So Much for Altai. Khovd, It Is

It was due time to leave Oglii after four nights. Fairly productive time in Oglii if I think about it, but now it was really time to hit the road and cross Mongolia. Aishish & me decided to try going to the Altai National Park for the night doing a two-day detour.

Just short 2km out of Oglii and the asphalt road totally disappeared to be replaced by corrugated dirt tracks. It was also going through a slight mountain pass and by 25km into the track, I gave up. It was going to be like Wahkan Corridor in Tajikistan all over again and I was not ready to brave the pain for hours just to see landscape if I could help it.

Leaving Olgii for Altai National Park

Me & Aishish - Abandoning the plan for Altai National Park and turning around 

It was a detour anyway and not a forced route that I have to forcefully go through, so I stopped the bike and had a discussion with Aishish which concur with me and that was the end of the expedition to Altai Tavon Bogd National Park. We immediately double back to Oglii and hit the main Asian highway No.4 towards Khovd.

220km to Khovd from Oglii and the road and ride was just amazing. The new spark plugs were working fine, and I was pushing the bike nice and fast around 110km/hr but 80km before Khovd, I could feel that something was wrong again and power was loss from the engine. The new spark plugs had probably fouled.

Wild Camels - Mongolia 

Altai Region - Mongolia 

Altai Region - Mongolia 

From Olgii to Khovd - Bayan Enger Pass

I limped with Bragge all the way to Khovd having lose power and after scouting and hunting for hotels, we finally checked into a local motel for 40000 tugrik each. That night itself I opened the spark plugs again for a check and sure enough, one of the new spark plugs was defective. This time I had to use back spark plugs which was the stock original plugs that was replaced in Dushanbe Tajikistan.

I carried them around forever and nearly forgotten about them and luckily, they still worked. Old plugs but better than faulty ones. Next day I did a quick hunt around Khovd trying to find additional spare spark plugs but had no luck even after finding the bike market. I would have to really pray that the old plugs would last till Ulaanbaatar which hopefully they would have the proper spark plugs replacement.

Travelled on: Sep 2024