From Mongolia the crossing into China again had a strange feel. I was aware that the region had a reputation for strict checking on free-roaming tourists so I was determined to stick to hotel-only rules (despite having set an unrealistic schedule to cover over 300 kilometres in two days to reach my VISA-designated hotels).

I bowled into the tiny border town of Takashiken for the first night, paid my yuan for the night, checked my cash supply and realized I needed a bank or ATM before the next hotel (my backup payment options of Wechat or Alipay had disappeared with my lost phone).

Morning saw ever decreasing circles around Takashiken looking for a bank or ATM, terminating in the desperate search for the "glass shop in the market which may be able to change US dollars". No luck.

Google maps had registered a China Post "bank"110 kilometres away in a small village on the road to Qinqhe. Head down, fingers crossed I barrelled through barren Gobi until I came to the tiny settlement. Two boys on bikes guided me to the China Post. Post only, no bank.

With darkness falling my only option was a well hidden free camp. I spotted a small herd of camels up a narrow twisting valley.  The camp was peaceful and perfect, with a small herd of horses grazing nearby.

As I rode out next morning I realized I had two options: 1 to head south to the major city Urumqi, or 2 to free camp and hope for water. 

Then Karma slipped into place in the form of two touring bikes headed towards me. Belinda and Tizian German bike tourers heading for Mongolia. I had the remains of my Mongol cash, they had yuan, problem solved. I had enough supplies and the yuan covered water costs to the Kazakhstan border. My mood lifted.

Along with my mood the whole geography of the Xinjiang began to change. The huge Kalasuke Resevoir began feeding water changing desert brown to green. Huge fields of sunflowers appeared. The border to the Beitun county area had a large modern transport rest stop and shop. I sat in the shade with a dozen or so cold drinks. Local families lined up for selfies and to hear my story. I could hear X?nx?lán being repeated at other tables (probably the only Chinese word I got to pronounce recognisably).

Beitun itself was a pretty town. Not only did it have an ATM but a wonderful lady in the China Agricultural Bank who had a friend in the Bank of China who could also get me Kazakh tenge. Follow me she shouted as she took off in her car unaware of the limited acceleration of a heavily loaded bike. 3 hours of China Bank paperwork later I was cashed up in all necessary currencies.

Then I struck the gem of the region Burqin. The huge green river and tall trees caught me by surprise. Old buildings, wide roads bustling with markets had a feel of unique character and isolation to the rest of the region. I stood in the market looking obviously lost and more obviously foreign. The nearest stall holder took me under her wing, left her stall and walked a couple of blocks to a local hotel. The family were eating dinner in their courtyard. Join us. I did, trying to disguise my raging hunger by dropping several sets of chopsticks on the ground.  I fell into conversation with the hostess. We quickly made a connection that transcended the lack of common language. She was a writer of children's developmental books (one of which is China Posting its way to Otaki). 

Reluctantly I headed out next day on my final leg to the Kazakhstan border. My carefully plotted GPS route was quashed by a road diversion which required me to quickly memorize the Chinese characters for my destination.

The remote border crossing from Jeminay to Kazakhstan was an Alice-through-the-looking glass experience. One side was the tidy border town of Jeminay the other side was the bare dusty wasteland of the China Kazakhstan no-mans-land. 

The desert continued for 30 hot remote kilometres on the Kazakhstan side until a tiny village oasis appeared. In the village one tiny shop and a happy rosey faced Kazakh woman looked at my pile of cold drinks and ice cream on the counter. She rang her daughter who spoke English. "Take this as a gift - welcome to Kazakhstan".

Another country, another gift, this journey keeps on giving.

