Sebrand and I have officially and at long last completed our four thousand mile journey. From the arid sands of the Gobi to the salty beaches of Pattaya. It’s hard to overstate my satisfaction.
The points on our map make a beautiful line through a large portion of Asia, all of which we’re so lucky to have seen. We’re both a little sunburned, I’ve got weird rashes on my arms and legs, and we could probably be a little cleaner than we are.
But, we’re far out of China and we’ve arrived on time. So I’m glad we got burned and roughed up. We learned so much, we’re still alive, and we got the experience of a lifetime.
When I began writing this post late last night, I had already titled it. I had no clue the last night would make it seriously appropriate. We were nearly hit by trucks and chased by packs of dogs all night.
But after twenty three hours of no sleep, we’ve completed our final day and lay at the sunny beaches of Pattaya.
This is what it feels like to have the bredth of a continent rolled into our tires.
Our trip faces a dire threat: Mongolian hospitality. This is our second night under the conical wooden ribs of the same Ger, owned by a water-selling, shepherding family in Inner Mongolia. I’m lying on the floor on a wool rug. Sebrand is on a table. Last night he was on the floor, unconscious from baiju they had been forcing us to drink. He had been carried there. I think they’re intentionally sabotaging our trip.
We arrived here on Monday. We never really intended to be here. We were having the best day of cycling yet. We had made 70km in three hours, the wind was at our backs, the scenery was beautiful and green again, and puddles of water sat on the sides of the road.
water! holycrap its so pretty in the wild
Image of windmills
We rode through green swards, and a forest of windmills that broke suddenly into an enormous emerald basin dotted with mud cottages and white sheep.
Whenever we stopped, we were treated as celebrities.
One couple pulled over and gave us 6 cans of beer just for being there. The point is, our ride was going great.
Then, shortly after we passed the paper lamp marking our current prison, two girls on a motorcycle caught up to us. They matched our speed, and the girl on the back, who was certainly European and spoke perfect English, motioned me to take off my head phones. That was where the trap was sprung. We were invited to dinner at the ger, and we had no reason to refuse. Clever bastards sent their English speaker to lure us in.
She was French Canadian, Marie-Christian. She’s on a four year journey walking alone from Beijing to Morocco. Essentially making our trip look quaint. She just graduated college like Sebrand, has never done anything like this before, and has a budget of two dollars a day. She’s been staying with this family for six days. They got her too. I can only imagine she’s as much unwilling to leave such kind hosts as she is afraid to walk through the Gobi.
But anyway, we met Arugot, a stout Mongol with a big laugh and love of flying kites. He’s the son and I assume to-be operator of this traveler’s snare. He and his smaller buddy with a ponytail, Satahn, herd up the sheep at night, and sell water from the well to passing truckers at all hours. His older sister, Alema helps their mother prepare food and care for the livestock. They run a small restaurant out of their house. The father has his own operation elsewhere, but when he’s here I’ve seen him preparing the iconic folded and steamed bread of Mongolia. father folding bread
Really, actually, they all pretty much do any job as needed. There doesn’t seem to be a consistent person responsible for any given task.
On the fateful first night they stuffed us with bread, sour grasses picked from the fields, potatoes, broccoli and lamb. Then put us on a steady drip of beer, which led to songs and laughter, then baiju (Chinese rice wine), then a morning of nausea.
When they pour beer into bowls and start taking turns downing it, have no part. Run away. The baiju is soon to follow, and they will give you your own bottle of it to finish.
this was just the beging
If Marie-Christian and the older sister hadn’t poured some of mine out and replaced it with water half-way through, I’d have ended up like Sebrand, having to wash himself in a bucket.
Baiju is sinister stuff. It does not taste good. Once they had Sebrand, my back-up, out of commission, Arugot implored me not to go in the morning. Without support, not to mention a clear head, I couldn’t refuse. I agreed we’d go out into the steppe with the family after breakfast.
After breakfast six of us piled into this little broken down Chinese car. Then this happened:
(video)
He just drove off the road and started herding the sheep. Completely without warning. In this thing:
This little off-roader took us through the fields to a hill for some photos and a big mushroom for dinner.
It took us to some really tall grass.
And we got to watch a true nomad at work.
We spent the afternoon and evening lazily watching Arugot fly a kite and listening to the sounds of the pasture.
Eating goat butter on bread. Arugot again implored we stay with the promise that the next morning we could ride horses. They served us pickled herbs and soup for dinner, for which we were momentarily joined by a very confused sheep, who butted in the door suddenly then took on an “oh shit, wrong bathroom” expression and quickly made its escape.
It didn’t take long for these friends to call us family. I don’t know when we’ll be able to break away. They’ve made it difficult.
Edit: we didn’t ride any horses. They did bring out their saddle though and insisted that we sit on it sans horse.
Image of Marnix on horse saddle
We decided we’d stay till lunch any way. Sebrand got to try his hand and sheering sheep while I got to feed this adorable lamb that has no mommy.
