: 91 kilometers
Song of the Day: Last Exit - Pearl Jam

I woke up early and headed across the border. What a mess. I think this was the most frustrating border I have ever crossed. No, that isn't true, but at least this is the worst paved border I have ever crossed.

On the Mongolian side things started well, but as I headed through immigration one of the military border guards started yelling at me. The customs agent there told me the military guy said I couldn't walk across the border. I tried to explain that I was on a bicycle, but that was apparently not good enough. They seemed to think that there was no border in Mongolia you could cross on a bike. I tried to explain that I had done exactly this just a month before and they kept telling me I was wrong, which is super frustrating. Their solution was for me to put a bike on the truck. I didn't want to do this because I have come 15,000 miles without trucks and I want to keep it that way. This was also stupid because I was only going 30 yards and there were people already WALKING AROUND there. Trying to make these guys see logic was just making me go apoplectic. Eventually they dragooned a truck into taking my bicycle. Seeing I couldn't get out of this, I put the bike on the truck and then walked next to it the 30 yards. This did not make the border guard happy, but I got the bike off the truck and asked if he wanted me to walk back to the gate. At least he gave up at that point.

To recap: they didn't want me walking across the border so they had me put my bike on a truck to...walk across the border. Sigh.

Inside, things didn't get much better. I thought it would be a quick thing to check out of the country. Who cares when people leave? Oh boy, I was wrong. I have been in Mongolia for 34 days. As an American I can be in Mongolia without a visa for 90 days but, unknown to me, I do have to register with the government if I am staying in the country for more than 30 days. I don't remember seeing anything about this anywhere, and it certainly wasn't mentioned to me ever. Even more, I had just 7 days to register after coming into the country so even if I had figured this out a week ago it wouldn't have helped. Failing to do this resulted in me receiving a civil fine. This mistake ended up costing me $100. Really frustrating. It felt like a tax on tourists who were unaware of convoluted Mongolian immigration law, which it probably is. At least it was a tax, or fine. This was not a bribe. There was way too much paperwork (I had to write a letter as to why I had failed to register). It also took something like an hour to fully process it all. That gave me time to think about my new theory. Bribes are quick. Neither party wants to hang out with a person who can finger them for a serious crime. That's also why there is no reason to do paperwork. Who wants a paper trail for such a thing? Government fines, on the other hand, take forever. All hail glorious bureaucracy. At least this gave me a chance to get over my frustration at the whole situation. There wasn't anything I could do about it and I might as well move on with my life. Sigh, again.

I was happy to get out of Mongolia, but checking into Russia was almost as big a hassle. First the border guard also didn't want me to use my bicycle. Which again, is stupid. It's a vehicle, end of story. A very kind truck driver offered to take my bike on the back of his empty truck. Trying to explain why I didn't want to do this was all but impossible. So I loaded my bike onto the truck and ran the hundred yards to the customs and immigration office. This did not make one of the border guards standing there very happy. It didn't help that when he came over I was trying to get my bike off the truck. I know some Russian, but angry fast Russian is not something I can deal with well. I did know how to say I didn't know the driver, I just wanted to go through customs and immigration on my own. The customs officer wasn't having any of it. He kept yelling "sideiss machina". I knew that "machina" meant car/truck so I kept saying it wasn't my truck. The officer kept saying I was wrong and "sideiss machina". Finally I realized where I had heard that first word before: mostly at restaurants or cafes where they were asking you to sit down. This was great. I was really happy about learning "sideiss" means "sit". He meant I should sit on the truck... Oh. The customs officer was no happier because of my revelation. I sat down on the truck and waited.

It was two hours before anyone came around to finally do the customs check on the truck. When they did the check wasn't that long, but fairly thorough. They checked the engine compartment, the cab of the truck, underneath and behind the wheels. At no point did they look at my bicycle or any of the bags. I can't complain that they didn't waste more time rummaging around in my stuff, but why make me wait for 2 hours if you weren't even going to bother looking at what I had? Frustrating. Well, at least I could take the bike off the truck at that point and head out into Russia. I had started across the border about 9:00 AM and in was now mid-afternoon. Thanks for that.

