The Final Furlong

The Ford Fiesta has travelled 9,531 miles through 16 countries, 2 continents and 8 time zones and finally arrived in UlaanBataar this afternoon.

 

More to follow....

Mongolia - Almost There

Our last blog left us in Kazakhstan.

 

We made our way into Russia and had a tremendous couple of days in Barnoul, practising our Russian, a spot of bowling topped off by sampling a little bit of the night life. Then we headed to Mongolia and after a wrong turn stopped about 150 miles short at the start of the Altai mountains. The next day we arrived at the Russian border to find that it was closed at 1pm. We then chatted to a a young woman who was cycling from New Zealand to England and looked thoroughly exhausted after 10 long days on Mongolian Roads.

 

The Russian border finally opened at 3pm and we made it into No Man's Land at 4.30 Russian time, but more importantly 5.30 Western Mongolian time. We then had to spend a night in no man's land with about 15 other teams in a concrete compound at an attitude of somewhere around 2000m. This doesn't sound all that difficult but as we could not erect a tent on concrete Stu and I slept in a tarpaulin propped up by a camp chair as Lewis kipped in the car.

From excaping no man's land we travelled to Olgy and then Khovd in a slow but spectacular journey averaging about 10mph. This speed made us feel weary about making the 1000 miles to UB by saturday. From Khovd we set off on our way to Altai and at the end of the day filling up our tank we asked the parking attend by chance where are we expecting to be in a town called Darvis or Bulgan it has 2 names... Unfortunately we found ourself in Most in the middle of the altai mountains. By the road on our map the road appeared to run out in this town. They then drew a line in biro on our map round a lake and through the imposing altai mountains. We had a look and only found the towns rubbish dump so made our way back to the town. Fortunately this time we met 2 teams equally lost we parked up had dinner and planned an assault on the mountains the next day.The road started to get quite dodgytowards the lake and we had 300km and the alti mountains to get toed back through.  A local looked at our car and laughed as we explained to him the road we wish to take through the mountains. It was a bit of a struggle involving beaching the car a couple of time a little bit of pushing but we made it. 

 

Then we proceeded in our new convoy to altai we could not keep up with the 4x4 suzuki and motorbike in our convoy but met them in altai had a quick mutton dinner and headed out to pitch our tent in the dark with them. This morning we got up at 5.30 to be on the road for 6 and have just made our way to Bukangakaron (spelling is probably wrong). It is relative civilisation we are going to grab dinner as a convoy and camp.

 

Sorry this is brief.

Kazakhstan

Having had some concerns following our last blog I would like to start by clearing up a few things. Lewis was somewhat economical with the truth in the last blog and greeted Stu and I after having penned it with - "Hopefully there is enough in there to scare my Mum".  This back fired on two count firstly Lewis Dad censors the blog for his Mum's benefit and secondly we got a few concerned texts. So far we haven't been in any real danger. The last blog was from Bukhara which is an old town on the silk road which benefited from trade between the east and the west leaving a legacy of beautiful old buildings. Where we had a nice dinner by a pond in the middle of the old town. After picking up a few souvenirs we then headed on towards Samarakand only about 3 hours drive away. In Samarakand Stu and I had a little explore around what is actually quite a touristy town with a few old mosques, amphitheatres and constant calling to prayer. Such agreeable surroundings were a pleasant surprise as none of us had expected too much from Uzbekistan. The next day we moved on to Tashkent where we met an ambulance who we have met for the past 3 or 4 days. They had some funny stories from other teams on the rally. They met a team of 2 lads who took a wrong turn at Mary and had got through 3 checkpoints and were about to get there passport stamped before they realised they were going into Afghanistan! We had a stroll about Tashkent going through Independence square and a couple other touristy sights. We then heading to Kazakhstan. After a thorough 5 hour stint at border we made our way to Shymkent. In Shymkent we sampled some local cuisine thanks to the lucky dip of a cirrilic menu needless to say I wouldn't recommend it! We headed out to have a look around and were met by a friendly local called Alexandre who demanded that we drank with him out on a street and that Stu taught him how to dance. Alexandre showed us Techtonik which is apparently the way to dance in Kazakhstan. After Shymkent we drove to Almaty arriving late at night. The next day we got up to go to a local park recommended highly in our guidebook. Unfortunately the Gorky park turned out to be Almaty's answer to Storybook Glen so we didn't spend too long there. We then headed off to get a cable car up to the top of a mountain to see some stunning views of Almaty and grab some lunch. From lunch we headed to the Asaran baths. From a series of grunts from other men we found our way to the changing rooms where people chilled and had coffee in the buff. We then found our way to a round pool surrounded by overweight middle aged men chilling by the pool in the nude or athletically swan diving into the pool. Apparently in Kazakhstan you are never too old to swan dive. We then went into the Finnish sauna which is pretty much your standard sauna at around 105 degree. Then we took our towels and headed into the Russian sauna. I cannot even begin to convey accurately how hot this Sauna was but it looked like the boiler room of a large ship with stairs taking you up the seating area. The room had the most pungent aroma, like you were in a cup of tea. This aroma came from all the leaves and branches on the floor. Before we went in we bought a bouquet of branches to lash ourselves with. From what we could make out you generally give yourself or get your mate to lash you about with set of branches all over and then take a cold shower afterwards. After the baths we grabbed some dinner and waited till after midnight to sample the local nightlife. We headed out to a club called Da Freak which lived up to all the hype guidebook and was a pretty awesome club. Incidentally Alexandre was right techtonik is the only way to dance in Kazakstan and we tried to implement some of the moves he taught us! We are now heading roughly north in Kazakhstan with the aim of camping somewhere before heading to Semey. Also I put up some pictures on facebook but if we have learnt something on this trip. It is that pictures/ our cameras can't capture the sights that we've seen. Jono   Our techtonik were some what similar to these... [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oyrtf9BPlcA](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oyrtf9BPlcA) 

