Mongolia II

In order to help you understand what we contended with pretty much all day everyday during our week in Mongolia, here is a brief overview of the types of road surface in Mongolia:

**Tarmac**

Very very rare. There are only a few hundred km of tarmac scattered seemingly at random around a country the size of Western Europe, and when it does turn up it is inevitably horribly scarred with massive potholes, ridges and general mess. The 50km into Olgii are a notable exception, as is most of the stretch into Ulaan Baatar, but most of the time the tarmac has been ripped to shreds by massive lorries thundering over it and not been maintained for years. We had already seen the damage a couple of pothole hits could do in Kazakhstan, so the only way to proceed was very slowly and carefully, making sure to avoid all but the smallest pots and often leaving the road altogether when it got really bad.

**Hard dirt**

On the rare occasions that the dirt is packed flat and smooth it's awesome, you can cruise along happily at 50mph with a pleasing dust cloud billowing out behind you and the wind in your hair. More frequently however the tracks are blighted with....

**Corrugations**

Every overland travellers' worst nightmare and our nemesis, corrugations are pure evil. They basically consist of hard parallel ridges evenly spaced across the road, sometimes for 100km or so, and create an experience akin to driving on a washboard. The only real solutions are to drive at very high speed so as to skim over the tops of the ridges, preventing the suspension from reloading and making the ride fairly smooth (but losing virtually all grip on the road), or to crawl along pathetically slowly at the side of the road which is still very bumpy but bearable. Anything between the two is absolute hell, as the car shakes so violently that it threatens to fall apart, everything on the parcel shelf starts flying around the car, you can't hear yourself speak over the racket and completely exhausting for whoever is unlucky enough to be driving. Braking is the worst thing you can do, as the inertia of the car compresses the front springs and the impact of every bump ricochets through the car. We went for the high speed/no grip option as much as possible, which is fine when the road is flat and clear, but when there are obstructions in the road your chances of avoiding them are virtually nil unless you take things more slowly. Which brings us on to...

**Rocks**

Ranging from massive boulders strewn across the track to vicious spiky bastards protruding from the ground, these demand utmost respect and care. We met several teams who had ripped holes in their oil sumps, broken axles, wrecked suspension, etc from driving recklessly in boulderfields, so again there was nothing for it but to limp through and hope that we didn't shred any tyres on the sharp bits, and the co driver often had to jump out and clear a path through.

**Sand**

Treacherous but brilliant fun. You lose all grip driving through deep sand and it very quickly saps the car's speed making it very easy to get bogged down and stuck. The only solution therefore is to plough in at high speed in a low gear and use the car's momentum to get through. Any attempt to shift gear results in a momentary loss of torque and increases the chance of getting stuck, so you usually have to keep your foot on the gas and the revs screaming, as you fishtail about all over the place desperately trying to keep the wheels straight to minimise drag. We usually encountered smallish patches of deep sand that weren't too bad, but there were some long sections in the Gobi that were pretty hairy at times!

**Gravel**

Small gravel is similar to sand so not too bad, except for all the stones flying up hitting the car which makes loads of noise! Problem is it often teams up with both corrugations and occasional massive rocks, which are cunningly disguised by the gravel until the very last minute. Not great.  

**Ridges**

Most of the traffic driving on these roads is large trucks, buses or 4x4s, all of which are very heavy and have high ground clearance. The result is that their tyres frequently gouge deep trenches in the road surface, with large ridges in the middle that our low slung megane had no chance of clearing. We therefore had to balance the car with 2 tyres on the central ridge and the other two on the high ground at the edge of the road, and clamber along straddling the trench. Challenging and great fun most of the time, we usually pulled it off but the dangers are pretty obvious if you get it wrong and fall off!

Obviously two or more of the above could team up to really screw you over and they frequently did! Combined with the bewildering array of tracks heading of in every direction, virtually non-existent signposting and other road users usually bigger than us, faster than us and significantly drunker than us, driving in Mongolia isn't for the faint hearted.....