The dam at the head of the Kalasuke Reservoir 

Character buildings in Burqin

And my great Burqin hotel

The Police checks in Xinjiang were friendly with selfies for every officer

Wake-up scene from my tent first morning in Kazakhstan

Welcome Restday in Zaysan

​Across the Gobi

After Altai the gaps between water supplies got bigger. On the stretch heading out of Altai two guys were stranded with their truck broken down. They had rigged a shelter from the heat with scaffolding they were carrying, but their water supply was finished.  I had a moments hesitation before handing over one of my 1.5 litre bottles. I had encountered so much generosity on the road it was impossible to refuse. In that instant my camp out possibilities were reduced to one. I had to reach water on the next day.

The ger camp that night fortunately had a small store of drinks for sale. My dehydration level had crept up, it took 3 litres of fluid before the raging thirst subsided. With the resupply I knew I just had to get as close as possible to the next supply point, Darvi. The night didn’t play ball and I was taught a brutal lesson in the power of Gobi Desert storms. With the wide plain offering no shelter and a wind funnel between two mountain ranges stretching for 200 kilometres, the wind could play havoc.  With my tent flattened to the ground, everything was initially sandblasted. The rain quickly followed. The only option was shelter under a culvert in the road. An uncomfortable night huddled in my survival blanket. Plus side I was safe and warm.

With another storm on its way through, I took shelter in a small cabin in Darvi and set about camping out for double meals in the restaurant that flooded with patrons with each bus load heading to Nadam festivals around the country. Also flooding the road was a convoy of support vehicles for the huge “Silk Way” rally which had just come down through the Russian border. The Lada lead driver had several support vehicles. Fortunately the rally route itself was out on the fringing dirt roads.

From Darvi I had 400 kilometres of pure Gobi. I had opted to cut off the highway heading south through the huge Kushuutin coal mine. The road turned immediately to corrugations and bog.  The storms had sent volumes of water down from mountains, the road had the appearance and surface of a stream bed. A front end loader was struggling to make a path to allow the trucks stranded at the top to move down. More than once I paused to consider turning back. The climb continued at a slow grind.

At the top, I was rewarded with the view down a magnificent valley.  Far across the other side huge walls of cut coal faces towered over the tiny industrial settlement. I raced down into the valley to another pleasant surprise, the road turned to good seal, a path to the Chinese Border for the huge convoy of coal trucks camped down the valley. Another huge bonus was the 5 day Nadam festival holiday which kept all those trucks off the road.

I celebrated the end of that day with a downhill swoop into the tiny village of Tseleg - where a small boy was able to show me to a “hotel”. Sharing the hotel was a family and after breakfast the two sisters crowded into my room to show me photos of the local Nadam festivities, and their climb of the nearby sacred mountain, covered in deep snow. 

Next day was all climbing, I stopped for lunch at the second summit (a few metres short of Mount Ruapehu height at 2795 metres). The campsite for the night was protected by an ancient circular rock corral. My water worries were also alleviated by a fast running stream carrying snow melt from the recent storms.

The last long desert stretch landed me in the small town of Uyench, and this morning I had the company of a young boy riding the 42 kilometres to school in Bulgan, my rest day destination before crossing the border back into Chinas far west. My young friend left me with a promise that in 5 years time he will have achieved his dream of becoming an engineer.

The climb into Khushuutiin Mines was a challenge

Safe campsite in ancient rock stock yard

Gnarly Gobi mountains

Fast ride down a valley with fresh snow melt water

​

Lunch stop between climbs

Climb to the height of the highest mountain in North Island New Zealand 2795 metres

Gobi ger camp

A quick ride to school across the desert

Sacred mountain at the entrance to Bulgan

Leaving Ulaanbaatar solo again had mixed feelings. Our base at Eagle Town appartments had been a comfortable one, complete with washing machine to deal with 8 days of dust and dirt on clothes that could stand upright with a sort of cardboard texture. It was a chance to meet with the National Cancer Council people in Sukhbaatar Square, with a media interview with the CEO Tsegi. A strong and busy woman who was also running for Mongolian parliament. Future bike packing charity events certainly have a challenging course to tempt the adventurous. Hopefully we have started the ball rolling for them.

