Gobi desert
Mustang Shineray 150cc
In this fourth instalment of the "Wrong Way Round" series, Extreme Trifle sent a crack expedition force in search of something mystical and elusive.
The Urban Dictionary gives various definitions for the object of our quest:
All of these scenarios perfectly describe an Extreme Trifle trip as long as you substitute "sexual act" for "emergency repair". And yet, in spite of all our aspirations we've never actually witnessed the phenomenon that is...the Mongolian Clusterfuck.
Throughout history various people have claimed witness to an "MC" but they generally inhabit the same gene pool as those who claim to have been abducted by aliens or visited by a returning Jesus, but didn't have a mobile phone handy.
It would seem that the Mongolian Clusterfuck is as folkloric as the Tooth Fairy or a maintenance-free Lada. Surely the logical starting point would be Mongolia itself?
And so our mission was set. Extreme Trifle would go where nomads have been before to be the first humans to capture a Mongolian Clusterfuck on film. Not the grainy, fuzzy sort of footage where you’re not sure if it’s a Bigfoot or a shag pile carpet propped up against a fence.
Welcome to Wrong Way Round Mongolia. Extreme Trifle takes on the Gobi desert, and loses. Quite badly.
Now let's be clear. By design, Extreme Trifle trips normally end in a good old-fashioned calamity or utter fiasco. We've previously been deported from Russia, duped by a fake border in Mauritania and accidentally ordered twenty eight plates of cheese in Albania, but this was taking it up a notch.
The signs were already good. Not all of us were on the right flight and the whole trip hinged on someone 8,800 kilometres away, who we'd never met, being where they said they would be with the Chinese mopeds we'd ordered. But hey, as we all know, bad decisions make good stories.
Then, factor in a few slight oversights on getting the appropriate travel jabs in areas that still have outbreaks of Bubonic plague and we were already well on our way to success and we hadn't even left home.
Mongolia is known as the "land of eternal blue skies". We discovered this is a blatant lie or how else do you explain the sky turning brown in sandstorms, dark grey in thunderstorms and very black at night.
As with all our trips, the planned plan did not go to plan.
Lads. I think we've found one
Taking inspiration from the "fly-ride" approach we adopted for Wrong Way Round Himalayas, we decided to once again use local transport. As none of us can ride a stallion the weapon of choice was the mighty Mustang Shineray 150cc, a bit like a moped cross-bred with a rocking horse.
All we had to do was fly to Ulanbataar and get a taxi to a location on Google maps that looked like it was in the middle of the middle of nowhere. Once there, the email said we would need to look for a lady in a round tent thing and say "big trip".
We hoped the code word "big trip" referred to our planned route and was not an expectation that we were to be used as mules for a shipment of hallucinogenic drugs.
Although we insisted on calling it a "yurt" it turns our arrival destination was a "ger". This was Base camp. The start of our trip where the lady handed over our bikes and the end of our trip where we handed back the remains of some bikes. It became affectionately known as "Ger-t Lush".
Naturally the destinations for our big trip were based on Googling places with comedy names or looking like they might have a pub. If we stumbled upon a petrol station or a mechanic on the way that would be considered an added bonus.
The lady of Gert Lush patiently waited while we faffed, packed, repacked and faffed some more. When we were finally ready she kindly gestured that we needed to turn right once we passed the goats.
After bidding the goats goodbye and promising not to eat their cousins we headed south away from Ulanbataar and reached a point marking the end of tarmac roads. We'd travelled twelve kilometres from the capital city.
This is what we'd come for. A land without road signs, traffic lights, hedgerows and the fewest people per square kilometre of any sovereign state on the planet.
There were no flight delays, our luggage turned up, the lady of Gert Lush turned out to be real and our Mustangs had started and stayed started. It was all going so well.
What's that coming over the hill? It's a clusterfuck. A Mongolian one.
Stir-fired yaks testicles taste awful
Fermented mare's milk tastes awful
Monks are really really good at off-roading
It's easier to climb K2 than a 300 metre sand dune
Discover all these amazing facts and more in our trip diary