The next day was a boring and frustrating (for me at least) one. In hindsight it was good though as it gave Paul’s knee more time to heal.
We’d been in touch with Dam and his brother by text message telling us to wait till 10am and they’d pick us up.
So we patiently waited on the roadside outside of our hotel room. Interesting traffic
Dam’s driver never arrived and further texts just said he was busy and we should enjoy the city. Dam is obviously an important man and came a long way for this festival so we understood and left him to it. I spent the day loafing around the hotel and sleeping really. It’s amazing how much you can sleep when you’ve got a day off.
Something to mention though is that all of Paul’s treatment was free. The hospital apparently has some sort of budget for tourists. So the x-rays and scans and Dr were all paid for! The medicine was paid for by Dam’s brother who wouldn’t accept a thing and it turned out the bike transport was all covered too. What a great bunch of people!
In the evening we decided to go get some food, however everywhere was closed due to the festival. We tried to gatecrash a private party at the upmarket hotel accidentally but that didn’t work So we found a supermarket, bought lots of snacks and two tubs of Kimchi and boiled some water outside on my camp stove before relaxing.
This curious young lad was always peering over the fence and coming around, but not quite close enough to speak to.
In my tank bag I had 2 big multibags of Haribo. Always good for energy. I offered him a bag and he accepted and ran off but not before I told him to share it with his sister.
An hour later he was back and shyly asked if I had any more. I gave him a second bag (The bags were those with the small bags inside) and off he went again. I heard him getting shouted at by his mother a few mins later. Oops.
He was full of energy for the rest of the day, I wonder why
Paul and I had also discussed our route to Tsangaannuur. We were going to wimp out and take the longer, but easier way and head south first to Khovd and then back north. It was probably twice as long and a day longer too but the idea of the infamous water crossings scared us a little.
We are now in Ulaangom (Top right of the map) and the short but up to 15 water crossings route is the purple route West. Our proposed route would be the longer green route south and then north.
We had no idea of where Paul’s bike was still though and at about 9 or 10pm when we went to bed we were wondering when we’d get it. We’d been told it was at “AutoService Badar” but even asking a Policeman for directions wasn’t any good.
Anyhow, at 12:40am (Yes, past midnight) there was a knock at the door. It was Dam in very fetching posh traditional dress. He’d had a great day at the festival and was in super high spirits. “Come Paul, we fetch bike …. now” and that was it. Paul left.
45 mins later Paul was back, with his bike. AutoService Badar was just a mile away. The bike was sound but we’d give it a proper checking over in the morning. It was now about 1:30am and it was a struggle getting back to sleep but hey, our journey was back on track! Happy days!