Update from Mongolia
After driving continuously for roughly 48 hours, the Dirty Squirrels have finally landed in the milk and honey land of Mongolia. We're having our Micra tricked out a bit, adding some springs to the front and rear suspension, to manage the roads here. So I've got a bit of time to update all of you.  For those of you who know me well, you likely know that I have a hmmm, flair for the dramatic? But my drama queen nature aside, I think I can fairly say that this has been the most intense trip I've ever taken. Mentally. Physically. Emotionally. It's tested me and my teammates more than any of us ever had dreamed. It's been a trip filled with extremes, high and low, hilarious, dreadfully scary and mind-numbingly mundane.  Can't recall where I last left you all ... and I'm far too lazy to start from the beginning. Nor do I want to bore you with a chronological detailing of each day's events. That I'll save for my 12-hour lecture and powerpoint presentation. So, again, I'll resort to random bullet point thoughts and anecdotes.  *We've driven some 7,400 miles now and spent at least 200 hours in the car already. I'm not sure those numbers, or any adjectives or expletives, adequately describe how physically and mentally draining this has been. And, at the same time, completely exhilarating.  *A haiku:  After driving for 36 hours in Kazakhstan we slept for two hours in a weed and broken-bottle infested field before three men who said they were police rudely awoke us flashing a badge or a crumpled piece of paper at one of us narcotics, drugs, marijuana they yelled at us for 10 minutes we cowered as they searched our vehicle noting the handguns clinging to their hips show us your money they charged no money we said, flashing our false, empty wallets a few uzbek dollars we had we flashed kicking through the dirt mind racing with thoughts I confronted them maybe they were ready to leave already we don't know moments later we were left with only empty adrenaline and rumbling tummies   *Traveling through the southern reaches of siberia with a wide, rushing river as our companion, verdant green grass, and small hamlets dotted the hills and mountains. Cows and horses roamed freely, unfettered by fences. Children, as they have throughout our journey, spastically jumped and waved at us by the side of the road. After arriving into Georgia many thousands of miles ago, villagers have consistently pointed, laughed, smiled, or simply gazed upon with perplexed expressions -- and the children have embraced us with the same sense of enthusiasm that is typically reserved for household pets upon their master's return. Having seen many people stopped by the side of the road to camp, we thought we'd finally take a break, set up for tent for the first time. With dusk having just passed into night, we had just set up the tent, broken out the vodka, crackers, sausage and chocoa puffs (a staple, along with pringles, for our road-weary heroes) when a dilapidated, rusted soviet jeep jetted off the road, crossed a rickety bridge, coasted down an embankment to nowhere and pulled up to our site. "The cops again!? (we've been harassed by uniformed and non-uniformed cops in virtually every country since we left Serbia) Why!?" I mused to myself, wondering how could they possibly even know we were there.  Out pops a stumbling man in military fatigues (sp?), who begins wildly gesturing and loudly speaking to us in Kazak or Russian. (Igor, we really could have used you here). For the next 15 minutes or so, we ply him with vodka, our only remaining sausage, as he menacingly glowers at us, points at Dirty Squirrel team members and sticks his finger into his throat or mimics cutting one of our legs off. I responded in kind, pointing at the stars, and loudly proclaiming, "YES, IT'S A BEAUTIFUL NIGHT! I LIKE RUSSIA! RUSSIA GOOD!" More time passes, with me complimenting his clothes, his mechanical prowess, and then finally, becoming, bored and annoyed, teasing him in English. As he alternately crazily pantomimed and then intensely stared into our eyes, which I'd humbly submit as something far beyond uncomfortable silence, I'd say odd things like, "Yes, there are fairies in Never Never Land, and every time a child sneezes, one gets her wings. Oh, and of course, we go horse back riding with you tomorrow" And I'd interject my own odd sounds, like the whinnying of horses, mooing of cows, or bocking of chickens. When in Crazy Town, do as the Crazies. Eventually, after enough perceived threats, we bid him dosbedonya (goodbye in Russian -and I'm sure I'm misspelling that). He glowers at us. I say it again, shaking his hand and patting him on the back. Finally he stumbles back to his vehicle. Upon reaching the ancient soviet relic, he reaches in and pulls out a large, steel rod, upon which, your three heroes retreat like schoolgirls. I nearly tripped and fell on my face in the process. Then he inserts the rod into the engine of the truck and begins to wind the engine up. After she sputters to life, he retreats into the darkness, without even having turned on his lights.  After some hurried discussion, some Squirrels noting that he might come back with weapons and buddies, others saying that if he had intended to rob or hurt us that he would have come prepared to do so. Caution won the day and the Squirrels decided it was time to break camp and get the hell out of Dodge. As we're tearing, and I literally mean tearing down camp, a familiar sound came rumbling through in the distance. Crazy man's truck. A frenzied moment ensued, with frantic Squirrels grabbing anything on the ground and preparing to haul ass (haul ass being a relative term in our vehicle). As the truck's headlights came into view, the Squirrel with military experience screams out "RUN FOR THE TREELINE!" With my headlamp bobbing up and down on the uneven, soft green ground, my heart bursting in my chest and the contents of my stomach shooting back up to my esophagus, I sprinted for a grove of trees and quite literally dove into the dirt, then quickly crawled through the wet grass behind a large tree. The truck came to a stop and three men emerged from it. Voices rose from the still, dark night. I'm pleased to report that as our car door opened and the men began searching the premises, I did not urinate on myself nor toss my cookies. Moments turned into minutes and I gathered with another Squirrel.  Once again ladies and gents, if you prefer to avoid the profanity, please skip the next quotes.  "What the fuck do do!?" we whispered to each other. "I've got my go-bag in the car (three men, three go bags, contents of each include: passport, money, credit cards, cameras, Ipods, etc.). What's in his hand!? Is that a gun!? Oh fuck. Oh shit. Jesus Christ, what the hell do we do!?  