Kayakasia

19 hours ago

E23 to E26 (50km) : Reunion

None of us were eaten by bears! Not even Pep, who had spent the night sleeping on his kayak by the river. And none of us needed to hug each other to sleep last night.

Besides cold toes and cold shivers at night, we all looked none the worse when we woke up. Spirited and eager to go. Very heavy fog however, meant we couldn’t start paddling early, or warm up in the sun. After a quick bite of whatever we had left, we were looking forward to meet the land team for lunch at E25.

When the kayak and land teams finally reunited, there was of course many stories to exchange and share. The most were between first time kayaker Ganaa and stand-in logistic manager Nara. What we heard from the land team was an off-road, overland drive through very difficult terrain, busted tire, helping people with busted tires, van repairs, and trying to set up comms with us along the way. They were kindly taken in by a villager when they arrived at Teshig village around 9pm. They didn’t continued to us because the owner of the accoms said he was coming to open the cabins. So, there was arrangement and somehow an accoms was booked, the mystery was where and which one? Along the river, we didn’t see many houses. Definitely not on the map, too!

~

The frontal storm that I had anticipated for 6 months finally arrived. For the past months, I was looking at data, books, and consulting with those who had paddled the river to understand the weather. I worried about it so much that the entire expedition plan was designed with dealing with thunderstorms. We had to start 530am every morning and end by 2pm, before any convection storms could form. We had been as the weather was perfect and we could extend our paddling till late. We had some rain but had not encountered any storms yet.

At dinner, the rolling black clouds reminded me of the southwest monsoon. Within 10 minutes of seeing these fast moving clouds, wind gusts came. I quickly threw heavy rocks into the kayaks to weigh them down, secured all the paddles, and then ran back to the safe shelter of my tent. Fat drops of rain began hitting the tent hard.

It was only 8pm. Everyone was in our tents already. We were ready looking forward to a well deserved, long night of blissful sleep under the rhythmic rain. The only downside was that the generator broke, and so no Starlink satellite wifi tonight…I drifted to sleep looking at photos of past days….

#egiingol #expedition #mongolia ... See MoreSee Less

Kayakasia

2 days ago

E23 (wild) Camp 4 : Overnight

In the middle of the night, I heard a horse galloped towards me. The horseman got off his horse and stepped on the veranda where I was wild sleeping under a table. He held a flashlight and was searching. I could hear him check the locked doors to the main house.

“We are saved!” I thought. Someone finally came with the keys.

He approached me and touched my shoulders. When I opened my eyes, he thrusted his phone to my face, and on it, was a photo.

I was momentarily confused and thought he was trying to verify our identities. I mumbled something. He pinched to zoom and jabbed his finger at a particular person in the photo.

It was then I realised the ‘horseman’ was Ganaa. He was going around to make sure everyone was still ok. He had accounted for everyone but one. Pep was missing. His finger was still pointing to Pep’s face in the photo, and grunting something in Mongolian.

I answered “kayak” and checked that it was 3am. The full moon was high and I vaguely saw him walked towards the river, his flashlight leading.

Ganaa woke up worried.

First the cold wind woke him. Then he remembered the grave warning he received from the ranger. That was why he decided to paddle with the team yesterday, despite never ever sat in a kayak before, and not knowing how to swim. He was fearful of water depths that he could not measure with his arms, having lived in the Gobi desert all his life.

No one had told us about the bear warning, which was only revealed to us after the expedition ended. The ranger had warned that this area had the most active population of bears. In fact, the locals at the village had warned Ganaa that it was much safer for us to stay on the water at night than sleep on land !

When Ganaa started, everyone was sleeping outdoors and struggling to keep warm. No one wanted to sleep inside the shitty room.

At 3am, with the cold and remembering the warning, he moved everyone indoors into the shitty wellness centre. He left me and Pep outside though!

#camping

~ ... See MoreSee Less

Kayakasia

3 days ago

E18 to E23 (68km) : Abundance

Ganaa walked towards me and made a “X” with both his hands, the universal symbol of ‘nothing’, ‘cannot’, ‘don’t have’, ‘kosong’.

I had asked him to walk 1km to a hut, to look for food and some help. He returned with the X.

For the past hour, he had walked kilometres up the hill, and around the property, to try to get some vhf signals and phone signals, to no avail. He believed the land team to be near.

Our navigation was not wrong. It was marked as a hotel on the map, and we were on the property. The problem was - the hotel was abandoned. All the 6 cabins were firmly locked, not the kind of lock that one could break into, the kind of lock that kept out sub zero colds and wild large animals - 20cm thick doubled latched doors with doubled glazed windows rod-locked. The main reception house was similarly fortified. But the wellness centre was unlocked. It could provided us shelter.

When I walked in for a look however, the whole place smelled of shit - birds, rodents, insects, or whatever. The expensive furniture was stained with droppings and peppered with white discharges. Even the massage table was not spared. Outside the tiled jacuzzi pool was broken.

We moved the clean stuff outdoors by the pool deck - 4 reclining rattan sun chairs, a small table, and some aromatic candles.

“Well at least we have candles to keep us warm.”, someone said.

We looked at each other and none of us had a lighter! Since I was nursing a cough, I had left my kretek behind….What a bunch of survival experts we were - no tents , no fire , no food !

It was already 7pm. Too late to paddle on. We had no dinner packed. There were absolutely no houses around us that could help. The land support team was probably still far away. Just as all hope was lost , a Toyota came roaring down the slope!

Ganaa waved his hands frantically and ran towards the car. We were smiling and drooling with wet anticipation of roast lamb.

Ganaa walked towards me and made a “X” with both his hands, the universal symbol of ‘nothing’, ‘cannot’, ‘don’t have’, and in this case “we are in deep shit”.

He made an additional symbol of putting his fingers to his throat and head, indicating the 4 guys inside the car were too drunk to understand him, let alone help us. We watched the car drove away erratically.

So it was back to pinning our hopes on the land team.

Communications with them was time consuming and confusing. We had to relay cellular texts from our satellite phone to Singapore, and Ling had to resend this text using data to their Starlink enabled phones. While they could send text direct to our satellite phone using a website, the only way we could reply them was through Singapore. That was, if the land team stopped to set up the generator and Starlink.

“Accoms booked”, one satellite message from the land team read.

“The owner is coming to open the wooden cabins for you.”, another message came.

At 9pm: “We are at E25, 2hours drive to your location. Keep warm.”

The land team had travelled hundreds kilometres of off road to finally arrive at Teshig village, some 40km from our location. It was close to 9pm.

We watched in awe at the full moon rising from the east over the mountains. So lucky. We realised no one was coming. We ate whatever rations we had - nuts, bread, salami, etc. I sensed everyone was figuring out how to wild camp for a night without tents or sleeping bags. Most of us decided not to change but sleep in our kayaking clothes. Most slept on the deck chairs, some on the floor around the jacuzzi, and others wandered off to find their own safe spot.

The full moon was a completion of an increasing illumination, amplified seemingly on our exposed faces and voices. The moon’s ascent casting a spellbinding golden fog that slowly devoured the grassland. A night of abundance was upon us.

#egiingol #mongolia #expedition ... See MoreSee Less