Our friend Matt made all the arrangements -- ha, I didn't mean for that to sound so accusatory. Anyways, Matt visited the market on Thursday morning and he secured the three of us seats in the only jeep headed to Hovd later that afternoon. When he set up the ride, he told us he had a good feeling about the trip because he had ridden with this particular driver before and it was a positive experience.
Allow to me to make a brief sidenote about travel in Mongolia: it sucks. Unless you are on a well-traveled bus route, on the train line from Russia to China, or you can afford the ridiculously high airfare to fly, your only hope of moving around Mongolia is by hitching a ride on any of the old Russian jeeps or minivans that are constantly criss-crossing the country. Now with the unforgivable Mongolian climate, the complete lack of maintained roads, and the fact that these vehicles are crammed with as many passengers and as much cargo as humanly possible, it doesn't exactly paint a rosy picture, does it?
Now, back to my story. We met our driver at 3pm, and after a few stops in town, we were on the road to Hovd by 4pm. I remember sharing Matt's positive feelings about the trip. We were making great time and the scenery was gorgeous. There was a total of 6 people in the car: the three of us, a young Kazakh couple, and the driver. By Mongolian standards things were quite roomy -- a friend of mine just took a trip in a jeep with 13 people and 4 dead sheep. While there were four of us in the backseat, we were pretty comfortably packed together -- sort of like 4 heavily padded sardines in a can.
So yeah, after about an hour, the first of our troubles began. When I was finally able to peel my eyes off of the beautiful snowy landscape, I realized that the driver seemed to be worried about the car. He kept trying to put his ear close to the dashboard and his hand under the instrument panel. Eventually he pulled over, popped the hood, and began tinkering with the engine. It was sort of funny at first -- because the engine was off the heater was also off, and we were instantly reminded of the subzero temperatures outside. It was like the dementor scenes in Harry Potter: within minutes frost began creeping over the windshield and we could see our breath spluttering around the car. After tinkering around for a bit, the driver snapped the hood shut, got back in the car, and we started on our way again.
Within twenty minutes we were back on the side of the road after smoke had come spewing into the car from the dashboard. This time it was not so funny. The sun was dropping behind the mountains, darkness was falling like a blanket, and we were immediately aware that we were stalled in the middle of nowhere. The driver was not very reassuring either as he, after looking under the hood, came back into the car shaking his head.
Thankfully, here in Mongolia there is a secret code among all drivers that you stop and help another driver who is in distress. Within 15 minutes, three cars had stopped and there were 8 cigarette-smoking men poking their heads under our jeep's hood. After another 10 minutes or so, which we spent getting colder by the second, we were being towed to safety by another jeep with the help of a very delicate-looking rope. While I was thankful that we weren't going to be spending the night in the car, I found the Mongolian towing process to be a bit nerve-wracking. Our car didn't have it's lights or defroster on, so our driver kept having to use a handkerchief to wipe a bit of the windshield off so he could squint out into the night to ensure we didn't rear-end our rescuers. Also, we suffered minor cases of whiplash every time the lead car pulled the slack out of the tow rope.
Long story short, we were towed to Tolbo soum, where our driver had some family. We were brought to his brother's house where we were treated to hot tea and soup while the car was fixed. By this point it was near 7pm and our driver broke the news that due to the late hour, he would feel more comfortable making the drive through the snow if we waited until morning. Who were we to argue? The family was very kind, their house was nice and warm, and we were just thankful to not be stranded out on the side of the road.
We got back on the road by 9:30am the next morning. In spite of the slippery roads, we were actually making good time. It was just too good to be true. After about two hours on the road, we happened upon a couple of stranded motorists. Remember how I told you that Mongolian drivers are pretty much obligated to help each other? Well, this time it was our driver's turn to help. We pulled to the side of the road and our driver motioned for the three of us in the back to get out of the vehicle. Since he didn't really say anything, we didn't ask any questions. Outside of the vehicle, I took advantage of stop to make a quick potty break. When I turned back to the car, I saw it pulling away and a very confused, yet angry, Ashlee stomping her feet in frustration. What the heck? It turns out our driver took a passenger from the stalled vehicle to go get water for his radiator. Unfortunately our driver didn't tell us anything -- not where he was going, what he was doing, or how long he would be gone. Looking back at it now, we were only out there on the roadside in the freezing cold for 15 minutes or so, but it was a pretty long and frustrating 15 minutes.
We get on our way again and, slowly but surely, 4 more hours passed. We dropped the young Kazakh couple off at a little soum just outside of Hovd, we made a few more stops so our driver could run some errands, and we helped out yet another set of stranded motorists. This time it was a couple of guys on a motorcycle who had run out of gas. No problem, they were all ready to siphon some of the precious fuel right out of our gas tank.
Sooo, after 23 somewhat grueling hours, we made it to Hovd and our first experience with inter-aimag travel was complete. Again, looking back at it now, it wasn't such a big deal and it was definitely worth it. Our Hovd Thanksgiving feast was pretty friggen awesome, but I'll save those details for another post.
PS - Our trip back to Olgii went much smoother. Our driver was a real rally racer and I think he thoroughly enjoyed fishtailing around on the icy roads. In typical Mongolian fashion, we did have one unscheduled stop at a buuz stand in the middle of nowhere for some good ol' milk tea and car maintenance. Oh yeah, at one point we did get stuck in about a foot of snow and we all had to get out and push. Oh well, what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger. Right??
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