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Once my friend Owen flew into Beijing we started our journey to Japan. The ferry from China ran once a week from Shanghai to Osaka so we caught an overnight train to Shanghai, his gave us a day there to check out the sights.
The train was brand new, including air conditioning, and TV's at the foot of our beds. We arrived early the following morning well rested, an ready to go find our hostel. There again the tube system cost a matter of pence to use, and after a bit of figuring out we found our way to the hostel, that was in a pretty nice area of the city.
One thing you find in China is that the cars will always beep to tell you they're close to you, so it gives you plenty of warning, but when you consider the sheer millions of bicycles going around the cities, you soon realise they're more deadly than the cars, they're like 2 wheeled ninjas that come out of nowhere, so you find that you start looking everywhere you go, out of sheer paranoia, either way, we survived with no injuries.
Shanghai whilst we were there was as people described it to me, very very smoggy, so smoggy infact you couldn't see the tops of skyscrapers most of the time. Then on top of that, an most likely a result of the smog is the unbearable humidity mixed with the high temperatures. It was not something I was used to and I'm glad I wasn't there long, because it really affected me.
We managed to find the ferry terminal and get on the ferry the following morning. The ferry was pretty well equiped, it had a restaurant, lounges, shop etc... It also had a bar that was open in the evenings, with one drawback...it was a kareoke bar!
I'm not the best singer in the world, actually lets rephrase that I'm about as talented at singing as...*insert funny anocdote here* Well you get the point.
So the nights were filled with moving back and forth from the bar to a lounge seating area, we'd get a couple of beers then the sound of drunken Japanese people singing would over power you (and your eardrums), so you'd retreat to the lounge area and wittle the evenings away.
On the boat there were a selection of books that previous travellers had obviously dumped there, the only one which was in English happened to have two copies there, it was a fiction novel called Twilight, it happens that it was made into a film not long ago, so I thought it'd be a good way to use up some of the time on the ferry. It was an interesting book about vampires, but definately aimed more at the teenager/young adult market, little did I know that when I read this first book there were a further three sequels that had been published, and that I'd suddenly have an desire to read them, because they all end on cliff hangers. This story continues in Japan, so you'll have wait and see what happens.
We met a couple from Chile on the ferry and a German student studying in Japan, we all spent an evening exchanging travel stories and plans for Japan, so was a nice way to spend our time there.
Before we knew it the ferry journey was over and the time not only passed pretty fast it was also pretty enjoyable.
Only one thing caused us trouble on te ferry, and it was very annoying! Every morning over the tannoy system they'd annouce in a variety of languages that breakfast was available, this would inevitably wake us up, but just to drive it home and make sure that at 7.30am you were definately awake they'd play really bad melodies over the tannoy system, loud enough so you couldn't possibly get back to sleep. This wasn't just for a minute or two, oh no, a whole 20mins, they were making sure that on a boat where there's very little to do, that you enjoyed as much of that time as possible!
So other than the unneeded wake up calls all was fine and dandy, so we made it to Osaka, Japan 9.30am two days after we first set off. Ready to take in the land of the rising sun!
Thursday, 17 September 2009
Beijing
Since getting to Beijing we've found some lovely places to eat, we've visited places like tianimen square, and the forbidden city. Mike and 2 of the girls in the group both flew back after a few days to the UK, so it's just me an 2 other guys I know from the rally now in Beijing, and they're staying with me until my Birthday and then they're flying back that day.
We've checked into an awesome hostel, its actually a hotel but the top floor is a hostel with bar etc so we're pretty pleased, it also has free wifi etc... The only problem is that I still can't get my photo's off my bloody camera, its definitely their computers not the memory cards, but most annoying!
One day we ventured down to the silk market in town, it was only a few stops on the tube, and definately the best market I've even been to. Just outside we were asked by a film crew whether we'd be willing to talk to them, after a moment I thought why not, who's going to see it anyway. It was a weird interview, I was asked many questions about the "monkey king" not having any idea what they were on about I presumed it was some kind of Kungfu thing. I jibbered on about how I'd heard about him on the Internet and as predicted the interview was pretty short haha. All in all a good start to the morning.
At the market, as you're walking through all the sellers who obviously have a set english vocabulary try to pull you in to their stores etc, but nothing too agressive. All the goods there are fake, but the best fakes you'll come across. We were already told that what ever the starting price they ask, you should try and settle at about a sixth of that price. My shopping by the end of the day included an I "heart" BJ t-shirt, a tag heurer carrera watch and all three of us picked up somewhat an impulse buy of a Chinese fighter pilot helmet each, we each have different colours and after some deliberation our call signs are chop sticks, chow mein & crispy duck! All in all a great day!
On a variety of nights I ventured out to several suggested night spots. They varied from a largely ex-pat area with many small bars and a couple of cool roof terraces. To a Local clubs, that we stood out as the only westerners there (that and I'm taller than the vast majority of the populus), they all had dj's playing western dance music varying between classics, new tracks and as always with a few timeless Michael Jackson tracks mixed in. The local clubs are interesting, I'm not sure whether it was because we were westeners or if this was normal practice but we were shown to a table where you get table service for your drinks and they watch your stuff as you dance. Another strange thing, is going to a club and seeing people not buying shots of alcohol but instead buying whole bottles, and then leaving most of the bottle on the table and walking off, an group of girls next to us had about a tenth of a bottle of Jonny Walker Blue, then left.
We also ventured to a club that was Russian owned, it was very much Russian in it's decor, such as the shiny gold urinals and tables etc... We didn't feel entirely comfortable so left after one drink, after meeting some pretty dodgy people in Russia this had much the same vibe.
Beijing was an interesting place, you quickly realise it's pretty smoggy, and very few people speak English, mainly because with nearly 2 billion population, why should they!
It's staggering how big everything is there, and how much construction is still happening. When you consider it costs just 16p for a single underground trip anywhere in Beijing, and that an hours taxi journey cost about £4, it puts it in perspective with the UK. All the modern ammenities are available in Beijing, and obviously there's a wide range of variances with the West, it's definately taking the better pieces of the west, then putting their own slant on it. You could almost say they've reverse engineered the city from the likes of New York & London. There's still alot to happen in China as a whole, but Beijing is somewhere that I could potentially see as good place to work; but not a place I'd consider a long term relocation.
