Ride Planet Earth

Beijing is now far behind me. It was a pleasant enough stay. I managed to convince Greenpeace China to lend me a volunteer and Yao and I headed up to the Great Wall for a 3 day adventure. We did interviews with the local farmers about impacts of climate change, finding that the land just north of Beijing and surrounding the incredible Wall has been slowly drying up. The rivers, creeks and above land reservoirs are empty. All the water now comes from deep wells that keep getting deeper. People can’t make a living from farming anymore and have been forced into the city as construction workers and truck drivers. And that is one of the lucky parts of China.
View Beijing to Ulaanbaatar in a larger map

I am rather perplexed following my hectic visa experience. Although every single website about Russian visas clearly stated that if I wanted to get into the old soviet warhorse I’d have to find my way back to the Russian Embassy in Canberra and make my application there, the reality was quite different. All it took was a bucket load of money and I got another shiny sticker in my passport saying I was more than welcome to come and join in the Putin party. That week I had already finally picked up my Kazakh visa and my Mongolian one. $550 poorer and 3 visas heavier I had 2 days to get out of the glorious Middle Kingdom of the Han.

The wait for my Chinese extension and the 3 visas had eroded any time I would have had to cycle to Mongolia and with the clock ticking I was forced onto a bus. I tried to force my bike on as well, its kind of a necessity, but the angry looking bus guys wouldn’t have it and said the bike would have to go on a separate truck.

I arrived in Erlian, the Chinese town on the Mongolian border, at 3am on the day my visa was due to expire. It was cold and windy and there was no sign of my bike. At 8am I called the man responsible for ensuring me and my bike would be reunited. I was keen to cross the border and get cycling. I had met a wonderful Japanese girl, Haruna, at the Mongolian Embassy in Beijing and I knew she was still in Mongolia. I wanted to get to Ulaanbaatar quickly in the hope of seeing her again. Grumbling at the early hour the man I called came to pick me up and took me to the truck depot. It was a dusty car park in the middle of the dustiest part of Erlian. But there was no sign of my bike. The fella started arguing with the truck depot supervisor and things got heated. Finally the bloke turned to me and said the truck had never made it to Erlian and had disappeared.

The weeks before this had seen a few new obstacles thrown in my path. My camera stolen, the difficulties getting visas, the cost of it all and now my bike vanished. I made some calls and demanded someone find my bike and bring it over the border. I couldn’t afford the $150 daily fine for over-staying in China.

The border crossing into Mongolia highlighted the vast differences between developed and developing, industrialised and non-industrialised countries. Although China claims developing country status in UN negotiations, such as the Climate Change Convention, the reality is that for urbanised Chinese their lifestyles essentially match those in the West. Even a town like Erlian had large new buildings getting put up, well maintained roads and parks, shops filled to the brim with all kinds of products. It is true that rural Chinese have access to far less resources but if you only visited the towns and cities in China you would think the population had gotten pretty close to the capitalist dream. You couldn’t imagine that in Mongolia. Even though Erlian and Zamyn-Uud, on the Mongolian side, are only 6km apart they exist in different worlds.

Walking around Zamyn-Uud as the sun set I was quite stunned by the differences. Both are in the Gobi desert but somehow Erlian had kept out the sand. Zamyn-Uud was covered in it. Traditional Mongolian yurts were scattered amongst weathered shacks, rusted train carriages coverted into homes and a few short stark apartment blocks. The hotel I wandered into didn’t have any showers in the whole building, no-where even to wash, and one toilet to share between every room. I was still on edge about my bike.

The next day at about 9am I got the call I’d been waiting for. The man, I really should have found out his name, who had told me my bike had been lost had hired a car and driven back towards Beijing. After finding the truck carrying my bike had broken down he had picked up the bike in his hire car and driven it back to the border. It would be taken across the border in a jeep just as soon as the driver could get through immigration.

As I waited in Zamyn-Uud town square the local police decided I looked suspicious and started questioning me. I think maybe I do look suspicious, unshaven, long, unkempt hair, bike leggings. They were surprised when I interrupted their interrogation to heave a dirty maroon bicycle off the back of a beat-up jeep carrying Mongolians into town. After confirming that I would simply be riding into the Gobi and not hanging around the town square looking suspicious they let me go and wished me luck.

Then the Gobi.

I spent three days cycling the 220km from Zamyn-Uud to Sanj-Sand. I was lucky to find a couple of nomadic families in the desert whom I could buy food and water from, as all I had taken with me had gone after a day and a half. The towns I expected never materialised.

The wind finally let up on the third day and I sailed into Sanj-Sand. The experience had been an ordeal, relatively short but my hardest yet. I had felt lost and alone. In the Gobi there are no roads, just a jumble of sandy dirt paths stretching into the distance, laid down completely haphazardly. Trucks had grumbled and bounced past every 3 or 4 hours. Some of the drivers had waved, most simply stared. I followed the paths as best I could, using my shadow to ensure I was heading north. It would have been easy to follow the wrong path to nothing. The desert was littered with hundreds, maybe thousands of alcohol bottles, vodka, spirits, some beer. Seems that the haphazard placing of the tire tracks is probably down to the drivers being completely inebriated as they drive. Considering there is no other traffic and the only thing you could hit would be an unlucky camel or wild horse I can see why the drivers probably think they are playing it safe. Considering what I have now seen about the strong links between Mongolia and Russia maybe the pull of the vodka is too hard to resist as well.

Even though the wind and the Gobi had stretched my resolve and my physical capabilities to breaking point it had been at times extraordinarily beautiful. Nothing. Anywhere. Light, wind, me. Camel and horse herds stared and then trotted away as I cycled past. My good fortune at finding the nomadic yurts had not only given me vital sustenance but also a glimpse at traditional Mongolian desert life. Those people live a hard and isolated existence but seem happy, content and at home. They welcomed my lavish 5000 Tugriks in exchange for a bowl of rice and goat fat, and some goats milk and water. I was amazed and pleased to find they were using small solar panels for electricity. This highlights that not only are people like the nomadic tribes of Mongolia least responsible for climate change and some of the people most vulnerable, but their behaviour, in using solar energy and consuming only what they need, sets an example for us all.

I eventually did meet up with Haruna. Here, in Ulaanbaatar. But one night and she was gone again. Like the breeze. I’m waiting now to do some research into climate change impacts, hopefully I can arrange a horse trek into some of the harder to reach places. Then its onto Russia where I’m told there are aggressive wild dogs, the air swarms with mosquitos and ticks and the angry Russian teenagers will most definitely try to rob and kill me. I am alive with anticipation.