As preparation for a long and unsupported trip to the wilderness, we travelled with our heavily loaded bikes in the western part of Mongolia, a place with wide empty landscapes, some rough mountains and bumpy gravel roads. As we knew that we would need to carry a lot of food and equipment on our future unsupported trip in the wilderness, we decided to carry much more weight through Mongolia than necessary. This was an excellent fitness preparation for us and an endurance test for our equipment.

We used satellite images to plan and create our route back home on the laptop. Initially, we were hoping to find valleys without any car tracks, but soon we realized that most of the valleys that looked passable had some kind of tracks going through them. Nevertheless, we were confident that our planned route would avoid most of the traffic and good roads.

First Impressions

We entered Mongolia on the 31^st of July 2019 from the Russian Altai Republic. Shortly after the border town, some kids approached us. “Pen! Pen!”, said the first one, while the other one was begging for chocolate. If we had pens or chocolate with us, we could have handed out some and we would have experienced a happy kid for a few moments which would have made us feel good about ourselves. Unfortunately, way too many ignorant tourists are handing out sweets or pens, which is totally irresponsible behaviour. It contributes to the creation of more beggars who start expecting more gifts from tourists and travellers. While most people might conclude that sweets don’t help at all – especially when the candy paper are thrown on the ground – even handing out pens to individuals is a bad idea. It just encourages more kids to ask for pens. But not because they really need pens, but asking becomes a game and they want to get the “trophy”. This was a rather disappointing experience on our first day, but we were sure that we might have better interactions with locals once we’d wander off the beaten path.

We turned off the main road after 24 kilometres and continued our journey towards a quiet valley. But before we could reach this valley, we had to traverse an area where some nomads were staying in their yurts, the famous round white tents. Actually, yurts are called “ger” in Mongolia, which simply means “home” in Mongolian. The people were friendly, but we couldn’t speak with them. Although Russian and English are the most frequently spoken foreign language in Mongolia (and Grete is able to have basic conversations in Russian), it was different in the area where we were travelling. Around 90% of the inhabitants of this area are Kazakhs, and therefore they speak Kazakh as their mother tongue and the Mongolian language as a second language, if at all. At least we could still remember the Kazakh word for “thank you”. And luckily, most of the Kazakhs there are Muslims, so we could use the Arabic greeting “As-salamu alaykum” as well.

We expected to be alone in the valley. But on the way we saw some nomads. The girl walked towards us and offered us some kind of home-made cheese. As we weren’t on the main road, we expected that this was a genuine offer. Nevertheless, as we are vegans, we had to refuse this offer, trying to explain with our gestures that this food would cause us stomach trouble.

We knew that being vegan would be a bit difficult in Mongolia, especially when nomads would like to offer us something or even invite us. We had already decided before entering Mongolia that we would not accept an invitation if there was no way to speak with the people. We were afraid that nomadic people might only have meat and dairy products for eating. So, inviting us might bring them to a situation where they have literally nothing they could offer us, which might make them feel ashamed and very sad. That’s why we decided to kindly refuse every invitation.

Ölgii was the first Mongolian town we reached, We wanted to charge our electronics and find out what kind of vegan food we might find in the town. We decided to stay one night there. We found a guest-house where tourists and travellers can stay in yurts. Instead of staying in a yurt, the owner agreed that pitch our tent and just pay for electricity and water. On one hand, the selection of vegetables in the town was disappointing, as we could only find potatoes, cabbage, leek and carrots. On the other hand, we were happy to find noodles as well as vegan snacks like Halva (a confectionery made from sunflower seeds).

We stocked up on food for the next leg of our travel, the journey from Ölgii to Khovd. As we didn’t know how often we would be able to find water on the way, we left Ölgii with more than 10 litres of drinking water per person.

Remote area

We expected that our route from Ölgii to Khovd would lead us through some remote areas. On the first day, we came across some rougher sections where we didn’t manage to cycle uphill. Some sections were too rough to push a heavy bike uphill alone, so we had to do it together. We felt like being in a very remote area.

