Saturday 1 June 2013

Ons tweede en derde dag

Ons het 'n baie lang dag gister gehad. Die pad van DaiHai Hotel was vir so 60km sleg met slaggate oral in die teer. Dit steur nie veel vir Pa nie, maar ek het pal met my voete styf teen die voorste om myself te stut. Op die goeie pad het hy vir Matilda tot die maksimum gestoot. Ek het aanhou herinner dat ons nie op ' n spesifieke tyd by die volgende 'passage control' moet wees nie en dat nie hoef te jaag nie! Toe ons daar aankom, toe is ons net 2 minute voor ons 'estimated time' daar. Dit. lyk asof ons tog teen amper maximum spoed sa moet ry!

Entering Hohhot ( there seem to be many different spellings for the places in Inner Mongolia!)

Sorry about the scratch on the window pane! A lot of highrise apartments going up here too.

The driving is something else! Pedestrians, cyclists, scooters, donkey carts etc have right of way and just turn in or walk in front of any car. People wander across a 3- lane highway! Children playing with their bicycles at the side of the roads. There do not seem to be stop streets and in the cities. Cars just come in from the side and even if you are going 60km/h, you have to make way. Most of the robots give a countdown before the change for both red and green lights.

Pacific Hotel in Erenhot. The group was split into two, one lot at the Pacific and the other at the Hotel Ru Yi. Somehow one expects the Pacific to be at least within striking distance of the Pacific Ocean - but of course it isn't!

 

In the queue at the border.

Another Rainbow Nation! At the Chinese border post.

We were supposed to start our rallying at 10:35 this morning but it is now 11:10 and the Mongols have not even taken our passports yet! Don't know what will be happening to the rally times!

A man in a space suite with a mask stood at the entrance to Mongolia and had to spray our wheels (insects, foot&mouth?). There were so many cars that he just sprayed the right-hand wheels!

We all got through customs 1 1/4 hours later than expected so the day's rallying was moved later.

We had to make our way through the desert choosing our own track. They are busy building a new road which we could drive on (half completed) but every few hundred meters there would be a gully where they were putting in a drainage pipe, and we would have to come off the road onto a track. To us it looked like they would never be needing drainage pipes!

Here you can see how the tracks criss-cross and you just choose the one you think best. All very flat and just shoty grass. One can just as easily create your own track.

The first car we helped with electric wire little knowing that we would soon be using some ourselves!

Most of the time there is a howling wind. Quite unpleasant and a mission to get out of the car. If you do get out, you must make sure papers etc aren't blown out of the car

A little while later Christian Lalarderie in his Fangio Chev, needed 'bloudraad' to secure his front bumper which was faling off and then it was our turn! Matilda just cut out. The Everinghams stopped shortly there after and he found that if we by-pass the fuses, she was fine. We were on our way again!

Maybe because it was so warm, Matilda showed a bit of fuel starvation so that slowed us down some what. After refueliing she ran much better.

Halfway through our next time trial, we came across a Merc bedded down in the sand. We got out our jack and and tried to get them out but after 45 minutes of struggling, the 4x4 and support group arrived to tow

Our first camels.

Off we went again but was now so delayed that we arrived at our final control 1h30m late and were of course penalized.

Our first night of camping! Thanks to the Derksens for their tent.

 

A 10yr old Mongolian boy helped us to secure the tent and inflate the mattrass. When we got back from supper, it was nearly flat and our hearts sank. We inflated it again and found that he had just not put the plug in properly!!

 

All seemed calm when we went to bed but then a howling gale broke out again. Lying next to me in this little tent all Robert could say was ' well, at least we will be blown away together'!

The food tents and the Nomadtrucks used for setting up camp. All calm with no wind.

The showers were little cubicles with hot and col water and the toilets were holes in the ground, in a cubicle but they had little box seats and toilet seats which was a great improvement on the toilets on our trip to Macchu Picchu!

 

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