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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.
Russian & Mongolia Border
Well where do we start with the fun and games of crossing into Mongolia. The Russian side of the border was nice and easy, all the forms were in English and the processors all were fluent, which meant the crossing took all of 45mins.
Then we drove the 20km to the Mongolian border control, when we arrived we had to fill in the usual torrent of forms including medical declarations, and hand over our passports etc...
Once we got through that stage we were told to drive our car into a holding area, there another 20 rally cars were waiting. As it turns out to import a car into Mongolia traditionally there'd be import tax circa $2000. In previous years, this tax has been levied to allow the rally cars to be donated to the charities. As we got to the border they were asking for the $2000 tax. Now obviously we weren't willing to pay that, seeing as we raised over £1500 for Mongolian charities, and are going to donate the cars to the charities. So we waited....and waited.....and waited some more. Our line of communication was via text message from the rally organisers, so was rather limited, essentially we were waiting for the Mongolian finance minister to sign us off on the tax levy. So this involved our cars being kept together in a fenced in paddock, and we were then forced to camp in the adjacent field. This field was technically Mongolian soil, because we were allowed entry to Mongolia, just our cars were not. There was a little shop in the village next to the border crossing, so we walked there and picked up supplies, including some Russian beer. This "shop" had dirt floors and at one end of the room several shelves full of various alcohols, chocolate bars and other junk food. The most interesting thing about it however was the freshly chopped off goats head & legs that greeted you on the floor, along with it's organs hanging from the hook on the wall. Strangely none of were phased by this anymore, and afte having one decent meal a day for the last 2 weeks, we even asked how much to cook it for us, unfortunately the owner wouldn't as it was for him family that week. Needless to say he had had a roaring trade the last few days, and everytime we turned up he had a massive grin on his face!
The camping that night was by far the coldest I'd ever experienced. I slept fully clothed by still my legs shook like mad with the cold.
The next morning, we were for some reason all stopped from exiting the border and going to the shop by foot, this lead to some general tensions and after a few more phonecalls to the British Embassy, we were only slightly more in the loop.
Then after about 30hours waiting, we were called up at about 6pm that evening. Ourselves and 2 other teams were free!
We made our way to the nearest town and this made for an interesting journey.
The scenery all around us was mountains, and the road was a rubble track, this lead to an extremely bumpy journey. With the lack of main roads we decided that we'd be just as well off driving cross country, see we got the bearing for the next town and used our compasses, this lead us over some interesting terrain, and eventually up a mountain. Getting up the mountain was a struggle, I had the car in 1st gear and even with my foot to the floor it was struggling not to stall, just when were about to lose all our momentum, we made it to the peak! The views were amazing, because the sun was setting over the surrounding mountains.
The journey downward was alot easier than heading up, but still riddled with rocks and boulders, the majority of time the car had one side riding the bank of the road.
As the sun set, the darkness took hold and we were seriously thinking of bedding down, rather than making it to the town which was still 30km away. We then headed towards the eletricity poles which should have run along the "main road", when we got closer there was a 8ft high bank which lead up to the road, the first car in the convoy, took a fast run at it and almost made it, they then tried a little further along where it was slightly lower and made it, we then followed, and to our absolute amazment the road at the top was smooth and more importantly tarmac'd! It was only then 15mins drive to the town.
We turned up at a place that supposedly had Mongolian gurs to rent (like a teepee), as it turned out there were, and at $5 a night the beds were awesome!
One of the owners children showed us to a restaurant, where we each had a lamb and noodle soup, and a couple of dumplings with a stack of white bread and a beer, all for the princely sum of £2 each. After that lovely meal we all had the best sleep we'd had for some time back at the gur.
Then we drove the 20km to the Mongolian border control, when we arrived we had to fill in the usual torrent of forms including medical declarations, and hand over our passports etc...
Once we got through that stage we were told to drive our car into a holding area, there another 20 rally cars were waiting. As it turns out to import a car into Mongolia traditionally there'd be import tax circa $2000. In previous years, this tax has been levied to allow the rally cars to be donated to the charities. As we got to the border they were asking for the $2000 tax. Now obviously we weren't willing to pay that, seeing as we raised over £1500 for Mongolian charities, and are going to donate the cars to the charities. So we waited....and waited.....and waited some more. Our line of communication was via text message from the rally organisers, so was rather limited, essentially we were waiting for the Mongolian finance minister to sign us off on the tax levy. So this involved our cars being kept together in a fenced in paddock, and we were then forced to camp in the adjacent field. This field was technically Mongolian soil, because we were allowed entry to Mongolia, just our cars were not. There was a little shop in the village next to the border crossing, so we walked there and picked up supplies, including some Russian beer. This "shop" had dirt floors and at one end of the room several shelves full of various alcohols, chocolate bars and other junk food. The most interesting thing about it however was the freshly chopped off goats head & legs that greeted you on the floor, along with it's organs hanging from the hook on the wall. Strangely none of were phased by this anymore, and afte having one decent meal a day for the last 2 weeks, we even asked how much to cook it for us, unfortunately the owner wouldn't as it was for him family that week. Needless to say he had had a roaring trade the last few days, and everytime we turned up he had a massive grin on his face!
The camping that night was by far the coldest I'd ever experienced. I slept fully clothed by still my legs shook like mad with the cold.
The next morning, we were for some reason all stopped from exiting the border and going to the shop by foot, this lead to some general tensions and after a few more phonecalls to the British Embassy, we were only slightly more in the loop.
Then after about 30hours waiting, we were called up at about 6pm that evening. Ourselves and 2 other teams were free!
We made our way to the nearest town and this made for an interesting journey.
The scenery all around us was mountains, and the road was a rubble track, this lead to an extremely bumpy journey. With the lack of main roads we decided that we'd be just as well off driving cross country, see we got the bearing for the next town and used our compasses, this lead us over some interesting terrain, and eventually up a mountain. Getting up the mountain was a struggle, I had the car in 1st gear and even with my foot to the floor it was struggling not to stall, just when were about to lose all our momentum, we made it to the peak! The views were amazing, because the sun was setting over the surrounding mountains.
The journey downward was alot easier than heading up, but still riddled with rocks and boulders, the majority of time the car had one side riding the bank of the road.
As the sun set, the darkness took hold and we were seriously thinking of bedding down, rather than making it to the town which was still 30km away. We then headed towards the eletricity poles which should have run along the "main road", when we got closer there was a 8ft high bank which lead up to the road, the first car in the convoy, took a fast run at it and almost made it, they then tried a little further along where it was slightly lower and made it, we then followed, and to our absolute amazment the road at the top was smooth and more importantly tarmac'd! It was only then 15mins drive to the town.
We turned up at a place that supposedly had Mongolian gurs to rent (like a teepee), as it turned out there were, and at $5 a night the beds were awesome!
One of the owners children showed us to a restaurant, where we each had a lamb and noodle soup, and a couple of dumplings with a stack of white bread and a beer, all for the princely sum of £2 each. After that lovely meal we all had the best sleep we'd had for some time back at the gur.
Oral to Semy & The Russian Border.
The drive from Oral to Semy, was mixed with various landscapes, at first the grasses were very brown, and large vistas of the countryside were burnt, we think this was on purpose to turn over the agricultural land, either way, acres and acres of land were burnt, as before it was also very very hot, even the wind as you drove was sweltering, but the further East we headed the higher the roads lead, and as you'd think the cooler it'd become. The landscapes then gradually became greener and greener until rather than just grasslands, there were forests.
We were pulled over several more times, but never more than to find out where we were heading, and then we were allowed on our way.
The further East you head, the more the populations faces change from Eastern European and Russian, to more East Asian.
It's an interesting drive at points with a large chunk of monotonus landscape, you can drive almost 1000km and the view from left to right will be very much the same, on one side power lines carry on reeling out, and on the other side, the occassional cemetary or a collection of shacks that you can't quite tell if they're still occupied or not.
Then after you've just experienced what is most likely some of the bleakest landscapes you'll ever come across, then get to see some of the most awesome, not least the sunsets, when the clouds all contrast the skys with pinks and oranges.
We arrived at Semy which happens to be the county of Kazakhstan where the USSR tested some 456 nuclear weapons, understandibly some towns in this district have close to 100% cancer rates through the nuclear fallout of these testing sites. Semy is the last town before heading back into Russia for our crossing to Mongolia, even though it appears to on most maps Kazakhstan doesn't actually border with Mongolia, so you must enter via Russia.
The border crossing took only 4 hours which so far is out best crossing yet. After much form filling and several check points we were allowed into Russia again, which was a relief after our 10 hour crossing from Latvia into Russia.
Immediately once your enter Russia the faces change back to the Eastern European look that was so familar, but where as the Kazakh authorities just wanted to say hi and check out where we were going. The Russian police who pulled us over a couple of times straight after the border crossing, wanted "presents". They can mostly speak no English, which helps when you want to act ignorant to local speeding laws etc... It just so happens they know that as they say "Presents", that they don't need to speak English to get the point across, they simply flick the safety latch on their guns in front of you. Either way we're now minus one Biro pen, a copy of nuts magazine and 3 alcohol minatures. I'm still adament that no money will change hands with them.
We then continued on to the Altai Mountains, which were the most stunning roads we've encountered so far, the mountain roads took us to 4000 meters above sea level. There was a mixture of snow capped mountains and forest covered hills, all the time we followed the main river which flowed through these amazing views.
