Our first successful solo wild camp had been successful. We had listened to the sound of a horse with a cowbell around its neck circle us in the distance all evening, but had never actually seen it. The only life form we had seen was a pair of eyes reflecting light from the bushes across the road. I took a big swig of courage soup, which we had left over after dinner, and walked down the road to find out it was just a small dog. In the morning we woke up to the sound of silence, there was no horse or dogs in the vicinity, and packed up our tent. As we were tidying up the last few items a couple of busses full of workers drove past and disappeared into the trees. I’ve since looked at where we were camping that evening on google maps and noticed the large abandoned buildings and bizarre lines in the ground just beyond the tree lines – If only we had thought to follow those busses, we could have a good story of why we were arrested on a secret Russian base to spice up the boring events of today.
Once we had finished packing up our things and avoided being murdered by the KGB we drove back to the main road. The road was, as promised, perfectly tar-mac as we drove north towards Ulan-Ude. Ulan-Ude is where the finish line is for 2015, that’s right the Mongol Rally finish line next year isn’t even in Mongolia it’s in Russia. The maps I had “downloaded” onto my phone for Russia left a lot to be desired, mainly the level of detail which was limited to two main roads in the region. This meant we ventured into the uncharted territory of Ulan-Ude for brunch without a map. Ulan-Ude is half the city Ulaanbaatar is, particularly the “Ulaan” half. Our slight venture in to the outskirts didn’t show much other than a few shops, none of which wanted my fresh 1000 ruble (£15) notes. We had withdrawn a wad of cash to pay for petrol, clearly still in the mind-set of someone on their way to Mongolia via random old fashioned petrol station, all of which was in 1000 ruble notes. The woman at the shop didn’t look impressed when I tried to pay for a can of coke with such a ‘large’ note, she looked even less impressed when I then offered her Mongolian money. At brunch I found out why the maps weren’t very detailed, it was because they hadn’t actually downloaded. I tried downloading them while we ate our breakfast pizza but we were no closer by the last slice. It looked like we were going to continue west without a paper map or an electric copy which showed more than one road. The drive north west continued to be uneventful as we passed around the southern edge of Lake Baikal. The lake might be one of the largest fresh water lakes in the world, but it doesn’t have anything to see apart from a lot of water so there wasn’t much to see on the 120 miles of shore we drove. The rest of the day’s drive flew by in a tree-y blur.
The sun was beginning to set, as it sometimes does as you drive into the late evening, when we began thinking of finding a place to camp. We took a random turn that looked like it might be promising and headed away from the main road. The road was a single lane of tarmac, the sort of road that may or may not actually lead anywhere. After a mile we were a good distance, almost a mile, out of sight of Russian truckers and kept an eye on the roadside for suitable camping spots. We passed a track that headed into a farmers field and tucked around behind a patch of trees. Having learnt our lesson long ago in the forests of Slovakia I scouted out the muddy track before we got wheel deep in it. After deciding that the mud was firm enough that we wouldn’t drown in it, I waved for Chris to drive up towards me. Chris was half way up the track when a car drove by on the tarmac-ed road. I watched as the car slowed down to turn around and begun to follow us up the small dirt track. I was directing Chris as he reversed back to take a turn onto a grass field when the white saloon caught up with us.
The car stopped beside us and the young driver started talking in Russian, as Russians sometimes do. I don’t speak Russian so opted for the ‘Confused-faces-and-trying-to-tell-him-I don’t-understand-Russian-in-English’ approach, which was only met with his continuing ‘talking-in-Russian’ approach. I wasn’t too sure if he was saying hello, warning us of something, telling us we couldn’t camp here, or trying to rob us. Eventually the tinted windows rolled down and revealed a few fellow passengers, two other guys and a girl. All four of them got out the car to chat, the girl spoke some basic English but I was no closer to figuring out if we were going to be murdered. After a few minutes it seemed they just wanted to find out what we were doing in an empty Russian field. One of the guys said something about going to Ukraine then pretended to shoot down a plane. They asked where we were staying and then couldn’t understand why we were camping in a field which they said was just outside of a large town, which of course was not on my ridiculously vague map. A few moments later they were satisfied that we were insane and drove off through the empty field to a large patch of trees. We watched as their tail-lights faded from view then discussed how weird that all was.
We unpacked the tent in the dark and listened to the loud air-raid sirens and music coming from the town just over the hill. I walked down to the trees where the Russian car had gone and confirmed that they weren’t lying there was a massive town just over the hill, but there wasn’t aa road leading down to the town or any building which meant they were bound to return at some point over the night. After an hour they did just that, their headlights came barreling across the field towards us. We waved goodbye as they drove by and they waved back, they were almost out of our field when the car stopped and reversed back towards us. Clearly one of them had suggested they stop to aid the poor travelers reduced to camping in a random field, because when they did come back they were bearing presents – chocolates and crisps.
We stood in our dark field chatting to our new friends, free snacks swings the balance between friends and potential murderers. They were still confused why we were camping in this field and changed from questioning to warning. They told us how we should be careful because no-one in Russia is trustworthy, and that we were visible from the main road into town. It is true, we were visible in this dark field, but mainly because our visitors still had their high-beams on. They told us they were army officers who were out-on patrol around the town, which is odd since most of them were currently swigging on their cans of beer and I’m sure even the Russian military frowns upon that. The chief officer, in his Kurt Cobain Nirvana t-shirt, then told us his brother had two faces and was pregnant. What he was actually telling us was he was a twin, which became clear after a while. We talked for a while longer about where we had been and where we were now, apparently the army base was over the river from the town. The Nirvana fan repeatedly told us how this town was “the ass”. They started to say good bye, then began telling us something about cows and villagers killing us with kebabs – I’m still not remotely any the wiser as to what they were trying to convey, neither the words nor the charades conveyed anything that made any sense. They began to get back in their car when suddenly they came running back to get some photos with the crazy tourists they found camping right outside ‘the ass’.
Day 46- Mongol Rally 2015 Complete
Start: Re-attempting solo wild camping...again
Finish: In 'The Ass'
