Leaving Kharkhorum, the ancient capital city of Khan's Mongolian Empire
Dark was settling over the vast Mongolian landscape as we rode, bounced, and bobbed our way around potholes and other obstacles on the road to Kharkhorum. Einkhtaivan is a helluva driver. (He's pictured on the right in the photo above.) Worth his weight in gold.
We got a late start out of Ulaanbaatar on our way to a ger camp near Kharkhorum. I've already mentioned how I feel about traffic in UB. It is absolutely nuts. Traveling around a roundabout, like the one near Shillito Park only bigger (5 lanes of traffic going around a circle), we had a little "scrape" as Hatnaa described it. A SUV decided to come into our lane while we were trying to get in his lane and we scraped. Let's just say that Einkhtaivan wasn't very happy, but he and the driver settled the deal and we went on our way. Einkhtaivan said "Little scrape at the start of a trip means good luck ahead." Never have any words been so prophetic.
The drive to Kharkhorum takes about 6 or 7 hours depending on how long it takes to get out of city of Ulaanbaatar. Traffic was horrendous until we hit the freeway at the edge of town. Then, we were driving through the open plains of the countryside. Gosh, I love being in the countryside. It felt familiar to me given my rural heritage. Hatnaa and Einkhtaivan were singing away to the traditional Mongolian music on the mp3 player that blared from the back speakers.
As darkness fell, I came to realize that we had traveled almost 300 km and still had 77 km to go.
Dusk on the road to Kharkhorum
As we crossed the welcoming arch to the ancient city, I soon discovered what others were talking about on www.tripadvisor.com. The roads disappeared. I mean we were diverted off the road into a field with dusty paths. Then, magically (and if we made the right choice of paths to follow) we'd pop back up on the blacktopped road again. This happend about a dozen times. We drove for miles without ever seeing a light, a house, a car, headlights...nothing but pitch black and the light from our headlamps.
Suddenly, we were confronted with 4 car paths. Einkhtaivan was a pretty good judge of which path to take. This time however he took the road less traveled by in words of Robert Frost. Shortly afterwards, he slammed on the brakes and shrieked words that I could only guess as to their meaning. Out came the flashlights. Yes, I had mine, too. We got out of the vehicle. I kid you not, about a foot in front of us was a big black hole. A big FREAKING black hole. We were all just kind of in a daze thinking about what would have happened if Einkhtaivan hadn't had such good eyes.
We backed up, turned around and hauled ass out of there! We met a hippy van and flagged it down to give them a warning as to what was ahead. The guy shouted back "I know where I'm going. Just follow me." Famous last words. Without missing a beat, he headed straight to the black hole. We blew our horn and flashed our lights. Thankfully, he, too, came to a screeching halt, and I heard those same words come flying out of the windows of the van. They certainly didn't need any translation. I understood exactly what was being said. You might say we were speaking in tongues on this night!
We all turned around and finally found the right path. After a long, weary and exciting drive, we arrived safe and sound at the Ger camp in Kharkhorum. That is a trip that I will never, ever forget. On the way back to UB the next day, we saw the spot of our "almost" demise, and I got out to take pictures. And now I truly understand what it means to be standing on the edge of the abyss. As my colleague, Mark Filburn at KLC, would say "We're all going to die!" Here's the hole.
We stopped at the edge where the horses on the left are standing!
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