It's appears very much a case that China is the next big player, and not a world power to be laughed at. I for one, welcome our new Chinese Masters!
We've checked into an awesome hostel, its actually a hotel but the top floor is a hostel with bar etc so we're pretty pleased, it also has free wifi etc... The only problem is that I still can't get my photo's off my bloody camera, its definitely their computers not the memory cards, but most annoying!
One day we ventured down to the silk market in town, it was only a few stops on the tube, and definately the best market I've even been to. Just outside we were asked by a film crew whether we'd be willing to talk to them, after a moment I thought why not, who's going to see it anyway. It was a weird interview, I was asked many questions about the "monkey king" not having any idea what they were on about I presumed it was some kind of Kungfu thing. I jibbered on about how I'd heard about him on the Internet and as predicted the interview was pretty short haha. All in all a good start to the morning.
At the market, as you're walking through all the sellers who obviously have a set english vocabulary try to pull you in to their stores etc, but nothing too agressive. All the goods there are fake, but the best fakes you'll come across. We were already told that what ever the starting price they ask, you should try and settle at about a sixth of that price. My shopping by the end of the day included an I "heart" BJ t-shirt, a tag heurer carrera watch and all three of us picked up somewhat an impulse buy of a Chinese fighter pilot helmet each, we each have different colours and after some deliberation our call signs are chop sticks, chow mein & crispy duck! All in all a great day!
On a variety of nights I ventured out to several suggested night spots. They varied from a largely ex-pat area with many small bars and a couple of cool roof terraces. To a Local clubs, that we stood out as the only westerners there (that and I'm taller than the vast majority of the populus), they all had dj's playing western dance music varying between classics, new tracks and as always with a few timeless Michael Jackson tracks mixed in. The local clubs are interesting, I'm not sure whether it was because we were westeners or if this was normal practice but we were shown to a table where you get table service for your drinks and they watch your stuff as you dance. Another strange thing, is going to a club and seeing people not buying shots of alcohol but instead buying whole bottles, and then leaving most of the bottle on the table and walking off, an group of girls next to us had about a tenth of a bottle of Jonny Walker Blue, then left.
We also ventured to a club that was Russian owned, it was very much Russian in it's decor, such as the shiny gold urinals and tables etc... We didn't feel entirely comfortable so left after one drink, after meeting some pretty dodgy people in Russia this had much the same vibe.
Beijing was an interesting place, you quickly realise it's pretty smoggy, and very few people speak English, mainly because with nearly 2 billion population, why should they!
It's staggering how big everything is there, and how much construction is still happening. When you consider it costs just 16p for a single underground trip anywhere in Beijing, and that an hours taxi journey cost about £4, it puts it in perspective with the UK. All the modern ammenities are available in Beijing, and obviously there's a wide range of variances with the West, it's definately taking the better pieces of the west, then putting their own slant on it. You could almost say they've reverse engineered the city from the likes of New York & London. There's still alot to happen in China as a whole, but Beijing is somewhere that I could potentially see as good place to work; but not a place I'd consider a long term relocation.
It's appears very much a case that China is the next big player, and not a world power to be laughed at. I for one, welcome our new Chinese Masters!
Thursday, 10 September 2009
Downtime in UB then onto Beijing
I ended up staying in UlanBatar for 10 days, mainly waiting in the Chinese Visa I needed to head on the next step in the journey onto Beijing.
UlanBatar was a nice relief from the constant need to drive and make up miles. But it is still a city in the making. It has essentially a single main road running through the centre, from which everything else spreads out and meanders away.
We managed to find a guest house called the golden gobi which was in the very centre of the city. As with many of the guesthouses if they are full they offer you a place in one of their sister guesthouses (most likely run by a friend of theirs) which is near to them. So we ended up staying with a woman named Betsy, who happened to teach Russian and as she put it she "thought she might as well learn English as it's helpful". She spoke absolutely perfect English, which might sound like we were being judgemental, but after nearly 4 weeks of broken English at best, it came as a complete suprise an somewhat a relief.
We stayed there one night and then the next day we had already booked into another guesthouse when we were back in the UK, so we went searching for the Mongolian Steppe Guesthouse. I say we went "searching" because this was literally it, the system of addresses in UlanBatar is clearly still in the process of being determined, as it's very much a case of checking quite a few different places before getting a clue as to where you may have to head. Just as we were at the point of giving up we wondered up a staircase and found a sign for the Mongolian Steppe Guesthouse, this landlady, Eiggy, was also very good at English and she had to show us down the road to where we'd booked our bedrooms. As it turned out we had an apartment to ourselves which was awesome. The shower was also a godsend. However, UlanBatar has one centralised hot water system, so when they have to work on a section of the system they shut down entire streets and districts. This meant we had a whole 2 days of hot water, then we quickly our hopes dashed by having the remainder of our stay there with cold water showers, not just cold showers though, it felt like the coldest water any of us had ever been in. It was so cold that your arms and legs would turn blue, and as soon as it hit your body you'd have uncontrolable breathing spasms, so a nice challenge to the cleaning process.
We had fun trying to get a tourist visa for China, the office are only open from 9.30am-12pm on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays. So not the most flexible of opening hours.
We got to the office early knowing there are issues with the amount of people all trying to get visas, so we were one of the first there. Then at 9.30am when the door opened to let a set amount of people through, there was a surge as everyone tries to get in. Luckily for some reason westerners such as ourselves were given priority, so that combined that we were at the front anywy ensured we got in with the first lot. After only 20mins of form filling and chatting with the clerk we had all of the paperwork sorted and had to come back on the Wednesday to pick up our visas for the princely sum of $50.
With this in hand we had to then go and book our train tickets. The transiberian railway which runs from Moscow to Beijing runs once a week, and unfortunately was fully booked till September. So our only option rather than flying which was about $270, was to take a Mongolian train to the Chinese border and then take a Chinese train from there.
