The magic was, unfortunately, short-lived. Minutes after closing my eyes, I turned to Chris who was nodding off, too. ‘Chris do you hear that?’
‘What?’ he replied, irritated.
‘I think there are horses approaching our tent,’ I whispered.
I sat bolt upright and prepared to unzip the tent door. I paused before ripping it open. There were three horses – tall silhouettes towering above me. I didn’t dare move, and for a moment neither did they. Then there was a giggle and a teenage boy jumped down from a saddle.
‘Sambaino. Hello,’ I said, nervously.
He said nothing but offered his hand. I was still in my sleeping bag, wearing only stripey thermal underwear. As I reached out my hand, he clenched it hard. Then, with his other hand, he grabbed my wrist and pulled back swiftly. I found myself sprawled out on the grass, centimetres from a pair of hooves and beginning to shiver in the cold. Unseen figures sniggered from above.
Unsure of how to react, I stood and tried to gain focus. Suddenly, the other two riders jumped down and picked up Chris’s bike.
‘Don’t do that!’ I shouted in Russian, running to push them away. In the meantime, the third adolescent reached into the open tent door and took my helmet and two spare tyres. The other two jumped back onto the horses and began to run circles around the tent, swinging their fists in my direction. They jeered and screamed insults in an attempt to intimidate; it was the horses that I was really afraid of, though. They snorted wildly and more than once brushed me with brutally strong hind legs. In the dark, and still barefoot, I was paranoid about a wayward hoof.
Seeing that I was distracted, the adolescent on the ground made a break with the tyres and helmet. I was fast to react and cornered him against the tent. He must have been left wondering when Chris lunged out from inside and tackled his legs. He dropped to the ground and I ripped our belongings from his hands. This only enraged the other two who began ordering the third horse to attack.
The commotion went on for half an hour or more. There was nothing we could do but stand and protect the gear. Eventually, fed up and terribly cold, I began shouting abuse in Russian and Finnish. They made a final lunge for our tyres and took off galloping. Chris chased, screaming wildly, until the tyres were dropped and they rode out of earshot.
Afterwards we had little energy left for talking. The matter wasn’t helped by further convulsions in my bowels. It was going to be a long night.
The following day we continued upwards, covering the first fifty kilometres in six hours. Several giant eagles followed above, no doubt waiting for me to drop. Beyond them, I could see the fading jet streams of planes. As we neared the flight path, I sought an escape in the distant specks in the sky. Where were they flying to, and from where? Were there passengers flying for the first time? What were they thinking? Probably they were sitting back with an orange juice and settling in for sleep. I tempted myself with thoughts of relaxing in the air-conditioned cabin, completely removed from the bikes. And it wasn’t just pure fantasy, was it? In about two months the bikes would be in a box and we would fly more distance in one day than we had cycled in more than a year. The ground would pass below effortlessly as I slept. The specks in the sky represented more than just planes. They were the mechanism with which I would be whisked away from all this and dumped so abruptly in another world. Usually, I found myself dreading the thought of Australia, but in my current state, I found comfort in the idea.
From a high saddle we snaked downhill towards the city that glittered in the evening light. Ulaan Baatar was a collection of apartment blocks, ger tents and factories, all squeezed into a steep-sided river valley. It had seemed like such an exotic place for so long. Back in Babushkina people had laughed at the idea of China and Mongolia; now Mongolians laughed in disbelief when we told them of our starting point. The significance of the moment boosted our morale and we took a break at the ‘Welcome to Ulaan Baatar’ sign.
After days of riding on almost car-free roads we found ourselves swept along in the throng of Ladas and expensive four-wheel drives. A couple of farmers herding their yaks to market were having trouble keeping them off the road. Drivers tooted in frustration and fists came waving out of windows.
Everything – from the apartment blocks, the power station and street layout – were of Soviet design. From a distance it appeared like another Russian city. Yet close up it differed greatly – it was far more congested and chaotic. Elderly men wandered the cluttered streets in the traditional dele, shoulder to shoulder with teenage girls dressed in skin-tight pants and platform shoes. There were people wandering around with mobile phones and others carrying bloodied sheepskins on their backs. Some men rode horses on the pavement.
