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DAY 161 | Mongolia | How To Move The Stars | A bicycle ride around the world · How To Move The Stars | A bicycle ride twice around the world

• 0:00
  July 24th, 2013 into Mongolia. Drops of rain hitting my face
• 0:07
  pulled me from my sleep. The sky was black and the storm
• 0:10
  was blowing through. I pulled my bivvy over my head
• 0:13
  and went back to sleep. By morning clouds had gone and
• 0:18
  the sun was rising into a clear blue sky.
• 0:21
  Mark and I pedaled 25 miles to Tashanta, the last town of
• 0:25
  Russia, a quiet outpost sitting among grassy hills.
• 0:30
  I walked into the border station to let them examine my
• 0:32
  documents. The agent was a kind man in his
• 0:35
  50s, sitting behind a desk in the sparse one room building.
• 0:39
  I handed him my passport and he asked for something more, but I
• 0:43
  couldn't understand him. On his old desktop computer, he
• 0:46
  pulled up a translation website to explain that there is a
• 0:49
  Russian law requiring all foreigners to register at a
• 0:52
  hotel before leaving the country.
• 0:55
  I vaguely knew of this role for my visa paperwork.
• 0:58
  The first hotel I stayed at was 9 days into Russia.
• 1:01
  I considered asking about the document, but communicating was
• 1:04
  difficult and once the opportunity passed, I never
• 1:08
  asked again. I figured the paperwork wouldn't
• 1:11
  matter anyway. Today I learned the bureaucracy
• 1:14
  will not be ignored. The man said the fine was
• 1:18
  $150.00, but his whole demeanor indicated that charging me was
• 1:22
  not what he wanted to do. He said I just needed any proof
• 1:25
  that I had stayed at a hotel. Even a receipt would work.
• 1:29
  I used to have a receipt. I remembered holding on to the
• 1:32
  stump for weeks before deciding there is no point.
• 1:35
  I told him I would be back and stepped outside to consider my
• 1:38
  options. Mark did not have the same
• 1:41
  problem as me. He knew the rules and I'd gotten
• 1:43
  the paperwork filled out and Nova Shabirsk.
• 1:46
  He showed me the simple sign note with his name.
• 1:49
  I had a note too, from the Russian Army captain I drank
• 1:52
  vodka with three days ago. I took both the notes and walked
• 1:56
  back inside, laying the documents on his desk.
• 2:00
  I hope they crossed the low bar the man had set.
• 2:03
  I pointed to the note given to me by the drunk army captain,
• 2:06
  but I wasn't exactly sure what was said, and then to Mark's
• 2:09
  document. I lied and told the man I was
• 2:11
  with Mark at the time, but hadn't gotten my name on the
• 2:14
  paper. The border agent looked him over
• 2:17
  and nodded. That was enough for him.
• 2:20
  I watched as he checked the box on the paperwork before stamping
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  me out of Russia. Parked at the gate were two
• 2:26
  ruggedized Land Cruisers on their way out of Mongolia.
• 2:29
  They had winches on the front bumpers, snorkeled air intakes
• 2:33
  for high water, and spare tires strapped to the roof.
• 2:36
  I spoke to a woman in the passenger seat who looked quite
• 2:38
  shaken. She didn't speak English, but we
• 2:41
  were able to communicate something about a flooded Rd.
• 2:44
  I asked what Rd. they had taken and how a bicycle would fare,
• 2:48
  but I couldn't understand her answer.
• 2:50
  To see her so unnerved in such a capable vehicle made me worried
• 2:54
  that I had arrived unprepared. Mark and I pedaled a quiet 15
• 2:59
  miles across the no man's land before arriving to a Mongolian
• 3:03
  guard shack atop A windswept hill.
• 3:06
  A few soldiers were kneeling on the ground, creating a
• 3:09
  decorative mosaic out of colorful stones scavenge from
• 3:12
  the area. I handed over my passport for a
• 3:15
  stamp and stepped past the blue and red stripe post marking the
• 3:19
  border of Mongolia. My emotions are running high.
• 3:23
  I was excited to arrive, but more than anything, I was glad
• 3:26
  to be out of Russia. Crossing the plains had become
• 3:29
  excruciating by the end. When starting the journey, I did
• 3:33
  not expect that one of my greatest challenges would be the
• 3:35
  tedium of a straight Rd. that stretches on for months.
• 3:39
  My mental stamina to perform such a feat is not well
• 3:42
  developed, and I feel that my psyche has been brought to a
• 3:45
  fragile edge. I learned that the fortitude
• 3:48
  necessary to do what is hard becomes multiplied when The
• 3:51
  thing is also dull. I feel as though just another
• 3:54
  day or two stuck in the monotony of the plains would have surely
• 3:57
  broken me. I'm so glad to be out of Russia.
• 4:01
  Finally the road turned to dirt and Mark and I stopped at the
• 4:06
  first dusty little town, just a dozen small buildings made from
• 4:10
  wood and mud. After wandering around for a few
• 4:13
  minutes, a young man approached us and asked if we needed to
• 4:16
  exchange money. He took us to his cafe, where he
• 4:20
  also lived. We sat at the only table and
• 4:22
  reserved tea and pot stickers cooked by his mother.
• 4:26
  Mark exchanged money, the nitride as well, but the man
• 4:29
  didn't have enough cash. He took my $140 worth of rubles
• 4:34
  and disappeared for a long time while he went around to his
• 4:36
  neighbors trying to get more Mongolian tuk ricks.
• 4:40
  I wasn't sure the ATM situation in Mongolia, so I brought enough
• 4:44
  money from Nova Shabir to get me to China.
• 4:47
  The man returned with all the cash in town, but he couldn't
• 4:49
  cover the whole exchange. The money he gave me will have
• 4:52
  to be enough. I'll just need to keep my budget
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  to $3.00 per day. Mark and I carried on through a
• 4:59
  landscape of dry, treeless hills, grazing cows and domed
• 5:03
  yurts. I've never seen a yurt in
• 5:05
  person. They look like white gumdrop
• 5:08
  sitting in the distant green meadows.
• 5:11
  This evening the open landscape left nowhere to hide, so he set
• 5:15
  up camp on a hillside away from the road.
• 5:18
  Soon after, a father and his teenage son arrived on a dirt
• 5:21
  bike to say hello. The father was friendly and
• 5:24
  smiled the whole time. He asked me to get out my camera
• 5:27
  to take a picture with him and his son.
• 5:30
  I stood between them with my arms over their shoulders.
• 5:33
  The Mongolian welcome party.