Week 81: to Surprise Motel: smelling the barn

October 12, 2016

“I think that’s a tree farm,” Patrick says as we leave Lun. There is a huge fenced off area. The “Trees are our future” sign now makes sense since the landscape has been treeless for a long while.

We all sleep well. The cook lady does not snore, but she does get up early to re-kindle the stove. By the time we get out of our sleeping bag the Ger has warmed up again. As we leave our restaurant / guesthouse it feels a little warmer than it has the last couple of days. We do not need to wear all of our layers, just most of them. We start with a downhill, then long gradual ups and downs while we see a large river in a valley to our east. Just before Lun we finally descend to that river and cross it to get to the town.

The original goal today was to break up the kilometers to get to Ulaanbaatar in two days. About 80 km today, then tomorrow within 50 to 30 km of the city and cycle into town early the next day. At about one o’clock we stop for lunch in Lun at a very nice looking hotel and restaurant. We have gone 60 km and discuss what to do. Patrick says that we could go further today and get into Ulaanbaatar tomorrow. The other option would be for us to stay here in Lun at the hotel then do two more shorter days to Ulaanbaatar. Pierre isn’t done cycling, wanted to go at least another 20-25, we can do either, but it seems a shame to stop this early on such a nice cycling day. Who knows what the weather will be tomorrow.

Off we go, the wind is in our favor and the weather good. When we reach the 113 km distance marker, we all feel how close the goal of reaching Ulaanbaatar tomorrow that we continue on. At around the 80 km mark, we see the sign for Hustai National Park and tourist Gers a couple kilometers away in the desert. We are looking to stop for the day, but not wanting to risk cycling to the Gers only to find them closed for the season.

We are all ready to stop for the day. There are buildings in the distance down the road a couple more kilometers. And surprise! It’s a motel! As Pierre says it looks like a place straight from a Steven King novel, but it is very cheap, only 10,000 T per person, the rooms are clean and the family that runs it is very friendly. Several people, including a little boy come out to help us carry our gear up to the second floor. The little boy grabs one of our rear panniers, which seems to be almost as tall as he is, and struggles to lug it up the stairs. On the way up he takes great care to warn Rachel of a drop-off on one side of the steps.

Our room has an infrared heater which takes the chill off quickly, the guy tries to bleed air out of the radiators and tries to get the hydronic heating system going, but that doesn’t work out. Either way, we were not expecting to be inside tonight, instead we had started to plan one more night camping out. Now we enjoy the rays of our heater, a cold beer and potato chips and peanuts. One more day back to civilization.

The landscape has changed to rolling hills and long straight roads.

There is a dead horse in the ditch next to the road. At least a hundred vultures are either circling overhead or relaxing in the sunshine with a full tummy.

House with Russian 4x4 van. Those square boxes would make a nice campervan, and they seem to be able to go anywhere.

Lunch break. A post to lean our bikes and a ditch to sit. Only a picnic table could improve on this picture.

Enjoying a cold beer at the end of the day. Looking a little rough.

Pierre enjoying a beer and some infrared radiation.

Today's ride: 108 km (67 miles)
Total: 23,835 km (14,802 miles)

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