Unreal Adventure

So there I was standing next to my motorcycle. The suspension on the sidecar completely sheared off with no way to fix it. In the middle of Mongolia on the edge of a dirt road with only six days to make it to the border before the visa ran out. I looked over at my companions and saw an exhausted look that just seemed to say ‘How much more can we endure?’. We’d been riding through Mongolia for 3 weeks and in that time we had managed to roll one bike, rear end the other, ran out of fuel in the desert, rode 100km in the wrong direction and in the end it was me hitting a small rock that was going to end this big adventure.

The sun was beating down on the bikes as we debated how we were going to get out of this situation. We had seen no cars or trucks come past all day. So it was either abandon the broken bike and half our gear to get the three of us to the next town on the remaining bike or try and rig up a solution and see if we could ride the broken bike to someone who could help. As we stood there debating the issue. I heard in the distance the sound of a small bike coming along the dirt road. It was ridden by a Mongolian nomad with his young son balanced on top of the fuel tank. He stopped alongside and placed the young boy on the ground. Stepped off the bike and came to stand next to us looking down at our broken suspension.

His face was brown and worn from long years spent in the sun and his hands resembled old pieces of leather. Using hand signs and drawings in the dirt we explained to him what had happened and how we needed to somehow lift and attach the sidecar suspension back to the bike. At first he didn’t react. Just took out a piece of magazine paper, placed some rough tobacco in it and lit up his cigarette. As if considering us and the situation and whether he should help. Then with a simple nod he got down to helping us fix the bike.

He calmly went and removed some wire from a nearby fence and proceeded to start winding it around the sidecar to reattach it to the bike. For 2 hours he methodically worked at the task, occasionally gesturing with his hands for us to lift the bike or undo a nut. Stopping only to help his 4 year old son go to the toilet or to chastise him for venturing too far away from his side. In that afternoon we managed to fix our bike and continue the journey. To the nomad I think it would have been just a part of daily life. Stopping and helping someone who needed it. To me it was the simple generous act that saved my big adventure.