We ended up pulling over next to the river with the other team we were convoying with, and set up a campfire, we cooked up the most decent meal we'd had in days, and just talked the night away under a full moon. It was easily the best days driving we'd had all trip, and we were filled with excitement of finally being within an hour of the Mongolian border and the final chapter of our trip.
We were pulled over several more times, but never more than to find out where we were heading, and then we were allowed on our way.
The further East you head, the more the populations faces change from Eastern European and Russian, to more East Asian.
It's an interesting drive at points with a large chunk of monotonus landscape, you can drive almost 1000km and the view from left to right will be very much the same, on one side power lines carry on reeling out, and on the other side, the occassional cemetary or a collection of shacks that you can't quite tell if they're still occupied or not.
Then after you've just experienced what is most likely some of the bleakest landscapes you'll ever come across, then get to see some of the most awesome, not least the sunsets, when the clouds all contrast the skys with pinks and oranges.
We arrived at Semy which happens to be the county of Kazakhstan where the USSR tested some 456 nuclear weapons, understandibly some towns in this district have close to 100% cancer rates through the nuclear fallout of these testing sites. Semy is the last town before heading back into Russia for our crossing to Mongolia, even though it appears to on most maps Kazakhstan doesn't actually border with Mongolia, so you must enter via Russia.
The border crossing took only 4 hours which so far is out best crossing yet. After much form filling and several check points we were allowed into Russia again, which was a relief after our 10 hour crossing from Latvia into Russia.
Immediately once your enter Russia the faces change back to the Eastern European look that was so familar, but where as the Kazakh authorities just wanted to say hi and check out where we were going. The Russian police who pulled us over a couple of times straight after the border crossing, wanted "presents". They can mostly speak no English, which helps when you want to act ignorant to local speeding laws etc... It just so happens they know that as they say "Presents", that they don't need to speak English to get the point across, they simply flick the safety latch on their guns in front of you. Either way we're now minus one Biro pen, a copy of nuts magazine and 3 alcohol minatures. I'm still adament that no money will change hands with them.
We then continued on to the Altai Mountains, which were the most stunning roads we've encountered so far, the mountain roads took us to 4000 meters above sea level. There was a mixture of snow capped mountains and forest covered hills, all the time we followed the main river which flowed through these amazing views.
We ended up pulling over next to the river with the other team we were convoying with, and set up a campfire, we cooked up the most decent meal we'd had in days, and just talked the night away under a full moon. It was easily the best days driving we'd had all trip, and we were filled with excitement of finally being within an hour of the Mongolian border and the final chapter of our trip.
The Kazahk Steppe to Oral
We woke up after camping at about 7 a couple of the convoy teams were heading south so they left early on. The rest of us choose to head the Northern route, aided with some local knowledge from an older man who's stopped to say hi, and happened to have cycled the routes previously, told us the good and bad routes. His advice was mostly spot on, there are always going to be some holes to avoid, but on the whole not to bad.
We headed through the countryside to Oral, after a couple of police pulled us over to say hi, we were making good time.
I earnt the nickname Perry "the birdkiller" Philipp, after a flock of birds took flight just as we drove past and unfortunately took a couple of them out. Obviously not my finest driving moment.
We got to Oral, and with the aid of a Kazakhstan guide book we found a hotel to stay in. It was fine to sleep and have a shower in, as it happens the enterprising owners were still constructing the building and let out the rooms on the half completed floors, this worked out fine for us, and pretty cheap after some negotiation, at about £20 for a triple room.
We then set off to find some food, a restuarant down the road called "Camelot" managed to sort us out, and after a few beers, and some interesting navigating on the menus we managed to get some pretty good food.
We then went back to the hotel, got our stuff together, then headed out to a club down the road where a couple of other teams were hanging out, by this time it was about 11pm, whilst at the bar having some beer, a larger than life local man came and introduced himself in pretty decent English. Turns out a German housemate of his had tough him years back, he was a regular at the club, so much so that he got complimentary cigarettes when he bought a round. We later found out that he went there every single night, and was on his 8th wife so far, he even described himself as a Kazakh Abranovitich. This lead to us all chatting then he insisted in buying a round, and another round, and another! The beers were then followed by Absinthe, luckily knowing what it's like, I avoided it, but those who had it definately regretted it the next day. The barman was a very skilled man with absinthe, he put about 2 shots into a brandy glass rolled it around the glass then lit it, the blue flames rose about a foot out of the glass, then the remaining liquid is chucked in a spare glass, you drink that, as the barman fans the smoke with a beer mat, he places the brandy glass full of smoke upside down on the bar, so after the shots you used a straw to suck up the smoke. Judging by the guys who did this, it definately helped them forget what happened that night. Around 12pm the club picked up as it filled up, and with all the tunes from home we danced the morning away.
We headed through the countryside to Oral, after a couple of police pulled us over to say hi, we were making good time.
I earnt the nickname Perry "the birdkiller" Philipp, after a flock of birds took flight just as we drove past and unfortunately took a couple of them out. Obviously not my finest driving moment.
We got to Oral, and with the aid of a Kazakhstan guide book we found a hotel to stay in. It was fine to sleep and have a shower in, as it happens the enterprising owners were still constructing the building and let out the rooms on the half completed floors, this worked out fine for us, and pretty cheap after some negotiation, at about £20 for a triple room.
We then set off to find some food, a restuarant down the road called "Camelot" managed to sort us out, and after a few beers, and some interesting navigating on the menus we managed to get some pretty good food.
We then went back to the hotel, got our stuff together, then headed out to a club down the road where a couple of other teams were hanging out, by this time it was about 11pm, whilst at the bar having some beer, a larger than life local man came and introduced himself in pretty decent English. Turns out a German housemate of his had tough him years back, he was a regular at the club, so much so that he got complimentary cigarettes when he bought a round. We later found out that he went there every single night, and was on his 8th wife so far, he even described himself as a Kazakh Abranovitich. This lead to us all chatting then he insisted in buying a round, and another round, and another! The beers were then followed by Absinthe, luckily knowing what it's like, I avoided it, but those who had it definately regretted it the next day. The barman was a very skilled man with absinthe, he put about 2 shots into a brandy glass rolled it around the glass then lit it, the blue flames rose about a foot out of the glass, then the remaining liquid is chucked in a spare glass, you drink that, as the barman fans the smoke with a beer mat, he places the brandy glass full of smoke upside down on the bar, so after the shots you used a straw to suck up the smoke. Judging by the guys who did this, it definately helped them forget what happened that night. Around 12pm the club picked up as it filled up, and with all the tunes from home we danced the morning away.
Moscow to Kazakhstan
As it turns out the insurance I bought, only covered me in Russia! Sods law that then the office was closed on the weekend, so I was the lucky one to have to drive in the whole of Russia.
We spend a whole day in Moscow, which gave us some much needed rest. We went into the centre of Moscow, checked out red square and other touristy places.
Then began the 1400 kilometer drive to the Kazakhstan border near Volgograd, this was both a boring drive, and a very long one.
We made it in one piece after an all nighter. At the border we met up with another 6 teams, then began the 7hour paperwork nightmare, all the forms needed filling out in Russian, or we could pay a "fee" to the border guards to "organise" them for us, luckily one of the teams had a Russian teammate. She spoke to the Guards who were blatantly trying to line their pockets. Out of principle we said we'd fill out the forms, then whilst we were filling them out, more and more forms appeared that needed completing, after many hours of this beaucratic nonsence in the 40+ degree heat, we were stamped and signed to enter Kazakhstan.
We continued on for an hour or so, the landscape is exactly as you'd imagine a steppe to look, burnt brown grasses, small bushes dotted around, and the occassional camel, cow or goat lining the roads.
Then we turned off the road, went along a sand bank, and pitched up with the other teams. We all cooked some food, watched the sun set. In this time the local insects started to run wild, including huge spiders and dragon flies, as well as quite a few flies, so out came the repellent, and luckily the next morning there's no bites from the bugs.
We spend a whole day in Moscow, which gave us some much needed rest. We went into the centre of Moscow, checked out red square and other touristy places.
Then began the 1400 kilometer drive to the Kazakhstan border near Volgograd, this was both a boring drive, and a very long one.
We made it in one piece after an all nighter. At the border we met up with another 6 teams, then began the 7hour paperwork nightmare, all the forms needed filling out in Russian, or we could pay a "fee" to the border guards to "organise" them for us, luckily one of the teams had a Russian teammate. She spoke to the Guards who were blatantly trying to line their pockets. Out of principle we said we'd fill out the forms, then whilst we were filling them out, more and more forms appeared that needed completing, after many hours of this beaucratic nonsence in the 40+ degree heat, we were stamped and signed to enter Kazakhstan.
We continued on for an hour or so, the landscape is exactly as you'd imagine a steppe to look, burnt brown grasses, small bushes dotted around, and the occassional camel, cow or goat lining the roads.
Then we turned off the road, went along a sand bank, and pitched up with the other teams. We all cooked some food, watched the sun set. In this time the local insects started to run wild, including huge spiders and dragon flies, as well as quite a few flies, so out came the repellent, and luckily the next morning there's no bites from the bugs.
