We made it to Mongolia! Our border crossing near Tashanta took some time, but again everybody on both sides was very friendly and we had no issues at all. This time no interrogation or smartphone checking at all.

Tanja and Marcel in their green Landcruiser (aka Mojito) and Merel and Leon in Major (their converted ambulance) crossed the border a bit in front of us and, together with the Majors, we managed to get car insurance and a sim card directly after crossing the border from a Mongolian guy. The guy always wanted to strike a good deal, but in the end we agreed on deals that made all sides very happy. And the guy even came to our camp spot to bring us another sim card and car insurance for the Mojitos.

Together with the Majors, we went to a small lake that we decided would be our meeting point after crossing the border. We were all very happy to have made it through Russia and were curious about our adventures in Mongolia.

We spent two nights at that lake and had good fun together. The wind was very kiteable and so we got our kite out again.

Racki started our new water kefir, whom we named Mongo-Fir (aka Mongo).

The day after we had crossed the border, the border was closed because of the foot-and-mouth disease which was spreading from the southeast towards our direction. We researched and asked the locals, and it quickly became clear that our planned route through the city Ölgii would not be so easy and maybe even impossible because of roadblocks that got installed to stop the disease from spreading.

So we decided to take the northern main road of Mongolia. What a road… Before we started, we stocked up our supplies at the shops of the small border village.

So we started our journey on the northern road and… We had heard a lot about Mongolian roads from friends who had visited Mongolia before and I have to say, it’s all pretty much true. The biggest roads are tarmac and sometimes very good for kilometers, and sometimes very broken with potholes up to fifteen centimeters deep.

The northern main road we started on—and there were no alternatives because of the spreading disease—was not tarmac. It was just a gravel and stone off-road track for hundreds of kilometers.

But we liked it. Yaks on the road. Nice scenery.

From iOverlander and the map apps, we knew that we would have to cross a pretty big river that had multiple options for crossing. So Racki and I went faster than the others and scouted the best possible river crossing.

The two crossings that we took first were easy for Rosinante. And of course, we did them in a commendable manner: Racki walked them first. In the photo, you see the first crossing. The second was way longer and we had to drive along with the current in the river. It was interesting.

When we had crossed the river, we saw a police jeep driving by in the distance and waving at us. We drove a bit down the river to check the other option to cross because we thought that maybe it would be even better for the ambulance to cross there. But when we arrived at the crossing, a couple of policemen told us that we were not allowed to cross because on the other side, the foot-and-mouth disease was spreading.

So we tried to call the others and tell them to take the first crossing, but couldn’t reach them because of the weak mobile signal. We rushed to the first crossing, saw them on the other side, tried to make them cross faster—which didn’t work—and so we went to them and together we did the crossing again.

For Major, we had prepared a recovery strap on one of the other cars, but it was not necessary: everyone made it through the crossing nice and safe.

We kept driving for a bit more and found a place in the steppe to camp. Around us was nothing but the beautiful mountains in the distance.

We played some boules and had good fun with that.

After a while, we had come up with more and more exotic ways to play it. It was hilarious.

And beautiful.

When we continued the next day, Racki tried to localize the source of a disturbing plastic squeaking noise we had. It was not always an easy job to drive with her head in the footwell while driving on these off-road tracks.

Once I had to brake very hard to not nose-dive into a small ditch in which our tires would have just fit in perfectly, but all went fine.

But we were not able to localize the soure of that sound.

The track was sometimes pretty nasty with corrugations and stones, but manageable. More a matter of patience than crazy off-road obstacles.

And then we reached this wonderful lake!

The reflections of the mountains were amazing! Reminded me of Canada.

All three of us parked together, and we had a beautiful bird friend who was around us most of the time.

These birds turned out to be one of the most fascinating things in Mongolia for me. This majestic one we called Boris.

One day, Racki and I did a small hike to get a wider view. All the lines in the photo are potential off-road tracks from which you could choose. Some okay, some bad, some worse.

Merel and Racki did some jewelry craftsmanship together.

Together we fixed the tent fabric of Rosinante.

And after that was done, I found a leak in our windshield washer tank. Very satisfying.

We had a very good time together…

…at this magnificent place, Lake Uureg.

