First steps in the Steppe

Here we are in Tsetserleg. We have covered the first 500km of our cycling adventure in Mongolia. We passed through many little villages and towns such as "Erdenesant", see the sign below with the Mongolian freedom symbol, which is also on the Mongolian flag.

Most bigger places look similar with fenced of yards that have gers and wooden buildings inside them, as see below for example Khahorin (Karakorum). We learned that much of the land in the cities was initially just claimed and fenced off by single families who now get rich by selling the plots off to others.

Mongolia has about 2000km of paved road and after leaving the capital city we cycled about 400 of those in a westerly direction, the rest 100km was on dirt track. The country is divided into provinces/counties called "aimag" and over the past few days we have crossed "Tov aimag" (cant spell names properly due to English key board).

There are frequently stretches of roadworks. All traffic is diverted straight onto the Steppe resulting in a maze of dirt tracks and lots of kamikaze driving...

The landscape is wide and open steppe/grassland. People live nomadically in there Gers which are dotted here, there and everywhere. Apparently it only takes about an hour to put one up...

We see lots and lots of livestock, including herds of goats, cow, horses, camels and yaks.

Animals are regularly on the road...

Our best pieces of kit so far is the Ortlieb Water carrier - a 10l water bladder (thanks Juha for the idea!), the "toilet" shovel and the binoculars for spotting campsites, visitors, neighbours and wildlife!

And there is plenty to spot, in the semi-gobi environment of Tov aimag we saw plenty Eagles (think Golden and Steppe) and even a Vulture - a massive ugly thing, see below! There are also Mongolian gerbils and giant grasshoppers.

The people in the countryside are very friendly leaving bottles of airag (fermented mares milk -4%ABV) at the side of the road to refresh travellers. More than can be said for their dogs as we often get chased by packs of barking hounds (Sara is not quite so good yet at not showing her fear).

What do we eat? Noodles/Pasta soup with dried meat thrown in (great idea Binderja!) vegetables are nowhere to be found. Other then that it's cakes, sweets and biscuits and the occasional Mongolian meal at a cafe. Oh yeah and jars of kiwi fruit given to us by a very generous passing driver who liked to feed 'tired and hungry' cyclists.

This often includes plenty milk tea, mutton dumplings, rice, mutton gulasch and cabbage salad. We pass through towns/villages with shops approximately every 100km.

We find campsites just off the road and the spots are awesome. It's peaceful, hardly any biting insects and it's lovely and cool at night. Water has been sparse so far ( we mostly buy bottled water) but now as we head through "Arkhangai aimag" there are more and more rivers, where we can take water and drink it with purifying tablets. More water will also help with keeping clean, as we currently have showers at 8day intervals!

Overall we leave the paved road for good now and head North West to the "white Lake" Tsagaan Nuur, in a volcanic area. We are hoping to do a round tour of Central and North Mongolia. The area we are entering now also is a at a higher Altitude (Mongolias average altitude is 1580m) and a different type of environment, the lusher Taiga region.

Anyway - bit much text - but all is well and we will fill all this talk with photos when we have better connection . (which maybe some time....)