Friday, 24 July 2009
Kaunas to Moscow, Russia
Well last night/this morning was probably the worst experience of the rally so far. We drove all the way to Kaunas, by about 11pm we went service station scouting, there were plenty to choose from, but they were nothing compared to the ones we found in Western Europe. They were mainly truck stops, all of them looked the same, they all had the shady bar in one corner, and plenty of lighting, the only problem is they also all had guards. So we didn't know if that meant we had to pay to stay there or not, we ventured into a stop at about 12pm and decided to sleep in the car again. After about 45mins I was woken up by a Lithuanian security guard, who seamed to just moan at us, we had no idea what he was on about, so we decided it was probably best that we moved on, 20mins down the road we pulled onto a small country lane, pulled over and went back to sleep, only now a huge thunder storm was overhead, and the rain from it continued for much of the day.
After a while of sitting in the back of the car, I noticed my feet were getting quite wet, then a puddle started to form in the rear passenger side footwell, as we were driving along I pulled up the carpet to investigate to find that I'm watching the road race by, because of a hole in the floor, luckily the hole has a plug that had come out, so as we went on the rain was seaping into the hole. After a bit of mopping up, I replaced the plug, and we continued on towards our destination.
The day then got so much better! We turned up at the border from Latvia to Russia, after 10hours of waiting, 3 vehicle searches, and a small bribe to the customs official (3 of my alcohol minitures, including a brandy I was saving for the finish line) we eventually found our way into Russia! Then came the fun of trying to get car insurance for driving in Russia. This involved alot of help from my language book, but after about an hour we had insurance and could set off into Western Russia and onwards!
After a while of sitting in the back of the car, I noticed my feet were getting quite wet, then a puddle started to form in the rear passenger side footwell, as we were driving along I pulled up the carpet to investigate to find that I'm watching the road race by, because of a hole in the floor, luckily the hole has a plug that had come out, so as we went on the rain was seaping into the hole. After a bit of mopping up, I replaced the plug, and we continued on towards our destination.
The day then got so much better! We turned up at the border from Latvia to Russia, after 10hours of waiting, 3 vehicle searches, and a small bribe to the customs official (3 of my alcohol minitures, including a brandy I was saving for the finish line) we eventually found our way into Russia! Then came the fun of trying to get car insurance for driving in Russia. This involved alot of help from my language book, but after about an hour we had insurance and could set off into Western Russia and onwards!
Krakow to Kaunas, Lithuania
Well we awoke this morning in our travel inn room, after a bloody good sleep we got checked out about 11.30am, seeing as we only got settled into the room at 2am that same morning it did the trick.
We walked outside to find the car melting in the midday sun, it was 35 degree's C. The car is literally a greenhouse on wheels! This led to a day of extremely sweaty backs, but we plodded on towards our next Country, Lithuania!
We had a bit of a scare though, as we were going along the radio started turning on and off, after some frantic pulling the radio popped out, a bit of trial and error wire testing and the cause has been found, the radio wasn't earthed, for some reason the last 2 months it hadn't cared but now it decided to give us a panic that we might have another 8,000 miles with no music! After roughly an hour of the radio being down the topics of conversation turned from frankly inappropriate material to us trying to make dolphin noises....needless to say we're so relieved that the radio's back up and running!
One other music related story, we have only one cigarette lighter, so that runs all out power requirements from charging the walkie talkies, iPods, cameras etc...
One slight thing we over looked was the fact that when we need to charge our cameras, walkie talkies etc that we can't use our iPods to play music through the radio...so that leaves us with 2 options....local radio stations or CD's.
Local radio stations are only interesting whilst we try to figure out the lyrics to the foreign songs, so one of the other teams gave us a CD, now after listening to this one CD over and over again I can honestly say that it's going to be a long journey!
The CD playlist is a real mix, here are some of the tracks:
"Rolling down the river" - Cant remember the artist
"Baywatch theme" - I wake up humming this now!
"Simply the Best" - Tina Turner
"Why don't you like me" - Mika
"All shook up" - Elvis
"everytime we touch" - Skarda
Then this is followed by the entire black eyed peas first album!
Then to top it off "what's love got to do with it" - Tina Turner
Each song would be fine when listened to occassionally but constantly in succession, you quickly lose the will to live!
So anyway that's how it's going so far, we're currently running at about 12hours driving each day, which for the time being isn't to bad, but we are only on the 5th day....stay tuned!
We walked outside to find the car melting in the midday sun, it was 35 degree's C. The car is literally a greenhouse on wheels! This led to a day of extremely sweaty backs, but we plodded on towards our next Country, Lithuania!
We had a bit of a scare though, as we were going along the radio started turning on and off, after some frantic pulling the radio popped out, a bit of trial and error wire testing and the cause has been found, the radio wasn't earthed, for some reason the last 2 months it hadn't cared but now it decided to give us a panic that we might have another 8,000 miles with no music! After roughly an hour of the radio being down the topics of conversation turned from frankly inappropriate material to us trying to make dolphin noises....needless to say we're so relieved that the radio's back up and running!
One other music related story, we have only one cigarette lighter, so that runs all out power requirements from charging the walkie talkies, iPods, cameras etc...
One slight thing we over looked was the fact that when we need to charge our cameras, walkie talkies etc that we can't use our iPods to play music through the radio...so that leaves us with 2 options....local radio stations or CD's.
Local radio stations are only interesting whilst we try to figure out the lyrics to the foreign songs, so one of the other teams gave us a CD, now after listening to this one CD over and over again I can honestly say that it's going to be a long journey!
The CD playlist is a real mix, here are some of the tracks:
"Rolling down the river" - Cant remember the artist
"Baywatch theme" - I wake up humming this now!
"Simply the Best" - Tina Turner
"Why don't you like me" - Mika
"All shook up" - Elvis
"everytime we touch" - Skarda
Then this is followed by the entire black eyed peas first album!
Then to top it off "what's love got to do with it" - Tina Turner
Each song would be fine when listened to occassionally but constantly in succession, you quickly lose the will to live!
So anyway that's how it's going so far, we're currently running at about 12hours driving each day, which for the time being isn't to bad, but we are only on the 5th day....stay tuned!
Krakow, Poland
Hey People,
Soz this is only a short message, we're just at a Holiday Inn in Krakow, had a nice sleep and another rally team managed to be smuggled into the room, we all crashed out as soon as we hit the beds lol.
The driving has been pretty good going, until the Czech republic it was all motorways, so not much on the scenic front, but yesterday was by far the best days drive, we set off from klatovny castle in the Czech republic, then headed to krakow, which is a bloody long drive, we're averaging about 50mph at the moment, as it's practically all uphill. We avoided alot of motorways, and took the smaller roads, some of the scenery is amazing, the only downside was that I drove a solid 13hours yesterday, so the other guys are going to take up the next two days drive to Moscow.
All in all it's going well apart from a screw which went through one of the brand new tyres on the first night. Paul was settin up his tent at the service station we invaded, then he heard a "pssssss" turns out that a screw has found it's home in our tread and given us a slow puncture, we've got some tyreweld which is meant to patch up just that kind of injury so should do the job, in the meantime we're using one of the spares.
Soz this is only a short message, we're just at a Holiday Inn in Krakow, had a nice sleep and another rally team managed to be smuggled into the room, we all crashed out as soon as we hit the beds lol.
The driving has been pretty good going, until the Czech republic it was all motorways, so not much on the scenic front, but yesterday was by far the best days drive, we set off from klatovny castle in the Czech republic, then headed to krakow, which is a bloody long drive, we're averaging about 50mph at the moment, as it's practically all uphill. We avoided alot of motorways, and took the smaller roads, some of the scenery is amazing, the only downside was that I drove a solid 13hours yesterday, so the other guys are going to take up the next two days drive to Moscow.
All in all it's going well apart from a screw which went through one of the brand new tyres on the first night. Paul was settin up his tent at the service station we invaded, then he heard a "pssssss" turns out that a screw has found it's home in our tread and given us a slow puncture, we've got some tyreweld which is meant to patch up just that kind of injury so should do the job, in the meantime we're using one of the spares.
Departure Day!
Well we've made it! As I write I'm sitting in a restaurant near Dunkirk in France, awaiting the arrival of several of the other teams who decided to take the Dover to Dunkirk ferry.
All in all the rally has started off well, we camped over at Goodwood the night before the start, we got to meet quite a few of the teams that so far had evaded us, and also catch up with old friends, one American team had already managed to write off there car before we even arrived.
The next morning involved drinking plenty of water to shed off the fuzzyness from the night before, a bacon butty, a cup of tea and then we headed to the track to await the starting of the Mongol Rally 2009!
Slowly but surely hundreds of teams arrived, and they each had their own unique touches add to their cars, ranging from a Pink ice cream truck to a furry fire engine.
We managed to drive in a convoy of about 15 cars to Gant in Belgium, which at night was my first international driving experience, all went well though, and we pulled into a service station for some sleep at about 2am.
All in all the rally has started off well, we camped over at Goodwood the night before the start, we got to meet quite a few of the teams that so far had evaded us, and also catch up with old friends, one American team had already managed to write off there car before we even arrived.
The next morning involved drinking plenty of water to shed off the fuzzyness from the night before, a bacon butty, a cup of tea and then we headed to the track to await the starting of the Mongol Rally 2009!
Slowly but surely hundreds of teams arrived, and they each had their own unique touches add to their cars, ranging from a Pink ice cream truck to a furry fire engine.
We managed to drive in a convoy of about 15 cars to Gant in Belgium, which at night was my first international driving experience, all went well though, and we pulled into a service station for some sleep at about 2am.
