The road traveled

I neglected to mention that there are no seatbelts in Daulet's van. His wife and two children are riding with us to their house. We stopped right away for petrol, for the cost of which I am responsible. That plus 140,000 tugrik are the cost for his driving, plus Norca suggested I bring some candies for the children, and give the host family about 20,000 tugrik. I left my pack at the hotel, and didn't want to leave anything of value there, so I am loaded down with dollars, yuan, tugrik, and some roubles.

Meeting Norca was extreme good fortune for me. She happened to be passing when I tried to ask at the hotel desk about a driver and the person working spoke no English. Norca immediately stepped in, explained the normal costs, and said she would call some drivers she knows. She works as a guide for a tour company, and went to the effort of coming to my room after she made some calls, arranged for Daulet to meet us in the hotel restaurant, and served as interpreter. Daulet's English is quite limited, but I'm pointing no fingers. I know no Mongolian other than thank you.

The day started off a bit ragged for me, because I had some work that I had to deal with and it meant setting my alarm for an hour later all night until about 5:30 am, when I got the email that said my part was completed. The first alarm was a serious jolt to my system, but somehow it got easier as the night wore on. The middle of the night thing was due to the time difference. At any rate, I was a little off kilter to start, but found coffee in time to race back and meet Daulet at the hotel.

We left the blacktop almost immediately, swerving onto a dirt track that appeared to go nowhere. It turns out there are miles and miles of these all over the area. When heavy rains wash out a track, a new one gets created- or the creek just gets forded.

To say it was rough is an understatement. I had to hang on tight, and was still thrown backward, forward, and sideways, sometimes lifted off the seat by the hard landings, and I'm pretty sure I got a little whiplash before I started using my jacket to bring my body more upright. Hours and hours of this took its' toll, but it was worth it. Daulet's van appears to me to be an old Soviet model, and I've read that they just keep going- today especially, that was true. We forded many streams, got through a lot of mudholes that I thought surely would be the end.