Day 53 - Getting Out Of Altai

In the morning I wonder downstairs in the hotel to get some breakfast. As usual there are a few communication problems during the ordering process. After going through a loads of stuff they don't have, she prompts me with "soup?" I take this option as it looks like the only thing they have got. Unsurprisingly a bowl of mutton fat soup turns up, Mette who is at breakfast with me quickly cancels her order.

After failing to eat much mutton fat, despite my best efforts, we head off to the garage to see the state of the various cars getting fixed. When we get there, thier is what looks like a working jimmy sat in the parking lot. To fix it they have cut the back axel in half discounted the drive shaft and permently put it into 4 wheel drive. The new front wheel drive jimny seemed to work quite well although the wheels still look slightly pissed. As the chances of a new back axel for a jimny seems pretty slim the guys seem happy that it is up and rolling again.

In the back of the garage is one of the mongol rally graveyards. There are loads of cars some looking buggered, others looking absolutly fine. There are a couple of ambulances looking sorry for themselves, always a sad sight as they should be useful vehicles. Also there are a load of realy modern cars 2006 seat Ibizas and brand new ford fiestas. We all theorise that something went wrong with the electronics as visually all the cars look fine. The women who seems to run the graveyard won't let us take anything off the cars, this doesn't stop anyone, and we have a good root around in all the cars. Charley manages to hide behind a bedford rascal and liberate a Puntos fuel pump for the doblo. While I try to slide under a 106 to liberate it's shocks I get rumbled and ordered out of the garage.

Day 52- Rebirth Of The Jimmy

The next morning we wake up to the Americans leaving to head into town early as they have to get some work done. After saying goodbye to them we pack up and try to set off, however the fiat won't start. As usual the fuel pump has blown up in the tank, we fish about in the cold petrol to get all of the bits out and then start the process of putting everything back together. After pushing the tea bag, bit of bottle top and bit of plastic tubing that make up the fuel pump back together we set off.

The drive to town is fairly uneventful with only a few problems with the fiats fuel tank slowing us down. As we crest the last hill and see altai in front of us we start looking for the airport to drop James off who has run out of time. We stop at what looks like an airport only to be laughed at and set further on to what looks like a broken caravan next to a bit of road. This turns out to be the airport and we are instructed to go into town to get tickets.

We roll into town get some food and bump into tara who tells us that everyone else is at the garage and they have had a rough night getting to town.

We get to the garage and find the cabbies and jimny guys all sat in the attached cafe. They had got there about an hour before us having had no sleep as they had to fix the truck all last night which apparently brokedown every 1 - 2 miles throughout the night. On top of this once they got in to town there was a showdown with the truck drive who had demanded more money then was agreed on. This had all cullmliated in a standoff where each party had grabbed the others keys. After the lorry driver had thrown a punch at Freddie they had grabbed the keys back and legged it to the garage where the car was now being repaired.

Everyone looked pretty haggered after all of this + no sleep the previous night. The garage however seemed good and where busy ripping the broken axel off and trying to open the diff to inspect the damage.

We piled off to get everyone a hotel while the jimny guys stayed with there car to oversee the repairs. Getting a hotel for 11 people turned out to be pretty tricky, after ages we managed to get one. Brillantly it's one of those strange soviet hotels where they don't really want you staying there. All of the rooms smell of mutton fat, and loads of stuff doesn't work. The shower is a tank above the bath that heats up about a thimblefull of water and then plays a christmass cracker tune untill you turn it off.

Altai is not the greatest town, while we are gettig dinner there are loads of drunks in the resturant arguing. Using the phrase book we try to order beef noodle soup, we end up with a plate of beef and rice and a bowl of noodle soup.Later in the bar another mongol rally convoy turns up made up of the candians, Jacob and his big green jimny, the guys in the gold saxo and another team of candians we hadn't met before. Everyone takes over the bar, much to the Mongolians disgust who keep telling everyone to keep it down.

