Driving out of UB

We leave the city limits just before the morning traffic starts to boil. Because I have the fattest ass, I get the honor of being in the front passenger seat. Nikki, Augú in his car seat, Uyanga and male Byaamba have to share the back. The first hour or so of driving passes without event. Our driver, whose name I never did catch, puts in a cassette of a very popular singer, whom I’ve heard countless times blaring out of cabs and stores during my walks around the city. His excellent, operatic voice makes me wish I had spent my childhood years in the Mongolian countryside, just so I could use his songs to reminisce.

N had spoken to G last night, who told her the drive to Tsetserleg is about 12 hours, not eight, as the group had originally estimated. “The roads are dusty, but generally in good condition,” N says, recounting G’s words. She has been taking 500 mg of Panadol every 6 hours to combat the fever and looks and sounds much better this morning. I admire her strength, for deciding to come with the kiddo to this country, for deciding to embark on a long road trip to the Mongolian bush with nary a day to recuperate from her day of fevers and chills.

Her fortitude is about to be tested, because soon the highway will end, and we’ll be forced to drive on dirt. For the next eight hours.

Although G was technically correct in his synopsis of the road conditions out of UB, I would have perhaps used a slightly more robust word than ‘dusty’. What the cars are churning up as they speed by, and as the picture here shows, is soil by the ton. Sun-blockin’, lung-fillin’, dinosaur-killin’ dust that slips into the air vents and between the window seals until it cakes you and everything else in the car. I feel like we’re in a mobile tandoori oven.