Almaty, Kazakhstan
I've made it to Almaty after a ridiculous 25 hour train journey. Used most of my internet time sorting potential trains/flights/hitch-hiking to the finish line or home so not much time left for a proper update, will sort that later.
In my haste to get the blog up to date before I've realised I missed out a few bits:
Upon leaving Donets'k we developd our first warning light. It was the emmisions one, and we decided that a car with an engine as petite as ours only really emitted sunshine and rainbows so it probably wasn't a problem. I guess it's irrelevant now anyway.
On the road from Atyrau to Aqtobe we saw our first camels! The first ones we saw had floppy humps and looked more like disgruntled horses, but as we carried on we saw some proper, better, two-humped camels! We also saw a number of huge eagles. Upon first sight I genuinely thought one of them was a man wearing a cloak crouching by the side of the road. They were magnficent and we tried to take some photos, though by the time we stopped each time they tended to fly off, though seeing something that size take off was amazing in itself.
I'll fill in the rest from Aralsk to here later today when I've sorted somewhere to stay for the night. Today is decision day, whether we battle on to the finish line or I admit defeat and head home. **If any teams are reading this and you think you might be in Almaty in the next few days and might have space for 2 stranded ralliers, please let me know!** Email me on rbevan87 [at] hotmail [dot] co [dot] uk or phone me on +447816233320
Rich
The Life and Times of Oslo the Cheeky 'Cento (Part 2)
**Day 12 - Volgograd to Atyrau**
When we got up in the morning we consulted the map and realised just how far behing we were. To get to where we were supposed to be we would have had to have drived about 2000km in a day, which even on good roads would have been a hell of a challenge. We said goodbye to the Royal Horns girls, who were staying in Russia, and set off for Kazakhstan. After a short while ourselves and Team Shoeless were pulled over by the infamous Russian Police. They took V5s and IDPs off both of us, and gestured for us to follow them over to their little building. We waited outside for a while so they could finish robbing someone else, and did our best to appear smiley, friendly and unintimidated. One of them was very interested in the huge amount of bites Luke had on his legs, leading to us saying "Ukraine, Ukraine" and then waving our arms around and making buzzing noises. Who said language barriers aren't fun? Once they were finished with the other unfortunate chap we were gestured over to the window, where they pointed to a computer showing images of our cars going 115kph in (an unmarked) 70kph zone. I was worried. In England that would spell trouble, so who knew what it would mean here? For five minutes or so we genuinely couldn't understand what they were asking us for, until one of them said "Presents!" Three packets of cigarettes and some lollies later and we were on our way. Earlier in the day MetalrallykhaR had been shaken down for 1000rubels (initially $500) for doing 100kph in (another unmarked) 40 zone, so we were pretty happy with our work.
We eventually arrived at the border and gettign out of Russia was so straightforward that I actually can't remember what happened. Getting into Kazakhstan was a bit more interesting. We'd been warned that the guards would persistently ask us for 'presents', would try to steal our iPods, and would generally try to inconvenience us into giving them things. None of this happened at all, they were smiley, firendly, had a play with a few things in the car and after separating James and myself to ask us a few questions, we were on our way. Neither of the other teams in ourconvoy were quite so lucky. Shoeless' visa didn't actually start until the next day so they were led off back into No Man's Land and we didn't see them again. Dan from MetalrallykhaR was forced to empty out their entire car by himself, then stand there and watch while the guards sat in their camping chairs, playing their guitar and bongos and wearing their viking hats. I wish you were allowed to take videos at border areas.
I drove the car out through the gates and was immediately swarmed by Kazakh children clinging onto the sides of the car. I pulled over, and James battledhis way through the crowd to get in. They were all very smiley and friendly again, and each pointed at pretty much everything in the car, asking if they could have it. We gave them some disgusting melted Russian sweets, negotiated a black market currency deal for our leftover Rubels, and drove on into Kazakhstan with MetalrallykhaR, excited to finally be here.
It was dark, getting late and the roads were pretty poo, so we pulled over to try to get some sleep, with the aim of getting up early the following morning to pack the miles in. It was far too hot in the cars and the area we were in looked a bit sketchy, so half an hour went past and despite all being shattered none of us had slept a wink. We decided to push on to Atyrau. The first hotel we went to wanted twice what Lonely Planet said we should pay, so we tried another, checking in finally at 4am. We were woken up at 7 by a member of another team who's Saxo the hotel man had told us to park behind and blocked in. James moved the car, I went back to sleep.
450 miles, 3774 total.