Day 51 - The Death Of The Jimny

In the morning, as we did nearly 200k yesterday everyone is pretty confident that we will make it to Altai for lunch. We set out and intially nothing goes wrong, James is driving and I suggest that we drive of the track as it looks smoother. We are bombing along about 40 on the flat grassy land chatting to James when out of no where a ditch appears in front of us. James tried to stop but we hit the ditch fast, as we hit it I saw the roof rack fly out infront of the window, the legs scraped down the windscreen hit the bonnet and the hole thing smashed to the ground just in front of where we are stopped.

Heart thumping we jump out of the car, and survey the damage, the roof is mangled on the ground, there is a massive scratch straight down the car and the roof is dented. We set about dismantling everything and trying to glue and fix what we can salvage back together.

We mange to saw a metal bar appart and glue it back to the stacks of books and tyre rubber, we limp on vowing to go slowly to stop it happening again.We plough on the road turns to corigations which start shaking the car to bits, this is the worst road for the car and I am permentaly hung out the window watching the roof rack.

Out of the clouds of dust we spot the jimny up ahead as we get closer we notice the wheels look wrong they are at 50 degree angle stuck out the side of car. We stop to see Freddy and Richie with very worried faces looking at there car. We dive out and join everyone else under the car, the back axel has split in half dumping all of the gear oil over the floor, and making the car do the splits.

This is the conveys first terminal faliure and talk turns to what to do. Tommy seems confident he may be able to jam the axle back together, however after further investigation it looks like at best we will be able to roll it. Freddy and matt are dispatched back to the nearest settlement to look for a truck. When they ge back the let us know one is coming in an hour. 2 hours later when nothing has turned up, they head back to the Gers to find out what is going on.

Another 2 hours pass with everyone playing frisbee, shithead and backgammon in the desert. When they is no sign of freddy or matt we decide to dispatch another car to find out where they are. Now with 2 cars gone and no idea what is going on with continue to wait around. While we are waiting we get the jimny ready to roll, we strap the axel together with rachet straps and gently lower the weight back on to it. The straps hold and the car rolls, tommy is so confident with the job he reckons it could be driven to Altai, everyone else is less sure.

We continue waiting for both cars to come with news about the truck. Eventually Tara and Tyler show up in the Toyota. The news is the truck is on it's way, however for some reason the intial negotaton for a truck had been forgotten. They had to go another 30k passed the town to find a man with a big enough truck. When this bloke had been found, they then had to wait for them to rebuild the gearbox of the truck have lunch and generally fanny around before heading out. With the truck on it's way, and the news that the Mongolian owner wants to drive it over night we start to set up camp and cook so the cabbies and the jimny boys can have something to eat before setting out.

We cook up just in time for the truck to arrive. For some reason the guy has brought his whole family jammed into the cab. We begin constructing a ramp made of axel stands bits of wood and car jacks. After a some time we manage to push the jimny up on to the truck. At this point we start inspecting the truck, the tyres are worn down to nothing and everything seems to be broken or on the edge of breaking. The chief of the truck asks us for a pump for the wheel which we go and get, he then gestures for us to pump up the tyre. We start doing this and he then starts pissing himself at the puny size of the pump, after a bit we try to disconnect the pump only to find the valve on the tyre is broken. This little episode sums up the state the truck was in, only slightly better then the jimny.

After a while the truck followed by the cab sets off into the night, we all sit round the fire wondering what will happen to them.....

Day 48 - Repairs and Mongolian river swimming

The next morning Matt is ill again, we leave him to recover in the ger and as the shower is broken head out to find a river to wash in. We walk along before finding a fast flowing river. The guys in the black cab from the night before have brought an inflatable boat they jump in it and as they only have a hockey stick to stear with, dissapear off down the river under a road bridge that has a load of Mongolians looking on in disbelief as 2 half naked white guys shoot down a river in a kids raft.

