Brief

Only a brief post to say that we have arrived in Ulan Ude (I will write more later) and will be making a dash for the Mongol border today.  It is supposed to a difficult border to cross so wish us luck.

Night Trippers

The reason for staying in Russia for longer was that we thought that the roads would be better than those in Mongolia and so we would get to the finish line sooner and importantly before we had to catch our flights. For the first day’s travel this was the case and we were able to cover about 1,000 km.  The next morning was a different story.

It was not too long before we ran into what I will say were extensive road works.  (I’m sure that this is true for some parts of the road but for much of it I think that maybe they are permanently like that).  This put the brakes on our progress and at one stage it was looking touch and go as to whether we would make it to Irkutsk that day.

As it was we managed to make to finish the Irkutsk that day but not with much time to spare (we rocked up to the town centre at about 11.00 pm).  Irkutsk is not one of those cities that never sleeps.  At 11.00 pm it was very much asleep, with the exception of one police car who seemed to be pulling every car that drove passed him.

After much searching for a place to eat we ended up going to Dominos (not the proper Domino’s you are used to mind; not even a Domino’s Food System like the one we saw in Almaty).  In Domino’s we had an interesting conversation with a genial, and slightly drunk, Russian guy.  Whilst his English was good, certainly better than my Russian, it was not quite good enough to express what he wanted to say.  So he would start a sentence and stop mid way through it and try and start again with a new one.  It was kind of like watching a fly trying to get through a glass window repeatedly; you wanted to try and wind down the window but we couldn’t.

We appear to be getting worse at finding hotels or at least finding hotels in our price range.  (It is easy to find expensive hotels; you just go to the centre of town and look for a big expensive looking building).  So by 1.00 am we decided that it would be better just to leave town and find a tyre place out of town.  Luckily, on the way out of town we managed to stumble a across a 24 hour tyre change shop (one of the more random things to stumble across and want to go to).

So less than three hours we said good bye to Irkutsk.

A Vintage Night

After the tough times that we had in Kazakhstan Novosibirsk was a refreshing change.

We got into town and mulled about for a relatively short time; usually we take a good while to find the internet and even longer to find some where to stay.  At this juncture I think that it is worth mentioning the hot chocolate I had.  Now I don’t know if this is a thing that is wide spread across Russia but when I got my drink it came as a mug of mouse and a glass of water, which I had to mix my self.  It kind of reminded me of salt n shake crisps from when I was younger.

The evening was spent ‘surviving’; by which I mean eating lots of food and drinking a few beers.  First, we had a huge, and good, meal at a Russian restaurant, which was made better by the fact that after we bought a cooler of beer we were given (as a “presentâ€) a second cooler for free.  Then we went out for a few hours at a pretty decent club in town.  All-in-all a good night.

Semey Flaccid

After Alamty we turned back northward toward the Russia border.  This meant getting back on the road toward Astana.  Fortunately this time we managed to avoid any further damage to the tyres.  In fact we made good time and were able to camp just outside Karagandy.

The next day we turned Eastward with the aim of crossing the border near Semey.  The roads from Karagandy to Semey go through some very scenic countryside and would be a very pleasant drive if it weren’t for the fact the road is as bad as the view is good.  (If it weren’t for the road I would have said that the traffic department is managed by an aesthete who wanted us to revel in the natural beauty). 

Things started off quite well until about noon.  Then in the space of a couple of hours we managed to go a few miles down the wrong road and get a couple of flat tyres.  We were therefore down to only the tyres that were on the car and so it was important that we did not get another flat before we arrived at Semey.

You’ll no doubt be surprised to find out that at about 7.00pm this is exactly what happened.  So, we found ourselves 80 km away from Semey in a car with only three wheels, which wouldn’t have been so bad if we were driving a Reliant Robin (actually, maybe it would have).  Fortunately, we stumbled across another car just down the road and we were able to communicate to him that we had flat.  I would like to say that this was through our superb grasp of Kazakh but largely it was by pointing at the totally deflated tyre.

After checking if the spare wheel on his Lada fit, which it didn’t.  Mark Sr and Callum set of in the Lada with a good tyre on a bad rim and a bad tyre on a good rim to see if they could be turned into one good wheel.