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**Day 13 - Atyrau to Aqtobe **
We got up some time around 10 and had a good study of the map. Going through Turkmenistan would have meant keeping up the number of miles per day that we'd been doing so far, on terrible roads, and we were already feeling the strain. There was no way we could do it. We were both on a bit of a low, outside of Mongolia itself, Turkmenistan had been the place on the trip I had been looking forward to visiting most. Instead we were now going to drive through Southern Kazakhstan, aiming for the Uzbek border between Shymkent and Tashkent, where James would be able to catch hsi flight home on the 10th. This way we'd get to see the Aral Sea (or where it used to be), and would be on the much more reliable looking M32 most of the way there.
We bought some breakfast from a shop over the road from the hotel and drove to the main square, where we sat underneath a statue of someone on a horse and ate. As we were now going to be spending much more time in Kazakhstan we tried to change some Dollars for Tenghe at the local bank, but were told our 2006 issued notes were too old. We got lost in Aytrau for a couple of hours, and finally found our way out at about 1. We had heard Shoeless had made it into Kazakhstan, and Metalrallykhar were unsure whether to follow us southwards or take the quicker norther route through Kazakhstan, so we drove on alone.
The roads started off alright but quickly got poorer, and by the time we got lost in Manat we were driving around on sand. Our bottletop gearbox fix had also come apart so we pulled over to have another go at fixing it and ask for some directions. Three sets of directions sent us out on a road that only led to a power station. One more attempt and we'd found the right road, but it was insane. There were huge craters everywhere. I'm not exaggerating when I say that we could have hidden our car in some of them. The going was painfully slow, as even on the better sections of road we had to take it slow in case one of these huge holes appeared out of nowhere. At points we drove through the dirt along the side of the road becuse it was it was easier to deal with. We'd put a few sizeable dents in our sump and fuel tank and we were stuggling. As the evening drew on we began to run out of water and couldn't find any sort of shop anywhere. A man at a garage offered us some water out of a tap. It was yellow, but we thought it was better than nothing in an emergency and stuffed a load of purification tabets in it. We had wanted to get to Aqtobe that evening, but concentrating so hard for so long was so draining that at 3am we gave up, around 100km short of our goal. We drove off the side of the road and very quickly fell asleep in the car.
330 miles today, 4104 total
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**Day 14 - Aqtobe to Aralsk **
At about 7am there was a knock on the window. Another rally team in a Landrover had been driving past and seen 3 names on the side of the car but only 2 of us inside so had pulled over to check everything was ok. We thanked them for their concern and set off on our way. Driving on to Aqtobe we saw an ambulance (The Fatalists) pulled over by the side of the road, so we left them a note and drove on. By 10am we were passing through Aqtobe and had been stopped by the Kazakh Police three times. Each time the Stupid Englishman came out, handed over only photocopies, failed to understand that these were not good enough and any requests for presents, and got us away without paying anything.
The M32 on our map, it turned out, was still being built. This meant that we'd be on lovely, fresh, smooth tarmac for a few miles, then diverted off into the desert sand, where we'd have to drive along in second, wheels spinning, to avoid sinking and having to live in the desert for ever. The car was filling with dust and it was hard to breathe. Eventually we found our way onto a gravel 'replacement road' and at the time we were grateful. The speed limit was what seemd an unfathomably slow 40kph on what was a reasonably wide straight road, even if it was a bit slippery. Cars were whizzing past us as us 60+mph. We wanted to finally arrive in a town before it got dark, but at the same time didn't want to trash the underneath of our car any more. I know I'm no Stig, so we were going along at no more than 40mph.
Neither of us is really sure what happened next. We had come over a brow on a straight bit or road and we think that either one of the rear tires went flat, or I swerved to avoid a pothole, but the back end of the car started to slide across the road through the loose gravel. I steered across to try to correct it, but overcompensated and the car began to slide the other way. Again I tried to correct it but again too much, it was all happening a bit fast. One of the rear wheels clipped the edge of the ditch at the side of the road and we rolled. We're not sure if we managed half a roll or one and a half, but we ended up on the roof. James and I both turned to each other, asking if the other was ok. We both responded positively and tried to get out of the car. We undid our seatbelts and fell onto the roof. Neither of the doors would open and my driver's side window was now to small to fit through, so we both had to crawl out through James' side. We both checked ourselved up and down, amazed that we were ok. We each had only a small scratch on our legs.
Oil was pouring everywhere so we reached back into the car to rescue the folder with the passports, money and all the important documents in. I checked myself again, I still couldn't believe I had come out of a car that looked like ours did without any sort of injury. Some Kazakhs in a truck came by and helped us to roll the car back over and disconnect the battery. We were both too busy trying to rescue things from the car to realise that they were standing around waiting for something in return, and they stormed off grumpily. We rang around the other teams we had phone numbers for to see if anyone would be coming by soon. Aralsk was only 10 miles away, so we didn't need to be towed far. Noone was anywhere near. We then realised we had to ring home, in case of any of the other teams posted an update mentioning our crash and people started to worry.