Mongolia I

Our high spirits at getting through the Russian border were quickly dashed when we arrived at the Mongolian compound to see a queue of around 15 cars already there, and realised that all the rumours about teams spending around 50 hours on average to import their cars were not too far from the truth. It soon became apparent that we weren't going anywhere soon, and despite our best efforts to plough through the red tape we ultimately had to just hand over our car registration documents and my passport and wait. As we understood it, the border guards were liaising with some higher authority in Ulaan Baatar to clear the cars, and cross checking them with a list of teams provided by the rally organisers. The details were then entered painfully slowly into an ancient computer by one man in a tiny office sitting next to a huge stack of documents, who was evidently struggling to interpret the information on the documents (in Latin script), type the letters in on a Russian Cyrillic keyboard then painstakingly correct all the information on the screen when he inevitably got it wrong. Meanwhile his colleagues occupied themselves by walking round inexplicably carrying our documents between various offices, and more importantly playing lengthy games of solitaire on their computers.

The clock was ticking, as failure to cross the border before it closed at 6pm would mean we had to spend the night camped in the border compound, then start all over again the next day. Luckily we discovered that the border was in fact open on Saturdays so we wouldn't be there over the weekend now we were at this stage in the queue, but at the rate they were processing the cars we were preparing ourselves for a rather uncomfortable evening surrounded by goats, mangy dogs and drunk ralliers. Then, just as the light began to fade and with less then half an hour before closing time, the all powerful Man In Blue Blazer started walking casually towards our car, with a familiar looking V5 document in hand. We were next! Tpo was summoned into the office of slow typing, and we rushed around trying to jump through all the remaining hoops before the guards decided to go home for their dinner. The customs guy had a good sniff around our car, prodded a few things, then clambered into the driving seat. He looked impressed. He put his hands on the wheel, wiggled the gear stick and looked even more impressed. We knew what was coming, as he inevitably grinned ominously and asked for the keys. Not having much choice, we handed them over and tried not to wince too much as he revved the engine and disappeared in a cloud of dust. Luckily he completed his power lap of the compound without hitting any bollards or goats, and with the customs guy's colleagues suitably amused we were finally free. We were the last car through that day, after only 9 hours at the border which we felt more than a little smug about....

We had made it to Mongolia! Just under 4 weeks after leaving the UK we had reached the final country on our journey, and what a country to finish on. Western Mongolia is absolutely stunning and incredibly remote, the vast steppe and mountains surrounding us, nomadic gers in the distance and already very rough road were a far cry from Russia, and felt far more wild than anywhere else we had been. Roads in Mongolia are generally more of a casual suggestion then a compulsory rule, and we had an awesome time careering round on the dirt tracks near the border and exploring our new playground. A passing motorcyclist invited us to follow him back to his family home, where we drank tea and ate meat, pungent cheese and some sort of crunchy biscuit. We quickly learned that Mongolians are rather fond of their meat, and it's consumption is generally accompanied by shouting the word "MAKH" (meaning meat) a lot and grinning inanely. The motorcyclist's dad was a very manly man and took great pride in showing us his old soviet war medals and shouting about his goats. With the sun firmly setting we pressed on and found a beautiful spot to camp just after the border town of Tsaaganuur, and enjoyed what was to be the first of many boil-in-the-bag army rations gratefully wolfed down in stunning surroundings. Although we had camped wild in Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, we always took great pains to make sure we were hidden from the road so as to avoid unwelcome visitors, traffic noise and because we were a little unsure of how local law enforcement would react. In contrast, most of Mongolia is such wilderness that you can camp safely pretty much anywhere, the roads are so appalling and traffic so scarce that you are unlikely to be disturbed after dark, and traffic police are virtually non existent. We soon became proficient at driving a couple of 100m off the track and round a nearby hill to pitch up at the end of the day, and it was liberating to crawl out of the tent in the mornings to find ourselves in the absolute middle of nowhere.

