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Day Zero
407km
I attacked the buffet breakfast as though it may be my last meal on this planet, stuffing the seventh banana pancake into my mouth telling myself "you never know where your next banana pancake is coming from". There were some North Americans (Seppo's) staying at the hotel and eating breakfast on the other side of the rather large resturant, I could still hear their conversation perfectly. After listening to them tell each other how brave they were for staying in Vladivostok I decided to leave just as the young Seppo lady started to sing along to Whitney Houstins' "I will always Love you", it was shocking enough that it was on the radio without this American Idol wanna be rubbing it in.
Met some French bikers on my way out who were staying at the hotel and had just completed a ride similer to where I was going so had a chat to them about Mongolia and road conditions. They very kindly gave me two maps they had used on their trip, one excellent one of Mongolia that would turn out to be invaluable.
I didn't leave the hotel until about 12:30pm. The road was mostly ok, but there were sections of road works that slowed me down a bit. Strangly I never thought twice about riding on the "wrong side of the road", it seemed very natural to ride to the right immediently. Much easier than driving a car on the right side of the road.
About 7:30pm I started looking for a place to camp, I had no idea about doing this really. All I knew is that I wanted to be far enough away from the road to not be hasseled by the locals, but close enough to crawl there for help if I was to be maimed by bear...
I spotted a side road and snuck off up there to find a spot that looked like it had been camped in before. I waited around for half an hour or so to see what or who came along before getting too settled. There wasn't much movement, except for something in the close by bushes that didn't sound too big, so I set up the tent and was asleep by sunset.
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