Fortunately a Russian man arrived in a Jeep and flagged down some Kazaks with a digger. They used the digger to bend the roof back into shape enough that someone could fit in the driver's seat, removed the windscree, changed the flat tyres and towed us to the Police Station. I stood nearby, apologising profusely.
We were in the Police Station for hours. Noone there could speak English, and our phrasebook didn't have enough Kazakh for us to explain that we needed some sort of document explaining we'd handed the car over officially so that we would be able to leave the country and get our deposit back off the Adventurists. We seemed to be repeatedly asked two questions, "How old are you?", and "David Beckham?" We weren't really sure how to answer the second. Eventually a translator arrived, a Kazakh girl named Fariza, who helped us go through all our documents with the Police, explained that we would need to come back the following mornign at 9 sharp and that we should expect to be 'fined'.
James booked us into the only hotel in Aralsk while I tried to call home outside. A drink Kazakh army bloke gave me the world's longest handshake and talked very close to my face. He was friendly in a weird sort of way, and I think was trying to gesture that he was the best fighter in the world. He didn't look like it, but I'd had enough near death experiences for one day so I made my excuses and went inside.
There were two other teams staying in the hotel so we went for some food with them and then went to bed, though I didn't really sleep.
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**Day 15 - Aralsk **
We were back at the Police Station before 9, ready to write our report. Nothing happened for hours, but the Police were all very friendly and again kept asking "David Beckham?" We still didn't really know the answer. They kept taking us outside to the car, and each time I saw it I felt a bit worse about ruining the whole adventure for everyone. Eventually we got our report written, were told we had to come back again the next day, and were allowed to go. We had dinner with some German and Polish guys who were backpacking through, and an Italian man who was driving to China on his own. We visited the train station twice to try to sort tickets to Tashkent to get James' flight, but with no luck, and were told to go back there the next day as well.
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**Day 16 - Aralsk **
We went to the train station first thing, but again failed to get any tickets. Back to the Police Station and after a few hours of sitting around while they played games on James' iPhone and asked us "How old are you?" and "David Beckham?" again, we had the documents we needed. We were led out of the Station and into a Police car, I expected to be taken to the bank so they could ask us to withdraw lots of money. Instead they took us to the bus stop, where Fariza helped to book us a place on a bus to Turkistan and organised for the driver's brother to drive us from there to the Uzbek border, a short distance to from Tashkent. Then they gave us a lift back to the hotel and waved us goodbye. I was completely amazed. No fines, just smiles and waves. I guess all the warnings we'd been given about the Kazakh Police were untrue. I doubt she'll read this, but we'd like to say another thank you to Fariza, for essentially giving up her entire weekend to help out two complete strangers.
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We travelled to Uzbekistan the next day, but being any sort of journalist is illegal here (not that I think of myself as a journalist, but I don't think my Uzbek is up to explaining the concept of the blog) so I'll write about it when I get back to Kazakhstan. Leaving here at 17:22 on a 25 hour train to Almaty, so I'll do the next update from there. Hello to all at home!
Rich
Budapest, and the Story So Far
**Day 0 - Travelling do**w**n to the Launch**
We were excited, a quick trip to the Pound Shop and we would be ready to go. James got in the car, crunch. Crap.
"The gearbox in this is a bit 'vague'", he said. Well it was now. A plasticy bit that makes the gear lever put the gears in the right place (technical term) had completely boken. As a result we spent most of the three-hour journey down trying to avoid having to go into 5th, as getting it into gear was llke trying to move the gearstick around a maze, and then rying to avoid changing out once we were in 5th, just so we wouldn't have to change back into it again. This was broken up a little when we got stuck in McDonalds, having parked in a space we then couldn't reverse out of as reverse didn't really like working either. Two gears down and we hadn't started yet.
On arrival into the campsite by weird coincidence we were directed to park next to the other team from Stratford, Ulaan Banter, who'd arived about 20 mins earlier. They were very friendly and lent us a hammer, which I then used to bend every single one of my tent pegs as the floor seemed to be made of cement and rocks. A few beers, a quick nose around to see some of the other cars, and off to sleep.
**Day 1 - The Festival of Slow **
We got up early, strapped Michael to the roof, and drove over to the Motor Circuit. There was a whole host of cars already there, and 55 ambulances. We thought this was robably more than enough for the entire Mongolian amblance service. There were also two Green Goddesses which have a top speed of about 1 and do this much [---------] to the gallon. They were cool.
James' still hadn't had his passport back from the Visa Machine so he went to enquire and was told to come back later because the Passport Man was on a train on his was to Goodwood. Talk about cutting it fine!