On our first morning however we had camped sufficiently close to the main track for a passing landrover to bother to veer off towards us and investigate further. "Uh oh" we thought, although it turned out that first of all he was steaming drunk (at about 6am), and secondly that he just wanted to suspiciously look our car up and down, slur something about wanting a cigarette, then realising that we didn't have any to wave cheerily and head of back the way he came.

After a stop in the first major town of Olgii to pick up some supplies, we ploughed on towards the mountains proper and a crash course in how challenging our week driving across Mongolia was going to be.....

Siberia

Despite the Lake Balkash fiasco, there was some serious talk of taking a rather tempting shortcut that ploughed straight across the Altai mountains and came out very close to the Mongolian border. However talk of special border zone permits, road closures and, in Tpo's case, bears, soon put paid to such foolishness and we eventually trundled up the main highway towards Barnaul. After an uneventful but refreshingly pothole free drive we arrived in the last major town that we would encounter before Ulaan Baatar, so we were looking forward to quickly stocking up on supplies and enjoying a well deserved cold beer. Unfortunately it turned out that the place was swarming with ralliers, some of whom had only stayed in one hotel during the entire trip so were a little grubby to say the least, and it took us ages to find somewhere to stay that wasn't booked up. 

Eventually got ourselves sorted and settled down for the quiet beer. Then we were joined by another rally team, and another quiet beer was had. Then a few slightly louder beers were had. Then the next thing we knew we were in a massive Russian nightclub drinking vodka shots with a very slick Russian named Anton, who we initially assumed was grooming us for a massive Mafia shakedown, but who it turned out was just a really nice bloke who liked vodka shots a lot. Also his girlfriend was one of the rather scantily clad dancing girls on the stage, which he pointed out probably a few more times than was necessary. Things quickly became a little hazy, not least because the swipe card they gave us on the way in enabled us to buy drinks without needing to find any money, simultaneously the most ingenious and dangerously stupid system ever devised. This almost backfired on the way out of the club when we realised we had nowhere near enough cash to pay our tab, but just as the enormous bouncers started to show an interest, Tpo whipped out the credit card and saved the day. Awesome times had by all, and a welcome bit of Western decadence before the long slog east. 

Unfortunately the long slog east started a little more slowly than planned the next day, with much of the morning spent stumbling around the hotel and trying to stomach the greasy fried egg and slice of stale bread that was attempting to impersonate breakfast. Finally got on the road before midday and quickly forgot about our sorry state, due to finding one of the most spectacular driving roads I've seen anywhere in the world. For the most part it was a smooth ribbon of tarmac winding it's way through mountains, lakes and pine forests, truly awesome and put most of what you see on top gear to shame. Unfortunately our broken suspension meant the car was handling like a camel powered trampoline and a lengthy police stop threatened to cause serious delays, but all in all had an amazing drive. No bear sightings though unfortunately. Our tardy start to the day meant that dusk fell well before we arrived at the border, but the decent road surface and fear of being stuck at the border for the weekend convinced us to push on through the night. 

After a few near misses involving kamikaze cows and the odd horse standing casually in the road, we arrived at the border around midnight, only to find about 20 other rally teams already camped up, many of whom were steaming drunk and shouting loudly. We were knackered and VERY cold (apparently there had been snow at the border a few days previously), so hit the hay immediately, Tpo resembling an overfed red worm as he put on every item of clothing he owned and wriggled about in his sleeping bag. 

Woken up very early by a chorus of disgruntled mooing from a nearby herd of cows, which turned out to be to our advantage as we nipped to the front of the queue and started the border proceedings while a lot of teams were still stumbling out of their tents. Unfortunately a few idiots had decided to leave loads of rubbish around the field where we had been camping, about which the border guard was understandably rather ticked off and refused to let anyone through until it was all cleaned up. Not the first time we'd been pretty disgusted with some of the other rally team, so we quickly got the paperwork sorted and, with a bit of charm and blagging, we were the first team to cruise victoriously into the beautiful 20km of no-mans land that seperates the two border posts. Next stop Mongolia! 