The outer suburbs were a sight neither of us had anticipated: thousands of ger tents boxed in by shanty fences of scrap metal and scavenged timber. Each had its own postal address and a minuscule patch of dirt to call home. In a land of wide, open spaces it struck me as bizarre.
As we neared the city centre I had the feeling that life here lacked the vitality of the countryside. Smog collected above the city, turning the sky a pasty grey. The streets, plagued with potholes, were thickly layered in dust. Road workers could be seen sweeping the dust out of gutters and into crude pans, collecting it in rubbish bags; the rubbish disposal system looked horrific. In the courtyards between apartment blocks, adjacent to playgrounds, were enormous metal waste units full of burning debris. Everything from plastics to food scraps was thrown in and set alight, sending putrid black smoke billowing through the cramped living quarters.
In our first hour we saw more bikes than during our entire time in Russia. Children rode cheap but new Chinese-made mountain bikes fitted out with shiny modern parts. Later on we discovered that you could buy 100 puncture repair patches for fifty cents. In Russia we hadn’t been able to find one puncture repair kit in 5000 kilometres.
We agreed that the best plan of attack was to rent an apartment for ten days. The time was needed not just for rest and recuperation, but also for getting Chinese visas, extending our Mongolian ones, and organising plane tickets for the flight to Australia.
I phoned Zula, a woman we had met on the road from Suchbaatar. With the help of her family we soon found a place close to the city centre. Unfortunately, the apartment didn’t have beds, and only one light was in working order, but for the time being it was a little patch of paradise.
Our time in Ulaan Baatar began with great promise. I was delighted to find that the streets of the inner city were cluttered with cheap restaurants selling all forms of greasy, fried mutton. A short walk would suddenly turn into an eating marathon as I found it hard to pass by without stopping in each and every shop. My favourite snacks were khuushurs, which are a flattened balls of mutton deep-fried in pastry. At five cents a piece there was no stopping me. As they slid down my throat, and the oil spilled over my lips, fast lubricating my beard and sweaty fingers, I fell into moments of pure ecstasy. Even with my stomach at near bursting point, I couldn’t help indulging. I was making up for all those desperately hungry times. I spent the first couple of afternoons snoozing in the apartment, my grin oiled with mutton fat. I dreamed of food to come and food past.
While I ate myself towards obesity, Chris was relishing the other luxury of Ulaan Baatar – a million and one Internet cafés. He disappeared early in the morning and returned late at night after epic sessions of indulgence.
On the third day things took a downward turn. After a whirlwind tour to the Buddhist monastery and the ger suburbs, we fronted up to the Chinese embassy. Up until this point we had not planned, or even given thought, to the logistics of getting to Beijing. The man at reception was categorical in his response: we could not travel by bicycle through China without the permission of the Chinese Tourist Authority.
The problem with travel in China is that the law restricted foreigners to travel only by government-approved transport. This was probably in place to prevent tourists from straying into �
�closed’ areas. Getting permission would mean having a Chinese tour guide.
Was this the end then? In a wave of panic we rushed out of the embassy to quell our nerves by writing e-mails of distress. Finishing short of our goal would feel empty. As tired as we were, I was ready for more adventure. Or, rather, I would do anything for more breathing space between now and getting home.
We shot off e-mails to other adventure cyclists, and put up our problem on the message boards of travel Web-sites. After a couple of hours of fierce writing and a few khuushurs, I returned to the embassy determined.
Eventually, I came to the front of the queue. ‘Hello, I just had some more queries about travelling by bicycle in China.’
‘All I can say is that you can’t,’ the man cut me off angrily.
‘Okay. But I was wondering if there are any considerations at all, if the expedition is official, and we have contacts in China?’ I asked, pleadingly.
‘All I can say is no. Maybe you can, but maybe you can’t.’
I stormed from the counter, feeling confused, only to be approached by a lanky European. ‘I hear that you are wanting to go by bike in China?’ he said. ‘Well, don’t worry about the embassy too much – don’t take them so seriously.’ He ushered me outside. ‘I have personally ridden a bike in China and, in fact, I know there are people riding there all the time. It’s just getting across the border that can be difficult. Just don’t tell the embassy you are taking a bike, it’s as simple as that.’
