SMS Update

Mon 17 Aug 6.00 pm. Still about 400 miles from UB. No chance of making it tonite. Bogged down with suspension problems. Now aiming for tomorrow. Cars are taking a battering - totally unsuitable for these roads but drive is excellent. Many teams have had to abandon their quest. Next stop UB.@

SMS Update

Thu 6 Aug 10 am. Arrived @ Madinyat border crossing to Kyrgykstan - our 13th border & 6th time zone - only to find it is CLOSED. We now have to make our way to anothter post 80 miles away. Car 3 has no starter motor. Every time it stops we jump out of our cars & push it much to the amusement of locals - a routine we will now have to perform all the way to Mongolia. People are very nice to us. We have also met several other teams. C U soon@

Azerbaijan to Uzbekistan - Slowly but Surely....!

We've set up for the night in Adijon, Uzbekistan where we have managed to find quite a nice hotel after sleeping rough for the last few days. We are hoping to get to the neighbouring Kyrgyzstan tomorrow evening, by which time our journey will have taken us 5500 miles, 6 time zones and 13 borders from our start in Goodwood!

Our biggest problem at the moment is still the speed at which we are progressing. Local bureaucracy and corrupt police mean that our journey is taking longer than expected. Car troubles are also more frequent now as the terrain is getting worse, although luckily my car seems to be running well, immune to the roads for the moment! Car 1 has unfortunately lost its starter motor. This means that from here all the way to Mongolia we all have to roll up our sleeves and push start the car every time it stops! One of the cars also lost its sump guard which ruptured the fuel tank, so we wasted half a day back in Bukhara, Uzbekistan.

The heat is also increasing dramatically as we progress, with temperatures yesterday going over 40 degrees. I have to say I will never take a refrigerator for granted when I get back home; it is very difficult to get cold water here, and when you rarely do find cold bottled water it heats up within seconds of being in the car!

 But we're pushing on hoping to cover some good ground over the next few days so watch this space!

SMS Update

Just disembarked ferry from Baku after 40 hours on board - still got customs to clear. So could take another few hours before we are on the road again

Budapest to Azerbaijan - The Real Adventure Begins

**BUDAPEST TO AZERBAIJAN - THE REAL ADVENTURE BEGINS!**

It is now eleven days since we left Goodwood for our adventure to Mongolia. And what as adventure it is turning out to be.   After nine days and nine border crossings we arrived in Georgia on 27 July. The landscape has changed and the temperature has soared. It was 39 degrees in Istanbul. It suddenly dawned upon us that we are now a very long way from home.   We encountered our first problem with the cars in Georgia. The discs on one of the cars needed attention because of excessive use of the brakes - which was essential due to the winding mountain roads. We got into Tblisi at 7.30 PM by which time all the garages had closed.  So a couple of friendly Police officers escorted us (with flashing lights) to a local restaurant and gave us directions to the nearest shop where we could pick up parts.   We decided to head on to the Azerbaijan Border where we arrived at just after midnight. We had heard lots of stories about corrupt border officials and we were about to experience it first hand. The customs and border police kept us waiting for seven hours before we could cross into Azerbaijan. And then only after bribing them with cigarettes and beer. Neither Subhash nor I smoke so we dot not have any cigarettes with us. Now we are carrying a few packets but only to give away as "gifts"!   Soon after crossing one of the cars blew a tyre. To say that the roads in Azerbaijan are terrible would be an understatement. Funnily enough the main road from the border to Baku, our destination, is numbered  M1. For the best part of the way it is more like a single track road from which someone has removed most of the tarmac. Not surprising then that we finally arrived in Baku at 7.30 PM yesterday - a distance for some 280 miles in about nine hours in temperatures touching 40 degrees with NO air conditioning!    The cars have attracted a lot of attention along the way which we have relished but in Azerbaijan it is attracting the wrong kind of attention - from the local police. They seem to be around every street corner. Raj was stopped for not wearing a seat belt - most of the locals don't. The fine of $180 came down to $50 after almost an hour of "paperwork". I then got stopped a few miles further down the road. He kept saying there was no problem and after 20 minutes and a couple of cigarettes later it turned out that he just wanted to take some photographs with the car and to autograph it. They all seem to want to write messages on the rally cars and ours are now full of scribbles in various languages. It is proving to be very frustrating and is slowing our progress.   Our next destination is Turkmenistan for which we have to catch a ferry from Baku. We have just discovered that our visas for Turkmenistan which we were promised  would be here upon arrival have not materialised. There are several hundred other drivers in the same position and the Turkmenistan Embassy in Baku, which only opens to the public for three hours each morning, has told us that it may take another three to four days. We were hoping to make the ferry crossing tonight but that is now impossible. The next ferry MAY  leave in three days! So for the moment our journey has come to a halt in Baku. If we fail to get the visas soon then we will have to reconsider our route and drive directly to Russia. If we have to do this we will miss out on several of the countries we are really looking forward to driving through. We will find out more tomorrow morning.   To add to this we now have another major problem. One of the drivers (not me !!) has lost a folder full of documents including log book, driving licence and customs clearance papers. It was probably left on the roof of the taxi which took us to the Turkmenistan Embassy as he took his wallet out to pay the driver. Luckily he had taken the passport out! Whilst a couple of us are catching up on emails the rest of the team are out there looking for the taxi driver and/or searching around the Embassy area if it anyone has picked it up. We have copies of the documents but right now I don't even want to think about the nightmare of exiting Azerbaijan especially after the problems we had entering the country with all valid papers.   The adventure continues so watch this space.