I was planning this trip in my mind for a long time and I said to myself: this is the year I’m going to do it. I established the departure on 27-28th of August and two months before this the craziness began: the motorcycle, equipment, trail documentation, mapping and navigation , visas etc. Being a Romanian citizen, on my 12 countries trail I needed 8 visas, each one of them requesting a waiting time from 5 to 10 working days, so I was barely reaching my deadline to the leaving day.
The motorcycle preparing were pretty easy to do, because it was fit for long trips and I already had many things I needed, but I had to change all the consumable parts. So I changed all the bearings from the wheels and the back pinion, I changed the chain kit and sprokets, the oil and oil filter , the air filter and sparkplugs, new brake pads. I also have to mention that a month before leaving I have had a motorcycle accident (a car didn’t give me priority) and this resulted in 2 broken fingers on my right hand and also damages to the front fender, headlight, windshield, one front brake disc, crash bar, mirrors, one side case and the top case. I had to buy some of them and fix what I could fix.
The visas preparing „chapter”: Because there were some problems with visas, my departure day was postponed. It was already the end of August, a late time to leave to Mongolia and ride the Pamirs on motorcycle. Lots of people were telling me not to go because the snow will surprise me in the mountains and I was seriously wondering if my trip was still feasible. Until the 5th of September I was able to obtain 4 of the visas: Russia, Kazahstan, Kirgistan, Azerbaijan. The other ones I had to take during my trip.
On the 6th of September, in the evening, I got a phone call from some friends who made almost the same trip just one year ago with a 4x4 car. They asked me how were my preparations going, to give me some advice and to ask me if I took the visa for Mongolia. I told them that as a Romanian citizen I didn’t need a visa for Mongolia anymore, as it was wrote on the official Foreign Ministry website. They explained me that they had problems entering Mongolia even with the visas obtained. So, very nice situation: my departure date was the next day and I didn’t have the visa for Mongolia
I called the Mongol Embassy and they told me that I didn’t need a visa ONLY if I reached Mongolia by plane, but I surely needed it if I was going by car or motorcycle. This happens because the Russian customs don’t let you leave their country if you don’t have a visa for Mongolia, even if the Mongols let you in without it.
I was very lucky that the Mongol ambassador in Romania is a very nice lady and she understood my desperate situation. She accepted my wife to come to the Embassy on Saturday (it’s closed during weekends, normaly) and apply the needed visa on my passport. The distance between the city where I live and Bucharest is about 500 km. That means 10 hours by train, 20 hours for a round-trip. So my wife jumped in the first train and in the morning at the first hour she was at the Mongolia Embassy, drinking tea with the ambassador and fullfiling my visa. By the night at 10 pm, on the 7th of September, I already had my visa in my hand and I was ready to go. However, the next day I realised I needed one more day, because I still wasn’t 100% prepared, so I postponed the departure one more day.
Finally, after 2 and a half months full of frustration and all kinds of problems and the 12 days delay, the departure moment came. My motorcycle looked like a small truck, heavily loaded with all kinds of stuff and much heavier that I expected.
On the 9th of September at 7:00 am, a beautiful sunny but cold autumn morning, I was leaving my home lots of fears and questions... Are they Russian guys as bad as the world says? Will I make it with the navigation in Mongolia? Will the motorcycle resist to so many off-road kilometers? Isn’t it too loaded? What if something breaks? How will they understand me since I don’t speak Russian and they don’t speak English? Will I find gas for sale in the most isolated places that I was going to visit? What if the weather turns against me and snow catches me in the mountains? The Pamirs Highway is going constantly at more than 4000 meters altitude, will I make it passing it if it’s covered in snow?
