The first week of our trip had focused on the Gobi desert area in the south of Mongolia, with canyons, rock formations and lots and lots of sand. Our second week took us back into greener pastures, with valleys, river crossings, and lots and lots of yaks.

First we headed to Ongi Monastery, one of the few human points of interest on this trip focused on landscapes. The monastery is a series of ruins of what was once many monasteries housing up to 1500 monks. During the communist regime Buddhism was targeted, and many of the monks at Ongi were killed or forced into slavery. Today only one of the temples has been restored. After this sombre visit we made a pit stop at yet another mechanic, who did some sort of fix on the power steering. It didn’t take us long to discover this fix was also ineffective, and it seemed like we were going through the fluid at a much higher rate. The place we’d rented from decided at this point to provide us with an alternative car, which seemed like an extreme resolution but one we were happy to accept. The only problem was the replacement car had to come from the capital, and we were a 5-6 hour drive away, even at Mongolian speeds. We arranged to stay in the next town, which happened to be one of the biggest cities we encountered outside of Ulaan Baatar. Our last hurdle before getting there was a deep river crossing. Thomas was certain Herbie (we had named the car Herbert when we first set off) would make it, Creed was not, and pointed out that we would not be covered by insurance if we had issues because it would definitely be our fault. We had a long discussion while looking at the fast flowing water, trying to figure out the best way through, with Mel and I wading through it a couple of times to check the depth, which was definitely more than the height of the exhaust. Eventually we decided to drive up the bank until we found a ger, and manage to ask with many gestures where was safest to cross. We were escorted to a different section which was much shallower, and then two more little streams, and we were back on the road. Mongolians really are extremely helpful, and we’d packed a bag of sweets and snacks to give as gifts in situations like these. After all of the non stop back and forth about car problems and how to adjust our schedule to fix them, we decided that a night in a hotel would be a welcome break from life on the road. We all piled into one room for a movie night with takeaway pizza, before enjoying an actual bed for the first time in a week.

The next morning we received the new car and named him Vladimir. He was bigger, with more clearance, better suspension, had a snorkel for river crossings (which we would face many more of), slightly less leg room, and (most importantly) power steering. We stocked up on groceries as well as beers, ciders and a couple of bottles of sparkling wine for the second week of the trip. We enjoyed the feel of the new car for around 2 hours, before we hit a bump and started to feel a repetitive thump, like we had a flat tyre. We stopped to check but all four seemed fine, so we continued a little further, but the thumping noise didn’t stop, so we stopped again to check more closely. Still all four tires seemed absolutely fine, so we hopped back in the car, and… it wouldn’t move. We could no longer shift into drive, low, second, reverse, or even park. We were in neutral, and any attempt to shift made Vladimir emit a high pitched screech, and at one point smoke came out by the front left tire. We flagged down some locals who took a quick look but were unable to help, other than by calling our car hire contact for us to explain in Mongolian. This time there was no semi fix to let us get as far as the next mechanic, we were truly stuck. The guys driving Herbert back to Ulaan Baatar had to turn around to rescue us again. We said we would be happy to take Herbert back, and just keep topping up with fluid, but the company decided they didn’t want anything else to go wrong with him, so they organised us a local driver with a car. This time it took around 3 hours for the cars to get to us, so we sat and played cards, and drank all of our ciders and beers that were supposed to last the whole week. We fully embraced the ridiculousnes of our situation, and named our third car Salvador, christening him with sparkling wine on the bonnet for good luck when he arrived. Our new driver was named Namgill and spoke very little English and probably thought we were crazy. This is how most people travel Mongolia – either on a fixed tour, or by hiring a car and driver to create their own tour. It wasn’t the freedom and flexibility we’d wanted, but it meant we were able to continue our trip, and at this moment everyone was very happy not to be driving. We finally made it to the Orkhon Valley late in the evening, and set up camp next to a stream and some yaks.

On Saturday we visited the Orkhon Waterfall, the spot we’d been aiming for as a campsite the previous day, and instead made it a lunch site. The drive through the  valley was incredibly scenic, but extremely slow, as Salvador was a mini van, not a landcruiser. There was a 4×4 button, but still, we felt like we had traded a jeep built for this kind of offroading adventure for a soccer mom’s vehicle of choice. It was a rough drive, which we ended up doing twice because Namgill wasn’t sure of the directions to the next stop, and we were no longer in charge of navigating. I’m sure he would’ve been happy for us to navigate, but we couldn’t communicate, and we were still unsure of how the having a driver situation worked. We assumed the road that continued through the valley was even more rough and that was why he was taking us back, but when he stopped to ask for directions at a ger we realised that he maybe was not usually a tourist driver, he was just a guy with a car that our company had manged to find last minute. We still don’t know the truth on that one! Either way, if you have to see some scenery twice this was some of the best for it, with lush greenery, twisting riverbed, and many yaks. In the afternoon we headed to Tsenkher Hot Springs, a natural spring that has become a popular spot on a Mongolia tour. Unfortunately the springs themselves are too hot to soak in, so the only option is to visit one of the spas or resorts. These turned out to be quite expensive for a quite touristy experience, so we decided to skip it, and drove back to a more secluded spot to camp for the night.

