Today was the stretch of Mongolian driving that we’d been warned about. “The worst roads in the country,” they said; “I begged for the drive to be over,” chimed in others. But we’ve driven on Kazakh sand roads and Kyrgyz cowpaths! We thought we could best anything Mongolia could throw at us! However, there was one thing we hadn’t considered: washboard roads.
Hundreds and hundreds of kilometers of washboard roads. Hours upon hours of bouncing up and down in our seat, feeling every screw in the Panda being worked loose by the cruel road surface. Slowing down in an effort to lessen the effects of the non-stop rattling, followed by speeding up to try to get to the end of the torture sooner, followed by slowing back down when the road got too physically and mentally overwhelming.
Our torture was temporarily postponed for lunch. None of us were hungry, but all three teams welcomed the opportunity to force down food just because it meant we weren’t driving. While we were stopped we met a couple new friends, as a Mongolian family pulled over their motorcycle to chat with us. We didn’t understand a word that the man was saying, though that didn’t stop the man for talking to us for nearly 45 minutes in a Mongolian monologue while we hoped that we smiled, laughed, and looked concerned at the appropriate pauses. After the Mongolian tradition of the woman presenting us each with a cake of dried curds, we jumped back into our cars to continue heading east.
By the time we made it into Altai, the Panda’s check engine light and oil light were blinking. We pulled into Mongol Rally Auto Service to ask about these lights, but we got a straightforward response: “You have two gauge lights blinking? After that drive all of the gauge lights in this car are blinking, and so are my eyes, ears, and brain! I’m sure your sensors are just a little rattled, but you’ll be fine to continue on.” And, based on that professional advice, we continued on.
Starting Point: N47°05 E92°55 Ending Point: N46°20 E 97°18 Distance Traveled: 247.8 miles
We began our day with hot breakfast at our camp beneath the snow-capped peaks, which Chase did not want to leave. We checked the altimeter on our map-less Garmin to see that we were at around 8,000 feet, so no wonder it was a bit chilly up there. By a bit chilly, we mean the tent was covered in ice when we woke up in the morning. We lost a bit of elevation (maybe 2,000 feet in the first hour) as we started driving in the direction of Hovd.
Convoy line-up
Since the winding paths we assumed were roads all looked the same but took off in different directions through the mountains, we struggled with directions for a while and were pointed in the right way by some friendly locals in a Land Cruiser. Their directions specified a right turn, a mini river crossing, and then a bigger river crossing before reaching town.
Daniel and one Norwegian plate!
The mini river crossing turned out to be the more difficult of the two. Three cars went through. The Skoda and the Suzuki both lost their front license plates while the Panda got a flat tire. Chase changed the tire (luckily we kept getting the punctured tires repaired in town and were ready with two spares) while Daniel and Oskar went swimming. One Norwegian plate found, one Swedish plate found, one good tire back on the Panda, and we were back on the road. All this drama before 10 A.M.!
With a few of our new friends
Moments later, we joined up with the Commonwealth team and the Norwegian Pandas as we all stopped to admire a herd of camels. (Is herd the proper term for a group of camels? Anyhoo, there were about 30 camels standing in the middle of the road, and we had to wait for them to pass.) Our convoy stayed together as we crossed the “bigger river,” which everyone navigated with success! This river turned out to be quite a bit wider but significantly shallower than the first, so not only was it a successful crossing but also a fun time to play.
One of the best parts of Hovd, a giant boot!
We loved having the big convoy together again for the first time since the previous morning near the border. Like that morning, the big group didn’t stay a big group for long. When we pulled into Hovd, we stopped to chat with several teams on the side of the road, even a few teams that were abandoning their cars at that point. (We were still so thankful for the Panda’s miraculous ability to repair herself, aside from the flat tires!) In town, we made our usual circuit of the market, the gas station, and the mechanics. Since Daniel and the Norwegian Pandas were at two different mechanics, we bounced between the two before bouncing out of town with the Swedes and plans to meet up on the road later.
Have we mentioned Mongolian horses yet?
The roads were slow-moving once again with brief moments of pavement, including one very clear in our memories. After the events of the day before, we had our muffler propped on the hat rack/trunk cover, a place that we would learn was precariously above a six-pack of Russian beer. Upon hitting a tiny bump (shockingly small actually considering the usual craters we tried to avoid), the muffler tipped and punctured a bottle. With your average beer, a small puncture would be no problem. With a 2.5 Liter bottle, we had a beer fountain on our hands. Let’s just say, the Panda had a new fragrance. We did our best, however, to air it out camping that night in a nice spot between mountains and gers.
