Ulaanbaator, Mongolia

Chilling in Ulaanbaator at the finish line! Had a wicked few days here, with just the minor blip of having some stuff stolen. Various plans afoot on how to get home, mine(dan) hopefully going via beijing! Car sold for around $2500 which all goes to charity. Turns out thats more than we paid for it, so chuffed with that! Feels odd not driving every morning, but got a 30 hours train journey booked across mongolia and china so i hope that will more than make up for it!

 

Altai, Mongolia

We made it to mongolia! The roads are, as expected, awful. Imagine drivng over huge concrete coreregated cardboard, that makes your car shake more than james bond's vodka martini's. Highlights include, fording three streams, being towed through one river, being given prayer beads by four Kyrgyz Muslims, praying to Mekkah, giving a french man a mullet, getting stuck in a pothole on three wheels, staying in a yurt, reattatching our sump guard with cable ties, and partying on top of an ice cream van.

Biysk, Russia

Staying in Biysk tonight. If anyone else is pick up the cat and bone and call +77058916347

Pavlodar Province, Kazakhstan

After a successful trip to the vet The Cat is no longer leaking fluid out of her gearbox and is purring along the (neverending) Kazakh countryside. After leaving Almaty in the south, we've managed to claw our way up to Pavlodar in the north and aim to be prowling around Russia in tip top shape tomorrow morning.@

Almaty, Kazakhstan

Just re-entered kazakhstan after a 4 hour border crossing and a full car search. After being told we would be sent to prison if we had any gas or flamables on us, we were glad when they didnt unearth our new cooking stove, nicknamed 'the flame thrower!' now looking for a garage in almaty, after a day of the week mix up, meant we couldn't sort our gear box leak in bishkek. Who knew it was a sunday!

Issyk - Kulskaya, Kyrgyzstan

So just got to what we thought was the border of Kyrgyzstan to Kazakhstan to discover that its more derelict than a Mongolian Fiat garage. Speaking of which, we're leaking gearbox oil (again) and our sump guard's semi broken. Luckily the next open border is over a day and a half away, so back to Bishkek we go! Let's just hope we make it before we run out of oil and the Cat loses another life.

Issyk - Kulskaya, Kyrgyzstan

Cruising around a massive lake in Kyrgyzstan in a biosphere reserve the size of Switzland, we're looking for a place to sleep when we spot some locals playing volleyball. After realising they were actually amazing we decide to not try and join in but in the meantime get offered a place to sleep in a man's house, who turns out to be a policeman! We managed to gather this from the relentless stream of photos he insisted on showing us involving him, in uniform, with some massive guns. Kind of put us on guard. But after a nice meal and breakfast he turned out to be very pleasent. Score.

Issyk - Kulskaya, Kyrgyzstan

Just stopped at a beautiful beach for a cheeky swim, turns out the lake is crystal clear, and completely surrounded by snow capped mountains! The water? Lets just stick with refreshing.

Chuyskaya, Kyrgyzstan

After waking surrounded by yurts, watching a 5 year old ride a fully grown horse, and feeling slightly cold for the first time in 3 weeks, we headed over tor ashuu pass, which is probably one of the most amazing bits of scenery weve ever seen. Imagine miles and miles of hair pin ascent up to views of a beautiful plane, before plunging down a never ending mountain valley, with sheer drops and sketchy overtakes galore!

Talas, Kyrgyzstan

We're in Kyrgyzstan! And its beautiful here. Just had a very relaxing/hygiene impoving swim in the most stunning lake in the mountains. Sorry we haven't updated more recently...we've had highs and lows over the past couple of days: had an awesome night out in Shymkent, followed by an attempted mugging, a scuffle and a visit to a Kazak police station; had a short little excursion around the biggest market you've ever seen in your life, followed by an irrational purchase of a traditional Kazak dress and a new phone to replace the one that Dan lost the night before; had a great night camping last night after team Genghis Carnage joined the convoy, followed by a small redecoration of the nearby landscape and a realisation that we'd had a strength-of-car competition involving a baseball bat. But we're now flying through Kyrgyzstan solo, it's really hot and we have no idea where we are.