We all have a wash and some time later the cabbies return from down stream with there raft. James, Tommy and I immediatly grab it and jump in. With three people and a hockey stick to stear it we just shoot straight off down the river. Some time later we manage to get to an island in the river, however getting ashore is dificult in the fast flowing river.

We clamber out of river and set off walking back to the ger camp. We head into town to get supplies and the swifts tyres fixed up. We locate a big line of tyre shops and drag the tyre into the first one. The guy immediatly gets the tyre of the rim and looks at the hole. He grabs a tube of superglue and starts gluing the bit of rubber back in to the tyre. Both me and tommy are looking at this guy skeptically, as we could of done this. Sure enough he inflates it and it starts pissing air out. The guy looks confussed roots around in his shack and pulls out a crappy inner. The inner gets fitted to the tyre and this time it holds. While this has been going on we notice that another tyre has a massive buldge in it. Not too impressed with the tyre fixing we decide to buy another tyre. We look around the tyre shops all of them only have old patched crap tyres, new tyres just don't seem to exist here. One of the guys is drunk and is repeatadly trying to grab and fix a working tyre, this is the closet I have seen tommy to angry on the whole trip. After a bit we locate a sutible tyre and start barginning for it. The guy wants loads of cash but we are stuck, so in the end we bargin him down a bit and have to buy it.

After getting supplies and eating we roll out as a convey with the guys and. girls from last night. Our new bigger convey includes our 2 cars, the Americans Toyota corrolla, the black cab, a Suzuki jimny and mette in a fiat doblo. 5 seconds out of town the suzuki's patched tyre breaks, cursing the crap job we change and put the steel spares back on. The cab overheats and we decide to push on to find a camp by a lake marked on the map. Failing to locate the lake some time later we pull in to camp. After a bit I spot what I think is the convey in the distance. I jump in the citeron to go and fetch them. As soon as I have gone 50 metres I regret the decsion, as at night I can't see where I have come from, it's not a good feeling being alone in the mongolian desert and having no ideas where you are.

I follow the light to the convey and collect them, the next problem is I have no idea how to get back. I roll out in what I hope is the general direction of our camp. A little while later after a lot of standing on the bonnet I spot our camp and roll In relived. I am then told they could see my headlights and they wondered what the fuck I was doing driving around the desert aimlessly.

Alex

Day 47 - A taste of what is to come on the road to hovd

We wake up at our customary time, late and pack up and head out. The cars are really heavy now as we have days of supplies of food water and jerries of fuel.

We get back to the road from camp and head off through masive boulder fields. This morning Tommy Napper for the first time is driving the Citro. We bomb along before hitting a big bump, there is a massive scrapping noise from the roof. We stop and look up to see that the roof rack cage has detached and is sitting side ways pushing out the back window.

The feet of the rack are totally mangled so we start thinking about what we can use. I volunter my flipflops however these dont give us enough height. We remember there is a blown out tyre a mile or so back so we set out with the swift to go get it. It turns out the tyre is massive however we mange to get it back by balancing it on the roof and holding it on with one arm. Once back at the broken saxo we cut some feet out of the rubber. We jam these on top of some travel guides ( lonely planet central Asia this is the most useful you have ever been) and bolt the whole mess back down with what is left of the clamps, It all seems quite sturdy.

All of this has eaten up a lot of time so we jump back on the road and get going. Literal 5 minutes later we lose the swift. We sit around waiting before coming to the conclusion some thing bad has happened so head back. When we find them we see one of the back tyres on the swift has a hole the size of a 50 pence piece in it. The swift has 2 15 inch alloys on the back so this means we have to change both back wheels.

