Yes, it’s definitely pear shaped now!
23AugRegardless of our wheel bearing issues, to have any hope of making it to UB today, we need to start early. We leave the campsite at 5am, and it’s already really light.
I stop after 2 miles and check the bearing. It’s a fair bit hotter than the right, but it’s not that bad. I decide to check it after another 5 miles.
I’m fully aware that there is not much dirt left on this adventure, and if I can just take it easy on this bearing until the bitumen, then just maybe we can make it to UB. At the time I thought it was 60 miles to the bitumen (although when writing the blog I realize it was 100miles), and if I could do 15mph for 4 hours, then that would leave about 12 hours of daylight to do the remaining 400km on bitumen. However, straight away the road is heavily corrugated. The only smooth parts are the soft sand on the edges, and the only way to keep the left wheel on the smooth sand is to drive on the verge on the wrong side of the road.
It’s not that unusual to drive on the wrong side in these parts, and I swap back as trucks approach us. However when a lone Pajero comes the other way, on a long stretch of road that is almost straight, I look at the corrugations I have to cross to get back to the right hand side, and I decide to let him go around me. As I type that now it seems like an absurdly risky move, and was definitely mistake no.1 for the morning.
As the Pajero gets closer I notice a couple of things. Firstly, it’s going quite fast, and secondly, it’s driving on the verge. However I’m only doing 15mph, and to drive back to the right hand side now involves crossing its path. I decide the best option is to maintain my line and let him go around me...
...he’s going to change line, he’s going to change line, he’s going to change line...
...he’s not going to change line...
all too soon it’s the last roll of the dice, and I make mistake no.2 of the morning, when I swerve a hard left for the Commonwealth. Mr Pajero now decides he is going to change his line after all, and he swerves a hard right for Mongolia. There is the sickening crunch of metal, and today just got a lot more complicated.
I’ve just managed to have an accident on a stretch of road with good visibility, 6 or 7 times wider than my car, at 15mph, in the middle of Mongolia, 400 miles from the end of the rally. I can’t believe it, but there is no time to contemplate that. This car has a leaking fuel tank, and there is a jerry of fuel behind my seat. I’m out in a flash and Stephen follows my lead. I stand on the opposite bank of the road and survey the situation. Both cars are off the road and at 90 degrees to each other. The throttle is stuck on the Suzuki and there is blue smoke pouring out of the tailpipe. There is no sign of fuel, so I go back and turn the engine off. Obviously the speed differential was quite low in this collision, and we met at a large angle, so the impact was quite low. I escape with absolutely no soreness, abrasions or bruises. Stephen gets a minor stiff neck (which I apologise profusely for).
The Mongolian driver gets out of the car. He’s obviously not happy but there is no visible anger. The Suzuki is far from drivable, but there is hope for the Pajero. The structure behind the bumper has been pushed on to the tyre. It becomes our no.1 priority to get his car on the road, so I set about trying to bend the metal away from the bumper using our shovel. It’s got a plastic handle and it’s from Poundsaver, so it’s not working that well. A truck driver stops and pulls out a 2m crow bar, and we’re in business. We secure the plastic inner guard in place with some of our cable ties, and the Pajero is ready to roll. I decide to wait and see what the driver wants next, and it soon becomes apparent he wants to take us back to Bayanhongor for some medical treatment. I’m pretty sure it’s not about medical treatment though, and we decide to leave Stephen with the Suzuki, and I’ll travel in the Pajero. We can’t leave the Suzuki with all of our valuables inside.
The Suzuki is looking a bit the worse for wear. The impact was minimal, but the car might as well be made of butter, and the damage was considerable. Dobson the horse survived intact!
There are two girls inside the Pajero, and thank goodness one speaks a little English. They are on their way back from UB for some sort of Volleyball competition, and have been traveling all night. Apparently she’s quite good, and is flying to Korea later in the month to represent someone (Mongolia perhaps). They are quite well to do, and I am filthy, having not seen a shower since leaving Almaty 9 days ago (although I have washed in the river). Actually everyone including the driver are great people. We stop at the next town, and they start ringing on their phones. I’m not sure if they stop here just because they have mobile service, or because they are looking for a good English speaker.