Sunday, 21 June 2009
26 Days Remaining
Well after long deliberation, yesterday I walked down to the travel clinic in Russell Square. As it turns out my jabs for Rabies, Typhoid, Tick Encephalitis and Hepatitis B amount to the grand old bill of £414.00 not a small amount to stomach when in perspective your car only cost £500!
As I entered the clinic (which anyone who's been there will know, it's conjoined with an STA travel) I am told to sit down and fill out a couple of forms. So I take a seat and start writing down my travel history and other interesting family illnesses in boxes that are always designed to be too small for anyone's comments. Then through the plasterboard wall behind me I hear what can only be described as a loud thump, the kind of dull but resonating thump that you associate with either someone hitting the floor in dead weight or something similar, then to follow up the thump is a bloodcurdling scream. However, it didn’t stop there this was then followed by screaming and pleading all mixed with in the cries of a young child. As the noise reaches its peak the 12 year old girl comes bolting out of the nurse’s office, quickly followed by her father who's obviously limping from multiple kicks to his legs. He then tries to calm her down, but she had the level of fear where no amount of reasoning could calm her down, she was in a total state of panic. As the father tries to drag her back into the chamber of horrors she digs her heels in and somehow manages to drag herself as well as him away from the nurse’s office, it's at this point that the nurse steps out and says she can't possibly give the jabs as the child was so panicked. This left the father in a situation where his child needs jabs to go around South America, but now the professional refuses to give them, this left one last option take the kid outside to calm her down, then like any good parent would do, you bride the hell out of them to go and get it done, needless to say 5 minutes later the deed was done and this time without screams and a look of surprise as the girl realises it doesn’t hurt at all, and her public display of distress has actually landed her with presents of some kind at the end of the line. Win win you could argue for the girl. I could only watch as the mayhem unfolded in from of my eyes, and even though I'm fine with needles and jabs, it probably wasn’t the best confidence builder just before you head in yourself.
The tiny nurse was happy to give me the jabs, but before she'd even gotten the needles out of the fridge she obviously thought that she probably wouldn’t survive should I faint onto her, so she gave me two sugar cubes and a glass of water, and we were hot to trot!
On that note my jabs went surprisingly easily, I was a brave boy, I didn’t scream or cry and 3 jabs later I'm walking out of the clinic a lot lighter on my wallet and all for what can only be physically seen as 3 little plasters on my arms. I've got to go back next weekend, as well as a couple of days before I set off on the rally for the second & third round of jabs.
So all in all the fun of repetitively getting stabbed in the arms is costing me a small fortune, my only conciliation is that I should be immune to all but a handful of diseases during my trip! So here's fingers crossed I don't have to put any of these jabs to the test!
As I entered the clinic (which anyone who's been there will know, it's conjoined with an STA travel) I am told to sit down and fill out a couple of forms. So I take a seat and start writing down my travel history and other interesting family illnesses in boxes that are always designed to be too small for anyone's comments. Then through the plasterboard wall behind me I hear what can only be described as a loud thump, the kind of dull but resonating thump that you associate with either someone hitting the floor in dead weight or something similar, then to follow up the thump is a bloodcurdling scream. However, it didn’t stop there this was then followed by screaming and pleading all mixed with in the cries of a young child. As the noise reaches its peak the 12 year old girl comes bolting out of the nurse’s office, quickly followed by her father who's obviously limping from multiple kicks to his legs. He then tries to calm her down, but she had the level of fear where no amount of reasoning could calm her down, she was in a total state of panic. As the father tries to drag her back into the chamber of horrors she digs her heels in and somehow manages to drag herself as well as him away from the nurse’s office, it's at this point that the nurse steps out and says she can't possibly give the jabs as the child was so panicked. This left the father in a situation where his child needs jabs to go around South America, but now the professional refuses to give them, this left one last option take the kid outside to calm her down, then like any good parent would do, you bride the hell out of them to go and get it done, needless to say 5 minutes later the deed was done and this time without screams and a look of surprise as the girl realises it doesn’t hurt at all, and her public display of distress has actually landed her with presents of some kind at the end of the line. Win win you could argue for the girl. I could only watch as the mayhem unfolded in from of my eyes, and even though I'm fine with needles and jabs, it probably wasn’t the best confidence builder just before you head in yourself.
The tiny nurse was happy to give me the jabs, but before she'd even gotten the needles out of the fridge she obviously thought that she probably wouldn’t survive should I faint onto her, so she gave me two sugar cubes and a glass of water, and we were hot to trot!
On that note my jabs went surprisingly easily, I was a brave boy, I didn’t scream or cry and 3 jabs later I'm walking out of the clinic a lot lighter on my wallet and all for what can only be physically seen as 3 little plasters on my arms. I've got to go back next weekend, as well as a couple of days before I set off on the rally for the second & third round of jabs.
So all in all the fun of repetitively getting stabbed in the arms is costing me a small fortune, my only conciliation is that I should be immune to all but a handful of diseases during my trip! So here's fingers crossed I don't have to put any of these jabs to the test!
Thursday, 11 June 2009
36 Days Remaining
Well a good chunk of the remaining travels has now officially been booked!
The story goes like this....
After a few fruitless searches online for some flights which had flexible conditions (so I have the option to change the dates if need be) I had started to get a bit worried! The flights from Japan to the West Coast of the US, then from New York back to London, were all batting in around the £2000 mark, now that completely blew my travel plans out of the water. As I was walking past the STA travel in Victoria, I thought, what's the harm in going in and asking them?
So I sat down and a guy called Charlie proceeded to try and understand my travel plans, this involved then alot of fine print checking and investigations on the conditions of various packages and deals. Eventually he decided that round the world tickets and such like were no good to me, and I wasn't flying out of the UK and I wouldn't need to return to Japan.
This left only one remaining options, searching for individual flights and connections, all in all after much button pressing and 45mins of pondering, he came up with a solution! In his words "I've got some good news, and some bad news"
I figured hit me with the good news first, so "the good news is I can do both flights for only £850 there or there abouts"
So, I'm sat there thinking that's affordable, and fits in my budget of the sub £1,000 I was hoping for!
Then there's the bad news, "you've got to have a stop over somewhere!"
So instantly I remember my 12 hour stay at an airport in Hawaii and the brain numbing boredom of watching CNN on repeat as they followed Obama on his campaign trail....but least they had biscuits and fruit juice!
So I say "how long is the stop over?"
The reply "4 days?"
I have a sudden thought that that's not so much a stop over but more like a mini-break, the only question was what back water dismal destination would it be? Somewhere in Siberia perhaps?
"it's a 4 day stop over in Tahiti?!?"
My response whilst having a grin that went the entire circumference of my head "and there's a bad side in this situation where?"
Needless to say I'm booked and ecstatic to be adding Tahiti to my list of destinations this year! WAHOOOO!!!!
I'm sure things won't go entirely smoothly so we'll have to wait and see, but for now I'm like a 6 year old on Xmas eve! I'm flipping crawling the Walls!
The story goes like this....
After a few fruitless searches online for some flights which had flexible conditions (so I have the option to change the dates if need be) I had started to get a bit worried! The flights from Japan to the West Coast of the US, then from New York back to London, were all batting in around the £2000 mark, now that completely blew my travel plans out of the water. As I was walking past the STA travel in Victoria, I thought, what's the harm in going in and asking them?
So I sat down and a guy called Charlie proceeded to try and understand my travel plans, this involved then alot of fine print checking and investigations on the conditions of various packages and deals. Eventually he decided that round the world tickets and such like were no good to me, and I wasn't flying out of the UK and I wouldn't need to return to Japan.
This left only one remaining options, searching for individual flights and connections, all in all after much button pressing and 45mins of pondering, he came up with a solution! In his words "I've got some good news, and some bad news"
I figured hit me with the good news first, so "the good news is I can do both flights for only £850 there or there abouts"
So, I'm sat there thinking that's affordable, and fits in my budget of the sub £1,000 I was hoping for!
Then there's the bad news, "you've got to have a stop over somewhere!"
So instantly I remember my 12 hour stay at an airport in Hawaii and the brain numbing boredom of watching CNN on repeat as they followed Obama on his campaign trail....but least they had biscuits and fruit juice!
So I say "how long is the stop over?"
The reply "4 days?"
I have a sudden thought that that's not so much a stop over but more like a mini-break, the only question was what back water dismal destination would it be? Somewhere in Siberia perhaps?
"it's a 4 day stop over in Tahiti?!?"
My response whilst having a grin that went the entire circumference of my head "and there's a bad side in this situation where?"
Needless to say I'm booked and ecstatic to be adding Tahiti to my list of destinations this year! WAHOOOO!!!!
I'm sure things won't go entirely smoothly so we'll have to wait and see, but for now I'm like a 6 year old on Xmas eve! I'm flipping crawling the Walls!
Wednesday, 10 June 2009
37 Days Remaining!
Wow well it was an interesting weekend, and I think for the first time it really hit home just what we're undertaking!
Team Swift ventured down to the Breacon Beacons in South Wales for some off roading fun with the other ralliers on this years Mongol Rally.
It was an extremely wet weekend, but that did nothing to dampen the spirits and indeed thirsts of our fellow ralliers!
The weekend consisted of an off road track, alcohol, music, dancing and a whole load of hand break turns! Perhaps not all that the same time mind you, that would be unsafe....