The rest of the day was pretty good, though. There were more hills, but on the Russian side of the border they were more forested than in Mongolia. Some borders look strange on the map, but if you look closely there is a reason why. In this case it seems because the climate and flora are significantly different. The weather also changed pretty much immediately. The cloudy weather faded and the sun came out. It really did feel like crossing into a totally different place.

That didn't mean things here were more populated. After leaving the border I only passed two small towns the whole rest of the day. Other than that it was mostly empty land, with maybe occasionally a house or an abandoned building. Mostly vacant land, though.

At the end of the day I was out of the forested area. Instead I was going through more swampy land and farm fields. I finally saw a spot just before sunset that was tucked away from the road and out of sight. Or, at least out of sight from humans. The mosquitoes had my number, though. They swarmed around me from the moment I stepped off the road. Hundreds of them. I vacillated between trying to move fast enough that they couldn't get me and stopping to crush as many of the little bastards as I could. I kept thinking I would kill enough that either the rest would leave me be or reduce the local population enough that things would get better. It never happened, though. I must have killed 500 of them but they just kept coming. Oh, I hate mosquitoes. Instead I climbed into my tent as quickly as I could. It was cold food for dinner, but at least I wasn't being constantly being bitten while I was cooking.



-Dravis

Date: September 8th, 2016
Distance: 114 kilometers
Song of the Day: See You Later - Heatmiser

This is my last day in Mongolia. I'm actually a little bit happy about that, and not just because of the intestinal issues from yesterday. It's also, like I mentioned earlier, that I think I have finished with Mongolia. I am ready to move on and get back to Russia and the new and interesting places there. The clouds and headwind weren't helping me feel any more appreciative of Mongolia. August was so nice and now September has been such crap. Not terrible, just really annoying. I swear the wind will change direction so it can stay right in my face all day. Looking forward to Russia tomorrow.



-Dravis

Date: September 7th, 2016
Distance: Sick day

I had gone to bed last night not feeling well. This morning I woke up feeling better, but then promptly threw up. I guess that is a good sign I should take the day off.



-Dravis

Date: September 6th, 2016
Distance: 108 kilometers
Song of the Day: Dreams - The Cranberries

Today was more open space. I think I'm pretty much done with Mongolia. I've done almost everything I have wanted to here and now I'm sort of just doing the miles and looking forward to getting back to Russia.

That isn't to say there aren't new things to find here. The last few days I have been riding through a sort of farmland. It isn't like the American Midwest. This is something I have come to think of as "weed farming". The plants being harvested aren't grown from seeds, they're wild plants that are cut and bound into bales. This even seems to be industrialized in some ways. The harvesting isn't just done by hand, or small tractors. There are large agricultural machines as well. I'm assuming these wild plants are being harvested to provide food for livestock during the winter. This way herds of animals don't have to move, instead the food just comes to them.

The difference is, as I got closer to Dakhon I saw things that looked like more traditional agriculture. The fields along the horizon were striped in an unusual way. It seemed like the fields were half wild plants and half grown from seeds. It gives the area a distinct look.

I stopped in Dakhon a bit early. I could have gone a little further before the sun set but I wanted to get a chance to recharge and get on the internet. I am still trying to plan for all of the stuff I need for this winter. I also need to coordinate that stuff and myself being in the same place a month from now. Stopping early was also helpful in that I had extra time work on the things I needed to do.



-Dravis

Date: September 5th, 2016
Distance: 135 kilometers
Song of the Day: Oxford Comma – Vampire Weekend

I was glad of my decision not to try and push on to Erdenet yesterday. For one, it turns out that I would have taken the wrong road. Second, the correct road immediately headed over series of large hills. It would have been a long slog in the dark, either way. Instead, it was kind of a nice morning. Generally quiet, as there still isn't much traffic out here. Most of the time I was on my own heading up and down the hills in the area.

I stopped in Erdenet for lunch. This place seemed much more up and coming than Bulgan did. The structures were more well cared for. There were more new buildings and modern businesses. It was strange to think of how these places felt so different and I wondered why that was. There did seem to be a huge mine... Holy crap is that a giant golden Buddha? As I was leaving town I looked over my shoulder and there was this golden Buddha up on the hill. Well, I had to stop by and see that. It was an interesting place to stop. I thought the Buddha was going to be part of a monastery or important religious shrine but in reality it seemed more like a roadside attraction such as you would see on a rural highway in the US. Yes, there was a shrine there, and it was a religious place, but it was also a bit more Disneyland than Mecca. This isn't to say it was a bad place, I was glad I stopped, but it wasn't like visiting a holy site.