Once this is done we get back on the road. 2 breakdowns in 5k is a bit of a reality check, everyone starts to come around to the idea Mongolia could be quite tough. After this we start to cover some distance. Just as we are getting complacent again the road just disolves into several tracks. We wait around untill a bike comes by and gestures us in the correct direction. Next up on the Mongolian driving menu fording a river. I am ridiculously excited about this and jump out to film it all. Both cars get through without incident and we carry on. A little later we encounter a deeper river, this one looks to deep for our punny cars so we set out looking fo another route. We find a bit that is shallower but has a really steep decent into it. First up is tommy in the Citroën we ease in and as we are going down the bumper smacks the bottom of the river. We are both sat at a 45 degree angle with the nose of the car in the river, Tommy stops, turns his head towards me and calmly asks "carry on?". Not seeing many other options I agree we and push on through throwing water everywhere but making it intact to the otherside. The swift sets out for it's attempt, they make it in ok but on the way out rip the back bumper of on one side.

We carry on for another 20k or so on windy dirt roads before hitting a group of yurts, the Mongolian equivalant of a service station. We all dive in for something to eat and some how manage to order one dumpling each, not very satisified with this we order more and debate the plan for the evening.

We decide to try and cover the remaining 80k to khovd before nightfall. Not an easy task but we set off fast and the road improves changing to fast flat dirt tracks cut into a plane. After making good progress we get stopped by a Mongolian 4x4 convey. They are all standing around scratching there heads at a 10 mil bolt that has sheard off. Me and tommy immediatly ask what is come off thinking it has got to be important to stop these mighty 4x4's. It turns out it held a small bit of body work on the front left, perplexed me and tommy fix it with a cable tie and get back on the road, the Mongolians look a little bit pissed off we managed to fix it and not them.

We roar along stopping only to examine a very dodgy looking bridge, after a bit we rise over a hill and see the town of khovd in the bottom of the valley. We head down towards it and as we pull into town we see a ger camp with a load of rally teams pulled up at it. We pull in and immediatly realise it's the convey from the other day, after some banter we all dive in the bar for a late night drinking session and the telling of many a rally tale.

Alex

Day 46 - The Great Mongolian bike fiasco

I wake up on a floor in my sleeping bag with a really bad hangover. After a bit I go and get some tea from the other room of the house. Matt is ill and has been throwing up through the night, so while we wait for him and gem to sort themselves out James and Tommy and I walk up a really big hill. As usual with this kind of endeavour the hill is much bigger and further away then it looks. When we get back we start packing up to leave, however a couple of things have gone missing. Tommys big really nice knife has disapeared after it was used to carve up the mutton last night, and also my Swiss army knife. After this they start asking us for 50 dollars for the nights accomidation. We had all given them gifts last night and with the missing items it all gets awkward. On top of this one of the family is coming with us to Oligi to help James buy a motorbike, a plan a lot of the group is uneasy about.

After paying up we leave with a bit of a bitter taste in our mouth esspecially as we have to wrestle serveral items of ours off the family before we go. We roll in to town to meet Jacob one of the family from the previous nigh who is going to help James buy the bike.

This is our first taste of Mongolia roads, there seems to be some construction going on but we are on a track next to this. We go over a massive hill, with the cars in first gear really complaining, jumping over rocks and bouncing over ruts and dips. Some how we make it over only to be greated by the site of 10k of virgin Tarmac going into oligi.I feel a bit short changed a this point as I was expecting rough and tough offroad all the way. Little did I know what was to come.

On our way into town we encouter a convey of 3 rally teams and one car of yanks driving independantly. They are trying to fix the fuel pump on one of there cars. This is the second time they have been in this after having to come back 50k back when the previous bodge job blew up. We part ways after being told it's rough out there and the road goes down hill rapidly.

Once we are in town we all go our separate ways to get money, supplies etc. I shoot off to the Market as I want the full Mongolian get up, boots and a down coat. We leave James to source some ridiclously amount of dollars for the bike an get stuck in trying on boots etc. Both me and gem leave with a new pair of furry Mongolian boots but no jacket as they did not seem that warm.

By this time it's late in the day and we all want to leave however James is still trying to sort out the bike. Me and tommy are drafted in to check the bike over. The bikes are Chinese made Honda hero copies. Everything is cheaply made on them, the wheels look like they will buckle at any point and the engine casing feels like it is about 2 mil thick.