But when we cycled downhill towards a big valley, we were very surprised to see many white yurts in front of the snow-capped mountain Tsast Ula. This valley with a river was obviously a place where the nomads gather in summer. Being a nomad in Mongolia is still relatively popular these days, approximately 30% of the population is nomadic (or semi-nomadic). But the presence of nomads with their sheep and goats also means that the clean-looking water might not be drinkable. Fortunately, we were carrying a water filter with us, so we could purify the cold river water.

Rough conditions

We left the main track, but we still met nomads every now and then. It got very windy in the afternoon and when the weather became stormy, we decided to pitch the tent on a hill. Marc wanted to try how easy it is to pitch our new tent alone in windy conditions. Thanks to the good quality of the tent and his experience, he managed easily to pitch the tent. Just when we had brought all the stuff we needed for cooking and sleeping inside the tent, it started raining, and we could enjoy a thunderstorm in our home.

After the storm, we prepared our dinner. Luckily we checked the map while we cooked. We realized that we nearly entered the wrong valley! In the morning, we had to go back a little bit to cross a small river to get to the right track.

At some point, our track turned into a steep rocky road and we had to push our bikes down and arrived at a river. As we were not sure if the track itself was crossing the river in a good location, we looked around and checked out a different location, but that location was not a better option for crossing the river. When we walked back to our bikes, we saw two men on horses coming down the rocky road that we had come down earlier. The two men had a large dog with them. The dog was a Tibetan Mastiff which is usually used to protect the livestock. We couldn’t communicate with the locals, and so the two guys continued. It was no problem for the horses to cross the river. However, the Tibetan Mastiff struggled a bit and was washed away for a few meters. But it looked like the dog was already used to it.

We also managed to bring both of our bikes to the other side of the river. But our life didn’t get easier, We had a terrible steep uphill with big rocks ahead. Once more we had to push our bikes together, and we even had to take several breaks. From the top of the hill, we pushed our bikes down the rocky track until we came to a grassy area. There, we could cut across the meadow. That was the kind of freedom we were looking for. After a while, we found ourselves again cycling o a relatively smooth track through the scenic grassland. But then the track became fainter, it got rougher and in the end, the track led into a river bed. There was no other option for us than pushing our bikes through this river bed to be able to go forward in our chosen valley. That was totally okay though, as this trip was mainly preparation for an upcoming project in the real wilderness.

We didn’t have to travel in the river bed for too long before the track continued next to the river bed and led us out of the mountainous area. We didn’t see anyone the whole next day, but we saw a bunch of (probably wild) camels instead.

Cycling in this relatively flat terrain was much easier, especially as the tracks weren’t that rough any more. After some spontaneous route alterations, we ended up in Erdeneburen. In this village, the surprised local kids had a lot of fun when they saw the two dirty cyclists arriving from nowhere.

Mosquitoes

Between Erdeneburen and Khovd, the number of mosquitoes increased again. Sometimes we could choose between many different (but parallel) tracks. Very often we changed to another track just to realize that this one was not better. The tracks turned into a washboard at times and sometimes it got also a bit too sandy so that we had to push our bicycles. The combination of mosquitoes and this kind of track made our travel a nightmare, as we couldn’t to travel fast and there was no chance for us to escape the bloodsuckers. We both had never experienced that many mosquitoes before this travel. Grete decided to sweat under her long black windproof pants and a jacket. she covered her fingers with plastic bags as well. And for the first time in more than two years, she needed to wear her mosquito head net. However, Marc thought that his long warm pants and a long-sleeve shirt for winter were way too warm to wear in Mongolian summer, so he didn’t wear them. The mosquitoes liked that. Marc didn’t. The situation was so terrible for us, that we decided to pitch our tent early and hide ourself in there. That night, we even didn’t dare to cook around these beasts and we were just eating some snacks for dinner,

The next day, it was a bit windy and we managed to reach the paved main road to Khovd without being bitten too many times by the mosquitoes. On the main road, we could cycle the last 20 km to Khovd and thanks to the massively increased travel speed, the mosquitoes weren’t bothering us any longer. In Khovd, we bought more provisions and left the town without spending a night there. We left the paved road again as soon as possible and headed towards the mountains.

