6/7: After 100 miles we stopped at a small village Buulsagaan around 6 pm. Refuelled filled up the air in the slowly leaking rear tire on BG. There was no hotel but one of the locals offered us his Ger or Gert the Mongol round tent also common in Sinjiang and most Central Asia. We decided to continue on. By 8 pm we had covered 135 miles. Bayanhongor was still a 100 miles away and the dreaded big sand was looming at around 160 miles. We knew we will have to set up camp for the night. We decided to use the remaing 1.5 hrs of daylight to set up the tent and organise the sleeping bags etc. It was extremely windy with winds around 25-30mph. We managed to set up our tent in 10mins (Yes we timed it :p) all secured with pegs hammered into the sand and weighted down with big rocks to prevent them from being pulled. There was some lightening on the horizon to the North, thought it might rain. We got into the tent and spread the mats and opened our sleeping bags. Murphys law :p While babas sleeping bag was fine I had lent my sleeping bag to a friend who managed to switch the sleeping bag from a very warm goose down bag to a flimsy tattered poly filled poor excuse for a sleeping bag. My heart sank. This is serious, since in the later part of the journey we will be in Siberia and around the Arctic circle where night time temperature can be around -4 to -6degC. I hoped I could replace it somehow. Around 1030 the wind died down a little and we ventured out of the tent to see the night sky. It was a most beautiful sight to see the sky filled with brightest stars and because we are so far up North the North star was very close up at a very steep angle. It was a soulful experience. The only incident during the night happened around 0200 when I heard some voices outside. I shouted who is there and there was an apologetic response sorree, sorree. Some late wanderers in the desert attracted by two foreign bikes probably. Other than interruption we slept through till 7 am.
Posted on: Mon, 14 Jul 2014 16:39:47 +0000
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