After some debate about registering the bike, James suddenly comes around to the reality of this endeavour, riding an aweful bike on some of the worst terrian in the world with out any of the necessary papers. We depart with our man who is meant to be sorting out the bike looking a bit pissed off, which is fair enough as he was more then likely going to get a cut of the sale. We depart oligi only 2 cars no bike a decsion everyone thinks is for the best. The terrian is bad however we make it to a lake with no incident and camp for the night.

Alex

Day 45 - Welcome to Mongolia

In the morning we head out for the border which is theoritally only 30k away. We go through a town which is just made up of supermarkets, stupidly I think we can do the restock at the border so we drive on. As it turns out there is nothing at the border, so we drive back the 30k to the supermarket town. We then go crazy buying supplies for Mongolia, we have been warned that there is often a big wait at the border to get the cars through so we are going fully provisioned up. With the cars creaking at the weight of all the food booze and water we have brought we set off back to the border. Once we get there we find they are shut for lunch, lazy buggers so we go back to a cafe for a final plov, and get attacked by children.

We head back to the border to get in the queue, ssome Russians in massive 4x4's start chatting to us. They are off on a Mongolian fishing trip, they laugh at our cars and ask us if we know what the roads are like.

Once we get into the border it's the usual 8 different windows and confused wondering around. I stupidly show them a bit of paper from my first russian entry. Tommy doesn't have the same bit of paper so a mexican stand off starts as the guard doesn't want to let tommy out of Russia without this. After ages they decide to let him out, I can never understand in situations like this why after enough arguing they always let you go, why not just skip the arguing if you know eventually you are going to let us do what we want to do.

We blitz down the 20k between Russia and Mongolia, half way there is a tiny outpost that marks the end of Russian territory. I win 50p in a bet with gem that this is not the Mongolian broder post, it's not. As soon As we are out of Russia the road disapears and it turns into a rocky track.

After negoiating this we roll up to the Mongolian border post, I notice a big muddy puddle and go around it. Immediatly a women runs out Of her hut and starts screaming at us. Apparently the puddle is to decontaminate our cars, although of what, is unclear but by the look on her face we have got some nastys on the car that her magic dirty puddle will be able to fix.

We dutfiully reverse and roll through the puddle, after which she starts demanding 50 rubbles for the trouble. Normally at Borders we are having none of this, however we have read so many stories of people being stuck here for long periods of time that I really want everyone on side and to have as few arguments as possible, so we pay up.

This sets the tone for the rest of the border crossing. Me and tommy would go into an office where someone would give us some paper work and then demand an odd amount of money in a different currency. After ages and us making a cup of tea we have the cars inspected. Brillantly the custom women hits her head on the swifts roof rack, after this she chucks out inport cirtificate at us and we are allowed to go, mongol border done in 2 hours brillant.We head out into the wilds, there is no road and both cars are booming along skidding and blowing up hugh clouds of dust.

We stop to guess the way to oligi the first town in Mongolia. While we are scratching our heads a Mongolian on a bike covered in rally stickers pulls up After some of the mime game we are off again to his house to buy wood off him for a camp. Once we get to his house we ushered inside where there is tea and bread already laid out. The Mongolian guy immediatly starts telling us to stay the night.

I had read that a lot of peoples cars had been done over when they had been invited to stay with people directly over the border, in situations like this. I really hate being suspesious of people and as we have a few salty teas and some bready things everyones reservations evaporate.

What follows is an evening of drinking beer vodka and tea and eating a goats head. Tommy gets to shoot a gun annoyingly at mountain rather then at a goat, we all sing a rude songs to them when they asked for an English song, James has a go on the guys motorbike and drunkly decides he wants to ride one through Mongolia and I get taught a Mongolian folk song.

Alex

Day 44 - The Siberian Swimming Contest

In the night it's freezing cold, a couple of days ago we where in shorts and t-shirts now it's proper long johns and wooly jumpers. I make the stupid decsion in the middle of the night to go to the toilet outside with just my pants on, I have rarly been so cold.

