The Original One Armed Bandit

As we drove onwards the scenery went from daunting to spectacular - none of the photos we took can do it justice. It felt like another planet. An uninhabited one at that. We drove out of Tsanganuur following more dirt tracks that split, weaved, zig-zagged, rejoined and then some. It would have been impossible to know which one to take had they not all gone in roughly the same direction and, one was able to safely predict, to the same place (the next populated area of Mongolia...). We were still in the mountainous Altai region, resulting in Rene having to take on some rather ridiculous inclines at ridiculous low speeds and remaining firmly in first gear. She managed remarkably well.. If it had been raining things might have been different. The view from the top was just incredible.   We drove on, passing only maybe 5-10 other cars all day and encountering far more camels, eagles and stray dogs than humans. When the light began to fade we looked for a suitable place to camp by the road. We found a nice place by a huge lake and decided to pull off the road. A nearby nomad and his son were herding horses towards us and we waved them over to ask if it was their land and if it was ok to camp where we were. The nomad came over and when we got a closer look at him it became apparent that he was an old guy with a bit of a crazy look to him and only one arm. He was obviously very curious about our equally crazy looking ambulance. We all shook his hand (a more awkward affair than it would have been with a two armed nomad..). He didn't speak a word of english but we got out the mongolian phrase book and managed a few mumbled sentences.. He said, more with gestures than words that the land was his and immediately got his head in through the door of the ambulance to have a look around. A pack of chocolate mini rolls obviously caught his eye and he demanded to have one. When we offered him the pack he snatched the whole lot and started ripping them open with his teeth. Guess he was obviously a fan of chocolate mini rolls.. When he was done with them he got his head back into the ambulance and started looking for more. To our dismay he caught sight of the team supply of chocolate cookies.. We knew he'd have the lot anyway so we tried to tell him that he could have the cookies if we could camp on his land.. I'm not sure whether or not it got through but the outcome was us handing over the whole pack of cookies and after he failed to open the individual wrappers with his teeth, opening them for him and hand feeding him our whole supply..  Eventually we closed the door to the ambulance to prevent any more loss of supplies, at which he didn't look too pleased. When he handed John his horses to hold, John thought he was implying that he wanted us to come with him and refuses. After an awkward 5 minutes of mis-translation, the nomads son came over and took the horses. The nomad then promptly turned around and took a piss.. He'd just wanted john to hold the horses for him while he undid his trousers. With his one hand. The whole scenario must have offended him somehow because he got back on his horse and exclaimed something in Mongolian that didn't sound too polite and attempted to make a dramatic exit by spurring his horse into a run.. and failed miserably when it became apparent that his horse was suffering from severe flatulence. We set up camp as the nomad and his son farted off into the distance. Our first experience of an authentic mongolian nomad... but you won't find that in many guide books. SMWS XX  

Drive Shafted ! (Part 2)

So all you avid readers of the blog will no doubt be on the edge of your seats after the cliffhanger climax of the last one.. Sorry about that ! The story continues as follows:

We had found ourselves in a bit of a predicament.. No drive shaft (one of those sort of important bits) so all we could do was throw the mangled old thing in the back of the ambulance and rely on the russian truckers to tow us the rest of the way back to Rubotovsk. The rest of the 40km journey was less eventful and eventually we found ourselves outside a rather 'outbackish' looking 'mechanics'. A few old rusted ruins of cars sat our front which was a bit unnerving. The russian truckers had a talk with the old timer that appeared from a shack outside and after some discussions came back and explained that we weren't able to get the ambulance fixed here but that they couldn't tow us any further because they were driving to a tight deadline and couldn't afford to waste any more time dragging us around.. (thats what ive extrapolated from the conversation anyway, the real one, as usual, was a great deal simpler and involved significantly more hand gestures than actual words). The old timer that lived in the car graveyard / mechanics said he'd call someone who could help us.

We got out the camp chairs and reclined in the shade by the roadside, discussing alternative plans and eating as much of the food we had as we could (we thought we'd shortly be walking to the nearest train station..). The mood wasn't too low but most people had already written off Rene. Eventually after a few hours wait and sending George to pester the old man several times about what was going on a russian guy turned up in his car. His name was Sergey and he turned out to be the most hospitable man in all of Russia. We're still not sure if it was Sergey that was called to help us but he said he could and promptly drove off. Another hour or so of waiting and wondering, eating and discussing...

Finally Sergey returned triumphant with a friend in a medium sized truck. They'd be able to tow us to another mechanics. Eating all the food hadnt help to lessen the load as the truck struggled to tow us up a small hill and into the centre of town but we made it, eventually turning off down a dirt track. We ended up in what looked like a small shanty town. The 'mechanics' really didn't look like much from the outside and it didn't help our expectations of getting any kind of fix. We drove the ambulance into the workshop scraping the sides of the small doors as we did. After looking under the ambulance for only 5 minutes the friendly head mechanic 'Ed' turned and exclaimed that he thought it would be possible to fix. I for one couldn't believe it at first but he explained that it would be possible to chop the original drive shaft in half and weld on a half of a new Toyota Land Cruiser drive shaft with a new matching coupling at the wheel. The bodge of all bodges... And Ed was confident he could pull it off. Our mood was lifted immediately!

It was a Saturday and we were told that the required parts wouldn't be available til Monday so we'd have to stay in Rubotovsk for the weekend. We agreed and Sergey and Ed offered to drive us to a hotel in town. We were loath to leave the ambulance behind but didnt have

Meeting THE MAN in Kazakhstan !

Drove out from Moscow into Fire country.. Came across a lot of scorched earth but no actual fires. Stayed in a plush motel the first night out of Moscow. Still smoggy as anything and heat wave central.