By Tom Russell
We squeezed into this convenience store, jostling past customers as they bought their individual cigarettes, to the back door. Out in the yard were two motorbikes sitting there. They were for us. We had a few days to kill in Ulaanbaatarbefore heading north, and the lure of a motorbike trip was just too appealing. Nonchalantly we asked Beno, the garage owner, if we could expect any trouble with the police as we didn’t have official motorbike licences. ‘This is Mongolia’, he replied with a smile.
Bags strapped on the back and saddle bags brimming with food, we bade farewell to the Beno. Hal rode out the gate first. I wasn’t in any rush to take the lead. I’d ridden smaller bikes before, but this was a different beast, and it had been a while since I’d been on a bike. My feet scuttling along the ground, pushing the bike to cover up my consistent stalling. Hal glancing behind every now and then checking that I hadn’t died this early. Slowly I was getting used to being back on a bike. At traffic lights I was no longer popping wheelies out the gate. Through dusty roads and past the flurry of gers we were on the main road out of the city. This was the one main road in the country, a linear path connecting the north and the south. Driving amidst the chaos of traffic was not an experience I’d like to repeat.
The pollution and the noise didn’t last long. Soon there was nothing. Ulaanbaatar was quickly left behind. The Steppe. All my life I’d read and seen pictures of the Mongolian steppe but none of which quite encapsulated it. Rolling green fields, broken by sharp mountains. My eyes filled with every shade of green. Even now, gunning it on the bike, you still didn’t really feel like you were moving. The vastness of the landscape swallowed you. We were just distant specks moving in this barren world. Emptiness. Emptiness. Emptiness. Everywhere, there was nothing. We would pull over every now and then for a smoke and to rest our arses, and the silence would hit. My ears, no longer filled with the roar of the engine, were empty. Nothing. Not a sound.
Riding a bike in this vastness, your mind can’t help but wonder. My mind was free, no longer blocked in by the constraints of buildings or the buttresses of people. Wonder. Space to breath. Space to think. Free from all the external buzz that beats you into shape. We crossed entire worlds. We would ride to the horizon and then cross the lip and a whole new world would reveal itself. Down into a new valley and a new world.
Up in front I saw some police lights and Hal getting pulled over. Reducing my speed, I drove past and pulled over a safe distance in front and peered nervously behind. Hal and the police officer were chatting. The first test. A big grin broke out across my face as Hal hopped back on his bike and slowly approached where I was waiting. I couldn’t see under his helmet, but no doubt there was a grin there as well.
We still had a few hours of sunlight left before we would be forced to make camp, so we hurtled on. The steppe was eternal. Once we were in it, I didn’t believe in an outside world. Herds of horses galloping across the landscape. Occasionally, the bizarreness of everything would overwhelm me. Passing by a herd of camels I couldn’t help but giggle. The weirdness of life is a great and beautiful thing.
Another police stop. As expected, we were beckoned over. Filled with confidence from our last interaction we pulled over and got out our documents. There were three of them. One in a smarter uniform was clearly the big boss, the other two in uniforms of a lighter blue. One of them was twirling his baton while occasionally rubbing his stomach that poked through his shirt. The other had a much quieter presence. The big boss would speak to the quieter officer who acted as our translator. He explained they weren’t happy with our standard driving license. Still, we weren’t too nervous. This being Mongolia we expected to hand over some money and be on our way. We figured this was just fear tactics. Amidst a serious language barrier, we exchanged the occasional few words, awkward laughs, and some cigarettes. The big bellied officer jokingly hit us now and then with the baton.
The big boss drove away, while the rest of us remained. A few hours later and we’re still in the same spot watching the sun set from the side of the road. Our mood started to slowly dwindle with our frustration mounting. Now everything was less jokey. The officer with the baton was getting slightly too power giddy and was becoming a serious annoyance with his baton. Every hit was bringing us slightly closer to our breaking point. Cigarette after cigarette to pass the time and calm our nerves. The wait continued. We figured we weren’t going anywhere anytime soon, so we might as well sit and enjoy the sunset.
The sky was now dark. After four hours of waiting the big boss returned and the conversation picked back up. After some mumbling we grasped that we were going to have to pay a fine. Yes, finally. Brilliant. We both had our cash in our hands and were basically thrusting it towards them. Take it and let us continue. They didn’t make any move to take our money. Instead, they mounted our bikes. Woah. Woah. Hold up. Hal sprinted and jumped in front of the bikes. He had no intention of letting them drive off. Standing in front of them, he called up Beno and hastily explained what was going on. He handed the phone to the big boss. After talking, Beno told Hal that only a Mongolian citizen is allowed to pay the fine, so they were going to take the bikes for now and we had to go with them. Left with little choice we got on the back of the bikes, with the police driving. At least we were leaving this spot on the side of the road. Here we were in the middle of nowhere in Mongolia getting a police escort to lord knows where. I made sure to give his belly a big squeeze.
We were dropped off outside this restaurant. They unstrapped our bags and then sped off on our bikes. There were some rooms above the restaurant, a Mongolian motel it seemed. We sat down on the curb. Both of us taking a second to process what had just happened. The two of us sitting there, we still had no clue where we were, there was the restaurant, the road and then further off in the distance some lights from a small village. We had no clue where our bikes were or where the police station would be. Where in the middle of the steppe does one find a police station?
