You Won’t Get Parts in Mongolia

We drove north to a place called Baruum Urt along 200km of gravel road and it took all day. On the way, Barry’s front suspension failed, completely. Lynn and I went ahead for a tow truck, but Barry limped into town.

I found a mechanic and we diagnosed the problem: He had sheared a bracket from his torsion bar front suspension – collateral damage from his impact in China.

The BIG Mongolian mechanic pulled the torsion bar out, then put Barry and I in his car, a little thing, and off we went, Mongolian music on the radio.

He took us to a little auto shop, not a lot of stock, size of a double garage. Laying against the wall were some axles and torsion bars. Some brief Mongolian chatter, the lady scratched around the floor and voila, a left-hand bracket for a torsion tube, for a 2007 Ford Ranger. We wanted a right hand one.

More chatter, more scratching around the floor and bingo, out popped a right-hand one. It cost Barry $4, high fives all round and back into the car. The music was now so loud the speakers couldn’t cope. The word Vodka was used by one of us so he diverted to a store where Barry bought him three bottles at $20 each. The guy couldn’t wipe the smile off his face and hugged Barry so hard he nearly cracked his ribs. Barry’s visa card won’t work in the check out, but we get around that.

Back at the workshop he fitted it, then parked the car on the level road, where he adjusted the ride height. $60 plus vodka.

In the meantime his son had fixed the puncture I had – a stick in the side wall.

So then it was four Aussies, the mechanic and a boilermaker, slugging vodka on the workshop floor from paper cups. We were there less than two hours. We stay in a hotel tonight…

July 21

Headache this morning. Bye for now.