In the morning there is ice on the tents, However once the sun comes up it warms up nicely. We get on the move and the driving is some of the best on the trip so far. The road is sweeping and twisty and turny. Everyone keeps saying things like, "we should tell top gear about this" etc etc. After a morning of this we spot a river and decide we should go for a swim. After negoiating the cars down one of the sketchyist tracks of the trip, it's slanted and cut into a cliff, we end up by the river.

The river is ice cold, however tommy napper runs straight in. As everyone else has gone in, in the end I just chuck myself in. it's seriously cold the worst bit being how much it hurts your man bits. After all of this I am thinking there is no way Gem would go in, however she is straight in and calling us all wimps for moaning about it, so it's one all in the great siberian swimming contest.

After we are done on this we continue towards the border town which is unfortunatly called some thing like twatta. The trees disapear and it starts to look more and more barren as we get higher. We start seeing a lot of border patrols, hilariously some of these seem to of been aquipped with bazokas which seem a bit overkill if you want to stop someone who is running over a border.

We get our tyres pumped up at a garage, buy supplies and head out to find a camp. We mange to find another stunning camp by a river and get on with the evening tasks of cooking drinking etc.

Alex

Day 43 - Siberian wilderness

In the morning we head off to buy supplies for mongolia. The russian visas run out shortly so we need to get out asap. Due to this constrant we need to decide if we are going to backtrack to the Citro dealer to try and get some back shocks, or push onto Mongolia. Because we have to get out of Russia we have to make the choice to push on. The car has been a lot better since we lightened the load, however it is riding very low and bounces all over the place. In the end we agree to push on as we can't risk missing the Russian visa date. This is a worring decsion however there are drop points through Mongolia so if the car blows up we can get rid of it.

We grab food and matt soul buys a jumper that looks like a star trek uniform, before hitting the road. The landscape goes from flat wheat planes to stunning wooded vallies and ice cold blue rivers. We see a particluarly nice river and stop to poke about and take photos. Some time later we stop in a petrol station and see some more of the Russians love of a good argument. We have gone into pay and poke around the selection of crap that you usually see in petrol station. Some guy starts asking us to move our car so he can get to the pump, I say ok then carry on buying oil before I do it, 30 seconds later they are screaming at us to move the car. After ages of pointing out we are trying to pay, they just move there car to the next pump that has been free through all of this.

We then meet some drunk Russian teenagers who are more impressed we where camping in Siberia then we had driven here from london, generally it's all pretty strange.We start looking for a camp however there seems to be a lot of very smal mililtery bases around, the guards at these don't seem keen on us camping there. While reversing out of one of these I manage to knock all the air out of one of the front tyres, it actually feels good to be using one of the spares we have lugged all the way from England.

We find one of the most stunning wild camps of the trip so far, a little valley next to a river and nail a few of the Russian novelty 1 litre cans of beer.

Alex

Day 42 - Barnaul

We wake up and start to proceed north to Barnaul. We stop in a Siberia cafe, everyone is friendly and nice they offer us fried dumplings and poke around the cars. In Russia it seems to be really hard to know if you are going to get a warm welcome or an argument.

We drive on, as we come to the city we spot that rarest of commodities a Citro dealer. We note the location and vow to come bak after we have found a hotel. We plow into the city, at this point I am regreting having no guide books or maps for this part of Russia. As everything is in cyrilic script, something simple like finding a cafe to eat at is a bit of a mission. After a bit we end up in a resturant in a health spar. The upshot of this is they have vegetable, not stewed or pickled but real life fresh veg, some thing prettty hard to come by.

After a bit we steal some wifi, find a map and hotel from the Internet and set off. After the usual wondering round the city for hours we find the hotel. Odly the women at reception only speaks French, this seems a bit strange but we manage to string enough togther to get what we want. Rather then hit the town we opt for a few quite beers in the room

Alex