Next we set about fixing the car. After much fannying about with hacksaws and washers we realised that the lid off the bottle of water once of us was drinking would nicely jam everything into place if we could get a bolt through it. A quick bit of stabbing wth a screwdriver and some rolling about under the car and it was fixed and ready to go. This mechanics business is easy. [www.zimbio.com/pictures/5emdDOaWTZN/Mongol+rally+sets+off+goodwood+festival+of+slow ](http://www.zimbio.com/pictures/5emdDOaWTZN/Mongol+rally+sets+off+goodwood+festival+of+slow)
Car sorted we set off to enjoy the day's activities. Highlights included the Mongolian Wrestling, and a little boy Buddy tried to arm wrestle who was having the best time out of anyone there throwing a bit of baguette up in the air and then runnning around to find where it had gone. We were also accosted by some Russian would-be brides, but the less said about that the better I think. People seemed very pleased to see Michael. We could only find one other Seicento and that was the 'Sporting' model, we definitely had one of the tiniest and least suitable cars there. That obvously makes us the most awesome.
Goodbyes were said, we did our parade lap, and we were on our way. We had hours to kill until our 10pm ferry so we took the coastal route down to Dover, following some Dutch guys in a Panda who waved at everything on the way. Tesco for tea then we got in the queue, meeting the Yorkshire Terriers and Team Fudge at the Ferry Terminal. On the boat the enormity of the whole task began to sink in.
The Yorkshire Terriers were planning to try to find an F1 hotel in Dunkirk upon arrival. It was 1am and we were tired to quickly decided that was a good plan of action. We found two within 5 minutes of getting off the boat but they were both full so we gave up and slept in a supermarket carpark. The car was surprisingly comfortable - we woke up at about half 8 still able to feel and move all our limbs, which I was fully no expecting. Nor were there any French shoppers peering in through the windows, which was nice.
(152 miles so far)
**Da****y 2 - Dunkirk to Erlangen**
We set off about 9 o'clock, aiming for Nuremburg with the intention of having a look at the Nurburgring on the way. A short while later we stopped in a layby for some breakfast. There were no toilets so James went to the bushes for a wee and found a man enjoying himself rathe rmore than he should have been. We left.
After accidentally going to Holland, we found ourselved on the German Autobahn, where we spent most of the day. We passed a lot of teams taking it fairly steady,and paid the price for it, using2 tanks of petrol in one day. The decision was made to take it slower from then on. Having accidentally found Holland, we accidentally didn't find the Nurburgring. Apparently it isn't actually anywhere near Nuremburg. Never mind.
Disappearing camping signs led us on a spiral tour of Erlangen, just north of Nuremburg, before we eventually set up camp at a nice site by a lake. Sun out, beer in hand and only about 150 miles to do the followiing day to Czech Out. Currywurst, beers, bed.
(481 miles done today, 633 total)
**Day 3 - Erlangen to Klatovy and Czech Out **
We think we're getting about 30mpg out of the car, not as bad as we'd first thought, it's just that the fuel tank is fairly small. The drive over to Czech Out was fairly uneventful, we stopped in Pilsen for a Pilsener which was nice, but didn't really see any other teams until we stopped at Tesco in Klenova to buy some beer for the evening.We set up camp at the Castle, got Michael back on the roof, had a bit of a chat with some of the other teams and signed Mongolian Death Worm's car. Videos will follow of the fire, dancing, gin, tea, sausages, carnage and costumes of Czech out, suffice to say that neither of us were feeling our best the next day but are very tempted to return to Klatovy next year to visit the 2011 Rally's Czech Out party.
(174 miles today, 807 total)
**Day 4 - Klatovy to Budapest **
Officially Czeched Out we set off for Budapest, James at the wheel. We quickly encountered some of the worst roads we'd ever been on, where they'd done half a repair on all the pot holes. That was to say they's neatly dug out deep squares of the road, but hadn't yet put anything back in them, or marked them at all. Much weaving later we were on the motorway to Slovakia. Just short of the border we had our first police encounter. I was pulled over and asked why I didn't have a 'ticket'. Neither of us knew what this meant so the policeman invited us out of the car and kept saying "Ticket, Highway, Highway, Ticket." Much clearer. Fortunately one of his colleagues came over, and explained that for the whole time we were in the Czech Republic we were supposed to have had a sticker that lets us do motorways. They were very smiley, firendly interested in the car and the Rally, but then fined us anyway. 25 Euros later we were on our way, ticket in windscreen.
From there the drive to Budapest was fairly straightforward, and we completed our thousandth mile in the car since the launch. We're spending tonight in The Groove hostel, where I'd stayed with Soph a couple of years ago. It hasn't changed much and has a really nice atmosphere. Cheeky kebab for dinner, some beers on the balcony, and we're excited about tomorrow's drive down to Romania and the Transfagarasan Highway.
(miles to follow as the car is currently about a mile away in an underground car park so I can't look).
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Hi to everyone at home, hope you're all good!
Rich
