QUESTION:

WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED?

That people, for the most part, in this world are very helpful and can be trusted.
Norbert said that it had improved his view of people.
I can echo that statement.

WOULD YOU DO IT AGAIN?

If I hadn't ever done it, YES. A second time, life is short and I must go on to other things. The challenge has been met.

WERE YOU SANE?

I think so, but one can not judge himself psychologically accurately.

DID YOU DO SOME GOOD

THE GO HELP charity will keep this excellent condition ambulance and use it for a obstetrics gynecology hospital in the city of Ulaanbaator.

WHAT WAS THE LOWEST POINT OF THE TRIP  read more »

One newsletter can never fully explain Mongolia. One of its most unique characteristics are its history of a nomadic people adapting to their environment BY living in portable Gers. These are portable houses, made of pounded wool that becomes felt. A lattice work of wood slats provide light weight walls to support the felt. The Gers are warm in winter, and cool in summer. 

But today, with the price of cashmere clothing, entrepreneurs have hired others to raise huge flocks of sheep and goats. This in turn has caused overgrazing and erosion. There is a real danger that the Gobi desert will take over more and more land. Hungry sheep and goats can actually eat out the roots of the grass, which doesn’t come back, leaving sand and more desert.  read more »

GENGHIS, WE ARE HERE is just another version of “LaFayette, we are here!” The day after the border crossing challenges, usually means a mundane, but very full day driving a long distance. But how can anything so unique and mysterious as Mongolia ever be called mundane? It can not.
 read more »

In my last posting to you, I had stated that we hoped to arrive at the border, get through Russian and Mongolia customs and perhaps drive to Ulaanbaator 400 kilometers further on. Wishful thinking, I am afraid.

But first a recap. Remember Putin and the North Korean leader meeting in a building 70 feet from Samson, our ambulance? I had hoped to leave the hostel at 8:00 A M, before any diplomat would dare start his day. It was 8:20 when we left the hostel and reached our vehicle. Within 60 seconds of our opening the doors of our vehicle, a guard appeared just as we were to record the Chicago Adventurists Club’s flag in Ulan Ude’s Lenin square, and told us what was unmistakeable, even if in Russian. “CLEAR OUT!”
 read more »

Today was similar to the others, in some ways, but not others. When internet is available we usually are up past midnight, Then comes breakfast, today on our own. How about bran flakes and water, not milk? No prepared breakfast at this hostel. But with no hotel rooms in town,the Irkrusk hostel saved the day!  read more »

After seeing the sign, “Motel,” and finding out we were still 200 kilometers away from our intended half-way point to Irkutsk, we bedded down in a trucker’s stop, upscale and upcost from our previous truck stop. We were back on the road by 8:30 A M. I told Norbert I have eaten more fried eggs on this trip than in the last 30 years!

The trip still had numerous detours onto washboard gravel. In the first four hours we averaged only 34 miles per hour. In the last 5 hours, we upped our speed. Some parts still rough and bouncy, but not as bad as the detours.
 read more »

Today we were befriended by Sergei and his son Mikael, who came to our “Mini” Hotel in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, to go over our route. Sergei is president of the local Rotrary Club and known to the concierge of our hotel in Novosibirsk. He said, “Why don’t you stay in our town today, and leave early tomorrow for Ikursk. But that town was over 1,000 kilometers away, and we knew the drive could never be made in one day. Mikael served as translator. He had studied English for six years, and last year had been an exchange student in Texas. An American from Oregon had taken his place in Russia.
 read more »

The road from Semey was rough, but that was new only in the degree of roughness. It seemed a line across the roadway came every 80 feet or so, with a deep hole or holes, that would shake the vehicle’s undercarriage were one to not weave to the side, right or left, enough to miss it. But these dangers and maneuvers kept our speed down to 35 miles per hour.

We can travel 400 plus miles at that speed, but think how many hours it would take if the entire route were that slow! Having started at 9:15 A M, it would be very late when, and if we arrived in Novosibirsk, Russia the same day.

However, fortune smiled on us in two ways. The exit from Kazakhstan and the entry into Russia, was one of the fastest and easiest we have experienced the entire trip -- 1 hour!  read more »

We had two goals for today: 1) Avoid adding to the bad news about Ayouz by not getting killed, and 2) reaching Semey, our gateway to Russia.

To do this I spontaneously woke at 5:00 A M, and by 5:45 we were on our way! We passed some horses coming to their pond for a drink as the early rays of sunlight played on their beautiful coats. But twenty miles further on we passed the “abandoned” petrol station, which now was dispensing fuel! The ghost like buildings had not changed, and the empty spaces with visibility for miles was the same as the prior afternoon.  read more »

I awoke at 4:30 A M, slipped on enough clothes to be presentable if someone else decided to use the “facilities.” No one else but me was apparently  ready to get up that early. I showered and washed my quick drying clothes in the shower with me. In this climate, these always dry quickly after being stamped upon inside a rolled towel, and hung in the ambulance the next morning.

At 7:30 A M, the hotel landlady was supplied us with two eggs fried “sunny side up” with bread, tea (for me, coffee for Norbert). We were thanking her for the breakfast when she grabbed a newspaper, and penciled on it 1,260 Tenge, or about $8.00. When we reach this level of unsophistication of hotels, apparently breakfast is extra.  read more »