A couple of days later we were given visas hassle-free. The only obstacle ahead, we reasoned, would be smuggling our bikes over the border.
Meanwhile, Chris was trying to find the best deal on the Internet for a plane ticket. We had discovered that the cheapest option would be to catch a train from Beijing to Hong Kong, and fly from there. I wanted no part in the ticket discussion. I was reluctant to accept that we were going to be in Australia in the not too distant future. I felt irritated by Chris’s persistence, and even more so by his excitement.
When the evening of our tenth and final day arrived, it felt like the end of a prison sentence; contrary to my hopes Ulaan Baatar had not been a good place to recuperate. We were desperate to escape. As we packed I listened to the opening ceremony of the Sydney Olympics on BBC world radio through the one working earphone of my Walkman. It would probably be the first and last we’d hear of the Olympics before they were over. There was, I conceded, a part of me that longed to share the excitement that was going on so far away.
Eventually, late in the evening, we cycled out of Ulaan Baatar. I trained my sights on the black horizon beyond the city’s perimeters. Perhaps it was out there that our real refuge lay – in the peace and simplicity of a camp site.
———
Despite the exhaustion we awoke early, desperate to get beyond view of the city. As dawn broke, the shadows of night peeled away to reveal a puzzling reality. The bitumen had come to an abrupt end. Beyond it, countless dusty wheel tracks trailed off into the distance. There were no signs and no indication that one wheel track was used more often than another. We consulted our map.
‘Hey, Chris, which do you reckon is the right route?’ I asked.
‘Mate, I’m buggered if I know. I guess, in theory, if we just keep heading south-east we’ll end up in China,’ he replied.
I looked at our tourist map – it was a big yellow blank with a couple of fat red and black lines denoting the train line and the only paved road in Mongolia, from Suchbaatar to Ulaan Baatar. With no contour lines and very few details besides a few happy-looking camels and yaks sketched on for decoration, we were going to have to rely on compass and intuition.
‘I guess you’re right. We can’t really get lost anyway, because we will never know where we are with this blasted map,’ I replied.
‘I guess if we really get stuck, we just have to remember which side of the train line we’re on,’ said Chris. He was referring to the fact that our route would vaguely follow the path of the trans-Mongolian railway.
So, choosing the wheel tracks that headed for the easiest gradient in sight, we trundled off. Exactly how long it would take to get to China we didn’t know. We approximated that it was 900 kilometres away, but that would depend almost entirely on road conditions. What we did know was that between us and the Chinese border lay a vast stretch of the infamous Gobi Desert.
A couple of hours later we had covered about ten kilometres, and in the last thirty metres of steep uphill climbing I had fallen five or six times. Steeling myself, I sat on the saddle and focused again – I wasn’t going to let this stupid track get the better of me. I let go of the brakes and put my legs into action, pedalling as fast as humanly possible. I relied on some speed for balance but I was still going at about half walking-pace. Then, suddenly, the front wheel slid out in some loose rock and I flicked my feet down to earth in an attempt to stay upright. But it was too late. My brakes failed, the bike rolled backwards, my feet skidded hopelessly along the ground and the top-heavy baggage began to lean over. All I could do was try to leap clear of the enormous dead weight as it gained momentum and went plummeting downhill. Wild-eyed I dived towards a patch of pebbly earth that bore the only tuft of grass in sight. I wasn’t fast enough.
First came the painful crunch in my hips as I hit the gritty earth. I wanted to punch the earth back. But I was distracted by another blow as the bike thundered down, trapping my right leg beneath the cogs. The sharp metal bit into my calf muscle. I ripped my leg away from the bike’s jaw and performed a few commando rolls before rising in a cloud of dust to stare down my foe. It was too painful to stand still so I hopped around and threw handfuls of rocks into the sky. My leg was dripping blood that was already encrusted in sand and dust. It wasn’t serious, just infuriating.
