Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
We handed to car over to the charity, the final milage was 7494 miles and the car total was 155842. Do not underestimate the power of a Micra! Apparently the car will sell for twice as much as we paid for it which is great for the charity.
Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
We've finally made to Ulaanbaatar - Woohoo! Just having our first 'ice cold' beer - we've been looking forward to this for four weeks. I now remember why I hate city driving, Ulaanbaatar city roads are awful, bad drivers and diversions through what smelt like sewers. Earlier today we ran into the team with broken rear axle again apparently the last quick fix didn't quite hold together. So we offered to give one of them a lift to the next village to find a welder or a tow truck. After about 45 minutes from dropping him off in the town we realise he'd left his wallet in the car so after slight detour we were back on course. Some people have all the luck!
Ovorkhangai, Mongolia
Woke up yesterday to find none of lights in our hotel were working. Had to have a cold shower with only my torch to provide lighting (first shower in six days!). Thought it was a bit strange, just our luck to find a town with 24 hour power outage (scheduled maintenance!?). Spent about five hours looking for a spare tyre. Hardly any of the shops were open and no one had any power to fit our tyre. One person want me to drive over our old tyre to help him remove it. Enough was enough and we ventured forwards to the next town with no spares yet again. Made it to the next town about 222km away. Pulled into a vegan restaurant called the "loving hut". Bit surprising as I don't think I've seen a single vegetable in Mongolia. A friendly Mongolian helped us with our tyres, some food and somewhere to crash for the night. Big push today for Ulaanbaatar about 400km away apparently to roads are better so we should make it in 8 hours fingers crossed!
Bayankhongor, Mongolia
7000 miles and hopefully less than 400 to go! Today was tough and i'm not talking about night driving I just endured. We got two punctures and found one of the spares was almost flat. To make things worse we can't find the foot pump. Just made it into a town in the middle of nowhere (gobi desert). Convinced the shop keeper to help us out; with his trusty crowbar and hammer went to work. Three hours, bowl of noodles, shot vodka (moonshine!) and 5 Mongols later we had one good tyre and another with more holes than when we started. So off we went on a 200km drive with no spares (worrying). Thankfully we've made it to town where there might be replacements. Luckily we've had it better than others - On the way into town we past another team hobbling in with a broken rear axle apparently fixed with a metal tube (poor bastards).
Khovd, Mongolia
Been in Mongolia 2.5 days haven't made very much progress, about 300 miles. First night we stayed in ger (yurt) with a local family. They invited us for tea and to stay the night. Thought it was going to be a quiet one but several beers and five bottles of vodka later we dancing with the 60 year olds. Can't remember much after that, woke up on the ger floor freezing with the car apparently running all night and the keys were locked inside - gutted. Luckily Matt knew how to break into the Micra (some dark past I don't know about). Got a bit lost today after we'd driven through several rivers - oops. Had to get towed through the largest river for 20 bucks - how delightful at least this one was in the right direction. Spent an hour sitting in desert whilst Matt chauffeured a man with a motorbike around to fix his tyre. Whilst in town we had both our spares fixed and we now have another flat!
Bayan Olgii, Mongolia
Made it into mongolia after spending 3 hours in a pen at the border. Set out and got waved down by a man who wanted up to stay with his family. After dinner and 5 litres of local voldka we woke up with the car engine running and the keys locked inside. Had to break into the car and remove the rear back winow to gain access.......
Altai Republic, Russia
6200 miles spitting distance from Mongolian border. 1120 miles more until the capital Ulaanbaatar! Fingers crossed border is still open. Just had another flat tyre - now we are out of spares, hope we find somewhere that sells tyres ASAP.
Barnaul, Russia
Hurray! The car did start this morning and we made into Russia for the second time. The border officials were a bit confused why I didn't have an exit stamp from Russia when I left last time (I guess they forgot to do it). Only a very slight delay to confer with superiors; all in all a very good border crossing. The car seems a bit temperamental about starting; probably the number of miles we been clocking up as well as all the shakes / bumps combined with all the dust / crickets it's gone through.@
Semey, Kazakhstan
Took us two days to get to Semey (close to Russian Border) roads weren't, let's say, ideal. Spent last night camping with horses and tonight we are in the forest. On the way here I was caught for speeding as I went over bridge out of a town. Apparently I had not passed the town signpost, where my car was now parked. I had to sit up front with officer and he ask if I had any money (probably for a bribe) but lucky only had a quid worth in my wallet so he let me go! We also got pulled over (as she swerved in the road to say hello) by a very friendly kazakh lady, who gave us some weird yogurt drink (sorry i had to throw it away yuk!) and pastries. Got our first flat tyre today, which wasn't very dramatic and this evening just as Matt was parking the car the engine cut out and wouldn't start again (oh no!) - I'll let you know if we have anymore success in the morning.
Astana, Kazakhstan
Made it to capital, done about 4800 miles. Going to try to make Mongolia in 4 to 5 days but still have to enter Russia (again). At the moment chilling in an english pub (of all places - don't serve ale or pork scratching!) called the old chelsea with another team called herding cats, who we've been in convoy with the last couple of days.@
<p>We are team 'Ice Cold in Ulaanbaatar' and consist of Ed and Matt. The name comes from an old John Mills film, set in WWII where a small number of soldiers get stuck behind enemy lines and have to drive an old clapped out ambulance thousands of miles to get to safety - Alex or Alexandria where they have an ice cold pint. Our adventure will be similar but the film probably will have less explosions.</p><p>If you want to leave any messages we have setup a facebook event page, link <a href="http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=132840296794219" title="Facebook Event page" target="_blank">here</a>. </p>