So we got the train from UB to Jinjing this took about 24 hours, we were all in a sleeper carriage with 4 to a room, it was clean and well designed, if not a little old. All in all it was a good journey, and we all slept pretty well. The next section however was interesting. So the first train actually ended up running earlier than planned. So we got to Jinjing, and we had 5 hours to kill, but it was about 7pm, so we decided to go and grab some food, and even try an Internet cafe afterwards. After some interesting ordering from a menu completely in Cantonese, we got some lovely food including noodles, duck, rice and various meat dishes....and there was way to much to eat, we'd picked up some people from the train by this point as well so there were about 8 of us in the restaurant. All the food and a couple of beers later we came to settle the bill and it all added up to about £5 each, so we were all pretty impressed!
We left the restaurant with full stomachs and still had about 2 hours to kill, so we headed down the road lead by one of the waitresses to an internet cafe tucked away in an alleyway. It's weird as you walk around what is obviously not a tourist haunt, and where westerners are relatively rare, everyone stares at you, but not in an intimidating way just and inquizative way, people going past also like to shout hello as they cycle past etc...
We got to the Internet cafe, and were hit by one annoying realisation, all the computers are in Chinese, and to top it off, China has a huge firewall controlling what the Chinese public see on the Internet, including Facebook, so for the next week or so, I'll have no access to my blog, or facebook or even a variety of other seemingly harmless websites that are considered offensive.
Anyways, after attempting the internet, we headed to the train station to await our train at midnight, we were under the impression this was another sleeper train, but unfortunately it was not. In China there are 2 main classes of seat....hard seats....or soft seats. We luckily had the latter. But that doesn't stop the pain! As it turns out hard seat tickets just mean you dont actually have a seat at all, instead you stand or sit in the aisle for the entire 7 hour journey! So we had very uncomfortable seats, and surrounding us were hundreds of Chinese people all standing and sitting where ever they could purch, this ended up meaning that one Chinese guy crawled under my row of seats and feel asleep, there was no leg room at all because you're in bays of 6 people facing one another, and I was sat in the aisle facing a guy who resembled Buddha! Only he snores worse than anyone I've ever met! So after an entire day on the go, and no sleep the following night we all got to Beijing at 7am, all a little grumpy/hungry & tired.
We then had the fun of trying to find the travellodge-esk place we'd booked ourselves into, only to find that the hotel details were on my phone that had conveniently run out of power on the journey, so we frantically roamed the station looking for a power point, I did managed to find one in the toilet in the station, the only problem being it was above head height so I had to stand holding my phone above my head as people did their business around me. I was there about 1 mins, and a cleaner who obviously though I was trying to recreate a George Michael toilet situation ushered me on.
We managed to get into a taxi and then I used the cigarette adapter to charge the phone as we headed to where we thought the hotel was, and all worked out well, we got to the hotel, and for only £10 a night it was awesome.
UlanBatar was a nice relief from the constant need to drive and make up miles. But it is still a city in the making. It has essentially a single main road running through the centre, from which everything else spreads out and meanders away.
We managed to find a guest house called the golden gobi which was in the very centre of the city. As with many of the guesthouses if they are full they offer you a place in one of their sister guesthouses (most likely run by a friend of theirs) which is near to them. So we ended up staying with a woman named Betsy, who happened to teach Russian and as she put it she "thought she might as well learn English as it's helpful". She spoke absolutely perfect English, which might sound like we were being judgemental, but after nearly 4 weeks of broken English at best, it came as a complete suprise an somewhat a relief.
We stayed there one night and then the next day we had already booked into another guesthouse when we were back in the UK, so we went searching for the Mongolian Steppe Guesthouse. I say we went "searching" because this was literally it, the system of addresses in UlanBatar is clearly still in the process of being determined, as it's very much a case of checking quite a few different places before getting a clue as to where you may have to head. Just as we were at the point of giving up we wondered up a staircase and found a sign for the Mongolian Steppe Guesthouse, this landlady, Eiggy, was also very good at English and she had to show us down the road to where we'd booked our bedrooms. As it turned out we had an apartment to ourselves which was awesome. The shower was also a godsend. However, UlanBatar has one centralised hot water system, so when they have to work on a section of the system they shut down entire streets and districts. This meant we had a whole 2 days of hot water, then we quickly our hopes dashed by having the remainder of our stay there with cold water showers, not just cold showers though, it felt like the coldest water any of us had ever been in. It was so cold that your arms and legs would turn blue, and as soon as it hit your body you'd have uncontrolable breathing spasms, so a nice challenge to the cleaning process.
We had fun trying to get a tourist visa for China, the office are only open from 9.30am-12pm on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays. So not the most flexible of opening hours.
We got to the office early knowing there are issues with the amount of people all trying to get visas, so we were one of the first there. Then at 9.30am when the door opened to let a set amount of people through, there was a surge as everyone tries to get in. Luckily for some reason westerners such as ourselves were given priority, so that combined that we were at the front anywy ensured we got in with the first lot. After only 20mins of form filling and chatting with the clerk we had all of the paperwork sorted and had to come back on the Wednesday to pick up our visas for the princely sum of $50.
With this in hand we had to then go and book our train tickets. The transiberian railway which runs from Moscow to Beijing runs once a week, and unfortunately was fully booked till September. So our only option rather than flying which was about $270, was to take a Mongolian train to the Chinese border and then take a Chinese train from there.
So we got the train from UB to Jinjing this took about 24 hours, we were all in a sleeper carriage with 4 to a room, it was clean and well designed, if not a little old. All in all it was a good journey, and we all slept pretty well. The next section however was interesting. So the first train actually ended up running earlier than planned. So we got to Jinjing, and we had 5 hours to kill, but it was about 7pm, so we decided to go and grab some food, and even try an Internet cafe afterwards. After some interesting ordering from a menu completely in Cantonese, we got some lovely food including noodles, duck, rice and various meat dishes....and there was way to much to eat, we'd picked up some people from the train by this point as well so there were about 8 of us in the restaurant. All the food and a couple of beers later we came to settle the bill and it all added up to about £5 each, so we were all pretty impressed!