It seems strange writing about Ulaanbaatar now. We’ve been on the road for days, and they’ve all meshed together. But let’s make this blog as complete a record of stops as possible. UB was our first. We arrived in a couple of Japanese Prius’s, which are the most abundant car in Mongolia. When I say Japanese, I mean complete with right-side steering wheel (even though Mongolians drive on the right), kanji menus, and sweet female Japanese voice speaking instructions to you that ostensibly no one in the car understands. Oh and these are pretty much the Mongolian taxi service by extension of the fact that every single driver on the road is a possible taxi service (Uber not necessary), and almost everyone drives a Prius. Or a Land Cruiser.
But enough about the horses we rode in on. Our guesthouse was in the courtyard of some apartment complex above some hidden-away offices. It didn’t look great. The entrance looked like the back-door to a dive bar. But go up the stairs and through the heavy door and it’s actually a pretty standard hostel. I’d solidly recommend UB Guesthouse to anyone visiting the city. Even though it’s said to be closed permanently on Google. It’s not closed. I don’t know what that’s about.
The mess across our beds was common place.
For the first two nights our bikes were stored on one of the many tiny terraces and on the third day we put our bikes together by the front door next to a small children’s park. The third night we locked our bikes up in the secure-enough stairway.
The garbage men took an interest in our bikes and, in the Mongolian fashion, physically examined the thing that drew their curiosity. Which was fine.
I’m sitting in the Houston airport at 10pm waiting on our connecting flight to Beijing surounded by a bunch lovely, sleepy—presumabley—chinese people. It still hasn’t really hit me that I’m about to bike across countries whos cultures and languages I am pretty much completely unfamiliar with, in weather conditions that will push my body in ways it has never been pushed before.
Last night Marnix and I watched The Way Back with our dad. Its about a group of gulag escapees that are forced to travel from siberia to india to escape communism. Througout a large portion of the movie these unprepared refugees hobble across 500 miles of the gobi desert on foot. Most of them make it. This feet in mind, combined with the fact that we will be on bikes and have allocated a ton of space to water and sunscreen, I can’t imagine it will be all that bad of a struggle across the 500 miles of the gobi’s edge we’ll be traveling along.
Hmm… I don’t think I have updated the public with our current tentative rout. Well, I’d love for some help with that… I’ve spent sometime looking at maps and after a few more minutes on the floor of the airports I’ve decided it looks something like this:
and ends up being about 4000 miles.
We wanted to keep our options open. But we also want people that know these areas better than we do to help us come up with the best options!
That reminds me, I have people to thank (and appoligize) too.
First of all, I have to thank my brother for doing this with me. As he mentioned in his post a couple of ago, we have wanted to travel on motorcycles together ever sense we watched Kino’s Journey. We’ve both gotten pretty into cycling sense then and I’ve built most of my school projects around products that encourage biking. Infact, I started off planning this trip with one of my house mates of three years and very good friend Uriel Eisen. We have worked on multiple bike related projects together and gone on a few multiday trips. He is a complulsive builder, a mechanical genious, and has inpired me to do more than I ever would have had I not known him. He’s the reason I ended up making half the bags for this trip. Without his, workshop, and experties I don’t know what I would have done. He couldn’t make it on the trip because he is busy having money thrown at his start up water filtration company, Rorus inc.
In addition to Uriel, I have to thank Rachel Chiaverella and Danny Kaufman for not completely tearing me a new one for spending more time in class reading bike touring blogs than I did on our capstone design project—which was also about bikes. Sorry guys!
I need to thank Maggie Burke, Uriel’s lovely partner, for excitely helping me make my first bike bag ever right before our trip through the tnga.
Julie Charles—who I met at a random art festival through another magical friend—was a god send in teaching me as much as she could in two weeks about Chinese language and culture. Our lessons culminted last wednesday night in a Chinese themed dinner with two other native manderine speakers Shang Wang and Bilei(sp), a bottle of bijou, and a collection of my other close pittsburgh friends.
Jon Potter gave me the deal of a lifetime in teaching me how to paraglide and was just a good heart to get to know over the past few months. Fingers crossed that I’ll get to do some flying on this trip. I owe you big time, Jon.
Corinne Clinche—who also couldn’t come on this trip because she is the CEO Rorus inc—could have made me feel like a little crap for doing this instead of the amazing social good projects she works on every day. Instead she has pushed me and encouraged me and worried for me. She not only helped me feel right about my choice to go on this trip, but also is the reason I’m bringing a helmet. You make my life better in ways I can only begin to put into words.
I need to thank my mom for being so supportive, worried and excited about this trip that she has probably spent more time looking at gear to bring than I did while procrastinanting my final projects.
My dad, for always having a level head about these things, and not being a worry wort like some of my other parents.
And everyone else for being so excited and supportive every time I bring up my trip. I can’t whipe the stupid smile off my face everytime you introduce me to a new person as the guy who’s biking across china.
This trip is going to be a lot. I’ve been told that it will make me grow in unimaginable ways. If we don’t kill eachother It’s going to build on the bond I have with one of the coolest older brothers a kid could ask for.
It’s time to baord my flight to Beijing. I can’t believe this is actually happening.
Biking Across China 