East Kazakhstan

If there was a prize for the biggest cliche of a decaying soviet hotel in central asia, the huge concrete fortress where we stayed in Almaty would be a very strong contender. Decrepit peeling wallpaper, grumpy floor ladies, late night phone calls from prostitutes and a decidedly Orwellian ambience all added to the experience. Unsurprisingly we left early in the morning, and set off into the nearby mountains towards the imaginatively named Big Almaty Lake.

Unfortunately the gravel track soon became too steep for Renee's puny engine to lug 3 fat men and an overloaded boot any further, so our quick scenic drive became a lengthy hike as we pressed on up the mountain on foot. Tpo, in a particularly cranky mood after we refused to rub suncream into his sweaty back, stalked off purposefully into the wilderness, pasty torso glinting in the sun. Williams and I took a slightly more leisurely pace, quickly realising that 3 weeks of sitting in the car and living on kebabs and melons hadn't done our general fitness any good. We made it to the top eventually though, and had a good sit down by the beautiful alpine lake, very nice blue and a lovely bit of countryside considering how close it is to such a huge city. On the way back down a massive burly Kazakh and his equally burly landrover kindly offered us a lift, which we gladly accepted. "IS LIKE TOY TO ME" he bellowed, before tearing off down the mountain at high speed with us bouncing around in the back. We all agreed that if we ever go rallying again we are definitely getting a landrover, so much fun. 

Having saved a couple of hours, we decided to take another detour and headed east from Almaty towards the Charyn canyon. The roads around Almaty are amazing, perfect smooth tarmac, a vast landscape with eagles soaring around and awesome winding mountain passes. Unfortunately it still took us rather longer than expected to reach the canyon, partly due to the complete lack of signposting, and partly since everyone we stopped to ask directions seemed to enthusiastically shout "STRAIGHT AHEAD! TURN RIGHT! OVER BRIDGE!" irrespective of our location, direction, or proximity to any bridges. Finally made it just as the sun was setting, and enjoyed our first taste of proper off road driving down a corrugated dirt track with a healthy sprinkling of deep sandy patches. The canyon looks like a miniture grand canyon but is still around 300m deep, so pretty impressive. Luckily Tpo was canyon-watch, so spotted it before we drove in by mistake. Had a chat to some Russian tourists in 4x4s, before they all disappeared and left us to pitch our tent in a beautiful spot near the canyon. Met 2 Italian bikers who were on their way to Japan via Vladivostok, and shared food and vodka before settling down for a peaceful night's sleep. If only. A couple of hours later I was woken up by the tent basically collapsed on top of us under a powerful gale sweeping through the canyon. I frantically leapt out of the tent and started bashing in extra guy ropes and trying to straighten out mangled tent pegs oon a rock, all the while running round in my boxers and flip flops, shouting obscenities over the wind. Williams, who had been sleeping soundly in the car, looked rather surprised. 

Somehow we managed to avoid us and the tent being blown into the canyon, and set off early the next day to get some serious miles under our belts, finally heading north towards siberia. "Look, we can take a shortcut!" someone fatefully pointed out, and sure enough there was a very tempting yellow road on the map heading due north, potentially saving us several hundred miles of driving on the much less direct red roads. Silly boys. It all started innocently enough, in fact there was a very good (if slightly bouncy) lane on which we made good progress for about 100km, just enough to lull us nicely into a false sense of security. However after stocking up on supplies in the decidedly one-camel town of Lepsi, things took a turn for the worse. The road became a jagged rocky track, the car was rattling violently and other than a couple of old boys getting drunk in a parked lada there was no other traffic to be seen. After over an hour of painfully slow progress and facing another 100km before it rejoined the main road(we had managed around 10km at this point), we decided to call it a day. Unfortunately our proximity to lake balkash meant that the place was swarming with aggressive mosquito, and the ground was so sandy (and littered with what Tpo was convinced were scorpion holes) that we had to camp right next to the road. Not our finest moment. The next day we cut our losses and limped back the way we came. And agreed never to speak of the shortcut again. 