We woke up very early with hopes to recover some of the delay we experienced the day before due to the horrendous road conditions, and we set off for Bishkek. Our first town on the day’s route was Turkestan, which we had heard great things about from our French backpacker friend in Aralsk. The city’s architecture was stunning and a glimpse into the Uzbek architecture we wouldn’t get to see on this journey (why didn’t we get Uzbek visas again?).
We met a couple of wonderful people at the Gazprom station in town who shared a bit more about the city and region with us; the conversation started when one said in perfect English that he spoke Kazakh but not English. We were incredibly excited about this part of the country as we left. Then, driving through town, a dog doubled back on its trip across the street at the same time that we were crossing. We were horrified when we heard it, but then amazed when we stopped and found it still running and seemingly OK and on its way to care from a couple of locals, including a man we played charades with on the side of the road.
After a bit of shock, things got better when we were pulled over yet again by the police for a curiosity stop. Just after we left the police, we passed another Rally team heading in the opposite direction and on the other side of a concrete barrier. We honked, and they honked; yet, we couldn’t seem to find a place to talk to each other and kept going.
After an insane fifteen miles through Turkestan, the rest of the drive through the small part of southern Kazakhstan we crossed was uneventful. We were pulled over again, and we stopped to ask a couple policemen for directions in Shymkent. We grew to like the Kazakh police; they were by far the most friendly police on our journey and some of the most pleasant (and smiling!) people we talked to in all of Kazakhstan. In Shymkent, we also came very close to adopting a pet for our journey when we saw a small puppy outside of a shop; fortunately/unfortunately, he was well cared for by everyone working there.
Leaving Kazakhstan through the border crossing after Merki, we had a surprisingly easy, dare we say enjoyable border experience. Leaving Kazakhstan was a breeze, and then entering Kyrgyzstan, we encountered border officials who were excited about our journey and the charities we were benefiting. (Did you forget about them? Check out Cool Earth and the Lotus Children’s Centre, and help us on our campaign!) One guard even rose to shake Chase’s hand twice and offer him a cigarette—a meaningful gesture even though he doesn’t smoke—while the guards laughed and passed around Charla’s thick passport.
The drive between the border and Bishkek was a short one, and though unsure where we were in the city, the place we found for the evening was a good one. While looking for wifi in the area between the bazaar and a park-lined street, we chance upon the Koisha Hotel, where Rashid came to meet us.
As we walked through the city center, he gave us a quick overview of the main sights, including the opera house, UN house, and Bishkek University. Our walk ended at a nice coffee shop that served quality drinks and café food where we were able to catch up with Rashid on his exciting career in international relations and his thoughts on Kyrgyzstan.
We were not able to see much of the landscape as we drove southeast the night before and so we imagined hills or desert. When the sun came up, we found ourselves in the middle of open desert with camels surrounding our camp! It was quite early, but we said goodbye to the one member of From Denmark to Mongolia that was awake and left a note for the Thunderyaks, knowing that we would see them again sometime soon.
We had hoped to make it to Aralsk the night before, but we weren’t disappointed when it only took an hour to reach there in the morning. We entered the town and passed under an archway with an anchor on it, hoping to see some remainder of the former port on the Aral Sea—a sea that has tragically receded from where it once bordered the town. Passing near the town square, we met a French backpacker traveling solo by train throughout the region, who helped us examine our options for seeing ships in the desert. From what he had found, a Jeep tour was the best idea but we didn’t have time to do a tour and still make our goal of Bishkek the next evening. So, we thanked our new friend and spent a little while wondering around town then continued southeast.
About an hour outside Aralsk, we spotted a view tower that we could climb. From there, we could see a small body of water that used to be part of the massive sea. Leaving the view tower, we had nice roads, and then the roads started to be not-so-nice. After being pulled over yet again for a curiosity stop, we picked up a nail in our tire. Luckily, Chase is quite skilled when it comes to fixing flats, so we got the Panda back in shape and continued our journey.
We had a few more miles of deceptively nice roads before the road monster roared its ugly head. Driving to Kyzylorda was hell. Sandstorms blew up as we bounced along the small roads that resembled Swiss cheese with so many potholes. Seemingly mocking our attempts were construction crews working on brand new roads a few meters away. We eventually got out of the area with minimal damage to the Panda and were happy to be pulled over by the police yet again as we entered Kyzylorda.
All smiles with the flat tire, but by the end of the day, we were exhausted!
Just outside the city, we realized we had again missed a time zone change as the sun set shockingly early according to our clocks. As the highway between Kyzylorda and Turkestan was filled with lane changes and animals on the road, we pulled off near Zhanakorgan to rest and recover from a long, crazy day of driving.