The car did get stuck at one poitn but a couple of equally interesting cars managed to drag us out and to safety, and luckily the car is undamaged, or at least it seams!
There's plenty of photo's of the weekend on my facebook & flickr pages so feel free to check them out, and I'm sure there'll be more to follow in the near future as events unfold!
p.s. My new boots stood up to the challenge and as such were indeed water & mud proof and a perfect fit! I'm most happy with them! I'm waiting to pick up the Selkbag so that'll be cool to try out!
Team Swift ventured down to the Breacon Beacons in South Wales for some off roading fun with the other ralliers on this years Mongol Rally.
It was an extremely wet weekend, but that did nothing to dampen the spirits and indeed thirsts of our fellow ralliers!
The weekend consisted of an off road track, alcohol, music, dancing and a whole load of hand break turns! Perhaps not all that the same time mind you, that would be unsafe....
The car did get stuck at one poitn but a couple of equally interesting cars managed to drag us out and to safety, and luckily the car is undamaged, or at least it seams!
There's plenty of photo's of the weekend on my facebook & flickr pages so feel free to check them out, and I'm sure there'll be more to follow in the near future as events unfold!
p.s. My new boots stood up to the challenge and as such were indeed water & mud proof and a perfect fit! I'm most happy with them! I'm waiting to pick up the Selkbag so that'll be cool to try out!
Wednesday, 27 May 2009
51 Days Remaining
I have gone on a bit of a shopping spree since the last post, I am now the proud owner of much camping/hiking equipment....well perhaps not that much but I think the essentials and catered for!
In a Generation game-esk voice: The first item for you all today is the Eurohike Colossus Transporter 60+15 Litre Travel Pack this monster travel pack has everything, the main bag had a hidden handle which pops up so you can use the wheels to cart it around, or simply unzip the back and there's a multitude of clips and straps to pretty much surgically attach it to your back, pwerfect! As if that wasnt enough the back also has a zip on/off day pack so if I'm in a hotel/hostel etc... I don't have to cart the whole bag around, I just take the essentials.
My second purchase was some walking boots, now obviously comfort is everything when it comes to travelling, I don't want to spend half my trip with a walk similar to that of a polio victim, so on that basis money would have to be spent, thankfully Millets had a deal whereby the shoes were half price when brought with the bag, so these little puppies ticked the right boxes, and with only 2 sizes in stock (one being mine) I took that as a sign from the travelling gods that it was ment to be. (stay tuned to hear my bitching an general moaning if these go badly wrong and endup being worse than walking barefoot through the Gobi). So I went for Hi Tec Men's Vibram® Altitude Ion-Mask™ Boots
Next vital item on the list was the tent, much umming and ahhhing was
had over this, seeing as a good chunk of the travels will not be footbased, size & weight shouldnt be huge factors, eitherway I wanted the most minimalistic tent possible so I wouldnt have regrets when lugging it around China & Japan. So with this in mind, after much searching I bit the bullet and bought the Colman Rigel X², I'm yet to test it, but weighing less than 1kg and with good reviews I'm confident it'll perform. |I'll be testing it next weekend in Wales with as many of the rally teams that choose too turn up, so expect a bit of feedback on how that goes, I'm expecting my revelry and drama (we've got to get the car there first....).The last item that has been decided upon, but hasnt actually been bought yet (a friend is buying it for me as a present), but I'm sur you will all agree is the height of coolness is the Lippi Selk
Bag! for those of you unaware of its coolness, its an all in one sleeping bag that has both arms & legs so you can wonder around in freedom around the campsite, at home, to the shops well anywhere really... I'm sure much driving will involve screwing up the tent and just siting down in the car and driving off, I see this as both a valuable timesaver, as well as a prized accessory! Bring on the fun!!!!!Stay tuned people, the fun and games are only 51 days away! Mayhem and Frollics are ahead!
Oh and by the way, register and click on the left hand bar "follow" this blog to make me look popular, go on you know you want to! I'll give a special present to all those that follow the blog...You'll just have to wait an see what it is....and no, its not any form of nudity....am I going to lose some followers now?!?
Thursday, 21 May 2009
57 Days Remaining
It's just over 8 weeks until we set off from Goodwood, every day now people ask "when are you off on the rally again?" and every day brings about a bit more excitement. It's funny how many people say thing such as "wow I'm so jealous" or "That's one thing I regret not doing, travelling, so hopefully we'll be able to keep a regular enough blog of the travels, and have plenty or footage/photo's to document the entire trip for everyone to check out, and perhaps make people a little jealous 
My employer has vouched to match any charity contributions from my work colleagues, so that will also go on to help us meet and hopefully beat, the £1,000 target for the Mercy Corps, we've almost made the 50% marker on our justgiving site, so hopefully with the increased momentum of the event getting ever closer, this will start to ramp up to a decent wedge of cash for the Mercy Corps.
Paul (my team mate) has had his Vaccinations for the various ailments we could come down with on the trip, Mike (my other team mate) & I are awaiting appointments with our respective GPs, so hopefully we can get most jabs on the NHS, but there will always be some we've got to pay for i.e. rabies, which the jury is still out on whether we truly need this.
We're looking forward to an off-road weekend in Wales in a couple of weeks time. This will be a good opportunity for the various teams to meet up, and see how we can tackle the various valleys and obstacles that the Welsh countryside has to offer, with only enough engine power to run an electric pencil sharpener. Photo's will follow, most likely of myself pushing the car as Paul wheel spins it deeper into a bog of some sort haha
Otherwise, the only other thing that has happened in the last few weeks is the arrival of our roof bars for the swift, these will allow up to fit a roof rack of some description, so far the leading idea is a shallow shopping trolley with its legs cut off, we'll see how this scrap heap challenge task actually pans out.
Over & Out,
PP
Saturday, 9 May 2009
69 Days remaining....
Well time is lessening and the list of jobs is now rapidly growing for the rally fun times. The latest priority item on the list is vaccinations for my travels. It's come to light that there's more than a couple jabs required for my exploits, including an expensive run of rabies jabs....I'm weighing up the cost - benefit ratio of rabies.
My general thoughts were that I affectively have 3 types of protection from rabies:
Firstly, get the jabs, these are only 3 jabs in the arm, not as it used to be with 5-7 jabs into the abdomen, "needles to say" (you Alan Partridge fans out there may get that reference) I wouldn't ever consider paying to be stabbed in the abdomen.
Secondly, I'll be car based for the vast majority of the trip, so can either run the offending animal over, or at the least use it to get away quickly. Though quickly might not be an option with a 993cc Suzuki swift that has just covered a years mileage in a couple of weeks, but I'm willing to bet it'll be marginally quicker than a gamy disease ridden animal.
Thirdly, Is to kick either of my team-mates in the shins and run faster than them both as the snarling dog, wolf, camel, mongoose, or other native Kazakh/Mongolian creature comes chasing us down....
The plan as they say is foolproof! And we're just the fools to test it!
On a similar note, it also came to our attention that Mongolia has other attractions as well, other than various nasty diseases, poverty and possible death.....the country also has very much wild wolves and to top it off the Bubonic plague! YEY!
So, on that note I'm putting it all to the back of my head and not thinking about that, I'm going sort out the highly improvised roof rack for our car (consisting cable ties & a shopping trolley!) and source a not too battered CB radio to have some fun with on the rally.....
Stay tuned amigos...............
My general thoughts were that I affectively have 3 types of protection from rabies:
Firstly, get the jabs, these are only 3 jabs in the arm, not as it used to be with 5-7 jabs into the abdomen, "needles to say" (you Alan Partridge fans out there may get that reference) I wouldn't ever consider paying to be stabbed in the abdomen.
Secondly, I'll be car based for the vast majority of the trip, so can either run the offending animal over, or at the least use it to get away quickly. Though quickly might not be an option with a 993cc Suzuki swift that has just covered a years mileage in a couple of weeks, but I'm willing to bet it'll be marginally quicker than a gamy disease ridden animal.
Thirdly, Is to kick either of my team-mates in the shins and run faster than them both as the snarling dog, wolf, camel, mongoose, or other native Kazakh/Mongolian creature comes chasing us down....
The plan as they say is foolproof! And we're just the fools to test it!
On a similar note, it also came to our attention that Mongolia has other attractions as well, other than various nasty diseases, poverty and possible death.....the country also has very much wild wolves and to top it off the Bubonic plague! YEY!
So, on that note I'm putting it all to the back of my head and not thinking about that, I'm going sort out the highly improvised roof rack for our car (consisting cable ties & a shopping trolley!) and source a not too battered CB radio to have some fun with on the rally.....
Stay tuned amigos...............
Thursday, 23 April 2009
85 Days Remaining
Well it's been a while since I've blogged last so I thought I'd give some updates. The visa applications for Russia, Kazakhstan & Mongolia are in the post as we speak, so fingers crossed I haven't made any "school boy" errors on the paperwork. My bank account is now officially £210 lighter that before, and the beauty of it is I get none of that back if they decline my application, what a great system, you could just take everyone's money then reject them for no particular reason.
Anyway, that's one of the last big ticket items that needed ticking off my to-do list. In the post this week arrived some bargin basement roof rack bars for the swift off the good ol' eBay. So that gives us something to fix a roof rack too, I've found a website that does the car stickers for our sponsors farely cheaply so that'll give us as much of a margin on the sponsors contributions as possible.
