Russia. We passed the Baikal Lake and Irkutsk yesterday. Heavy traffic and dense population along the road.

Mongolia - about to say Goodbye

I uploaded about 10 pics into the webalbum.. so if you follow the photo link you will find them.

Unfortunately the computer cannot connect with my camera anymore, so more photos when we're back home... or maybe from Russia.

Tomorrow we will head towards the border, then home.

We're planning to be in Europe around September 10. I have no idea if we'll be able to get through Russia that quickly, but I hope we do. On September 16 I will be back in Munich. Only three weeks of travelling. I can't believe how quickly this trip passed...

On the road again

Well, actually we're having a day off today. But we reached asphalt and Ulanbaatar yesterday. Today we'll just walk around town and tomorrow or the day after head towards Russia.
We had an a great time in this vast country, and I will definitely return. Before getting to Mongolia we heard the wildest stories about the roads, or better tracks, and how it would be difficult to get water and petrol, how boring it would be, nothing to see.... none of this turned out to be true. Or maybe were just extremely lucky by picking our way around all difficult areas and towards the nice places. We never had any problems with petrol stations, the motorbikes were good mooded and apart from my rear suspension, which is about to retire, we had no mechanical problems. We didn't even have a flat tire. We didn't break any bones, had no crashes... and so we cannot come up with exciting life-threatening adventure stories. At the moment I cannot even upload pictures - I have to go for a walk around the city - but I'll try to do that later.

Moeroen

We made it up North to Moeroen. A little town about 90km from Lake Khoevsgoel which is supposed to be really beautiful. We had some nice days riding through an always changing landscape. No problems with petrol, we're still healthy and we enjoy the riding here. Sometimes the gravel and sand can get a little bit annoying, but we had no mud yet, which is supposed to be the worst that can happen to a biker here. It will rain here in 5min, so I better go. We have to stock up our food supplies... In about 10 days at the latest we should be in Ulanbator and I'll try to write more then. We just met two Aussie bikers who told us where to get a nice Schnitzel in Ulanbator. We can't wait to get there.

Altai

We didn't expect to find internet.. and it's just a very short stopover.. but things are still going well. Last night we were lucky and met two nice Irish guys in a tiny broken Fiat, who sold us some of their petrol. Otherwise we would have probably ran out of petrol in the middle of nowhere. We have changed plans and are now trying to go to Uliastay, somehow up to Lake Hoevsgoel and Karakorum before riding to Ulanbataar. So it will take a bit longer before we get there. Maybe two weeks. And my rear suspension started leaking oil. I am slightly worried. People are VERY curious here but in general also very friendly. No photos today, we have to get going, only about 1 hour to sunset.

Off the Road

The total eclipse was amazing! We watched it from a pass, mountains all around and an Owoo (stone pile) next to us and had a fantastic view. It's so strange, this sudden darkness and the ring of light around the moon. Just before that we were invited into a jurte and drank a nice milk product from some animal... we couldn't find out from which. People around here are Kazakh, so the Mongolian dictionary doesn't help. And they don't speak Russian either.

To get a few more seconds of the eclipse we rode about 30km off the main "road". After about 5km I regretted having had this idea.. lots of sand, deep gravel. I was more sliding than driving. But we were rewarded with a beautiful camp site next to a river in a wide valley with yaks, goats, camels, horses, quite a few jurts, not too curious people, an eagle above our heads and many many other birds of prey. At this nice spot we waited for the eclipse day to come, were extremely lazy and changed our tires. Hooray. Since then riding the bikes is at least 200times more fun. Michelin T63 - we'll see how long they last, but now they are perfect.

We'll do some food shopping here back in Oelgij and then head towards Chovd, past the Gobi desert and onwards to Ulanbator, which is about 1400km from here. Of which 1000km are without asphalt.