Lasīt tālāk
04.Sep
ALTAY
03 Sep
- 2006 -
Author
Andis Pikāns
400 kilometers made. Early in the morning we take our leave from the hospitable Mongol family and head off to Altay, this time it’s the name of the town. For first three hours we manage to keep the speed of 80 km/h on a comparatively large road and due to this we begin to figure whether we get to the town by the evening already.
Roads are not getting any better, yet, there are no more hard to cross mountain passes. Whilst driving we have to pray God for the equipment to survive because the amount of work is next to unbearable. At about 5PM in approximately 60 km away from the town we notice a KAMAZ truck with a familiar Fiat Ducato bus inside. It belongs to a Dutch buggy kiting expedition. We have met the leader of the expedition, Hans, and his family on the Mongolian border few days ago: he is admirable for his courage to fight Mongolian roads on Fiat. He tells us something went wrong with the power in his bus, so, for 1, 000 EUR he hired a local guy to drive them to Ulan-Bator and to visit the Gobi Desert on their way to have some kiting fun there.
At about 6PM after long hard drive we are in Altay. There is no hot water in the entire town and, of course, no water in our hotel either. The water is so cold I think ice cubes should be falling out of the tap. However, we get a vacuum flask of hot water in the kitchen, pull a rag in the sink and have a Mongolian style bath.