As an aside at this stage and to keep the suspense of this gripping tale up (Will Mark Sr and Callum come back!?  Will they have a working tyre!?  Why was Lada man stopped in the middle of nowehere for no good reason!? Dun, dun, duuuuuun) let me tell you a couple of things about rims on a Ford Fiesta.  One, the holes for the lug nuts are, somewhat frustratingly, slightly further apart than those on other rims you find in Kazakhstan.  Two, don’t have low profile tyres when driving in Kazakhstan, they tend to get dinked very easily.

Anyway, back to the story; after a couple of hours Mark Sr and Callum managed to return with a fully functioning tyre.  As it so happens, there was a small town a short distance down the road where they (Lada man and a couple of other guys) were able to switch the good tyre.

Everyone, was keen to push on into Semey and so another bout of night driving was called for.

We arrived into Semey just before midnight and seen as everywhere was closed we stayed in the Hotel Ford Fiesta.  (I had the driver’s suite, which was not the most comfortable place to stay).

To Boldly Go Fourth

It was only a brief stop in Almaty (as so many of our stops have been) but nonetheless it brought about a significant change.

First though, let me mention Almaty.  I like Almaty; it seems like a proper city.  It feels like it has a bit of history about it.  Importantly, it has a place that describes itself as a brewery (called Ultras), which I’m a little disappointed that we didn’t get chance to take a tour of.  Also, apparently, you can go skiing near there.

Anyway, the important news is that we now have a fourth team member: Callum Ettles.  (I have been advised by a total independent source who only identified himself as CE that Callum is awesome)

As I have mentioned previously we had been travelling in convoy with a team of Imperial med students who were travelling under the moniker of The Wailing Phoenix (which is a reference to the Imperial Med School logo).  They had encountered some difficulty when travelling on the road to Aktobe (principally the engine on their ambulance was knackered) more on which can be found at their [blog](index.php?mode=teamwebsites&name=the-wailing-phoenix&page=blog).  It turned out that the engine was beyond repair.

We therefore agreed to take Callum and the other team members are riding in a golden Rolls Royce.  I think that the other guys on the team might have got a better deal.

Off Mice and Men

As I mentioned earlier we are on the road between Astana and Almaty, which is not a road I had anticipated being on, certainly not in the direction in which we are heading.  This was originally caused by the fact that the route into Uzbekistan from the west is labelled as a track on the maps and given that the roads aren’t that good we didn’t want to risk the journey.

Taking this route whilst quicker has, however, left us with a problem: how to get to Tashkent and back without taking too much time and without having to get more visas.  It is a problem that we cannot really see a way around.  We are therefore going to have to miss out on Tashkent.

We should be able to make it to Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan and so we are on our way down there now.  Going down this way will also mean that we will have travelled the famous Silk Road.

Tyresome Troubles

We were told earlier on in the rally that it is usually after there has been some good going and after you have become a bit comfortable with thw roads that something will go wrong.  This turned out to be prophetic in our case.  Having covered the best part of 900 km from Astana and, I should mention, with the night well and truly upon us we (I) hit a pot hole and managed to put a nice dent in the front right tyre.  This meant a change of tyres at 11.30 pm and a slightly earlie night than intended under the stars.

It is not often that you get the opportunity to see the sky at night in all its magnificence.  This is particularly the case if you live most of your life in cities.  That night, however, all the stars were out and the Milky Way arced above our heads.  Now I wish I has a photo for you but I didn't think to take one.  (If you do want some cool pictures of the night sky, amongst other things, try looking up NASA's [APOD](http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html)).

The nest morning the front left trye, like a 70's trade unionist, decided to stop working in simpathy with its comrade or maybe it to had taken too many hits and just gave up.  We had therefore lost two tyres within the space of about an hour's driving.

We now have only one spare.  I'm not sure that the roads are going to get any better here on out (apparently Mongolia is bery bad), which means that we'll need to find a garage to pick up some new rims.  (Maybe we can get some of the cool ones they have in Pimp My Ride!) 

Out of the Wilderness

In Kazkhstan all roads lead to Astana; well the good ones do anyway.  There are other roads going to other places; however, unless you want your journey to take twice as long despite doing less than half the miles you will find yourselfe heading to Astana.

Thus after advise from an English speaking Kazakh (who, incidentally, had lived in Boston) who we bumped into at a newstand in Aqtube we found ourselves on the road to Hromtau and ultimately Astana.

Given that we now had to travel singnificantly further and we had already lost 3 days to the wilderness of Kazkhstan we decided to go infor a long day driving.  It was therefore not until approaching 1.00 am that we stopped and made camp for the night.  To our shock we were actually cold for the first time in weeks.  After, the 40 plus degree heat we had been experiencing this wasn't a bad thing.

