We’re in Mongolia!! At the moment we’re about 500k outside Ulaan Baatar in Tsetserleg. Whoah. Whoah. What an amazing country but by God we’re working for it.

It took 6 hours to get out of Russia at the border and then about 20 minutes to get into Mongolia. We had tarmac on the Russian side and then on the Mongolian side they just stopped and from there we had dirt roads. So far we’ve travelled 800km from the border, 20km of which has been tarmac. The Liteace of course really comes to the fore on the dirt roads :-) The ‘roads’ are dirt tracks which come in various degrees of silliness - craters, boulder fields, swamps, rivers, mud, sand…and pretty much everything else apart from nice smooth oh so beautiful tarmac. Many a time we’ve had all four wheels off the ground, heads hitting the roof, legs off the floor and back down again for more.

There are also no signs whatsoever in the country for where you want to go. The dirt tracks become so bad that new ones form beside the originals so you just see streams of tracks running out into the distance and you have to pick which one looks the best and go for it. We’ve gotten lost a good few times but seem to find our way. Each time we’ve gotten lost hasnt been wasted time. In our ‘lost time’ we’ve met up with many lovely families who’ve invited us into their gers and offered us local food and tea and in one case Mongolian vodka from a teapot at 10am. Nice.

The countryside is stunning – mountains, lakes, rivers, valleys, spotless. Loads of amazing wildlife and tons of wild horses, camels and the countryside is filled with goats, yaks, cattle and sheep being herded across the land by nomadic herders. There are gers dotted all about the landscape. More so than we thought. And like Iran we’ve gotten a wave and a huge smile wherever we go.

The first two days were the toughest of the journey so far. We went in the Western border of Mongolia and chose to cross the country by the Northern route which is reputed to be the hardest. Of the first 100km we had to pass through boulder-ridden mountain roads, swamps, rivers. We were pulled out of the swamp by a Russian minivan and by the Lada Niva at a river when we cut out in the middle of crossing it. It was all worth it though as it brought us through some amazing countryside and those first few days were the most memorable.

Liteace….mmmm she’s been doing a sterling job but 3 days ago we sadly lost both sets of rear leaf springs. The right side first then like an old couple the left side went soon after. Larry spent one whole day fixing it and bodging it with a local ‘mechanic’ and a whole ger community looking on. End result we’re back on the road with 500km to go, ratchet straps, metal binding and rubber tubing keeping the whole show on the road :-} Liteace dedicated post to follow. Bet you can’t wait.

We got our first shower after 2 weeks last night [we have been washing in rivers and lakes!] and are taking off tomorrow for the final leg to Ulaan Baatar. Will update this post when we get there :-}