Gobi Desert
Thumbs Down, Thumbs Up
The ride out of Sainshand began perfectly. Within an hour the only reminder of civilisation was the train track to our left and the arrow-straight road that dropped us into a shallow depression; from here, rolling forward through a treadmill-disconnect of pared-back uniformity, the near crests of desert met the sky like the sharp edge of a shrunken world.
30 kilometres later the rest of the world—gravel, packed rock and all--had returned, Dheiu's knee went, and we started to question the remaining 200-odd kilometres to the next town, Choir.
We came to Asia's biggest desert for the challenge of an expedition-style tour, Zamyn Uud to Sanshaind. We'd achieved that. With sore knees and the sense that’d we’d already done this, once the road deteriorated and the effort rocketed, it pretty quickly started to look like a rerun and feel like self-flagellation.
We didn’t have the motivation of an unbroken line that a lot of touring cyclists have, but we did have other options. We had thumbs.
Within an hour we were sardined in the front of a massive truck. My first time hitchhiking and it was in the Gobi with a fully-laden tour bike, watching the sandy tracks disappear under the bouncing cabin.
Other firsts: a simmering near-fight with an obstinately drunk Mongolian guy who delayed us up when we arrived 60 kilometres later at Airag with only 30 minutes of light to set up our tent or find a hotel; and later, after he'd nearly run us down and night's arrival sent almost everyone inside to warmth, losing track of each other in a town with no roads or streetlight as I followed a kindly Mongol's 4WD between booked-out hotels, Dheiu trudging somewhere behind with a flat tyre.
A full and filling day.
The ride out of Sainshand began perfectly. Within an hour the only reminder of civilisation was the train track to our left and the arrow-straight road that dropped us into a shallow depression; from here, rolling forward through a treadmill-disconnect of pared-back uniformity, the near crests of desert met the sky like the sharp edge of a shrunken world.
30 kilometres later the rest of the world—gravel, packed rock and all--had returned, Dheiu's knee went, and we started to question the remaining 200-odd kilometres to the next town, Choir.
We came to Asia's biggest desert for the challenge of an expedition-style tour, Zamyn Uud to Sanshaind. We'd achieved that. With sore knees and the sense that’d we’d already done this, once the road deteriorated and the effort rocketed, it pretty quickly started to look like a rerun and feel like self-flagellation.
We didn’t have the motivation of an unbroken line that a lot of touring cyclists have, but we did have other options. We had thumbs.
Within an hour we were sardined in the front of a massive truck. My first time hitchhiking and it was in the Gobi with a fully-laden tour bike, watching the sandy tracks disappear under the bouncing cabin.
Other firsts: a simmering near-fight with an obstinately drunk Mongolian guy who delayed us up when we arrived 60 kilometres later at Airag with only 30 minutes of light to set up our tent or find a hotel; and later, after he'd nearly run us down and night's arrival sent almost everyone inside to warmth, losing track of each other in a town with no roads or streetlight as I followed a kindly Mongol's 4WD between booked-out hotels, Dheiu trudging somewhere behind with a flat tyre.
A full and filling day.
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