I get out of the car and reinspect the damage. I’m thinking now the best option is to try and pay my way out of this mess before the Police get involved. Our insurance is from Tajikistan, and has Mongolia listed on it, but who knows whether it really works. It’s written in Russian, and I’m not sure anyone here would easily be able to read it. I ask how much money it would cost to repair the Pajero. It takes a good 5 minutes to get the point across, but the decision is $1000US. I can see a broken headlight, a broken bumper, a broken grill, a damaged guard, a damaged bonnet, bent structure behind the bumper...that’s a bargain price which I quickly agree to. However I have only $40US with me, and where am I going to find another $960 on a Saturday morning in rural Mongolia? I explain this problem, and the man tells me he will take my passport, and I can pay him in UB on Monday, as he will be there on some sort of business. I’m certainly not keen on this plan, but it’s hard to see another option. However, there is the ATM in Bayanhongor that I used yesterday, and so we head for that. Bayanhongor is where the Pajero people are from anyway. It takes around 1.5 hrs to travel the 60 miles back to the town. I realize what we’ve been missing out on without coil springs. The ride is silky smooth, even over the corrugations, and there is no dust pumping around inside.
We arrive in Bayanhongor and at it’s only ATM. It only takes visa, and I have only one visa card. I need 1,150,000 Mongolian dingbats, and the machine isn’t interested. I try for 500,000 but it still won’t play. 300,000 and it dispenses, another 300,000, another 300,000, and then another 300,000. I can’t believe visa has just let me make 4 transactions in Mongolia in about a minute. I have the money, I keep the passport, the man is happy! He is willing to help me with the next problem (the constant thorn in my side), and that is the damaged Suzuki.
He takes me to a garage, and they direct us up the road. There is a man there with a smallish blue light truck. They ask me if the car will fit on it. I’m wishing now I measured it before I left. I say I think the truck is too small, but the man thinks otherwise. There is a Ger on the back of his truck, and I’m told that he’s about to drop that off somewhere. I ask how we’re going to get the car on the truck, and the girl with a little English relays my point. There is discussion and she turns to tell me they will send two trucks, one with some sort of crane. It will lift the car on and then return to Bayanhongor. From what I’ve seen Mongolians are pretty good at loading trucks to the hilt, so I agree to their price of US$200. They tell me they’re leaving in 20 minutes, and it’s only 8:30am, so it’s all looking roses.
I see some guys from the other Mongol Rally driving a Volvo. It turns out they’re the team that traveled the Pamir Highway in front of us (we thought they were a team off our rally). They’re 3 really nice English guys. I run over to where they are parked and tell them the situation. They agree to stop at the Suzuki and tell Stephen I am coming with a truck. These guys were ace, and they even took some fruit and water which they drop off at the same time.
I jump in the blue truck, and am immediately introduced to the stop start style of Mongolian travel. We stop first at the petrol station for a chat, but we don’t buy anything. Then another where we fill up with diesel. I have to pay him the $200US, and he spends a good portion on the fuel. Then we’re off to the tyre place, a cigarette and a chat. Then we stop at his house, then the local shop, then we stop to make a phone call, then the taxi rank where we pick up a man in Mongolian robes, then the toll booth (where there is another cigarette break), then on the outskirts of town we stop for 15 minutes. It’s been almost 2 hours and I we haven’t properly left town yet, and we still have the Ger. I haven’t seen the other truck. I enquire about these things, and realize they are now going to reposition the ger so that the car will fit. This seems unlikely to me, but who am I to tell them how to load a truck. I ask how they are going to lift the car, and they tell me they will lift the car on with a lot of people...hmmmm, I don’t think this is going to work either. A young man comes from nowhere, and they take a 20L yellow container off the back of the truck. Everyone takes a swig from the container. I decline. The young man fills up a 2L bottle with the liquid, pays a little money, and disappears. It’s some sort of milk, and by the way they are leaving it in the sun on the truck, I’d have to guess it’s fermented horse milk, a Mongolian specialty.
Returning to Bayanhongor did have it’s advantages. I got to see this Tyrannosaurus Rex. Apparently there are lots of dinosaur remains in Mongolia.
We stop about only about another 19 times before we reach the Suzuki, and it seems they have about 20 cigarettes each. We reach the car around 3pm, 6 hours after I got in the truck! Upon sight of the car, the two men sit on the dirt bank and light a cigarette. I pace the length of the car. It fits without the Ger, but there’s not room for both items. Stephen has pitched a tent on the other side of the road, cooked some noodles, and settled down for a good couple of hours sleep. These guys have to admit they are stumped about how to lift the car on. I tell them to give me ¾ of my money back, but they are reluctant. Eventually we decide to tow it 3km back to the nearest small settlement (away from UB). The left hand front tyre has come off the rim in the impact, so once we have it on flat ground I change that and we’re on the way. I’m beginning to think I can fix the car well enough to do 600km. The 2 men are keen as well. They want to pull the front out by tying a rope to their truck, and then send us on our way. It’s not possible though, as the fan is through the radiator. If they can tow me back to the town though, I can remove the radiator and find a similar replacement. The steering wheel still tows straight, and the brakes are fine, so maybe it’s a possibility. The biggest problem is that it still has a suspect rear wheel bearing.
