TRAVERSE Issue 10 - February 2019 | Page 76

of stunning vistas following a circular route that took us east toward China then north to within a 100kms of Rus- sia before riding west then due south to return to Ulaan Baatar. I was not alone in my concerns, ev- eryone it seems was talking about the “once in a century” floods that had hit all of Mongolia, tragically, sweeping over fifty people to their deaths, bridg- es swept away and isolated countless remote communities across the coun- try, even the great Gobi Desert was wa- terlogged. We collected our motley assortment of motorbikes consisting of Teneres, XTs, KTMs and Transalps, along with 4 mechanics and three support vehi- cles and made our way out past Sukh Baatar Square, with a giant statue of a stern looking Chinngis Khan stand- ing guard over Parliament House, that bordered the northern end of the TRAVERSE 76