Our spirits momentarily lifted once we rejoined the main highway, only to be dashed once again as Tpo, aka Captain Plough, took it upon himself to try to plough into every pothole in a very potholed road. Eventually the inevitable happened, and we stormed into a real beauty of a potabout the size of your average bathtub, seriously denting one of the front rims and detaching some cables from the underside. Whilst I rolled around in the dirt trying to reattatch the cables, a massive burly local turned up in his massive 4x4, sporting a lovely hawaiian shirt and clashing bermuda shorts, and set about thwacking our wheel with a massive hammer. even his might was not enough to straighten the wheel, but he kindly escorted us to a mechanic in town who set about fixing the rim on a big machine. meanwhile we had a hilarious chat with lary shirt man, who took great delight in making suggestive comments about russian women and gave us a big pile of rocks because he thought they were pretty. absolute hero. 

Setting out back on the road, it became apparent that all was not well with our rear suspension, and that we still had another 150km to drive, in the dark, along what our kazakh mate had told us was a VERY BAD ROAD. we decided it was pretty essential to keep to our schedule at this point though, as if we failed to make the mongolian border before friday we could be potentially stuck there over the weekend, which would make it virtually impossible to cross mongolia in time to make our flight. so plough on we did, and it turned out  our mate wasn't exagerating. the most ridiculously potholed road i have ever seen sprawled off into the darkness, and driving any faster than about 20mph made it virtually impossible to react fast enough to avoid the pots. so we were reduced to a crawl once again, taking hourly shifts at the wheel while the co-driver peered into the gloom, sporadically shouting POT LEFT! POT RIGHT! AAAAARGH POT!! in a kind of surreal sleep deprived, pot obsessed trance. It took about 5 hours to cover the remaining 150km before we rolled into semey, exhausted after around 18 hours since we set off that morning. what a day.

semey used to be called semipalitinsk, and the area was notorious as the site of extensive testing of nuclear weopons during the soviet era. all in all over 450 nukes were detonated in the region despite catastrophic effects on the local population, and leukaemia and birth defects are still abnormally high. another great environmental legacy from the soviets...

anyway we had managed to make up the lost time and were back on track, so finally crossed into russia again the next day. had a great chat with the customs guy who was searching the car, he was asking all about my trip and told me all about his family and wife who was pregnant, really nice guy. loved kazakhstan, the people were less mental than the uzbeks but just as friendly and helpful, almost always going out of their way to asist us in bumbling round their country.some beautiful scenery as well. still, it was quite a relief to be back in russia, where if nothing else they seem to have realised that putting tarmac on the roads and making it flat makes driving a hell of a lot more comfortable!

East Uzbekistan

There are a LOT of melons in uzbekistan. most people's daily routine seems to involve buying, carrying, stacking, selling, transporting or eating melons. the roadsides are full of vast piles of melons, which we found it very difficult to resist driving through at high speed in classic slapstick fashion. most lorries are precariously piled high with massive melons, and anyone spotted walking along with fewer than 2 huge melons looked decidedly lost. needless to say, we ate a lot of melon.

uzbek fuel shortage caused absolute mayhem. virtually all fuel stations outside tashkent are deserted, and fuel can generally only be obtained on the black market, generally be wandering round asking random people at market stalls. took a  full day in bukhara to track down a tankful of dodgy 80 octane turkmen petrol, at a price of around 2 dollars a litre. even uzbek people are paying more than that half the time, its ridiculous. on the plus side, we found some transmission oil to top up our leaky gearbox, and the car is running very smoothly again (albeit with an ever increasing number of mysterious rattles).