Stephen takes this view of the car while he waits for me to return. I’m gone for almost 8 hours:
The guys in the blue truck weren’t the most ethical of businessman, but they were still good fun, and desperately wanted their picture taken:
They tow me only 1 mile, when they stop for a break. A larger flat trayed truck going the opposite direction has stopped. They are all friends, and the new truck driver tells me he will take our car to UB for another 200,000 local (around $180US). What follows is a 30 or 40 minute negotiation/argument. The problem is, I have paid all my money to the first truck, and they haven’t delivered. However, they refuse to refund any of the money. Without it, we can’t pay the second driver. Inside the other truck there is the driver’s wife, and three younger girls (sisters or daughters I’m not sure). One girl, Soco, speaks some English. She is very sympathetic to our plight, and trys very hard to interpret. Also riding in the tray of the truck are about four Mongolian men, who constantly jeer and try and pick play fights with us. It’s a trying situation for a couple of guys not having a very good day. Eventually I get around US$50 back from the first truck, that’s about a quarter! We agree to the 200,000 from the second truck, 100,000 after the car is loaded, and 100,000 in UB. However now the price has gone up to 300,000! I walk away and tell them not to worry, and the price falls to 250,000. Eventually we settle on 230,000.
This is all well and good, but we still have no way of getting the car on the truck. We tow the car to the top of a small hill, and park the truck underneath it. The driver tears some planks off a nearby abandoned house (we’re not so sure it’s abandoned), and using the slope to their advantage they push the car on. We pay them 100,000 notes, and It’s 4pm before we set off. It’s been almost 11 hours since the crash. We’re all great mates again now, including the driver of the first truck and me, despite him ripping me off, so we all have a couple of swigs of vodka and some fermented horse milk, and we hit the road. As you would expect the milk is pretty sour and disgusting, and watery to boot. The blue truck is still going to UB, to deliver the ger I suppose, and we travel in convoy.
The new truck has a long tray, about 1.5 times as long as the car. The Suzuki is sitting on the back of the tray. The entire tray was filled with bags of rocks as ballast. They now occupy the area in front of the car, and the 4 men have to sit/sleep on top of the bags. They face backwards, and we sit in our Suzuki facing them. They stare continuously. This is going to be a long journey.
The successfully loaded Suzuki:
Stephen and the two younger girls:
Stephen with one of the younger girls, and Soco who is on the left of the picture. Without Soco’s English skills we would have really struggled.
The view we became quite accustomed to. The people sitting in this part of the truck changed continuously, as people hitched rides, got on, got off, road in someone else’s truck for a while...One thing was constant, a new passenger would spend the first 30 minutes minimum staring at us. In this picture they are very happy as we have just given them some of our cigarettes.
...and here they are enjoying some shut eye in the cold conditions:
We drive for about 30 seconds before one of the men decides he is going to sit in our car with his bottle of vodka. I move and sit on the handbrake, and we all have a few swigs (it’s not bad as vodka goes). A mile down the road and we make our first stop (we’re basically back at the scene of the crash). The front bumper has come off a ladies car on the corrugations. It’s resting intact on the ground in front of the car. Both trucks stop, everyone stands around the car and lights a cigarette. We’re stopped for around 20 minutes. No one ever touches the car or the bumper! Just as I grab some cable ties and make moves to go and fix it myself, we’re on the way again, leaving the lady to sort her own problems.
We soon learn this method of travel is the Mongolian way. We stop here there and everywhere, for cigarettes and discussions. While we are moving we constantly have visitors in our car, bugging us for cigarettes, lollies, stealing our sunglasses, picking wrestling matches etc etc. We stop for diesel around 8pm, and I realize I haven’t eaten a single thing all day. I tuck into some dry noodles from the car. At 9pm the truck stops on the side of the road for an hour for no apparent reason. We drift in and out sleep. The ride on the truck is rough. Since we are sitting up so high the sway is amplified, and Stephen even suffers some motion sickness. We’re still driving on rubbish dirt side roads as even the truck refuses to ride on the corrugations. The truck stops at 1am. After about an hour we conclude it has stopped for the night, and tuck up in our sleeping bags for a rough nights sleep.
It’s the 2nd chance Mongol Rally party tonight in UB. We’ve had a bad day, but it could have been much worse. It’s been really interesting and exciting, and we sit only 300km outside the city of UB.
