Mongolia

YYYEEEESSSSS, we are in Mongolia!!!!
The trip is going fast and it was strange to realize that we finally made it here.
Our first impression is that the beauty of Mongolia goes far beyond any idea that we could have imagine from what we saw on picture and we only look forward to discovering more of this country.
Before the border we had a couple of productive days in Irkutsk (Russia): first we found a place to repair our broken passenger window. The Toyota garage was unable to find any pieces for our 12 year old car so a little glass factory made us a new one. This of course was a huge improvement for us. We dismantled the driver’s door to extract the original window and from this they cut and shaped a new window. The process took almost the entire day but we’re just so happy to see properly through the passenger side and to have some noise and temperature insulation finally! Then we went to the Baikaler Hostel in the city centre for a super nice shower and one of the warmest welcome we had in Russia. If you ever go to Irkutsk this is definitely a good option to find a nice accommodation (even if we slept in our Toy like every nights). The next morning we went back to the Toyota garage to repair our back lights that didn’t work since they high powered washed the car last time we went there for an oil and filter change. At the end everything worked again, fuses stopped to burn and few hours later we were back on the road around Lake Baikal in direction of Ulan Ude. By the way Pierre, we found out what made this little noise in the direction: the stabilisation’s bar bushings (if this is the way to call it in English). We have to change it soon but in the mean time a piece of old timing belt will prevent the bar from sliding sideways when we are off-road!
Anyway, just a quick stop at the exit of Irkutsk to meet friend and colleagues at the Institute of Limnology (Ibrahim, we met Dimitri and one of the two Irina; you have their warm regards!).
Ulan Ude is one of the nicest city of Southern Siberia (there you can find the biggest Lennin Head of Russia – over 7.5m of diameter ... if you were interested). From there we reached the Mongolian border through landscapes that changed radically from the big Siberian forest that you can find all around Baikal: no more trees and valleys and the sky becomes wider and wider as you approach the border. It took us five hours and a half to cross this border and there we had a good overview of the chaos and fury that you can find on the road in this country. We thought we saw the worst in Russia but Mongolians manage to beat the record of wreckless driving...here it’s a real war on the road and who gets to the gate first (or where ever you go) passes before you and if you leave 20cm between you and the car on front of you someone else will manage to put his bumper corner in between and take your place in the line.
So, after lots of formalities and several car checks (nothing scary really) we climbed the first mountain that we could reach for a breathtaking camp site on frond of an endless valley surrounded by pointy relief. The next morning we visited one of the nicest Buddhist temple of this part of the country (after few hours of driving on dirt road). The scenery was so nice that we decided to stay there for the night. Early in the morning Mat and Elise woke us up because we were invited for breakfast somewhere; indeed a group of Mongolians from a nearby city came here and killed a goat a couple hour earlier and cooked it in a big jar on top of the fire. Not so easy to chew on a goat’s tongue at 7am and scratch bones to find some meat among burned skin and fat but the people were just so nice and welcoming that we were extremely happy to have met them and to discover some of their culture.
One thing that we all notice is the very friendly, welcoming attitude of the people here. They are all smiling and curious of who we are and what we are doing here.
Later during the day, on our way to Ulaanbaatar, we stopped by a few cars along the road in the middle of nothing...they were all waiting for the passage of one of the horse race, part of the great Naadam celebration during the summer. It was amazing to see all the kids horseback riding in their traditional outfits and all the excitement around this race.
At the end of the afternoon we reached Ulaanbataar and fought our way through the traffic again to find a safe place to park our car, take shower, do some laundry and enjoy a pretty good cheeseburger with beer... incredibly nice after few days of camping in the wild. Within the next few days we should have an extension of our Mongolian visa and get a transit visa to reach Kazakhstan (sometimes during the month of August)...but we still have a long road before this so until our next message: Cheers to you all and talk to you later!

PS: Contest #3 !
We still have a few Matryoschkas to give away so whoever can tell us what are the different sports performed during the Naadam in Mongolia wins Matryoschka number 3!

PS2: For those interested by our HZJ75 performances: we burn in average about 13 litres of diesel per 100kms and we already had 4 flat tires (2 because of we used old air chambers and 2 because of small labels left inside the tires at the tire shop that pinched our new air chambers). Beside this we are more and more impressed by the Toyota’s ability to carry us over mud ponds and steep slippery forest tracks!

PS3: Bravo JM pour ta réponse; t'as la grosse Matryoshka!