We woke up at 6:45, double checked that our bags were packed, drank some cold brew coffee (again using my undies as a filter), and stepped over the pile of clothes and trinkets (jettisoned to save weight) out into the crisp Mongol morning.

A short walk brought us to the Altay bazaar, where characters of all shades of shady convene to barter, haggle, and observe and confuse the business transactions of others. I was reminded of Obi Wan Kenobi negotiating safe passage with Han Solo – “I can give you 2,000 now and 15,000 when we get to Alderan.” The night before we loaded the Justy onto a truck full of goat skins and had arranged to meet the drivers here. The market was mostly empty in the early morning and when it started to rain, we wondered briefly if we’ve been stood up and our car hi-jacked. Just then the driver rolled up.

With literally no common ground between our English and their Mongolian we miraculously managed to be driven to the nearby bus depot. The “buses” were actually Soviet vans slightly larger than a minivan but slightly smaller than a fully qualified van. We were told 30,000 tugrugs by our driver but prices here have a tendency to increase between the original price quoted and the actual payment – we settled the fare at 40,000 each. Josh and I said goodbye to Andrew and Jon and plopped down on one of the buses bench seats.

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