towards the gobi and back again

Sorry has been a while since my last post. Things have been good, have been to the gobi, didn't see asphalt for what feels like a month! And used the service of an Mongolian welder. And my sister came to visit!

Yes i was very happy my sister came to visit. Al tough 9 hours later then expected se walked thru the gate at the airport. And without wasting time introduced here to the Ulaanbataar traffic problem. An short distance of 10 km can take up to 2 hours. So we decided to go groceries shopping on the way to our guesthouse, as we had plans to drive to the gobi tomorrow. And be self reliant for the week.

The province of gobi brings dust, dust, dust and dust. And very nice scenery, nice (red) cliffs. Sand dunes, and lots of unpaved roads. My sister came up with a number, she first guest 300 km but a day later upped that to an moderately 600km of dust track thru beautiful rocky mountain passes and green flat steppe, and even an very welcomed 'bath' in a small creek. Showers come very rare in Mongolia, and haven't seen a warm one since Ulaanbataar. At one point my sister was fed up and so we heated some of the water from the previously mentioned creek. Followed by me pouring some luke warm water over my sisters shampoo filled hair.

This creek was next to a very dusty town of Dallan, literally only 2 gers. We both expected more of this town. As it was marked on the map. The woman who pointed us here was selling 'not so' cold drinks in the middle of the steppe. That was a weird find, seeing an english sign in the middle of nowhere. There are 1000 of tracks all parallel to each other in the dessert, and you just have to hope the one u are on doesn't steer of to another destination. I started using maps.me again, this time as an guide. Put a marker where i want to go and point the car in to the track that leads to that general directions. Land surfaces can follow each other ferry quickly you can have rock, sand and dried up creeks within 200, of each other. There also what we call desert highways; an track made of compressed sand or dirt. I drive dare to drive 60kph on them but I am told 100 can sometimes be reached. But i don't dare to as i had some welding done on my car on the way to the gobi.

We went to see an white cliff and on the way back i guess i got to exited and the car was bouncing all over. And soon we heard a sound, it turned out an end rubber that stops the axle from moving into the chassis broke loose. Insert the welder, it took all day. During which around 10 people come and go. Almost all helped out on my car. Not all was done carefully, and a brake tube was damaged while removing the spring. But an 'new' one was bend and put into place within the hour. Around 6/7 hours of work and 80000 turik later we drove out.

We also saw the same tour groups at all the destinations, soon had an daily conversation with an french family that is traveling the world together. The bumpy roads also broke my camera lens, with carefully twisting and rotating the lens fixed it again. With no use i might ad, as the battery died a view days after we left Ulaanbataar. And off course thats is one of the thing i cant charge while driving. So a few days without photos...