The bike lay in a heap, stubbornly refusing to go any further. I thought about giving it an almighty boot up the bum, but was put off when I noticed a horseman trotting by.
‘This is bloody ridiculous!’ I yelled. Never had the bike been so heavy and cumbersome. The prospect of few watering points meant that we were each carrying seventeen precious litres of water in Chinese jerry cans and soft drink bottles. Along with food for a week, our bikes and baggage weighed about ninety kilograms each.
I cast my gaze into the distance where a few sketchy lines constituted the only break in a land without contrast. A tiny black dot shimmered in the slight mirage, crawling along one of the sketchy lines – Chris.
My energy waned even further as I thought about the stakes. Not only was the bike heavy but I was more worn out than ever, and these were the worst roads we had come across. The prospect of 900 kilometres felt beyond me.
After a drink my nerves settled and I was ready to face the world again. I set off ambling down the track, keeping my eyes on the ground. Gradually, I began to make progress, steering around patches of crumbling rock and following the contours of the tracks. Funnily enough I discovered that it wasn’t such a painful ride: without any way of gauging distance, distance itself didn’t seem to matter. Hours merged and the rise and fall of hunger became the only indicator of passing time. I was free to move at my own pace, and the open nothingness formed a soothing backdrop. Sometimes it was good just to let the mind wander with thoughts as empty as space. As the sun plodded steadily towards the west my sweat began to cool and the earth came into clear focus.
The second day of riding merged into the first. The large rounded hills began to give way to a series of slightly raised plateaux, like a range of miniature tablelands. From a distance the curvy mounds looked like yellow crests on the sea. The sky melted with the hazy horizon. At times the heat mirage that licked the landscape with clear, molten flames was more real than the earth itself. Now and then we spotted gers in the distance but they were far more sparsely scattered than in northern Mongolia. We pedalled on, choosing our tracks on gut feeling and by the odd peek at the compass. Now and then a Russian-made truck or motorbike would hurtle by in a plume of dust and s
hrink out of sight. They could appear from any direction, rumbling over the steppe, and not necessarily following any tracks at all.
Even though it was only our second day, I was already losing track of time. It was like there was this vague empty land rolling beneath the wheels and I could only keep track of things by the day’s events: camp, ride, eat, pee. But with the landscape and weather taking on such uniformity, even those common activities began to merge into one another. Had I peed before or after lunch? Have I had lunch, or was it yesterday’s lunch I am thinking of? In the end it was irrelevant. If I am hungry I will eat, and if I am tired I will sleep, I thought. There were just enough signs of life to reassure us that we hadn’t stepped off the edge of the world, and enough subtle changes in the landscape to indicate that we weren’t living the same day over again. Perhaps the only reality check came from keeping an eye on how much water was left.
One evening we were riding casually along when, out of nowhere, came a young Mongolian man on a mountain bike. ‘Hello, how are you?’ he said, in English.
‘Good … thank you,’ I replied, warily.
‘I am a computer engineer. If you want you can come back to my mother’s place to stay the night,’ he offered.
I had been enjoying the ride but was still craving to spend time in a ger, and also to have some well-needed rest. Although Chris was a little bit resistant, this was an opportunity that had come knocking. I watched him bend from his hard-nosed, no stopping attitude to a carefree look.
‘Yep, why not? Let’s go!’ he said.
Half an hour later we were sitting inside a ger, feeling as if we had been transplanted into another world. I watched as the elderly woman prepared to stoke the stove, which also doubled as the furnace. She opened it and I caught a glimpse of the red-hot fuel: fifty or so dried horse craps. After shovelling in a fresh load she gracefully drew a ladle of boiling milk half a metre above a pot and poured it back in with a fluid twist of her wrist. Not a drop was lost, as if the milk was somehow bound like elastic. A cloud of steam rose abruptly and escaped through the circular opening in the roof. The woman bent forward into the light that spilled down from above. Silver-grey hair fell from beneath a silky yellow hat. Her face was dark, almost black, and etched with lines that arced from above her eyes to below her cheeks. Prominent cheekbones bulged out, as rough, round and exposed as the steppe itself. Later we learned that she was seventy-five-years-old.
Off The Rails Page 27