We left the restaurant with full stomachs and still had about 2 hours to kill, so we headed down the road lead by one of the waitresses to an internet cafe tucked away in an alleyway. It's weird as you walk around what is obviously not a tourist haunt, and where westerners are relatively rare, everyone stares at you, but not in an intimidating way just and inquizative way, people going past also like to shout hello as they cycle past etc...
We got to the Internet cafe, and were hit by one annoying realisation, all the computers are in Chinese, and to top it off, China has a huge firewall controlling what the Chinese public see on the Internet, including Facebook, so for the next week or so, I'll have no access to my blog, or facebook or even a variety of other seemingly harmless websites that are considered offensive.
Anyways, after attempting the internet, we headed to the train station to await our train at midnight, we were under the impression this was another sleeper train, but unfortunately it was not. In China there are 2 main classes of seat....hard seats....or soft seats. We luckily had the latter. But that doesn't stop the pain! As it turns out hard seat tickets just mean you dont actually have a seat at all, instead you stand or sit in the aisle for the entire 7 hour journey! So we had very uncomfortable seats, and surrounding us were hundreds of Chinese people all standing and sitting where ever they could purch, this ended up meaning that one Chinese guy crawled under my row of seats and feel asleep, there was no leg room at all because you're in bays of 6 people facing one another, and I was sat in the aisle facing a guy who resembled Buddha! Only he snores worse than anyone I've ever met! So after an entire day on the go, and no sleep the following night we all got to Beijing at 7am, all a little grumpy/hungry & tired.
We then had the fun of trying to find the travellodge-esk place we'd booked ourselves into, only to find that the hotel details were on my phone that had conveniently run out of power on the journey, so we frantically roamed the station looking for a power point, I did managed to find one in the toilet in the station, the only problem being it was above head height so I had to stand holding my phone above my head as people did their business around me. I was there about 1 mins, and a cleaner who obviously though I was trying to recreate a George Michael toilet situation ushered me on.
We managed to get into a taxi and then I used the cigarette adapter to charge the phone as we headed to where we thought the hotel was, and all worked out well, we got to the hotel, and for only £10 a night it was awesome.
Sunday, 16 August 2009
Bajanhongo to UlanBaator
The morning started well, we woke up and hit the rest of my golf balls off the very tip of one of the mountains, which had awesome views in the morning.
Once we packed up camp we set forth towards UlanBaatar, we didn't expect to make it in a day, but we were so close we could taste the finish line!
Unfortunately we got 1km down the road and the strong stench of petrol filled the car, we stopped to check it out, and the petrol was flowing freely, we wasted a quarter of the tank just driving that little bit. After checking under the car we could see one of the hoses into the fuel filter was leaking. I had a look under the car and soon found that the pipe used was your ordinary hose pipe which has corroded away by the petrol, this pipe was put on the day before by our trusty welder/mechanic. Then on further inspection we found that the local mechanic from the previous town had broken the intake pipe on the fuel filter so it was unrepairable.
After about 1 minute thought we came up with a plan! We removed the fuel filter altogether, then to connect the two pieces of hose that run from the tank to the engine, we used the casing of a biro pen and some cable ties to join the two ends, this actually worked and we were underway!
We had the usual slow progress that we had encountered throughout the Mongolian road system. It's hard to explain how their roads work, at some point someone will have driven cross country to the next nearest town, and then using those tyre marks others followed, until that path becomes undrivable because it's to bumpy and pretty much ruins all cars. Once they get to that point they then start a new pathway opposite the old one, and so on and so forth, until you end up with 8 tracks all leading the same way and some being hell and others relatively speaking alot smoother.
Eventually the next casualty of the convoy appeared, the Jimny broke one of their suspension struts. The bodge fix involved splinting the strut back together. We used some of the aluminium poles off our roof rack base, some cable ties, duck tape and racket straps, then it was good as new!
As we progressed towards the finishing line, we did end up making a geographical error, we all started driving through some grassland to get to the tarmac'd road on the side of one of the mountains, the only problem with this direct approach was the 5 rivers in our way, and the very potholed grassy terrain, after scraping out a couple of times and zigzagging trying to avoid the rivers etc we decided to go back on ourselves, and low and behold there was a back road around the closest hill that lead to the main road. Then we were only 400km from UlanBaatar, but even on Tarmac we weren't going to drive through the night to get there. So we headed to the next nearest town, and from there we found a Gur camp to sleep in, the gur was $15 a night, and it might not be luxury, but it sure felt good after camping so much. It had a wood burner in the centre, lights and power plugs, then 4 beds around the inside of the gur. Comfy, warm and ideal for us all.
At dinner we all agreed that the following day would be a relaxing one, so we planned to head to the hit the hot springs spa some 60km away.
This turned into a bit of a farce, after driving there, and having to make it across some pretty mean ditches, we found that the spa was a recovery centre for Mongolians who'd suffered some illness's, so it was full of doctors. We must've looked very strange turning up an asking for sauna's and mudbaths that were quoted in someones tour book.
So we were a bit gutted because we were still tired and this 140km round trip ended up being a bit useless.
When we got back to the gur camp that evening we'd booked to go horse riding, so they had the horses waiting for us. They were average sized things, but stubborn as hell! For some reason the horse I was given wasn't happy unless he was galloping flat out! Then as soon as my horse would bolt so would the others trying to catch up! After about 30mins of trying to battle this horse to stop (Mongolian horses have been trained with absolutely no words for stop, so my incessent shouts of "Wooooohhhh" did nothing but make me look like a loon!)
All in all it was a good day, even with the disappointment of the spa, so we all went down to another gur camp down the road that had a restaurant, and tried some more Mongolian delacasies.
The next day we set off with high hopes, we'd been told that the next 400km were Tarmac all the way into Ulanbaator, which even with a fuel tank patched using soap, and a biro connecting our fuel lines would be fine to drive, and we'd arrive around lunchtime.
As it turns out they're still building alot of the roads into UlanBaatar, so it wasn't as direct as we'd have liked. There were plenty of more offroading sections that threatened to hurt the car even further. But then by 3pm we were on the top of a mountain looking down at the city of UlanBaatar! It couldn't sink in that we made it, and everyone was really excited and happy to have finally made it, but couldn't quite explain the feelings.
