Trans-Eurasia 2005 Part 13
Trip Start
May 20, 2005
1
12
14
Trip End
Aug 05, 2005
Beijing,
China
Monday, July 18, 2005
Doris, the German women that wants to ride with me into China showed up
in Bayanhongor about noon time without Till. I ask her where is Till
and she says he ran out of gas 14 kms out of town. It seems she lost
her temper at him and they aren't speaking. But leaving someone without
gas or money seems a little harsh to me. Anyway I steer her in the
direction of the hot showers and borrow her bike to go back after Till.
Till was able to trade a pack of cigarettes for some gas and I find him
out of gas again, but just 5 kms from town. He does not want to
continue to U-B if Doris is coming.
Anyway by the time we get him gassed up and back into town and under a
hot shower he's refreshed enough to keep up with the ride to U-B. So
after lunch we're off to Arvayheer (pronounced "are we here?")
This ride is also a tough one climbing rocky mountains and rough
terrain. Along the way we meet some other bikers headed in the opposite
direction. The are from Finland and Canada. One of them needs a bolt to
re-attach his pannier which I happen to have. We chat for about a half
hour and then head off. Doris stays to chat a bit more and pretty soon
we're out of sight from her. The ride is very rough, climbing mountains
and rocks. We keep pressing on, coming to a swamp in the early hours of
the morning. On the other side are Toyota Landcruisers and Mitsubishi
Pajeros backed up not chancing the crossing. Till goes first and makes
it across so I cross my fingers, wind her up to about 3,000 RPM and let
her go. I also make it across although I hit the bank on the other side
and almost get thrown off the bike. But we're outa there. We keep
riding until we hit Arvaheer about 4:00 AM. Here there is a hospital
open and one of the doctors volunteers to show us the hotel. In a
country where so far not one hotel has even asked me for my name, this
one insists on seeing my passport! Once she's satisfied that I am truly
a foreigner she gives us the key. Another hotel with no bathroom or
showers. The morning comes way too quickly and I'm out working on my
bike by 10:00 AM. One of the nuts holding the bolt that attaches the
front fork is missing along with a myriad of other nuts, bolts, and
parts. But we're finally under way by 1:00 PM and it's true the road is
freshly paved from Arvaheer towards Ulaan-Baatar. The only problem now
is my bike is running very hot and I have to stop and let it cool down
every hour or so. With Till running at about 40 kph it works out that I
pass him (I'm only doing about 60 kph) and when I stop I just wait for
him to pass me by. Along the way there is a broken down bike with a
couple, the wife very pregnant, needing some kind of help. I stop and
they motion they need an air pump. I see their tires are fine, but I
don't have one anyway. I tell them in a few minutes Till will be coming
by and he has my tire pump. I still can't figure out why he needs a
tire pump. When Till arrives he explains it to me. The bike is a 2
stroke, and the oil has settled to the bottom of the tank. They hook up
the tire pump to the fuel petcock to blow air into the fuel/oil mix to
mix it up so the bike will run. This answers a very old question I had
from years ago. I was driving a minibus from Shenyang to Fuxin where I
was making shoes. The reason I was driving is the driver got drunk at
lunch time. This would have been about 1984. The bus started running
poorly so the driver woke up, had me stop, attach his tire pump to the
fuel line and pump the hell out of it. I restarted the bus and drove it
the rest of the way to Fuxin. And I had always wondered what we were
doing pumping air into the fuel system. I'm assuming now this is
exactly what we were doing.
Anyway, the temperature is well above 40 degrees C and my bike is only
running hotter and hotter. There is a series of yurts on the side of
the road, sort of like a truck stop if there were any trucks, and I
pull in to cool the bike down. The bike motor siezes up before I can
shut it off. So I unpack my sidecar and dig out my tools to check the
valve clearance. By now Till arrives and he gets some water. I warn him
not to park too close to the yurts, but it's too late. He parks and
almost immediately about a dozen naked kids are jumping all over his
bike. He tries to start it to ride it over to where I am but now his
bike won't start. Meanwhile my valves are way too tight and I loosen
them up to the proper spec. It's taking Till more than a couple hours
to finally get his bike to start up but finally it does and we're off,
still about 150 kms from Ulaan-Baatar. We vow to ride until we reach
U-B. Then about a hundred kms from U-B Tills bike runs out of gas. He
has no reserve. I stop and refill him from my spare can, but I leave my
bike idling while I fill Till's tank and now my bike will only run on
the right cylinder. It's midnight, I have to climb a steep hill on one
cylinder and I'm still several hours away from U-B. Oh what a night!
There is a gas station about 1 km up the road so I stop to refill and
find out why my bike is only running on 1 cylinder. The gas station is
being overrun with locusts and I'm pulling them off my bike and myself.
My left sparkplug is completely fouled and I haven't a spare, and I
haven't anything to clean it with. I'm using blades of grass.
I do have a cell phone signal and I have a contact in U-B waiting for
me to arrive. I try calling him to tell him I'll be very late into U-B
but his cell phone is shut off. I get my spark plug semi-clean so at
least it now fires so we're off once again. As the bike runs more, the
cylinder seems to be clearing itself up although there is alot of blue
smoke from the left cylinder and black smoke from the right cylinder.
but at least she's running better than she has for the past few days
and we motor on towards U-B. The road turns to broken pavement and it's
once again first and second gear for the rest of the way to U-B. We
arrive at the gates of Ulaan-Baatar at 4:00 AM and there is a police
check point with a gate. But it's "manned" by a kid I estimate to be no
more than 9 years old. He cheerily raises the gate for us. I find a 24
hour convenience store just up ahead so I stiock up on bottled water,
peanuts, potato chips, and cookies. The 4 basic food groups. The first
hotel we come to has no toilets or showers. But the 2nd one is owned by
Chinese, I can finally communicate with someone and they do have 24
hour hot water and clean bathrooms in the rooms. All for less than US$
20.00. I take the room and hit the bed at 5:30 AM.