Back on the road again, I started to see why Erdenet was there. Just outside of town are two giant mines. They are massive. The mounds of earth from the mines are larger than many of the hills in the area. At one point I had to navigate a crazy intersection between the highway and a dirt road from one mine to what I think is a smelting plant. The road was clogged with giant dump-trucks two lanes wide. Normally I don't feel too small, even riding on the road with big semi trucks. These mine trucks, though, made me feel tiny. If I was squished under a wheel I doubt the driver would even have noticed. Fortunately they went pretty slow and I didn't have a problem getting around them.

The rest of the day was pretty boring. More fields and hills, but mostly the same as we have all seen before. After passing through Buruunburen the wind started to pick up. As the sun set I was riding along a generally flat area with nothing to block the wind. No trees, no hills or ridges. I eventually found a little mound of rocks to tuck my tent behind. It was also one of the best sunsets I have ever seen, and been able to get a photo of.



-Dravis

Date: September 4th, 2016
Distance: 116 kilometers
Song of the Day: Spin - Something Corporate

Today started cold and cloudy, like the last two days. By the afternoon the clouds finally started to break up and I started riding through some mountainous terrain. Man, it was beautiful. The valleys were covered in pastures where the sun was illuminating the grass in a bright green. The hills above were filled out in trees that gave the upper reaches a darker green tone, all under a blue and white sky. It was gorgeous.

It's also a place where people still use log cabins with sod roofs, though it's common to see them with a satellite dish and a solar panel. There were also several compounds consisting of various buildings. Like a log cabin, a ger (yurt), and a modern building all jumbled together.

I would also like to talk about hats. Mongolians can't seem to keep them on their heads, for some reason. I must have passed more than a hundred hats lying on the side of the road. I don't know what the cause is, but that is probably something you never expected from Mongolia. Sometimes it seems that because of the number of motorcycles here, the numerous hat wearing riders must be the culprits. Many of the people on motorcycles seem to be wearing helmets, though, not hats. (Sometimes the helmet is just a hard-hat...) I would also assume that if you lose a hat it wouldn't be that hard to turn around and pick it back up. Well, whatever the cause, come to Mongolia and find crazy hats on the side of the road.

In the evening I wandered my way into Bulgan. I thought of pushing on to Erdenet, but I knew I was going to arrive there very late, and most likely after sunset. I opted to stay in Bulgan.

The whole point of staying in a city, as opposed to in my tent, is for electricity and internet connection. Finding that in Bulgan was not easy, though. The town was run down, but maybe making a comeback? Most of the buildings looked to be old, crumbling, communist structures. There are a few buildings that are going up and look modern and well constructed. Normally I think that would make the town look better, but it just seemed to emphasize the disparities. There were other things, as well, that I can't quite describe but which made the whole city seem off. The main park at the center of the city was overgrown and not taken care of. Still used, but the grass had long ago turned to weeds and brambles. In all, the city just left me with a very odd feeling.



-Dravis

Date: September 3rd, 2016
Distance: 130 kilometers
Song of the Day: Plasticities - Andrew Bird

Things went much better today. The wind was still being crappy, but less so than yesterday. I didn't feel like I was fighting it so much. It was just a bit of extra drag. The weather was still cloudy, though. The area here is nice but the clouds cast a grey pall over everything. So nothing looks that great. Not much for exciting pictures.

I did have another great experience with other people out on the roads. This time I was coming to the top of a big hill when a big SUV stopped just ahead of me. A young lady jumped out and handed me a Snickers bar. It turns out she and her family were visiting from Germany. The young woman in question had just come back from a one month bike tour through Norway. Her dream there was that someone would stop at the top of a big hill and give her a Snickers bar. It didn't happen to her, so she was hoping to fulfill that dream for others. It was very sweet. I had a great time talking with the family, but soon enough it was time for everyone to move on.

By the end of the day I passed over a huge river and into a weird mini-desert. Shortly after that, however, I headed up into the mountains and the forests there. It was a really beautiful spot, and also provided many places for me to camp in. I was able to find a nice quiet spot not far from the highway, but well removed from it.



-Dravis