The journey was both a long and short one, we covered over 7,000 miles in just over 3 weeks. We travelled 11 countries, and after being pulled over more than 10 times by the police, we managed not to pay any fines or bribes with money, just items we had sitting in the car. We were the 50th car to arrive, and if we'd have not taken the day off to relax we'd have been the 8th team to arrive, so even though it's not a race, our Suzuki Swift lived up to it's name and got is there safely, and with only a little bit of stress haha.
Stay tuned for the China, Japan & USA segments of my trip.
Once we packed up camp we set forth towards UlanBaatar, we didn't expect to make it in a day, but we were so close we could taste the finish line!
Unfortunately we got 1km down the road and the strong stench of petrol filled the car, we stopped to check it out, and the petrol was flowing freely, we wasted a quarter of the tank just driving that little bit. After checking under the car we could see one of the hoses into the fuel filter was leaking. I had a look under the car and soon found that the pipe used was your ordinary hose pipe which has corroded away by the petrol, this pipe was put on the day before by our trusty welder/mechanic. Then on further inspection we found that the local mechanic from the previous town had broken the intake pipe on the fuel filter so it was unrepairable.
After about 1 minute thought we came up with a plan! We removed the fuel filter altogether, then to connect the two pieces of hose that run from the tank to the engine, we used the casing of a biro pen and some cable ties to join the two ends, this actually worked and we were underway!
We had the usual slow progress that we had encountered throughout the Mongolian road system. It's hard to explain how their roads work, at some point someone will have driven cross country to the next nearest town, and then using those tyre marks others followed, until that path becomes undrivable because it's to bumpy and pretty much ruins all cars. Once they get to that point they then start a new pathway opposite the old one, and so on and so forth, until you end up with 8 tracks all leading the same way and some being hell and others relatively speaking alot smoother.
Eventually the next casualty of the convoy appeared, the Jimny broke one of their suspension struts. The bodge fix involved splinting the strut back together. We used some of the aluminium poles off our roof rack base, some cable ties, duck tape and racket straps, then it was good as new!
As we progressed towards the finishing line, we did end up making a geographical error, we all started driving through some grassland to get to the tarmac'd road on the side of one of the mountains, the only problem with this direct approach was the 5 rivers in our way, and the very potholed grassy terrain, after scraping out a couple of times and zigzagging trying to avoid the rivers etc we decided to go back on ourselves, and low and behold there was a back road around the closest hill that lead to the main road. Then we were only 400km from UlanBaatar, but even on Tarmac we weren't going to drive through the night to get there. So we headed to the next nearest town, and from there we found a Gur camp to sleep in, the gur was $15 a night, and it might not be luxury, but it sure felt good after camping so much. It had a wood burner in the centre, lights and power plugs, then 4 beds around the inside of the gur. Comfy, warm and ideal for us all.
At dinner we all agreed that the following day would be a relaxing one, so we planned to head to the hit the hot springs spa some 60km away.
This turned into a bit of a farce, after driving there, and having to make it across some pretty mean ditches, we found that the spa was a recovery centre for Mongolians who'd suffered some illness's, so it was full of doctors. We must've looked very strange turning up an asking for sauna's and mudbaths that were quoted in someones tour book.
So we were a bit gutted because we were still tired and this 140km round trip ended up being a bit useless.
When we got back to the gur camp that evening we'd booked to go horse riding, so they had the horses waiting for us. They were average sized things, but stubborn as hell! For some reason the horse I was given wasn't happy unless he was galloping flat out! Then as soon as my horse would bolt so would the others trying to catch up! After about 30mins of trying to battle this horse to stop (Mongolian horses have been trained with absolutely no words for stop, so my incessent shouts of "Wooooohhhh" did nothing but make me look like a loon!)
All in all it was a good day, even with the disappointment of the spa, so we all went down to another gur camp down the road that had a restaurant, and tried some more Mongolian delacasies.
The next day we set off with high hopes, we'd been told that the next 400km were Tarmac all the way into Ulanbaator, which even with a fuel tank patched using soap, and a biro connecting our fuel lines would be fine to drive, and we'd arrive around lunchtime.
As it turns out they're still building alot of the roads into UlanBaatar, so it wasn't as direct as we'd have liked. There were plenty of more offroading sections that threatened to hurt the car even further. But then by 3pm we were on the top of a mountain looking down at the city of UlanBaatar! It couldn't sink in that we made it, and everyone was really excited and happy to have finally made it, but couldn't quite explain the feelings.
The journey was both a long and short one, we covered over 7,000 miles in just over 3 weeks. We travelled 11 countries, and after being pulled over more than 10 times by the police, we managed not to pay any fines or bribes with money, just items we had sitting in the car. We were the 50th car to arrive, and if we'd have not taken the day off to relax we'd have been the 8th team to arrive, so even though it's not a race, our Suzuki Swift lived up to it's name and got is there safely, and with only a little bit of stress haha.
Stay tuned for the China, Japan & USA segments of my trip.
Wednesday, 12 August 2009
Altaj to Bajanhongo
Well the last 2 days have been pretty eventful! Where do I start....we woke up pretty early because the roof rack had to be rethought out, due to the bumps in the road shaking it loose every 100km or so, but when we started emptying the roof rack we noticed the smell of petrol, when we looked under the car, it was clear the fuel tank was not the nice normal shape it was at the start of the rally, now it had a good three large dents in it, and unfortunately a small hole which was dripping our fuel everywhere. This was the nightmare we'd worried about, after hearing about it ending so many other previous peoples rallies, so we jacked up the car, and tried using some petrol patching material which is basically a piece of cloth that is then dunked in this grey glue type stuff, and you massage it over the hole to try and block it. After leaving it an hour we set off for the next days driving. We set off from Altaj and the roads showed no signs of getting better, the landscape however kept changing as we meandered our way though the terrain. From grasslands to desert to mountains, with that and the roads being as bad as they were, we were definately kept on our toes.