And we had an absolutely hilarious karaoke party as well! It was hilarious!

After preparing Rosinante, getting our Russian transit visa, and choosing an agency for our stays in China, and all the activities in Almaty and Tamgaly Tas, it was time to continue our journey.

Our plan was: nine days of transit through Russia (with lots of climbing) to Mongolia, two months in Mongolia (mostly driving bad roads), two month China (climbing and sightseeing), three months in Laos and Cambodia (climbing and sightseeing), two more months in China (climbing, snowboarding and sightseeing) in which we would drive back to Kazakhstan.

Just a few days before leaving, another overlander with a Hilux and I had a look under the hood of Rosinante. He noticed a leak at our intercooler. And when I checked the cooling liquid, the level was pretty low, but not too low. I did never see it like that when Rosinante was cold. I didn’t panic, but it didn’t feel so good because we were about to leave and continue driving a lot.

So I cleaned the area around the leak, put a marker to see if Rosinante was loosing cooling liquid. We bought a big bottle of compatible cooling liquid to be able to refill more than our spare bottle could handle, if it would be necessary.

On our way out of Almaty, we went to a mechanic who we got recommended by Kasia and Michael. That mechanic was supposed to help us getting a technical certificate for Rosinante which confirms that she is running well etc. It was a mandatory document for the Chinese car documents…

We had the document already prepared and had arranged everything with the mechanic via WhatsApp. When we reached the garage, I thought our friends were kidding. We already have seen a lot but this garage looked just like a scrapyard. A lot of garages we got to know on our travels looked like a scrapyard, but this one just looked absolutely fucked. After searching for some minutes, we found one guy sleeping in a container who did not understand us and couldn’t deal with Google Translate. After searching some more, we found the mechanic. And we found the actual garage behind all the scrap, mud, wreckages. The mechanic guy was very friendly and gave us a tour. And it turned out that this garage was one of the most elaborated we’ve seen in the stan countries so far.

They had all kind of high level machines, were 3d measuring cars and parts, had laser cutters for metal constructions and were doing all kind of things.

And after giving us his stamp on our document for the China trip, I showed him the leak in Rosinante’s cooler and he just said that he was absolutely sure that there was no liquid flowing through that part of the cooler. The moisty stuff that had accumulated around the “leak” was most likely just some water that got under the hood, mixed itself with dirt and some oily liquid.

For me, this was another example for what is just happening a lot while overlanding: you think you know something and it turns out to be different. Somebody else thinks he knows something and it turns out to be different. And even after all this years of traveling and all the assumptions that turn out to be wrong, I still get trapped by them.

We continued our travels, but wait, what were these boards next to the highway in Kazakhstan about? Recycling? …

… No littering?! Were we still in Kazakhstan? Normally, here the only one caring about stuff like that was the wind. …

Safety? This couldn’t be Kazakhstan!

But it was. And we found our first real overlanding camp spot on our way to the north east of Kazakhstan. It was awesome!

The overlanding travels had us back and we were driving a lot to make it to the north east of Kazakhstan.

Eventually we arrived at the Lake Markakol. But it was very different than what we knew from the stan countries: we were not allowed to drive to the shore of the lake because of the breeding season and there were hardly any nice camp spots away from the shore. But in the end, we found a nice place.

It was a beautiful lake for sure.

But having a really nice view was only possible to hike and fight our way through a lot of bushes. See our hike on komoot.

We liked it: back in the stans, hiking, nature… beautiful. But I personally would not recommend Markakol Lake. There are so many lakes that are more beautiful, easier to reach, with a lot of camp spots.

From the lake, we went into the steppe and found this place!

Astonishing!

Such nice formations!

And the colors!

We loved all the details.

And parked right next to the rocks.

And the sunsets were so beautiful as well!

And there were stars all over the sky!

We continued …

… to more rocks in the steppe.

Nice colors.

Next to the big Lake Zaysan.

Unfortunately thousands of grass hoppers lost their lives in Rosinante’s wheels.

Another beautiful camp spot with a very good internet connection for Racki to work online.

And this was our last camp spot before entering Russia. It was beautiful and close to the border.

And of course I was practicing playing the guitar almost every day.