The next day we got off to an early start on the road.  A copuple fo hours down the road we bumped into a few other teams who were just about getting up (maybe these early starts are not the way top go?).  Includinded in this group was a team that had driven all the way up to Norway and Finland.  It tells you something that it is just as quick to go to the furthest northern reaches of Europe as it is to take the ferry from Turkey.

Despite being worried that the roads would continue to be bad we reached Costanay with out too much incident.  (As an aside: if you do for whatever reason come to Kazakhstan you should try thee melons, which are very good).  This being Kazakhstan the good roads could only last so long and as we were approaching Astana and mentally getting ready to camp just out side the city we hit the longest roa works I've been through.  Getting through them was helped by the fact that you could drive on the partly finished road (although I not sure if you were meant to).

The next day we entered Astana.  My short summary of Astana is that you can get some good food there but it is pretty diffcult to find a good bar there (well it's difficult to find many bars at all).

We are now going to head down to Almaty, where we will decide whether we go to Kyrgystan and Uzbekistan.

The Autobahn's Evil Twin

You know things are bad when it is better to travel off the road than on it.  Such is the case with the route from Atyrau to Aqtube.  This is a road that is so bad that whatever I say you are not likely to appreciate the shitness of the road but I’ll try anyway.  It is almost as if someone decided that the best thing to model the road on was the sea and not a particularly calm sea.  So the road throws you up and down like you’re in a small boat in a storm.  The only difference is that when you crash down there is the constant risk that the underside of you vessel will be shredded.

Of course we didn’t know this when we set off on a sunny Sunday afternoon without a care in the world.  In fact when you first set off on the road out of Atyrau you are greeted with some pretty decent road, which meant that the teams in the convoy were in pretty good spirits.  In fact, everyone was having a great time in Makat waving to the kids and beeping at passing wedding parties.

It was at Makat that the good times would end.

We should have read the signs when they were presented to us: that there were no signs for Aqtube; that when we tried to find the route we had to drive over ground with ruts a foot deep; and a distinct lack of traffic other than the large Kamaz trucks.  However, like a tragic hero we didn’t know to look out for the signs.

On Monday morning everyone woke up bright and breezy and having also picked up another ambulance (The Mongolance Crew) the convoy that set off had swelled to four vehicles.

The road immediately out off Makat is a dirt track that after a few miles becomes a gravel then a, partially, paved road.  Whilst we stuck largely to the road many others didn’t (including a number of the lorries on the route) and they took the dirt track that had been created at the side of the road.  They took the track because when you get to the large sections of pot holes and gravel that make up most of the road you go quick on the track.

It was; however, the dirt road that was to be the undoing of The Wailing Phoenix.  Going down into one of the many ditches their ambulance hit the sand hard, which ultimately resulted in the timing belt breaking. 

It was, therefore up to the little Jimny to try and tow the Ambulance to the safety of Kandiagash over 300km away.  Let me dole some more advice to those of you foolish enough to try and do this: it won’t work.  Sure enough after over 100km of towing on absolutely terrible roads the Jimny also gave up the ghost when its clutch could take no more.

This led to an early night’s camping and a terrible mood in the convoy.  The convoy was finally broken up the next morning with the Jimny being towed back toward Atyrau at 3.00 am and us and the Mongolance Crew taking the Phoenixes to a surprisingly near by trucking company who said that they could put the ambulance on the back of a truck to Kandiagash.  I hope that the guys make it and are able to carry on on their journey.

A Night with the Animals

It seems so long ago now, as I'm writing this blog post it Aktube in Kazakhstan, that we left Astrakhan.  But leave Astrakhan we did.  We managed to get the Kazakh border without to many problems.  At the border we were meet with a bunch of kid who mobbed the car (if kids can do such a thing) in a fairly pleasant but increasing frustrating way.  One of the kids took a shining to the compass in our car but we said that he couldn’t have it (neit was becoming a more and more common word at this stage).  So imagine my surprise when I was asked by the customs official whether I had a compass and whether I could get it.  I won’t say whether I got the compass back or not I suspect you can fill in the blanks.Anyway, we did manage to get in our first proper camping off the trip in a field just over the Kazakh border.  There are not too many occasions when I will share a camping field with cows, horses and camels.