My teammate was driving the car, and as we were going along a relatively smooth piece of road he managed to get it up to the almighty speed of 40mph, unfortunately as we were going along, there was a sharp dip in the road followed by another dip quickly afterwards, because the car hadn't recovered from the first dip, as we hit the second the car was launched upwards, for what felt like a couple of seconds we were all floating in the car off our seats, thn came the crash as the car landed back to the ground, and the roof rack came sliding off the roof and down the front of the car scattering it's contents everywhere. The damage luckily was only a large scrape on the bonnet, and a slightly bent roof rack. Once we went back to check on the skid marks you could see that the cars front wheels had touched down about 16 foot from the second dip. On a proper timetrialed rally, that jump could have looked amazing, and we were lucky that the car was in one piece, after about 20minutes we were ready to rock and roll, with the roof rack still in one piece.
As we drove onwards, the leak in the fuel tank got worse and we decided to stop off in the next village to try and get a local mechanic to try and weld it. The next village luckily did have a mechanic but he didn't have a welder, instead he had something called abro-steel, it's a kind of metal putty that hardens after you mix two compounds. We thought it could harm and at £7.50 wasn't going to break the bank. The mechic used a pulley system an a cambelt to hoist the car up and then got to work, as he was playing with the car we stepped out of his yard and all the local kids who'd noticed us playing with a football came over, and as usual, they wouldn't steal anything, but would be so inquizative that they'd ask to look through the cars etc. After about an hour the car was ready to roll again, and we were out of pens, sweets and stickers to give the kids. The tank seamed to hold up for a while, but then the leak started again, but luckily only a little drip opposed to the trickle we had before.
We ended up camping that night in the north of the Gobi desert, it was completely flat and with no clouds it was amazing to see the stars so brightly, we even saw a couple of shooting stars. Just before the sun set we all hit a few golf balls across the desert as I'd brought bag full for such occassions, which was good fun.
It was a mixed day with highs and lows, and more than a few arguements, but by the end of it we were alot happier that we'd met alot of the locals and had our first mishap but the car stood all the tests the rally threw at us so far.
The next morning we woke up early to get photos of the sunset, which was pretty cool, as it came up over the desert. We were all pretty tired already, but we got up and started off for the day, and with the goal of getting to Bajanhongo, which was the next major town after Altaj.
As we were going, around lunchtime we came to a river, quite a wide river in fact, it only came up to our knees, but with the cars would die before making it to the otherside. After speaking to a local, he tried to explain that it got alot narrower 1km down stream, then he jumped on his motorbike and showed us where. When we got there we realised that the air intake was still to low to go through the water, so we opened the bonnet, twisted the intake upwards, and attached a 2 foot of metal flexi-duct to the end so it acted like a snorkel for the car, this then sat on the windscreen and seeing as I was the one driving the others had the fun job of pushing the car off from the mud, so it was a case of putting it in first gear and revving the hell out of the engine so no water went up the exhaust pipe. Luckily I made it across without any issues, and the engine purred afterwards. 2 of the other cars in the convoy also made it across, but the Suzuki Jimny had some issues, because the bow wave of the water pushed it through the bonnet and into their air intake, after some airing out and drying of their filter it was up and going again. Whilst that was happening another gang of kids decided to invade the cars and join us playing with the football and rugby balls we brought.
When we finally made it to Bajanhongo we decided to find another mechanic and see if they could weld the fuel tank, as it was still leaking. One of the locals hopped in the car and lead us to a mechanic, who seamed to understand what we were trying to explain, after about 10mins of overjealous hand gestures we'd agreed a price and he set to work. He took about an hour removing the fuel tank, then got to work welding the tank with an arc welder, he didn't even use a welding mask so he's probably half blind already, but after another hour he'd patched it up and then added more of the abrosteel for good measure.
The fun part came about when he went to fix it back onto the car. He'd managed to rip one of the fuel filter pipes, so had to use some other pipe as a substitute, but whilst doing this his young assistant thought it'd be funny to try an scare the mechanic, by slightly lowering the trolley jack that was holding the car up. Only problem was that he lowered it fully, so we were all sat some 15ft away, heard a scream of the mechanic as the car was lowered on him, we ran and tried lifting the car up so the assistant could re-raise the jack, luckily it worked and he raised the car back up and the mechanic who was most likely a but shook up, just kept on working with no serious injuries.
Once it was all done we paid up the equivelent of £15 and set off on our way. We drove about 30km out of town to pitch up in the mountains for the night. Whilst on our way there a couple of guys got chatting to us all whilst we were waiting at a toll road. They were telling us to watch out for snakes in the long grasses etc... They even offered to take us hunting with them for dinner. We made our excuses and left as we were all tired after a long day. Then the two guys who both seamed a little on edge started racing and cutting off one of the other cars, trying to get them of the road, as the other car caught up with us, they drove in front of our car and handbreaked the car into our way, after we slammed on the brakes and almost hit them they jumped out and started demanding that we drank some whisky with them, but seeing that we were very tired and driving it wouldn't have made a good mix, so a little worried after trying to get away and them both putting their fingers to their throats in a slitting motion, we got away and they didn't try to follow or anything.
We ended up pitching our tents on the side of a mountain and having some of our army ration packs for dinner.
All in all an interesting couple of days!
My teammate was driving the car, and as we were going along a relatively smooth piece of road he managed to get it up to the almighty speed of 40mph, unfortunately as we were going along, there was a sharp dip in the road followed by another dip quickly afterwards, because the car hadn't recovered from the first dip, as we hit the second the car was launched upwards, for what felt like a couple of seconds we were all floating in the car off our seats, thn came the crash as the car landed back to the ground, and the roof rack came sliding off the roof and down the front of the car scattering it's contents everywhere. The damage luckily was only a large scrape on the bonnet, and a slightly bent roof rack. Once we went back to check on the skid marks you could see that the cars front wheels had touched down about 16 foot from the second dip. On a proper timetrialed rally, that jump could have looked amazing, and we were lucky that the car was in one piece, after about 20minutes we were ready to rock and roll, with the roof rack still in one piece.
