falling down

last night turned out to be a sandwich of fun on ecstasy bread. we got ganna to drive us to the local shop for local people and picked up a few beers. when we got back an old guy who looked about 90 gave us a concert in the yard. he played various traditional mongolian instruments and throat sang with a friend of his. he ended by selling us a cassette tape (hurrah!) and telling us he was 53. this country ages you a-plenty, it seems.

the rest of the evening was spent outside, drinking tiger beer as the sun went down and the stars came out. a photo of the 5 of us standing by the fence like the opening of king of the hill pretty much captures the laugh we had had on that final night of the tour. especially shot number 3, where a little mongolian girl ran into frame with us.




two words: mongolian blanket.

over night i spent most of the time watching a desert mouse rifle through our stuff in search of food. i named it ian.

and then today came, up with breakfast and back in the van heading to ulan baatar. the van showing signs of sheepishness all through the morning.

as part of this trip we were promised a visit to a 'mini gobi' desert. as we don't have enough time to visit the real gobi properly and will be passing through it on the train, this was a welcome prospect. but in the end it's hardly worth mentioning as a visit, but for the comedy value. the mini gobi turned out to be a dune. one. and not a very big one. certain camera perspective shots make it look bigger, but actually it was tiny. give a child a spade and a spare week and it could easily emulate our find. the first thing that i've been really underwhelmed by. thankfully though, underwhelmed to the point of hilarity.

but then back on the road to UB, and boy the van was having problems. every 20 minutes or so we would pull over, ganna would pump the accelerator with the starter motor heaving, or get out and check the axles. it seemed like the clutch was on its way out. and the fuel pump was just giving up a little more each time. every time we climbed a hill it was only by luck and the roaring of first gear that we made it up.

for about 200 miles.

(the countdown signposts marked our very slow progress to the city.)

eventually we reached the toll booth on the outskirts of UB. we paid 500 tugrug, the barrier lifted, the engine revved, ganna pushed the gear lever, grind, grind, grind, screech, then everything stopped.

ah.

we spent the next hour and a half desperately edging our way inch by inch in heavy traffic, pulling away on the starter motor before ramming it into gear. it was a real struggle. as we grinded and halted and revved our way to the hostel the van was literally falling apart beneath us. we stopped by switching off the engine each time. and as we finally pulled up outside the hostel it was as though the van had reached it's final resting place. like a tired old elephant in a serengeti bonefield. there it would stay forever, like one of the bleached white skeletons that cover the mongolian wilderness.

later that evening i spotted ganna in his familiar position under the van, and later still the van was gone. together probably struggling inch by inch back to tsetserleg.

we all ate at a pizza place and toasted "The Mighty Ganna, the don of mongolia, womaniser, king of the china dolls and man o' the road."

"to Ganna!"