Yesterday we trekked on foot to the Black Market and found it closed - Apparently it is not open on Wednesdays to give the merchants a day off. Disappointing, but we decided last night after enjoying another nice meal and beers at the Oasis we would be laying over another night in Ulaanbaatar - so we will try again today. We didn't see everything we wanted to see or accomplish everything we wanted to accomplish so we are staying another night. Today we still need to get SIM cards for the phones and we want to take a short 50 km ride east to see a huge statue of Genghis Khan. It is the opposite way we will be heading to cross Mongolia, so it will be good to make the trip separately from our departure so as not to add 100 km to the first days ride.
The cagers.
Inside our ger.
Cool iron fence art in front of the motorcycle shop - it's a GS!
Not a ton was accomplished yesterday, but I did get a load of laundry done, Mark changed the oil and modified a few bits on his bike and Ken and Mark both got haircuts. I also picked up a couple of pairs of sunglasses since I had broken my last pair on Tuesday. Everything is pretty cheap in Mongolia and the currency is like Monopoly money. The exchange rate is about 1880 tugrik to the US dollar. So to be a millionaire in Mongolia you only need about $530 US.
The food is great at the Oasis - it was founded about 8 years ago by a German - Austrian couple and the menu has an international flair to it. You can get everything from a cheeseburger and fries to German sausages and Austrian pastries and sweets. And there are salads with actual greens! All through Russia I could not get a salad with actual lettuce. I had some really tasty what Russians call salads - but none contained any lettuce. The whole kitchen is set-up on a help yourself system where you write on your kitchen passport what you order from the kitchen window or take from the cooler in the way of beverages and desserts. Then you just settle up the bill at checkout. The ticks next to beer on my account are growing fast. My beer bill may end up exceeding the rate for the Ger.
We have met so many fantastic people from all over the world here at the Oasis. So far I have met travelers from the USA, England, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Israel, Australia, Italy and Holland. There are only 6 gers but several travelers sleep in their camp equipped off road vehicles in the lot for a reduced rate. I think we probably had around 30 or so people staying last night. Several are leaving today, so we may be quite a bit less tonight unless there are some additional arrivals. Most are traveling in from the west so we were able to get more great information on the roads, tracks and good places to see and stay.
We expect it to take 7-10 days to get across to the western international boarder back into Russia. The going will be tough so we were told to expect only about 200 km per day of progress. I am both excited and nervous about crossing Mongolia. It will be some of the most interesting scenery and culture to experience - but also the most challenging riding of the trip. The conditions will be very weather dependent and if we get rain, things will get much more difficult in a hurry. Ken and I are on big bikes which are not ideal in loose sand or mud. Ken is an experienced rider so will be fine, but here in Mongolia is where I wish I were on a smaller bike. Although there are a few bigger bikes here that made it through, most are on smaller more dirt oriented bikes. I will just need to be confident, take it slow and try hard not to dump the bike - but I'm guessing it will happen at some point so a better goal will be to just not break the bike or get injured when it happens. Time now for some breakfast and off to meet Genghis Khan.
Narantuul Black Market - Closed!
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