As we drove onwards, the leak in the fuel tank got worse and we decided to stop off in the next village to try and get a local mechanic to try and weld it. The next village luckily did have a mechanic but he didn't have a welder, instead he had something called abro-steel, it's a kind of metal putty that hardens after you mix two compounds. We thought it could harm and at £7.50 wasn't going to break the bank. The mechic used a pulley system an a cambelt to hoist the car up and then got to work, as he was playing with the car we stepped out of his yard and all the local kids who'd noticed us playing with a football came over, and as usual, they wouldn't steal anything, but would be so inquizative that they'd ask to look through the cars etc. After about an hour the car was ready to roll again, and we were out of pens, sweets and stickers to give the kids. The tank seamed to hold up for a while, but then the leak started again, but luckily only a little drip opposed to the trickle we had before.
We ended up camping that night in the north of the Gobi desert, it was completely flat and with no clouds it was amazing to see the stars so brightly, we even saw a couple of shooting stars. Just before the sun set we all hit a few golf balls across the desert as I'd brought bag full for such occassions, which was good fun.
It was a mixed day with highs and lows, and more than a few arguements, but by the end of it we were alot happier that we'd met alot of the locals and had our first mishap but the car stood all the tests the rally threw at us so far.
The next morning we woke up early to get photos of the sunset, which was pretty cool, as it came up over the desert. We were all pretty tired already, but we got up and started off for the day, and with the goal of getting to Bajanhongo, which was the next major town after Altaj.
As we were going, around lunchtime we came to a river, quite a wide river in fact, it only came up to our knees, but with the cars would die before making it to the otherside. After speaking to a local, he tried to explain that it got alot narrower 1km down stream, then he jumped on his motorbike and showed us where. When we got there we realised that the air intake was still to low to go through the water, so we opened the bonnet, twisted the intake upwards, and attached a 2 foot of metal flexi-duct to the end so it acted like a snorkel for the car, this then sat on the windscreen and seeing as I was the one driving the others had the fun job of pushing the car off from the mud, so it was a case of putting it in first gear and revving the hell out of the engine so no water went up the exhaust pipe. Luckily I made it across without any issues, and the engine purred afterwards. 2 of the other cars in the convoy also made it across, but the Suzuki Jimny had some issues, because the bow wave of the water pushed it through the bonnet and into their air intake, after some airing out and drying of their filter it was up and going again. Whilst that was happening another gang of kids decided to invade the cars and join us playing with the football and rugby balls we brought.
When we finally made it to Bajanhongo we decided to find another mechanic and see if they could weld the fuel tank, as it was still leaking. One of the locals hopped in the car and lead us to a mechanic, who seamed to understand what we were trying to explain, after about 10mins of overjealous hand gestures we'd agreed a price and he set to work. He took about an hour removing the fuel tank, then got to work welding the tank with an arc welder, he didn't even use a welding mask so he's probably half blind already, but after another hour he'd patched it up and then added more of the abrosteel for good measure.
The fun part came about when he went to fix it back onto the car. He'd managed to rip one of the fuel filter pipes, so had to use some other pipe as a substitute, but whilst doing this his young assistant thought it'd be funny to try an scare the mechanic, by slightly lowering the trolley jack that was holding the car up. Only problem was that he lowered it fully, so we were all sat some 15ft away, heard a scream of the mechanic as the car was lowered on him, we ran and tried lifting the car up so the assistant could re-raise the jack, luckily it worked and he raised the car back up and the mechanic who was most likely a but shook up, just kept on working with no serious injuries.
Once it was all done we paid up the equivelent of £15 and set off on our way. We drove about 30km out of town to pitch up in the mountains for the night. Whilst on our way there a couple of guys got chatting to us all whilst we were waiting at a toll road. They were telling us to watch out for snakes in the long grasses etc... They even offered to take us hunting with them for dinner. We made our excuses and left as we were all tired after a long day. Then the two guys who both seamed a little on edge started racing and cutting off one of the other cars, trying to get them of the road, as the other car caught up with us, they drove in front of our car and handbreaked the car into our way, after we slammed on the brakes and almost hit them they jumped out and started demanding that we drank some whisky with them, but seeing that we were very tired and driving it wouldn't have made a good mix, so a little worried after trying to get away and them both putting their fingers to their throats in a slitting motion, we got away and they didn't try to follow or anything.
We ended up pitching our tents on the side of a mountain and having some of our army ration packs for dinner.
All in all an interesting couple of days!
Hovd to Altaj
The second day of Mongolian driving, well for some reason Geography has conspired against us, and as a result, it happens that August is the wettest month of the year!
So this turns the excitement of avoiding huge stones/rocks, cliff edges, pot holes, rivers, "puddles" and any livestock that happen to wonder in your way; into even more fun, considering that you now have limited vision out of the windscreen, and you add the challenge of sliding across the road, as the back of the car keeps trying to kick out and spin you around!
This lead to many more water crossings throughout the day. Then around lunchtime the rain subsided, and then the Suzuki swift that was convoying with us which was about 10 meters in front of us, managed to do a dukes of hazard style jump over what we first thought was a small hill, as it turned out it was a nastily long drop on the other side, especially if you're going at 40mph, they lost their rear bumper as they landed, but otherwise appeared to be ok.
We trouped onwards towards Altaj, and the day was a long one, we eventually rocked up very late, and seeing as it was dark the navigating to find a hotel of some sort was a nightmare, especially seeing that we were all so tired, we found a hotel as described in a lonely planet guide one of the other teams had, and after some negotitions we all managed to get some shut eye.
So this turns the excitement of avoiding huge stones/rocks, cliff edges, pot holes, rivers, "puddles" and any livestock that happen to wonder in your way; into even more fun, considering that you now have limited vision out of the windscreen, and you add the challenge of sliding across the road, as the back of the car keeps trying to kick out and spin you around!
This lead to many more water crossings throughout the day. Then around lunchtime the rain subsided, and then the Suzuki swift that was convoying with us which was about 10 meters in front of us, managed to do a dukes of hazard style jump over what we first thought was a small hill, as it turned out it was a nastily long drop on the other side, especially if you're going at 40mph, they lost their rear bumper as they landed, but otherwise appeared to be ok.
We trouped onwards towards Altaj, and the day was a long one, we eventually rocked up very late, and seeing as it was dark the navigating to find a hotel of some sort was a nightmare, especially seeing that we were all so tired, we found a hotel as described in a lonely planet guide one of the other teams had, and after some negotitions we all managed to get some shut eye.