Moments seem like hours. Moments seem like days. Moments seem like the beginning and the end of your life twisted into one spiraling out of control fragment of time.  A thought flashes through my mind. "Where is the third Squirrel? Is he in the grass, petrified with fear? Is he running through the countryside in the dark, Forest Gump meets Russia? And how did they get his headlamp? That's a headlamp. That's a headlamp. That's a headlamp. That's a headlamp. That's him. Oh fuck. Oh shit. That's him. We can't leave him. We have to do something. Legs, stop shaking. Stand. Stand. Stand."  "Sean, what are you doing?" a voice whispers in the night.  Mumbling, incoherent something or other response.  "What?"  Mumbling, incoherent something or other response.  "HI!" I yell, face plastered with the largest, fakest smile of my life, arm engaging in the most dramatic wave of my life. My headlamp cuts through the darkness and I begin walking. The light of the car approaches and I can see in their hands, cigarettes, a bottle of some sort of energy drink. I greet the man with a hug, sputter in English, "You scared the living shit out of me! I thought we were dead."  His wild, flailing arms. His crazy sounds. His wild gesticulations. He wanted to sell us a horseback tour for the morning.  Today we learned that other Rallyers have been beaten and robbed in the same area.   *From Serbia on, border police in every country have demanded bribes. Acting like a moron is sometimes effective. "Huh, you give us money? OK! We like money!" Saying no works well too. "MONEY" one Kazak border guard screamed, slamming his hand on a table. "No," we said, repeatedly. GO, he grunted. Sometimes these exchanges take less than 30 seconds. Sometimes it takes hours. Our fastest border crossing thus far has taken no less than three hours. Our longest remains Turkmenistan, 10 hours.  *Crossing the border from Uzbekistan to Russia, turning a corner in no-man's land (the area between borders), we found ourselves witness to three soldiers about a hundred yards away dragging a woman in a pretty red dress through the dirt. A crowd of people, truckers, families riding donkeys, began scavenging for rocks and then began hurling said rocks in the direction of the soldiers. One soldier dropped the woman and raises his rifle. As one Squirrel noted later, it doesn't take much to create a mob and it doesn't take much for a poorly trained 19-year old soldier to open fire. Dirty Squirrels, trapped amid the chaos of donkey carts, rock hurling passersby and large semi trucks, desperately try to back out. I reached for my camera. Snapped a few pics. This is against all border rules. You don't take pictures in these areas. The guards don't like it. I've been told this numerous times, by the guards, as I snap pictures anyway. Pics aren't very good. In the background, you can see the cops and the woman. In another, rifle raised. Look forward to seeing it on a larger format than the back of my camera.  Hours later, waiting for final approval of our paperwork. Commotion. Captain with many stripes on his shoulder patch walks by. Hands out riot sticks to his men. Posse forms before our very eyes. We follow. Curious. Cautious. Camera in bag this time. It will stay there. Me and large batons don't mix well. I bruise easily. Walking to the border area, one Squirrel notices that the windows in the guard booth all have holes roughly the size of orange-sized rocks. Hmmm, wonder where those came from. Guards begin rushing into the field, like Samurais to battle. Funny hats remain perched on their heads as they grab a man bathing in a nearby river. He is only wearing tighty whities. One cop catches him, raises his baton, bashes him in head. Then on back. Then on his arm. Blood flows down the man's face. Helpless is a good word to describe how I was feeling. Clueless also fits. I don't know the geopolitics of the region. I do know this is a police state and I cannot do anything. But inside me, I want to pick up a rock and toss it at the cops.  *I've shared some of the horror stories because they are the most exhilarating. And I do mean some of the horror stories, because there are plenty of others. That being said, throughout our travels, we have been utterly reliant on the kindness of strangers. I've said that before. And I reiterate it because the average person, from England to Mongolia, has proven to be kind, generous, patient and a cadre of other good adjectives. From directions and advice to help translating menus, people have made this trip absolutely superb.  *I'm at a small internet cafe. Meaning two computers. Since I've been writing, two small children played tetris, squealing with joy. Two Mongolian men watched explicit pornography. And a woman is now checking her hotmail account.  *Mongolia is the country where the road literally ends. No sign posts. Just ruts and tracks worn into the earth over time. Sometimes they come back together. Sometimes they don't. Sometimes electrical lines in the distance are guides. Sometimes the inhabitants of the farthest most yurt. Sometimes it's land barriers. Sometimes it's seriously just "the compass says east is this way." We've had to do things in our Micra that I wouldn't do in my Nissan Pathfinder SUV in the states. Inclines crossing mountains where I worried we'd topple over. The "roads" here are jarring, rutted with deep grooves, filled with damn-near boulder sized rocks that could shatter our hopes of making it to Ulaan Bataar on any moment. We've already seen one car, literally demolished by a rock that was hidden in the side of the road. He was driving 40 miles per hour. Our pace will be roughly 20 mph and we have around 1,100 miles to cross. We already know of at least two rather large streams we'll have to ford, with passengers having to get out and remove large rocks from the vehicle's path. We bumped into a Slovenian horse guide a few days ago. His predictions about our journey have been spot on. His final thought: "It takes jeeps 10 days from the border to the city. But you will never make it." In our first six hours in the country, we traveled 60 miles. 1040 to go.  *Mongolians love music. The lower level of the internet cafe is filled with the relatively melodious voices of locals in song.  All my best ... if all goes well, I'll be back in the states on Aug. 30. Bought my tickets a few days ago. Hope that wasn't entirely stupid. While this continues to be an utterly amazing journey, I think I'll lose my mind if I don't see my wife soon!  Sean