bukhara and samarkand are 2 of the major oasis towns on the old silk route from xi'an to istanbul, and some of the architecture is incredible. bukhara in particular is a beautiful city, and although more modernised samarkand is also extremely impressive. all in all spent a whole week in uzbekistan, and other than the fuel issues absolutely loved it. the people are amazing and so friendly, even the police usually just stopped us for a chat and to find out where we were going (and to eat melon).

now back in kazakhstan, some awesome scenery now we are getting towards the tian shan mountains. unfortunately had to miss out on kyrgyzstan due to the borders being closed following the recent violence in the south of the country. very sad situation for everyone involved, especially the thousands of refugees still stranded on the uzbek side of the border unable to get home. 

loving kazakhstan though, met some interesting characters already, police have pulled us over a couple of times for alleged offences but managed to talk our way out of paying any fines, think they're just bored most of the time!

in almaty now, very long day of driving so heading to bed soon. next stop siberia.

out x 

Russia

Finally found some internet! We are now in Bukhara in Uzbekistan, having just had an incredible few days driving through some extremely remote regions of the Kyzylkum desert. Since the last update in Ukraine we drove to Volgograd in Russia, where my very limited Russian language skills were put through their paces by a very enthusiatic hotelier who was determined to learn every detail about us and our trip, and who took great delight in ranting at Tpo at length despite the fact he had no idea what was going on. Crossed the border late at night,took a good 4 hours and we resorting to eating the tin of spam, but all border guards again very professional and no hassle.

Volgograd was previously Stalingrad and was held under siege by the nazis during WWII, with the russians finally turning back the invasion at the expense of hundreds of thousands of russian lives. there is an amazing war memorial commemorating the battle which we spent a whole morning exploring,then set off for Kazakhstan. Awesome drive down the volga river to the kazakh border. Loving the Russian roads after Ukraine!

Poland

Stormed into Krakow after 800km drive, in the dark and a massive rainstorm. Wet and lost. I scared some old Polish people by running at them soaking wet in my shorts and flip flops, brandishing a map and shouting uninteligibly. Eventually found Momotown hostel (where I once stayed 4 years ago). Also found some beer and a massive burger and some potatoes. Life good again.

 Forgot to mention an amusing communication breakdown in Germany - went to ask a man standing outside a shop whether we could park our car on the pavement. Thought he said "kein problem" (no problem) and left the car there for ages. Later realised he may have said "dein problem" (your problem) and was hoping we'd get a parking ticket.

Might go to Southern Ukraine now to get out of this monsoon. Chase the sun. OUT 

Germany

Enjoyed some generous hospitality from Daniela and friends in Langenfeld. Much beer consumed and merriment had by all (except Willi who was designated driver!). Eventful drive back with Dany having forgotten where she lived, and Tpo roaring quite a lot. Cracking German breakfast and walk round Bonn in the rain. Purchased a small bust of Beethoven. Thanks for having us Dany!

First major setback on the Autobahn towards Frankfurt when our windscreen wipers stopped working during a torrential downpour, leading to an amusing stint waiting on the verge for an hour (doing star jumps to keep warm) while massive juggernauts thundered past soaking us from head to toe, we must have looked pretty cool. Luckily I had my AA card so breakdown man arrived eventually and escorted us to a Renault garage.

 Unfortunately the delays and broken wipers meant we had nowhere near enough time to make it to the Czech party before dark, so cut our losses and found a campsite near Wurzburg. On the plus side they had beer, and wouldnt give Tpo a big one much to everyone's amusement. On the downside, we cleverly pitched our tent under a massive light. Didn't pay off. 

 Much better drive the next day, blazing sunshine and quiet roads meant we had an awesome drive into Poland.

Belgium

Team reunited! Went to Leuven in search of Stella Artois brewery, failed to find it but Tpo found some Stella.

A taste of things to come...

With less than 24 hours to go before the start of the rally, I have entrusted Tpo and Williams with the vital responsibility of loading up the car and making final preparations, while I put in a hard days graft at work.

Predictably, they haven't yet done anything, and are currently in the pub. With a nice cold pint. Gloating.