Ölgij to Hovd
We set off from the Gur at about 11am, after some great breakfast, it wasn't the biggest breakfast but after surviving on twix bars and boiled noodles, it was lovely! Half a peach, some sausage, an ommlette and a cup of tea! The breakfast of rally champions!
We headed out of the town we stayed at called Ölgij, and made our way to Hovd, some 180km away. This time there was no Tarmac to speak of. We met up with a couple of teams and ended up in a convoy of 4 cars, all heading to Hovd. The roads as before the Tarmac the previous day, were completely composed of sand, mud, rubble and gravel. The cars all want to shake themselves to pieces when you go faster than 20mph, but luckily we're not in an rush.
Along the route we came across plenty of obsticles including boulders, rivers and "puddles" at least a foot deep! One of the cars in the convoy, which happened to be another Suzuki Swift, went through one of these puddles after us, and managed to flood the engine compartment with water, this quickly killed it, so after a tow from one of the other cars and a big communal push it was out and the owner who happened to be mechanic got it all working again after 20mins.
The route followed the meandering of the landscape through the foots of the various mountains, and over several large hills.
Scattered throughout the landscape are various white gur's, where the nomadic Mongolians live. Reading through the lonely planet guide, there's 13 horses to every person living in Mongolia, so that give you an idea of the sparcity of the people.
The one thing that really sticks with you, other than the rocks that are in the middle of the road and aim to burst your fuel tank, is the amount of dust! I can't explain how dusty the car and I are. Other than to say I've got sunglasses dust marks! Everything inside and out of the car is caked in a layer of dust! Seeing that this was only the first full days drive in Mongolia, I think that it's going to be interesting to see how it affects both the mechanics of the car, and me.
We rocked up to Hovd in search of some form of hotel, but basically only needing the shower facilities, after being caked in dust we weren't looking for the ritz, just some where without fleas.
So we began the search of the local "hotels", most were strangely fully booked, and those that weren't didn't have any working baths/showers! We found a place, that we decided would have to do, the rooms had holes in the ceilings/floors, the windows were falling out and the mattresses were hard as stone, but at £2.50 a night, not all that bad! Then there was the shower, in the laundry room there was a hot water cylinder that took 40minutes to heat up then you'd stand between a washing machine and drier, and have a shower, I think health & safety would have a field day with that place, but it did the trick.
Once all settled in, we went in search of food, as it happened below the hotel was a restaurant that was recommended to us by an American charity worker we got chatting to. So we all went and started flicking through the menu, we all fancied a beer after the days drive, but we were told "no beer", we thought this was strange considering there was a fridge at the bar, stocked with tiger beer, we thought maybe they didn't want us drinking because of some bad experience they'd had before with westerners. With this road block on our well earnt beers we decided to try one of the places down the road. When we got there it turned out they had finished food service at 9.30pm, by this time we were all hungry and would have eaten the menus if we'd been given any.
The last place we tried was still open, and after ordering beers again and being told no beers we then found out that on Thursdays no where serves alcohol for some reason. We consold ourselves to having a dry evening and focused on food, but only had one dish left available, a kind of bubble and squeak mixture, but damn was it tasty.
We headed out of the town we stayed at called Ölgij, and made our way to Hovd, some 180km away. This time there was no Tarmac to speak of. We met up with a couple of teams and ended up in a convoy of 4 cars, all heading to Hovd. The roads as before the Tarmac the previous day, were completely composed of sand, mud, rubble and gravel. The cars all want to shake themselves to pieces when you go faster than 20mph, but luckily we're not in an rush.
Along the route we came across plenty of obsticles including boulders, rivers and "puddles" at least a foot deep! One of the cars in the convoy, which happened to be another Suzuki Swift, went through one of these puddles after us, and managed to flood the engine compartment with water, this quickly killed it, so after a tow from one of the other cars and a big communal push it was out and the owner who happened to be mechanic got it all working again after 20mins.
The route followed the meandering of the landscape through the foots of the various mountains, and over several large hills.
Scattered throughout the landscape are various white gur's, where the nomadic Mongolians live. Reading through the lonely planet guide, there's 13 horses to every person living in Mongolia, so that give you an idea of the sparcity of the people.
The one thing that really sticks with you, other than the rocks that are in the middle of the road and aim to burst your fuel tank, is the amount of dust! I can't explain how dusty the car and I are. Other than to say I've got sunglasses dust marks! Everything inside and out of the car is caked in a layer of dust! Seeing that this was only the first full days drive in Mongolia, I think that it's going to be interesting to see how it affects both the mechanics of the car, and me.
We rocked up to Hovd in search of some form of hotel, but basically only needing the shower facilities, after being caked in dust we weren't looking for the ritz, just some where without fleas.
So we began the search of the local "hotels", most were strangely fully booked, and those that weren't didn't have any working baths/showers! We found a place, that we decided would have to do, the rooms had holes in the ceilings/floors, the windows were falling out and the mattresses were hard as stone, but at £2.50 a night, not all that bad! Then there was the shower, in the laundry room there was a hot water cylinder that took 40minutes to heat up then you'd stand between a washing machine and drier, and have a shower, I think health & safety would have a field day with that place, but it did the trick.
Once all settled in, we went in search of food, as it happened below the hotel was a restaurant that was recommended to us by an American charity worker we got chatting to. So we all went and started flicking through the menu, we all fancied a beer after the days drive, but we were told "no beer", we thought this was strange considering there was a fridge at the bar, stocked with tiger beer, we thought maybe they didn't want us drinking because of some bad experience they'd had before with westerners. With this road block on our well earnt beers we decided to try one of the places down the road. When we got there it turned out they had finished food service at 9.30pm, by this time we were all hungry and would have eaten the menus if we'd been given any.
The last place we tried was still open, and after ordering beers again and being told no beers we then found out that on Thursdays no where serves alcohol for some reason. We consold ourselves to having a dry evening and focused on food, but only had one dish left available, a kind of bubble and squeak mixture, but damn was it tasty.
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