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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.