Destination Mongolia — We’ve arrived!

Firstly just let me correct something in Andy P’s last blog regarding sponsors. Alec Nimmo of CRM Motors Auchenheath was the person who carried out a routine service on Bluebell for us prior to setting out so thank you for that Alec. Town and Country garage in Truro did a final ‘health’ check and donated some spare parts so thanks for that too.

The last few days have flashed by as we have been up shortly after 5 am and on the road by 6 just to get the miles done, over 1600 in the last three days. It is difficult to remember where we have been and what we’ve seen and in what order. Our photos and these blogs will help us to make sense of it all when we come to reflect on the experience during our train journey home and for a long time after that. We are pretty tired and in need of a ‘long lie’ but that can come later as I don’t want to waste our short time in Mongolia by lying in bed with Andy P.

I think I’d better explain that last sentence. It has become increasingly difficult to get a twin room for some reason and so we have been sleeping in the same bed of late. Clearly Andy P is getting more and more comfortable with this as two nights ago I had to gently remove a large hairy arm from across my chest some time in the wee small hours. Anyway, it’s good to know that you care Andy! And after writing that I’m just a tiny bit suspicious about the shortage of twin bed rooms as it’s been Andy P that has checked us in for the last few nights. Hmmm. It’s amazing what can develop when you spend 12 hours a day sitting together in a Nissan micra for nearly five weeks.

It was whilst crossing the border yesterday and waiting at the end of a fairly long queue that the Russian border guards took it upon themselves to ‘upgrade’ us and waved us past a line of about ten cars to the front of the queue. The people in the Mongolian cars who were returning home to Mongolia were clearly and understandably not happy about this. And I have to admit to feeling more embarrassed than I’ve ever been about this apparent preferential treatment and not having the language to explain to anyone that we hadn’t asked for this and were only doing as we were told by the people in authority. With the boot on the ‘other foot’ I could almost hear them saying to each other ‘Bloody foreigners pushing in like they own the place’. It makes you think doesn’t it?

So we are just about to get up and have breakfast and then head off. The sun is shining brightly and I can hardly wait to start exploring so this is a very short ‘holding’ blog to whet your appetites and the two of us will post something when we get back to wifi in Ulaan Baatar in a few days time. No point spending time writing a blog when we could be out there experiencing the things that we can put in our next one! So I will wake Andy P with a soft kiss on the cheek and then it’s on into the interior to find some yurts.

Cheers for now, Andy Coe