I have also recieved yesterday the first corporate sponsor cheque in the post, which is great, it all helps, another is in the post on its way so that's abother bonus. Hopefully my workplace will be able to sponsor some more, and then its up to us to squeeze every penny out of friends, family, workmates, random people on the street and pretty anyone we come across.
I'm hatching the idea, though I've avoided it to date, that I may set up a bands night either at a venue in the city, or at Kingston Uni's student union bar, and make a bit of money on the cover charges hopefully, so watch this space, and we'll see how it develops.
Another unexpected result has been the post-rally travelling plans, which originally involved catching the train form Ulaan Baatar to Beijing, China and then catching a ferry to Japan and travelling around Japan. This PLan is still in action, but there has been the addition of a small stop off on the way home to the UK, you may have heard of it, its a little place called the United States of Hell Ya! The plan is in the planning stage, as is the case with many a plan. But it seams to have evolved that with the exception of the train to Beijing and Japan, that I will now be driving the across the all Northern Hemisphere landmasses pretty much. My partner in crime will be Owen Coomber, a member of the Mongol Rally 2009, he's in team Xtreme much of the plan is fluid at the moment, so there's the likelyhood of multiple changes and detours but the general plan is buy a $200 banger in the US and then drive it across
the US, if it breaks down then buy another $200 banger, and so on, and so forth. A car much like the one to the right, which I spotted in Alaska and thought at the time "What a legendary rust bucket to drive the horendous amount of miles across the states". Little did I know that I may well be doing just that a year later. We'll see how it goes...but it has so much potential it seams mad not give it a try!
Anyway, that's one of the last big ticket items that needed ticking off my to-do list. In the post this week arrived some bargin basement roof rack bars for the swift off the good ol' eBay. So that gives us something to fix a roof rack too, I've found a website that does the car stickers for our sponsors farely cheaply so that'll give us as much of a margin on the sponsors contributions as possible.
I have also recieved yesterday the first corporate sponsor cheque in the post, which is great, it all helps, another is in the post on its way so that's abother bonus. Hopefully my workplace will be able to sponsor some more, and then its up to us to squeeze every penny out of friends, family, workmates, random people on the street and pretty anyone we come across.
I'm hatching the idea, though I've avoided it to date, that I may set up a bands night either at a venue in the city, or at Kingston Uni's student union bar, and make a bit of money on the cover charges hopefully, so watch this space, and we'll see how it develops.
Another unexpected result has been the post-rally travelling plans, which originally involved catching the train form Ulaan Baatar to Beijing, China and then catching a ferry to Japan and travelling around Japan. This PLan is still in action, but there has been the addition of a small stop off on the way home to the UK, you may have heard of it, its a little place called the United States of Hell Ya! The plan is in the planning stage, as is the case with many a plan. But it seams to have evolved that with the exception of the train to Beijing and Japan, that I will now be driving the across the all Northern Hemisphere landmasses pretty much. My partner in crime will be Owen Coomber, a member of the Mongol Rally 2009, he's in team Xtreme much of the plan is fluid at the moment, so there's the likelyhood of multiple changes and detours but the general plan is buy a $200 banger in the US and then drive it across
the US, if it breaks down then buy another $200 banger, and so on, and so forth. A car much like the one to the right, which I spotted in Alaska and thought at the time "What a legendary rust bucket to drive the horendous amount of miles across the states". Little did I know that I may well be doing just that a year later. We'll see how it goes...but it has so much potential it seams mad not give it a try!
Monday, 6 April 2009
102 Days Remaining
Only 102 more sleeps until the adventuresome event begins!
Another weekend of adventurist carnage was had in Bristol, myself and Mike managed to rock up at the very very nice pub by the name of "Eldon House" Great Beer, Great Staff, and a very homely pub. Needless to say we got there early and started the festivities with some food, and then proceeded to get royally battered with the other rallists. All in all a good time though, Mike wasn't fairing well on the Sunday morning, but my trademark hangover cure seamed to work, it consists of orange juice (fresh with the bits, no less), bacon sarnie, Paracetomol & nurofen.....then the piece de la resistance....National Lottery Scratchcards!!! It works in only the way that drugs, alcohol, fried food & gambling can! I'm still adement that the gambling is the key ingredient, the drugs are just for effect haha
Then on the sunday Benedict Allen, one of the first tv adventurers, who pretty much started up the genre, gave a talk to us about various expeditions that he's undertaken.
He was funny, in a way that only a publicly schooled, tweed wearing 40yr old can....and needless to say his life have been threatened on more than one occasion by various means whether it be bandits, starvation or disease. All round a jolly good chap!
Then after my fill of tea & cake after the talk from our fellow adventurer, I was graciously offered a ride back home in the newly purchased Skoda "Felacio" as Owen my driver has nicknamed it....it proved itself well as Mongol Rally stead so hopefully it will see him and his team through, my payment for the journey involved a ginsters pastey and a bottle of lucazade from the local garage, and after a few sat-nav based detours it worked out pretty well, and I arrived back not to late, so I could get my beauty sleep.
Other than that, we'll be sorting out our visas for the trip over the Easter period, so i'm sure that wont be as simple as we all may wish it to be, so I'll keep you up to date on any further mis-adventures...
Cheerio!
Another weekend of adventurist carnage was had in Bristol, myself and Mike managed to rock up at the very very nice pub by the name of "Eldon House" Great Beer, Great Staff, and a very homely pub. Needless to say we got there early and started the festivities with some food, and then proceeded to get royally battered with the other rallists. All in all a good time though, Mike wasn't fairing well on the Sunday morning, but my trademark hangover cure seamed to work, it consists of orange juice (fresh with the bits, no less), bacon sarnie, Paracetomol & nurofen.....then the piece de la resistance....National Lottery Scratchcards!!! It works in only the way that drugs, alcohol, fried food & gambling can! I'm still adement that the gambling is the key ingredient, the drugs are just for effect haha
Then on the sunday Benedict Allen, one of the first tv adventurers, who pretty much started up the genre, gave a talk to us about various expeditions that he's undertaken.
He was funny, in a way that only a publicly schooled, tweed wearing 40yr old can....and needless to say his life have been threatened on more than one occasion by various means whether it be bandits, starvation or disease. All round a jolly good chap!
Then after my fill of tea & cake after the talk from our fellow adventurer, I was graciously offered a ride back home in the newly purchased Skoda "Felacio" as Owen my driver has nicknamed it....it proved itself well as Mongol Rally stead so hopefully it will see him and his team through, my payment for the journey involved a ginsters pastey and a bottle of lucazade from the local garage, and after a few sat-nav based detours it worked out pretty well, and I arrived back not to late, so I could get my beauty sleep.
Other than that, we'll be sorting out our visas for the trip over the Easter period, so i'm sure that wont be as simple as we all may wish it to be, so I'll keep you up to date on any further mis-adventures...
Cheerio!
Saturday, 14 March 2009
125 Days Remaining
I'm a bit late uploading the blog for my exploits in New York, needless to say it was a rocking time in the city that doesn’t sleep, Mike joined me in this hop over the pond, there was plenty of photo’s over the 5 days, a couple of the nights we were out at different bars with various American rally teams. The US teams were all great, they were very friendly, most were a bit nuts but all in all we hit it off pretty well. They all have plans for their vehicles such as paragliding off the back of their ice cream truck etc...
The start of the trip was a bit manic, we woke up about 6.30am on the Thursday morning, Mike had stayed over on the sofa, so we grabbed a shower, and headed off to Victoria to catch the train to Gatwick airport. We’d managed to pre-book the tickets and god £3 cheap singles to the airport, all was going well until we had to get the tickets from the machines within the station, with 10mins till the train departed the machines said they couldn’t access our details so we waited in the queue to speak to customer services, now I’m pretty patient, but these guys were sloooowww! We got the ticket guy and he insisted on printing off about 5 tickets each then making us sign all the documents and he was in no hurry, Mike got his ticket first so he went to check the platform for the train, all this with 2mins left to go. Once my ticket was printed I ran to the concourse and couldn’t see him, so tried ringing him, as I’m ringing I run to platform 19 for the train presuming he’s already gone there. I get to the platform and can’t get hold of him so I get on the train hoping he’s already on it. Just as the doors close and the wheels take their first movements I look out the door window only to see Mike rooted to the platform with an angry face. Needless to say, not a good start, after a slight delay he catches the next train without any issues and meets me at Gatwick, he was not a happy bunny, but as I explained I couldn’t be sure where he was so I got on, in the hope he was already on board. Oh well, we’re still fine for check-in. We wonder through to the departure lounge and set up shop in the Wetherspoons there. I grab some breakfast and a Kopparberg then a nice shot of Jameson whiskey with ginger ale which was a free taster.
Once on the US airways flight, there were plenty of spare seats so we could spread out and I even managed to get a slight bit of sleep on the way to our connecting flight from Philadelphia to LaGuardia New York. Once at Philly we went to grab some food & a beer at the bar there. I managed to confuse the waitress royally, by asking for a Cheeseburger with cheese...yeah I know, school boy error, well the burger was nice an fresh, but I got stung by offering Mike a beer, and then the bill showed they were at $9 a piece it turned into an expensive lunch!