Our plan was to travel to the town of Deluun. On satellite maps, we had found some tracks and it looked like we could follow them. At some point, the track became rough and steep. We had to push the bikes together again. Just when we were approaching a steep uphill section, we heard the noise of cars and saw three cars coming the same way as we were going. Even the cars struggled to get up there and they had to try several times before successfully making it to the top.

After this rough section, the track followed a wider valley, where many nomads had put up their yurts. More and more clouds started to move in and the wind got stronger. When we reached a pass, we decided to pitch the tent immediately. When we started to cook inside the vestibule, the rain started and we were grateful to be in our home.

Down to the river

The next day, we followed the track downhill on the other side of the pass. Some sections were steep and rough and we were grateful that we were going down and not up. On the map, we had seen that our track would lead us down to a river. Down at this rather big river, we met some nomads. They told us, that the track on the other side of the river is a dead-end and that we have to turn back. We didn’t want to turn back, so we crossed the river without our bikes and had a look on the other side. The water was nearly waist-deep and we walked through the powerful water masses together, making small steps and stabilizing each other. There was a track on the other side and we even met two guys on a motorbike. Unfortunately, the language barrier was once more a big difficulty. But as far as we could understand, this track was leading somewhere.

We crossed the river one more time to get back to our bikes and we were still not sure what we should do. Turning back over the pass? Or crossing the big river with all our equipment and try to continue on the track on the other side, which might not continue?

When we did our bike and hike adventure in Afghanistan in 2018, Marc tried to push his fully loaded bicycle through a river and realized after a few seconds that it was much more difficult than he expected and that it would be too dangerous to continue. Back then, he managed to get back to the river shore and together we could get the bike out of the river. This experience had taught him to not underestimate the difficulty of river crossings, which Grete already knew from her hiking trips in New Zealand. This time, we decided to have a look at how the guys with the motorbike would cross the river. They struggled quite a bit to bring the motorbike to our side. After the crossing, they couldn’t start the engine anymore. They removed a few parts from the motorbike, waited that it gets dry and prayed. After some time, the motorbike decided to condone the abuse and to give them another chance.

We decided that it is wiser to turn back. The nomads explained to us, that we can take a track towards the town of Duut after the pass. We took more than 10litres of water from the river and turned back. Pushing our bikes uphill was hard, especially in the sections where we were so grateful in the morning that we could go downhill. Luckily, Grete was listening to a podcast about motivation and focus. Otherwise, she would nod have found the spark to do this long uphill. In the evening, we pitched our tent in the very same spot as the day before. We checked our map. Fortunately, we had downloaded a detailed satellite map for the whole area. That helped us to see the track to Duut and to find a new route to Deelun, the town where we intended to go initially.

An authentic and beautiful experience

The next morning, we woke up as we heard some noise. We opened the tent and we saw a singing man riding his horse far away. On his arm: an eagle! He must have been one of the very few eagle hunters that still exist in Mongolia. It was such a beautiful mixture of his voice in the general silence of the area and the light morning breeze. This was one of these very real and genuine experiences what “normal tourists” won’t be able to experience.

When we got close to Duut, we reached the mapped track which led us up to an altitude of nearly 3000 meters. When we reached the area where we were supposed to turn off the main road, we struggled to find the track. As it was getting dark, we decided to spend the night up there and look for a way down to the other valley in the morning. After a good night’s sleep, we tried again to find the track which was shown on the map. Some locals on horses approached us. We could explain to them that we wanted to go to Deluun, but somehow they weren’t able to help us in any way. We decided to push our bikes towards the valley, hoping to see the track further down in the valley. Suddenly we found “the track”, which was nothing more than a small path. At least we could see some yurts further down in the valley and therefore we assumed to hit a proper track soon.

When we reached the valley, we cycled towards some nomads and found a proper track behind their yurts. Once more, Google Maps had mapped a road that doesn’t exist in reality, but at least it was no problem for us to go downhill with our bicycles.

How to fix your bike alone?

