Rough Road to Moron

We saw a lot of rough roads in Mongolia. The guide said they were trying to build one that would run all the way from the far eastern edge of the country to the farthest west, but that progress was slow for a variety of reasons including climate. On another occasion he said the roads in Ulaanbaatar were bad partly because of corruption. I understood this intellectually, but it didn’t really connect until I saw this.

On the way from Moron to Khovsgol Lake we traveled over the best road of the entire trip. New, smooth, and relatively low on traffic, it was a pleasure to ride on.

We were only at that camp for three days, but when we left, something radical had happened. Although a different stretch, this is the same road:

The tour guide’s comment was, “Oh, that’s a pity. It’s hardly a year old.” What could have happened? A flash flood wiped it out. I was saddened and amazed. Then it made sense to me that most of the roads weren’t paved or modified in any way. Why fix it when it won’t last anyway, and it’s so easy to simply create a new lane by driving on a different part of the ground?