Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
that had gathered, we swung up into the cab and set off along the bouncy strip
of bitumen towards the first checkpoint on the Mongolian side of the fence. The
Mongolian guards were fascinated with our bikes and we had to spend half an hour
dragging them out for a 'customs inspection.' Luckily, at the Chinese checkpoint,
the guards waved us through with only a quick word to the driver. We were in Ch-
ina. It was amazing. They hadn't even seen the bikes. After a month of worry, we
had smuggled the bikes over the border.
We were let out near the outskirts of town and the first things that struck me
were the bikes. There were thousands of them. Little three-wheeled rickshaws
wobbled up and down the streets while shopkeepers and messengers darted nimbly
through the crowd on a range of two-wheeled racing machines. Outside of Ulaan
Baatar, we'd seen perhaps a few dozen bicycles at most in all of Mongolia, yet here
we'd seen a hundred before turning the corner.
My second impression was that the entire town consisted of thousands upon
thousands of restaurants! Tightly packed shopfronts lined both sides of the narrow
streets, and above each door were the trademark dancing characters I'd seen only
on Chinese restaurants back home. It was hard to avoid the impression that the in-
dustry of the town was entirely devoted to eating! On looking closer, however, it
became clear that these shops sold a huge variety of things.
I left Tim to fix a puncture and went for a walk down one of the streets. I glanced
randomly into windows and doors and saw more things for sale than it would have
been possible to buy in the whole of Russia. Shelves were overflowing with all
sorts of tacky electronics. There were windows full of stationery, cookware and
bedding. I came across one little shop that sold bikes and spare parts and ducked
inside for a look. Packed onto the shelves between the narrow walls were all the
things that we had simply not been able to find in the mega-cities of Siberia. There
were thousands of patches and gallons of glue. There were chains and cogs - I even
saw a gear-changer! I bought a few patches and some spare tubes, then headed back
to Tim. We feasted on a delicious but indescribable snack from a nearby café and
then, with the dreamed-of bitumen highway in clear view, we rode triumphantly
out of town. Heading south. Heading for home.
Crossing the border into China had worked another silent miracle that revealed
itself not far down the road when we made camp. We'd just spent five days being
civilised in the city and I wasn't relishing the prospect of reverting back to the old
horse-poo emu-parade and meals cooked on a pile of smelly dung. On impulse, I