The quality of the track in the valley was surprisingly good and we could enjoy some fast downhills. The fun came to an abrupt end when Marc realized that his front carrier was moving a bit more than it should. Marc assumed that a screw had become lose or that he even lost the screw as it had happened in the past. But this time, it was completely different: The whole thread was ripped out of his fork. Marc removed his front carrier to have a look at the damage.

Fortunately, Marc collected many useful experiences in the past and he was kind of prepared for many different emergency scenarios. But he has never imagined that this problem might occur. Fortunately, when Marc prepared for this travel back home in Switzerland, he had assumed that a screw might break again as this had happened before on his travels. Therefore, he wanted to be prepared to have the temporary possibility to attach the carrier differently. That’s why he was carrying a mounting set for forks without eyelets from tubus. Together, we placed the mounting set in the right position and like that we created again a thread to attach the front carrier. With this repair, we could continue our ride towards Deluun. The road got once more bumpy and rough at times, but the emergency fix worked well. Actually, it worked flawlessly for several weeks until we found a place where a professional could weld in the broken out thread again. Therefore we can only recommend carrying the mounting set for forks without eyelets with you if you are cycling in a remote and demanding environment.

From Deluun, we continued to cycle parallel to the Mongolian-Chinese border towards Bulgan, which is basically the border town of this Mongolian-Chinese border crossing. We camped just a few kilometres away from Deluun. In the morning, a man on his motorbike saw our tent and visited us. Although we didn’t have a common language, we could communicate a bit and explain to him where we had been. Suddenly, in the middle of our “conversation”, the lovely man turned around, walked a few steps, opened his pants and peed. It came extremely unexpected and felt so weird for us. But apparently, it was completely normal for this man.

The man left and we started packing our stuff. Then we made another unpleasant discovery: a broken screw on Grete’s bike where her rear carrier is attached to the frame. In general, it is not very difficult for a mechanic to get a broken screw out, but it’s not possible for us with our tools. Luckily her bike has two threads to attach the rear carrier on the bottom, so we could easily mount her carrier to the other threads. A small detail like a second thread can make the bike frame so much more useful in remote areas. Marc’s bike doesn’t have this feature and we think this should be the standard for touring bikes.

Hospitable people

On our way parallel to the border, we crossed a 3000m high pass. After that pass, we met quite a lot of nomads. But the road itself was very quiet. Until one day when several nomads were moving from one place to another. They transported their belongings on a truck or in a car, and some shepherds and the livestock walked along the road. Our speed of travel was higher than the one of the animals, which means that we had to overtake the herds. This is usually a pretty dusty matter.

Some of the nomads stopped their car and offered us something to drink. Unfortunately, their drinks were either with milk or with alcohol, so we had to refuse all the time, trying to pretend that we were allergic to it. Once, a car passed us, turned back and gave us some fresh fruits. We were so grateful to finally be able to accept a gift and to eat fruits again. This is the positive part of being on a relatively busy road.

On our 22^nd day in Mongolia, we hit the paved main road leading to the border and we reached the town of Bulgan, which is the last town before the border but still located more than 40 kilometres away from it. We bought some more food and had a short and lovely conversation with a Mongolian girl. She was living in Australia with her parents and just came to her hometown to visit relatives, that’s why she spoke English very well. We really enjoyed having finally a conversation in English. That was also a great opportunity to ask where we could refill our water bag with drinking water. Unfortunately, there was no public place to do so. Apparently, every household has its own water pump. We started cycling out of the town when we saw a man returning to his home. We approached him and asked if we could refill our water bag. The man went inside to bring a big basket full of fresh water for us. We didn’t have a common language to communicate with each other, but thanks to his sign language skills, we understood that this man had seen us two days earlier while he was riding on his horse.

We left Bulgan and cycled on a smooth paved road towards China. After three weeks on rough terrain in the beautiful scenery in western Mongolia, we felt well prepared for our upcoming trip to the wilderness and had a lot of trust in our equipment. We camped one last time in Mongolia and arrived at the Mongolian-Chinese border the next day which brought our first but hopefully not the last trip to Mongolia to an end.