Pothole Road

The road ahead is covered in potholes and small pools of dark brown water; the car rattles along, unbothered by the terrain it covers. We tumble around the backseat of a 1971 USSR Jeep. I barely hear the squeals of my four travel partners over the engine’s bark.

I sit squished between the hard metal door and Tamar. She is the reason I travelled to Mongolia and the reason my head keeps hitting the foamy, cobalt-blue ceiling. We hit another bump and the four-wheel drive flies a few inches through the air. The tyres bounce back onto the gravel, and I find my heart pounding and bruising my chest with excitement, overshadowing my stomach’s gymnastics.  My right hand clenches the back of the driver’s seat. In front of me, Alpy whoops and laughs while manoeuvring the Jeep around the rough road.  

The car bumps along and I go with it. 

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Halfway across the valley, Alpy slows down the Jeep and pulls over. We come across travellers with car trouble and, in a place like this, there is no AA or RAC for a quick fix. Despite the semi-cloudy sky, their modern grey-silver Jeep sparkles amidst a rugged, dusty landscape. 

The stranded travellers look like a family, mainly because there is an elderly couple, a younger couple and two kids all piled into the five-seater. It reminds me of a different time in my life, almost twenty years ago when my siblings and I were piled into the back of my parents’ car that reeked of cigarettes and air refreshers, a time when my parents were still together and everything was captivating. Somehow, I have lived two decades since. In this rugged and raw landscape time stands still. I am that curious six-year-old girl squished in the back of a family car, and I am an almost twenty-six-year-old woman trekking through Mongolia. 

 

The stranded travellers are dressed in what westerners would call semi-formal, but here it is considered chic. The grandmother wears a blue dress that reaches down to her knees. Underneath she wears soft black pants, nicely tucked into hiking boots. Besides her hands and face, every inch of skin is covered; even her hair is wrapped in a baby pink scarf. Looking at her, I feel naked. My black hiking pants snuggly hug my bum and my white t-shirt exposes my tattooed arms. Luckily, I am also wearing a headscarf, my braids tucked underneath. Her husband seems to be somewhat matching: he wears black suit pants with a button-down that matches her scarf. He wears a caramel-coloured wool vest and frowns at anything Alpy says. The woman who looks like their daughter comes across a bit more Western, she wears a matching turquoise-green pants and top, her tanned arms exposed along with her shoulder-length hair. 

None of their outfits, or their lack of action, give the impression they know how to change a tyre. Their frowning and pursed lips make me wonder how long they’ve been stranded. A few unknown phrases are exchanged in Kazakh, which is spoken by most Mongols in this area. Alpy gets a half nod and crawls under the car. I don’t need a translator to understand.

 

When driving, any stop is a pee stop, and Inge and I didn’t care to miss this one. Besides Tamar, Inge is my favourite companion on the trip. Inge is easy to laugh with and even easier to cry with; being with her feels like I am engulfed in sunlight. The two of us scurry across the gravel road and manage to crouch somewhat out of sight behind one of the only bushes in this valley. After the last couple days of peeing in the wild, we’ve perfected our routine. Drop pants, squat, pee, shake, and lift pants, and go.

Feeling ready for more Jeep jumbling, we rejoin the others. All five of us, and the six stranded travellers form a semicircle around Alpy, watching him change the tyre with ease. I am indulging in the spontaneity of this country and people’s willingness to help, and I make a mental note to learn how to change a tyre. This isn’t the first life skill I feel I need to learn. Every day in Mongolia I am faced with things I don’t know. I have never felt more aware that I grew up in a middle-upper-class family in a rich Western European country. I do not resent where I come from, but I wish my upbringing hadn’t shielded me from simple skills like making a fire or milking a cow. Knowing I am trying is somewhat soothing.

My thoughts are interrupted by the sputtering of a motorbike. My eyes search the pale valley, when the bike appears from behind the Jeep. The rider’s face is scrunched up and heavy with wrinkles; his skin has a leatherlike texture as he steadily rattles across the grumpy gravel. He barely looks at us, making no effort to slow down. As the man and his camouflage hat drive onwards, it takes me a hot minute to realise what he has on the back of bike. Riding along with perfect poise is a white-wooled sheep with a black face, staring at us as though we are the ones out of place. 

The motorbike, carrying the man and the sheep, disappears on the horizon, leaving nothing but a cloud of dust. 

 

It doesn’t take him long and before I know it Alpy shimmies out from underneath the car. It must be a Mongolian trick to fix the tyre, or maybe it’s my Western upbringing that got it all wrong.

Alpy wipes his hands on his dark blue jeans before shaking the elderly man’s hand. Without a word, the strangers pile into their glittering Jeep and crawl away on the gravel. We climb back into our fifty-year-old jeep and jet off to where the dusty brown mountains meet the white-grey valley. 

For a moment, the road grows smooth, and I poke my head out the windowless frame. Fresh, untouched air slips into my nose, filling me with the taste of adventure. A strand of hair dances around my face, sticking to my lip as the rest curls and waves through the air. 

Mongolia seems endless. She reveals herself to me, her landscapes coloured in greens, yellows, and oranges. Each dirt-dry valley and green oasis is protected by the Tavan Bogd Massif that stretches from Russia down to China and unfolds eastward into the Mongolian Steppe. There are no man-made structures anywhere and I finally understand what it means to truly be in the middle of nowhere.