We were on a tiny internal jet from Philly to NYC, which reminded me of the planes we used to catch from Guernsey to Southampton. Anyways, we got to NYC a little earlier than expected and caught a cab to Hotel 17, which was our residence for the 4 nights we were going to be there. It had great reviews online and was very cheap, mainly due to the fact you have to share the bathrooms. But it lived up to the reviews, very clean, not too small, very comfy beds & a certain shabby chic; it happens that a couple of films have been filmed there in decades past, including a Woody Allen film. It also has live-in residents that include dwarves & transsexuals, so it had quite the mixture of clientele.
The first day we walked for miles, wondering up to central park, then mainly due to my loss of landmarks got lost for a while within it. Mike tried to instil his understanding of the streets & avenues, as spines & ribs; my brain just couldn’t help thinking that avenues went up/down, streets when left/right. Each to their own I guess.
We went and met up that evening with the Rolling Cones, an American team that invited us to a bar they were having a fund raiser at. They had good tunes, plenty of good people but more importantly they were sponsored by 2 drinks companies. One was a tequila supplier called “Inocente”, which Mike can vouch against that name, after he was hanging out of his arse the next morning, it was far from innocent! The other drinks sponsor was “Jolt”, an energy drink in the US that has been around for ages, it comes in what only can only be described at a WD40 canister only without a straw, I avoided this stuff, purely because those who were drinking it looked like they were under the effect of substances a lot stronger than the average energy drink! We got to mingle with some lovely ladies, as well as some of the rally organisers who flew in from a new South American adventure.
The next day we went to get breakfast, but I relatively untouched from the previous nights events, Mike was not in a good way, the weather was also very sunny & hot, whi
ch I’m not sure is good or bad for a hangover. Either way we walked for a good few miles taking photos of the various places & sights, including Grand Central Station, the Woolworth building, ground zero & the Brooklyn Bridge. That evening we had a rally tea party to attend, it was at a really good venue again, with the help of a live old new York style band people unwound and got to know the various teams, we met a guy called Domino the night before but this evening we were talking and it hit us, what a legend he is! I don’t want to spoil any of his stories, but If you get a chance to catch up with just ask about one of his many hitchhiking night
mares &various other exploits.
So, the next day we did more sightseeing & then in the evening we ventured up the empire state building, the views at night are pretty impressive, we paid a little extra to go to the very top as well, that was the 102nd floor, the photo’s are on my flickr account for people to check out, I was annoyed though, because I took my tripod to get good night shots without camera shake, and at the security booth I was told they’d have to hold onto it as it may trip people up. Luckily I kept the camera bracket in my bag and this did the job almost as well, and allowed Mike to use it on his
camera as well.
We headed back the next day, with good memories of our little adventure, more than a few good photos & quotes from the adventure and hopefully some helpful friends to give us a hand come rally time.
The start of the trip was a bit manic, we woke up about 6.30am on the Thursday morning, Mike had stayed over on the sofa, so we grabbed a shower, and headed off to Victoria to catch the train to Gatwick airport. We’d managed to pre-book the tickets and god £3 cheap singles to the airport, all was going well until we had to get the tickets from the machines within the station, with 10mins till the train departed the machines said they couldn’t access our details so we waited in the queue to speak to customer services, now I’m pretty patient, but these guys were sloooowww! We got the ticket guy and he insisted on printing off about 5 tickets each then making us sign all the documents and he was in no hurry, Mike got his ticket first so he went to check the platform for the train, all this with 2mins left to go. Once my ticket was printed I ran to the concourse and couldn’t see him, so tried ringing him, as I’m ringing I run to platform 19 for the train presuming he’s already gone there. I get to the platform and can’t get hold of him so I get on the train hoping he’s already on it. Just as the doors close and the wheels take their first movements I look out the door window only to see Mike rooted to the platform with an angry face. Needless to say, not a good start, after a slight delay he catches the next train without any issues and meets me at Gatwick, he was not a happy bunny, but as I explained I couldn’t be sure where he was so I got on, in the hope he was already on board. Oh well, we’re still fine for check-in. We wonder through to the departure lounge and set up shop in the Wetherspoons there. I grab some breakfast and a Kopparberg then a nice shot of Jameson whiskey with ginger ale which was a free taster.
Once on the US airways flight, there were plenty of spare seats so we could spread out and I even managed to get a slight bit of sleep on the way to our connecting flight from Philadelphia to LaGuardia New York. Once at Philly we went to grab some food & a beer at the bar there. I managed to confuse the waitress royally, by asking for a Cheeseburger with cheese...yeah I know, school boy error, well the burger was nice an fresh, but I got stung by offering Mike a beer, and then the bill showed they were at $9 a piece it turned into an expensive lunch!
We were on a tiny internal jet from Philly to NYC, which reminded me of the planes we used to catch from Guernsey to Southampton. Anyways, we got to NYC a little earlier than expected and caught a cab to Hotel 17, which was our residence for the 4 nights we were going to be there. It had great reviews online and was very cheap, mainly due to the fact you have to share the bathrooms. But it lived up to the reviews, very clean, not too small, very comfy beds & a certain shabby chic; it happens that a couple of films have been filmed there in decades past, including a Woody Allen film. It also has live-in residents that include dwarves & transsexuals, so it had quite the mixture of clientele.
The first day we walked for miles, wondering up to central park, then mainly due to my loss of landmarks got lost for a while within it. Mike tried to instil his understanding of the streets & avenues, as spines & ribs; my brain just couldn’t help thinking that avenues went up/down, streets when left/right. Each to their own I guess.
We went and met up that evening with the Rolling Cones, an American team that invited us to a bar they were having a fund raiser at. They had good tunes, plenty of good people but more importantly they were sponsored by 2 drinks companies. One was a tequila supplier called “Inocente”, which Mike can vouch against that name, after he was hanging out of his arse the next morning, it was far from innocent! The other drinks sponsor was “Jolt”, an energy drink in the US that has been around for ages, it comes in what only can only be described at a WD40 canister only without a straw, I avoided this stuff, purely because those who were drinking it looked like they were under the effect of substances a lot stronger than the average energy drink! We got to mingle with some lovely ladies, as well as some of the rally organisers who flew in from a new South American adventure.
The next day we went to get breakfast, but I relatively untouched from the previous nights events, Mike was not in a good way, the weather was also very sunny & hot, whi
ch I’m not sure is good or bad for a hangover. Either way we walked for a good few miles taking photos of the various places & sights, including Grand Central Station, the Woolworth building, ground zero & the Brooklyn Bridge. That evening we had a rally tea party to attend, it was at a really good venue again, with the help of a live old new York style band people unwound and got to know the various teams, we met a guy called Domino the night before but this evening we were talking and it hit us, what a legend he is! I don’t want to spoil any of his stories, but If you get a chance to catch up with just ask about one of his many hitchhiking night
mares &various other exploits.So, the next day we did more sightseeing & then in the evening we ventured up the empire state building, the views at night are pretty impressive, we paid a little extra to go to the very top as well, that was the 102nd floor, the photo’s are on my flickr account for people to check out, I was annoyed though, because I took my tripod to get good night shots without camera shake, and at the security booth I was told they’d have to hold onto it as it may trip people up. Luckily I kept the camera bracket in my bag and this did the job almost as well, and allowed Mike to use it on his
camera as well.We headed back the next day, with good memories of our little adventure, more than a few good photos & quotes from the adventure and hopefully some helpful friends to give us a hand come rally time.
Monday, 2 March 2009
137 Days Remaining
Not much has happened since my last post rally-wise, but a mini-adventure is on the horizon, something to quench the adventurists thirst! A journey that mesmerises and captivates thousands each year, this voyage of discovery is none other than a hop over the Atlantic, yes two thirds of Team Swift (therefore by majority rounded up to the whole of the team), will be gracing the great “US of A” with their presence, Mike & myself will be jetting off to New York this Thursday! Bring it on!!!
I’ve gotten in contact with another rally team, “the rolling cones”, who have a member based in New York and as such have latched onto them like a parasite, feeding off their planned parties and generally imposing myself on their social life!
So we have a rocking night planned on the 2nd night, which by coincidence happens to be one block from our hotel, so some drunken jay walking is pretty much a given.
Then on the 3rd night there’s a rally tea party event, where you get to meet past rally teams, and drink your favourite brew whilst eating cakes and listening to tales of adventuresome people. This ultimately will lead to a messy night as all these events are certain to do.
That then leaves another night to make nuisances of ourselves in the city that never sleeps.
I have chosen a hotel (http://travel.nytimes.com/2007/01/07/travel/07check.html) that may well prove to be either a classic haunt or a complete nightmare; it has an unusual history and shared toilets so bring on the fun!
So until we’ve completed our mini adventure, take care people. Updates of our misadventures to follow...
I’ve gotten in contact with another rally team, “the rolling cones”, who have a member based in New York and as such have latched onto them like a parasite, feeding off their planned parties and generally imposing myself on their social life!
So we have a rocking night planned on the 2nd night, which by coincidence happens to be one block from our hotel, so some drunken jay walking is pretty much a given.
Then on the 3rd night there’s a rally tea party event, where you get to meet past rally teams, and drink your favourite brew whilst eating cakes and listening to tales of adventuresome people. This ultimately will lead to a messy night as all these events are certain to do.
That then leaves another night to make nuisances of ourselves in the city that never sleeps.
I have chosen a hotel (http://travel.nytimes.com/2007/01/07/travel/07check.html) that may well prove to be either a classic haunt or a complete nightmare; it has an unusual history and shared toilets so bring on the fun!