On Sunday we headed to Kharkorin, the ancient capital of the Mongol Empire. We visited Erdene Zuu, another large monastery that was destroyed during the communist period, but this time restored to much of its former glory. It was interesting to see the influence of Chinese mythology on Bhuddism in Mongolia, with many characters and art styles that we haven’t seen in other temples around the world. Despite being the previous capital, this monastery is really the only thing to see in town, so we headed on to Ugii Lake to camp for the night. We arrived to camp reasonably early, for the first time in perhaps the whole trip, and were able to swim, relax, and enjoy the area before setting up for dinner. When we left the desert we were looking forward to the weather cooling off, but it’s been incredibly hot, and the vast plains and lack of trees means no shade anywhere. We had thought about spending a second night at the lake, but even with jumping in to cool off we would just have baked throughout the day. We allowed ourselves a very leisurely morning, but decided to continue to our next stop, as driving through the hottest part of the day turns out to be the best way to avoid the sun.

Our last stop on the road trip was Hustai National Park, known for Przewalski’s horses, the last truly wild horse species in the world. They actually went extinct in the wild in the last century, but individuals born in zoos were reintroduced into the wild in the 1980s and this national park in Mongolia is now the only place in the world that you can see them. Fortunately the population here is thriving. We had planned to camp and head into the park early in the morning, as I’d read a blog suggesting that this was the best way to see the horses before the influx of tourists pushed them further away from the trails. But when we arrived looking for information, we were told that the evening was the best time, as the horses come out to the rivers to drink, having spent the hot day deeper in the valley avoiding the sun. We decided to follow their recommendations, and made our dinner while waiting for it to cool off, before heading into the park. The horses did indeed come out to the river to drink, and we saw so many of them so close to the car. Our guide said it was a particularly good day, so it seems that at least sometimes luck is on our side. After an enjoyable evening drive, we headed back out to the park entrance to camp, and found ourselves in a tent in a field with a lightening storm on the horizon. We’d been warned of the July rains before starting our roadtrip, and had managed to avoid them so far but thought this may be the night we got wet. Creed reminded us that being in a tent in a field was the worst possible place to be if the lightening headed in our direction. But the group decision was that we would be fine – and we were. It didn’t rain, and we did not get struck by lightening.

The next morning we had organised a horse ride, as this is one of the must dos while in Mongolia, and for an hour it was surprisingly cheap. We’d worried that because of the proximity to Ulaan Baatar the tour wouldn’t feel particularly authentic, but we were taken on a relaxed ride, with no other people in sight, up a hill with fantastic views over the other side, and it was lovely. Some of the horses were a bit nervous and slow, while others were keen to run and did not like to be reigned in. Thomas’s horse set off on a gallop and would not stop, and he eventually returned very out of breath and wanting to immediately get off and walk. We ended up switching horses as mine just wanted to munch on the grass. Overall we had a pleasant hour of some walking, some trotting, a little galloping (particularly when the horses had home in their sights towards the end), and some epic Mongolian countryside views.

Another must do while in the countryside is to sleep in a ger, and so far we hadn’t managed this. We’d been happy with camping as it got us closer to the nature we were there for, the weather had cooperated, and it was free. Many of the ger options we’d seen had been set up like hotels with many tents available for tourists, whereas the experience we wanted was something local, a family with just one extra tent, who we could interact with in their normal way of life. While we may have been able to find that elsewhere it was looking less likely the closer we got back to the capital. We’d skipped the extra night at the lake, so we were still on the look out for another nice spot either to camp one last night or have the ger experience. However, plains quickly turned into suburbs, and we decided that finding what we were looking for would now not be possible. We’d had some incredible scenic destinations, and a huge variety of landscapes, and despite the setbacks a very positive experience of Mongolia. But losing our freedom and flexibility by no longer having our own vehicle impacted our last few days of adventure and it did feel more like a sightseeing tour from spot to spot than an exploration where we could pull of at any moment for a photo, a tea break, or a complete change of the plans based on a cool looking valley in the opposite direction. We felt it was better to head back to the city, still with the opportunity to take a day trip out to the close national park to the south, but without having to pay for the car for the extra day. We did find a lovely meadow with a stream and trees for lunch and a mid afternoon hike on the way back into town.

It took us a couple of hours to get back to the hostel once we hit the city traffic, but we were able to unload very quickly and get to the money talk. Throughout our saga our man had been very responsive to messages, and it was obvious that the money we’d paid towards repairs and fluid would be refunded, and he was also happy to cover the extra fuel we’d purchased and not used each time we switched cars. He also offered the refund for the final day of car hire with no hesitation, which under normal circumstances would not be a given. Despite all their help, driving out to meet us 3 times, once with a replacement car, and organising a driver for us so as not to cancel our trip, we were still out a fair amount of time from the multiple hour long waits for fixes, not to mention all the time spent communicating rather than simply enjoying our trip. So we asked for an additional refund for the impact to our trip, and settled on another day’s worth of car hire costs. He was very apologetic, and very open to the conversation about reimbursement, and overall had fantastic customer service that is often so hard to find. Their car hire service is new this year so they are still working out the kinks, but I would not hesitate to recommend them to anybody travelling to Mongolia in the future. We got unlucky with our breakdowns, but still had an epic trip, and came out with so many stories. It was without a doubt the greatest road trip I’ve ever taken.