We talked to Beno and the plan was for him to get a bus to where we were so we could go to the police station and get this all sorted. Well, this wasn’t where we pictured we would be spending the night. A woman walked us upstairs to our room. We thanked her and dropped our bags. Dirty and bug infested with cracked walls, it wasn’t too inviting but it would have to do.
We found a nice bench to sit on and cooked dinner on the side of the road. As our noodles simmered, we joked about, trying to see the funny side of it all. You have got to accept you are not in control. There’s no script to follow and that’s where the excitement comes from. The monotony of normal life manifests itself in the repetition of events to where it becomes tough to distinguish between one day and another. Here that doesn’t exist.
I woke the following morning bleary eyed. The night’s sleep was pretty rough. I kept getting woken up by bugs crawling on my face and parts of the ceiling falling onto me. We had nothing else to do but to kill time until Beno arrived. Back on our bench, backgammon and chess were our cure. The motel owner’s little daughters kept us company, insisting we play with them. My focus on the chess games would be shattered by some brutish pigs occasionally running around behind us. Sitting next to a mountain of trash and an outhouse wasn’t the best placement. Determined not to waste the day, we strolled around the plains for a bit. The sense of barrenness you couldn’t escape. Walking along, you passed by a carcass every now and then. Sitting on a hillside we tried to get the lay of the land. Below us was a little village with gers and a few buildings. We figured that’s where the police station would be, and hence, our bikes. Mourning the loss of our bikes, I watched as a motorbike troop drove past in the distance. We could see the road where we were pulled over. A little streak across the open land. I could make out little figures on motorbikes simply driving past the checkpoint on the grass, taking a wide berth of the police. So that’s how it’s done.
Our rescue turned up at around six. Boy, were we glad to see Beno. We quickly stopped for a quick meal in the village. Sitting there, we discussed the game plan. He seemed confident that we could get the bikes back. He chatted with the restaurant owner about the police in town. She apparently knew them, so she gave them a ring. She got off the phone looking more dismayed than before. It wasn’t looking good, apparently the big boss had contacted the police in Ulaanbaatar about it all. We packed up and made our way to the station. The mood was a lot more sombre.
We found the station in the middle of town. It was empty apart from some cows milling about outside. The waiting never ended. Some herders came over to chat. Apparently, the police had gone to a different village, but they confirmed our bikes were here in the shed. They were chuckling as they told Beno that the three police men, fuelled on vodka, were joyriding our bikes around last night.
A police car finally turned up. Hal and I nervously glanced at each other. It was time for our best behaviour. Beno approached the big bellied officer and they talked in hushed voices. Neither of us had any clue what they were saying so we stood there trying to adopt what I thought of as an innocent expression.
Beno started to walk away, beckoning for us to follow. After we had put some distance between us and the station, he broke down what had happened. The bikes needed to be transported back to Ulaanbaatar on a truck – we weren’t allowed to ride them – and we would need to pay a fine in the city; but we were all free to leave. Relieved that this was all over, we bought some beers and headed back over the hill to our motel. The realisation that our motorbike trip was over dawned on me, but I didn’t dwell too much on it. You just got to it rolling.
Back outside we shared a beer with Beno and chatted. Our new friend talked of his time studying in Moscow while we talked of our far-off lives in Durham. The sun was starting to set so we grabbed our bags and walked off to find somewhere to sleep. With the fine looming we didn’t fancy paying for another night at the motel. I pitched the tent while Hal started to cook our dinner. Lying on the grass with our bellies full, we chatted about things that never come up in daily life but out here feel so normal to talk about. Soon, the orange glow of the setting sun gave way to a blanket of stars. Stars don’t exist elsewhere like they do in Mongolia. There’s a depth to them, layers. You feel like you’re looking further and further into them, beyond them. We picked out the different constellations we could see and created our own.
The only problem with the steppe is just how exposed it is. The wind cuts across the land without obstruction, making for a tough night’s sleep. It was basically like a dust bowl. I awoke with everything covered in a layer of dust, I couldn’t see out my glasses and my hands were black. Shaking off the dust, I crawled outside. Standing there, a tear almost left my eye. A herd of horses were trotting about by our tent. You’re awake and immediately alive in one of the most magical places in the world.
Cooking breakfast on the side of the road, we prepared ourselves for a day of hitching. Straight away a car pulled up near us. Through google translate he offered us a lift back to the capital for a few bucks. We threw our bags in the back. That was the easiest hitch of my life, we didn’t even have to try. ‘There’s got to be some sort of catch’ Hal said. He started driving the wrong way. He seemed to be conducting his morning business around town, dropping off tires at different houses. We stayed along with him though, figuring he wouldn’t take too long. We parked on this hill for close to an hour, while different cars, bikes and even people on horseback pulled up to meet him. We joked about how it felt like he was the entire town’s drug supplier or something. One by one people also started hopping in the car, until it was now more than full with six of us in there.
There’s a saying in Mongolia, ‘we get there when we get there’. We were finally on our way. Driving the same way as yesterday but this time we were on four wheels, myself sitting in the front with Hal knocked out in the back drooling on this herdsman, this time burning our way back to the capital.