Mongolia 2011: A Great Bicycling Adventure

My son, Gregory, and I were invited to bicycle Mongolia by his friend from Hawaii, Grant, and Grant’s father, Robin. So the last 2 weeks of August were filled with exploring Mongolia’s capital city, Ulaanbaatar, the bicycle trip, and then a day of rest back in the capital city.
From Ulaanbaatar, we flew to Bayankhongor to meet our guides, Turbo and Bat, the cooks, and the drivers for our adventure. We bicycled over the beautiful countryside back toward Ulaanbaatar. We traveled through Kharkhorin, thought to be the birthplace of Mongolia and which for a short time served as the capital of the Mongol Empire under Ogedei Khan, one of Chingis Khaan’s sons.
We bicycled through pleasant 70’s weather, rain, wind, over rocks, through puddles, waded streams, and had frost on our boots one morning. I know I saw a snowflake, but Greg said I was hallucinating. I don’t know why as the 5 passes we had climbed that day couldn’t have been that steep nor that high.
The food was great, the guides wonderful and full of history of Mongolia and most of the world. The drivers? Well, they were just crazy and could fix anything that might break on the support vehicles. If you ever want to go camping, go with Mongolians. They really know how to do it!
If you would like to see additional pictures from this adventure, go to these links:

Bicycling Mongolia

Scenes from Mongolia 2011