After an easy 15 km run into the town of Bayantes the road split into two routes, a northerly and a southerly. As it turned out the more direct northerly route (the one we chose) followed the power lines and was a bit of a pain for us as we had to keep checking that we could pass under the lines without hitting them. Also this route passed over a series of small mountain passes that became narrow with steep side hills that certainly had a high "pucker" factor. The power lines and steep passes combined at one point to completely block our passage; a power pole had fallen over dragging the wires way to low for us to pass and as (bad) luck would have it this happened in a narrow valley. We examined the situation for quite some time before decicing that we had to by pass the entire area by driving the truck up onto a nearby hillside and around the obstacle.

Once past the obstacle we stopped for morning tea and to let the adrenaline wash out of our system. Thereafter the "road" returned to wide open valleys and we made good time (that is an average just over 20 km/h).

At lunch time we passed through the small town of Tess, bought some fuel, and just west of the town we stopped to have lunch and watched some herders - one of the flock was caught, tied up and carried away on the back of a motorcycle - we guessed it was to become "dinner". Also while at lunch another overland vehicle passed in the distance.


After our target of 110km for the day was reached we camped on the grass in a wide valley. Interestingly the valley we chose for camping is the first time we have seen large scale cultivation since our first day in Mongolia. Large tracts of this valley have been plowed.