Out on the road I felt the freedom of simply  riding at my own pace until a suitable campsite appeared. The road towards Kharkorin was busy, initially with Ulaanbaatar campers heading for peaceful gers in the areas west. Kharkorin had been on my original route for its unique history as a previous Mongolian capital, however my hasty reroute in Ulaanbaatar had failed to notice the 80 kilometres of mountain climbs into the town and 80 kilometres of rough dirt track back out. With a howling headwind on the day I made a decision to continue south west on the main route.

Thankfully after the Kharkorin turnoff traffic eased considerably. The weather provided routine thunderstorms and a few wet tent pack ups. After a few days of wet I discovered the ger motels, usually a rough restaurant building hiding three or four ger motels. Wet bike and gear could simply be rolled into the ger for complete shelter and a chance to dry out. Luxury. Usually the ger was accompanied by local children and a sheep or two to practice sign language with. Sign language with a four year old on her pink bike is pure fun, sheep are just thick.

Along the way I was hailed by a family working a large yard of ponies. Hand signals indicated a drink was on offer. The family crowded around as I was poured a large bowl of whitish liquid. No one else was joining me so I was on my own. A few gulps later and communication established I was drinking fermented mares milk, alcoholic enough to put me to sleep fairly quickly. The old host had a glint in his eye as he offered me more. With a stack of cycling miles still ahead I said my goodbyes and wobbled back to the road. Another experimental offering was a plate of yellow lard-like consistency which tasted like a slightly sweet solid yoghurt. Language never connected well enough to discover what I had eaten.

Arvaikheer was a surprise with a number of modern buildings and a well laid out city centre. The town is a base for many of the summer festivals. I also had a random conversation with a young woman escaping the bustle of Ulaanbaatar city life to spend time with family and revisit childhood riverside picnic spots. Well educated, with a Russian language degree, a local law degree and and MBA from Washington Science University where she worked three jobs to put herself through her studies. Unfortunately her study was in Covid times with unpleasant prejudice against “Chinese” in USA ( racial distinction too subtle for the average American). She left me with a deeper understanding of life in modern Mongolia and we shared a joint appreciation of the richness of experience in life. 

West from Arvaikheer, I connected water sources in Khairkhandulaan, Bayankhonger, Bombogor, Buutsagaan and yesterday Altai, the last major town before the true Gobi desert area. Khairkhandulaan was an eleven kilometre diversion on dirt, but provided a welcome break from main road trucking. The small village store had a welcoming owner with a good smattering of English. Small villages are the gems on such a journey - time is less material.

Since Arvaikheer the geography has been spectacular with climbs into barren mountains with piles of round boulders and jagged rocky peaks, sand dunes and red rock canyons. Each climb out leads to a plateau over 2000 metres where the typical gently rolling green country resumes. Scattered gers and herds of stock reappear ( now mostly sheep and goats with a few horse herds). Wildlife has included numbers of huge eagles (wishing for a long camera lens), a single skinny fox with wild flame orange fur, camels and small burrowing creatures which I always catch glimpses of around the tent. Elevation has ranged from 1700 to 2200 metres on this giant plateau so I have noticed the extra puff on the climbs.

Mentally the challenge has been to avoid the moods driven by conditions (constant wet cold or the numb battle against headwind). Headwinds I still lose the battle occasionally but the simple equation of food, sleep and hydration keep the balance. The reality is if you took your bike off the hook in the garage and rode any of these days you would reflect “that was a great ride”. Just have to join a few hundred such rides together.

Note: I have adopted the Mongolian term “ger” rather than the more Russian “yurt” or my misspelt “gur”

Departure from ​Sukhbaatar Square Ulaanbaarar

Ger motel

Welcome shelter between Buutsaagan and Altai (morning after the nightly storm)

Every ger has a cute visitor

…and not so cute

Lunch table yesterday