So until we’ve completed our mini adventure, take care people. Updates of our misadventures to follow...
Friday, 27 February 2009
140 Days Remaining
With it getting closer an closer until we set off on the rally, we need to get somemore things sorted, ultimately this leads to a mountain of paperwork, the visa's for all the countries is interesting, there's no reason why we should be declined but if we don't get it sorted soon then it'll be one almighty rush!
The adventurists are meant to provide a magic visa sorting service but as yet we haven't heard anything, so bring on the paperwork!
There's an adventurists tea party in the 7th March for our American brothers across the pond. Not many details have been set, well really only the date and city so far, but I've managed to get cheap flights over there for a week to meet the other teams and have a bit of fun. I've managed to organize another night out over there with the rolling cones, who have a team member living there, so that should take the hassel of finding places out of the equation. Also Mike has decided to join me on this mini adventure, so I'm sure we'll be able to tear up New York for those few nights. The hotel I've booked is an eclectic mix of traditional motel with live-in residents and the set of several films scenes over the years so once again should be interesting. It cheap cheerful & you share bathrooms, watch this space on my verdicts...
We're slowly adding more sponsors to our ranks, but as always not as fast as we'd like, ideally we want to be able to cover everywhere but the windows with sponsorship stickers, so we'll have too wait an see how that pans out.
In terms of media coverage we haven't done too bad to date, I've arrange articles and interviews, but all for regional media outlets, nothing on a national scale has materialized unfortunately as yet.
I have been in regular contact with Jen from the Mercy Corps, she's been really helpful in Organising press releases as well as plenty of mercy corps branded merchandise, we've got enough stickers, badges etc. To sink the titanic!
The car is running great, other than me being the lucky one to push as Paul wheelspan it out from a muddy patch during the latest photo session. I've decided that we have to at the very least take a couple of planks of wood to help the tires out of sticky situations!
All in all things are going well.
As always I'll keep you all upto date with our latest adventures!
The adventurists are meant to provide a magic visa sorting service but as yet we haven't heard anything, so bring on the paperwork!
There's an adventurists tea party in the 7th March for our American brothers across the pond. Not many details have been set, well really only the date and city so far, but I've managed to get cheap flights over there for a week to meet the other teams and have a bit of fun. I've managed to organize another night out over there with the rolling cones, who have a team member living there, so that should take the hassel of finding places out of the equation. Also Mike has decided to join me on this mini adventure, so I'm sure we'll be able to tear up New York for those few nights. The hotel I've booked is an eclectic mix of traditional motel with live-in residents and the set of several films scenes over the years so once again should be interesting. It cheap cheerful & you share bathrooms, watch this space on my verdicts...
We're slowly adding more sponsors to our ranks, but as always not as fast as we'd like, ideally we want to be able to cover everywhere but the windows with sponsorship stickers, so we'll have too wait an see how that pans out.
In terms of media coverage we haven't done too bad to date, I've arrange articles and interviews, but all for regional media outlets, nothing on a national scale has materialized unfortunately as yet.
I have been in regular contact with Jen from the Mercy Corps, she's been really helpful in Organising press releases as well as plenty of mercy corps branded merchandise, we've got enough stickers, badges etc. To sink the titanic!
The car is running great, other than me being the lucky one to push as Paul wheelspan it out from a muddy patch during the latest photo session. I've decided that we have to at the very least take a couple of planks of wood to help the tires out of sticky situations!
All in all things are going well.
As always I'll keep you all upto date with our latest adventures!
Thursday, 26 February 2009
Ane Brun
From this day forth any gig I attend is going to have to prove itself beyond anything you can imagine. I have this evening just witnessed the best live performer to date. This messiah of lyrical talent falls under the name of Ane Brun, a musical goddess in its most elemental form. Hand in hand her charm and eloquence were matched by the venue; its cold stone walls were contrasted by the warm up lighters and the natural eminence of the talent that occupied its voids. Ane's diamonds as she called them were three beautiful and talented ladies, emitting an unquantifiable pleasure and playfulness.
The multi coloured luminaires hung within the Union Chapel caused a beautiful array of refracted colours to shine from the likes of her guitar, visually contributing to the emotive warmth.
Teitur & Ellie Goulding accompanied Ane & her diamonds, each bringing their own flavour to the nights events. Ellie started things off, she was a little nervous due to inexperience, but as soon as she released her lyrics she settled straight in to the set.
Teitur was a joy to listen to, but more interesting at some points was his movements, as if he was itching to crawl out of his skin; this was completely contrary to his musical & vocal talents which we a great blend in the evenings mass.
All in all an amazing nights entertainment.
The multi coloured luminaires hung within the Union Chapel caused a beautiful array of refracted colours to shine from the likes of her guitar, visually contributing to the emotive warmth.
Teitur & Ellie Goulding accompanied Ane & her diamonds, each bringing their own flavour to the nights events. Ellie started things off, she was a little nervous due to inexperience, but as soon as she released her lyrics she settled straight in to the set.
Teitur was a joy to listen to, but more interesting at some points was his movements, as if he was itching to crawl out of his skin; this was completely contrary to his musical & vocal talents which we a great blend in the evenings mass.
All in all an amazing nights entertainment.
Sunday, 22 February 2009
145 Days remaining....
Yesterday we had a photographer from the Kent Messenger meet us for some off road photos. The local golf course let us take the car around some of their unused land, which all went well, only had to dig the car out of the mud once, I ended up being the lucky one who had to push as Paul wheel span the car through the mud.
So after striking poses for our fans, hopefully the article will be in next week’s edition. When the photos are available I’ll upload them to the team site etc...
In the meantime I’m left planning the potential travels after we complete the rally. I can’t quite decide what I want to do the most yet, but it’s boiling down to perhaps a couple of months of further travelling. I’d like to “do” Australia & New Zealand, but I’m not sure that 2 months is really enough time to do everything I want to, so an alternative option would be to take the trans-Mongolia train from Ulaanbaatar through China, stopping off somewhere like Shanghai then taking a ferry over to Japan and scoping out the main island. Then perhaps taking the trans-Siberian railway back, from Vladivostok to Moscow and training it through Europe from there.
So basically I have plenty of decision making, planning and soul searching left to do before the summer of adventure begins.
PP
So after striking poses for our fans, hopefully the article will be in next week’s edition. When the photos are available I’ll upload them to the team site etc...
In the meantime I’m left planning the potential travels after we complete the rally. I can’t quite decide what I want to do the most yet, but it’s boiling down to perhaps a couple of months of further travelling. I’d like to “do” Australia & New Zealand, but I’m not sure that 2 months is really enough time to do everything I want to, so an alternative option would be to take the trans-Mongolia train from Ulaanbaatar through China, stopping off somewhere like Shanghai then taking a ferry over to Japan and scoping out the main island. Then perhaps taking the trans-Siberian railway back, from Vladivostok to Moscow and training it through Europe from there.
So basically I have plenty of decision making, planning and soul searching left to do before the summer of adventure begins.
PP
Saturday, 21 February 2009
Back on track
Right, for those who don't know this summer on the 18th July, I shall be setting off on a little adventure known as the Mongol Rally all in the name of charity! The afore mentioned charity is the Mercy Corps, they do some great work around the world so well worth the effort.
I've mustered up a couple of allies for the road, both being equally unaware of the adventure that lies ahead of us. So all in all, this should amount to some life lessons, stories for the grand children, huge arguments and a whole heap of fun!
Essentially we are undertaking an 8-10 thousand mile drive from Goodwood race circuit on the south coast of England, through countries such as the Czech Republic, Russia, Kazakhstan and ultimately arriving at the capital of Mongolia - Ulan Bator.
But not to tarnish this lovely undertaking in anyway, we’ve also committed to travel in a 993cc Suzuki Swift, this red beast from the east, will be our chariot, and the simple aim of the adventure is to raise a minimum of £1,000 for the Mercy Corps whilst having a whole heap full of fun!
So until that faithful date arrives in July, there’s things that must be done. We’ve obviously got the car sorted; we still need to get visas for every leg of the journey, insurance and petrol money among other things.
Corporate sponsors would be ideal to help us achieve this goal, so we’ve got an information pack together to send to potential sponsors.
So that is where we stand at the moment with only 146 days remaining.
Take care,
PP
I've mustered up a couple of allies for the road, both being equally unaware of the adventure that lies ahead of us. So all in all, this should amount to some life lessons, stories for the grand children, huge arguments and a whole heap of fun!
Essentially we are undertaking an 8-10 thousand mile drive from Goodwood race circuit on the south coast of England, through countries such as the Czech Republic, Russia, Kazakhstan and ultimately arriving at the capital of Mongolia - Ulan Bator.
But not to tarnish this lovely undertaking in anyway, we’ve also committed to travel in a 993cc Suzuki Swift, this red beast from the east, will be our chariot, and the simple aim of the adventure is to raise a minimum of £1,000 for the Mercy Corps whilst having a whole heap full of fun!
So until that faithful date arrives in July, there’s things that must be done. We’ve obviously got the car sorted; we still need to get visas for every leg of the journey, insurance and petrol money among other things.
Corporate sponsors would be ideal to help us achieve this goal, so we’ve got an information pack together to send to potential sponsors.
So that is where we stand at the moment with only 146 days remaining.
Take care,
PP
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