[](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oyrtf9BPlcA)[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziytUFRHoqI](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziytUFRHoqI)

   

Qazvin to Ashgabat

 

Greetings from Turkmenistan!

 

We are currently relaxing in the Grand Turkmenistan Hotel Ashgabat taking some well earned down time from driving having crossed the border yesterday. I'll begin by recapping since our last blog which was written in Qazvin. We left Qazvin en route to Gorgon, the drive was an interesting one covering a variety of landscapes and roads, specifically the insane traffic of downtown tehran and the wild pass through the Alborz mountains. Lewis was in the driving seat through Tehran with me navigating, it would seem his driving style is well suited to the Iranians as we escaped with no incidents, whilst  google maps took care of navigation pretty smoothly. I took the wheeland tackled the mountains, on the most scenic road ive ever driven. The Iranians tried their best to ruin it with their rash overtaking manouvres and poisonous exhaust fumes however the scenery was breath taking. I estimate we were somewhere in the region of 2000m at the summit, way above the tree line, the road wound roudn the contours if the valleys, which looked extremely vulnerable to landslide! A night in Gorgon was pretty uneventful, the usual hunger brought on by the tiring ramadan fasting was creating some pretty grumpy exchanges between us navigating our way to a hotel!

 We then left Gorgon, with the idea to hit the Turkmenistan border around lunchtime. All was going well, and we turned off the main road onto the single track road to the border town in good time. The road proposed by google maps on lewis's phone was slightly different to the one on our map but we thought we would go for it anyway, a choice we later regreted! After an hour of decent roads, and amazing arid mountain scenery the road began to worsen, we were about 20kms from the border, but road conditions weren't doing the fordy any favours! We stopped and asked some locals if we were on the right road, they spoke no english but said the road did continue but wasnt paved. We pressed on for 5 mintues, following a local on a motorbike, but in the end decided it was stupid to continue knowing a prefectly good road existed if we back tracked. to make matters worse our benzin (petrol) tank was running low, so we had to buy some dodgy nectar from the locals at the nearest village to get us back to civilization. Frustratingly the time delay our poor navigation created meant we missed the border that day and had to bed down in the nearest town for the night. Spirits were pretty low as dreams of an ice cold beer in Turkmenistan were agonisingly close! We stayed the night in the worlds worst hotel room, run by an old couple who kept insisting we showered, we knew our hygene wasnt perfect but this offended us slightly! little did we know they just wanted to charge us an extra 4 dollars for each time we used it!

 We left at a reasonable time the next morning and headed for the border. The process was long, taking about 5 hours. As the registered owner of the car i was left to fill in endless paperwork, most of which i couldnt understand, and paid the necessary 113 dollars for the car, whilst johnny and lewis ate pies and sat in the sun. they bought me a mars bar as a consolation.

We finally left the border late afternoon and headed through no mans land of about 15kms. The road was spectacular and mountainous. we came round a sharp bend only to find a car transporter lorry on its side in the verge. The cars on top were completely destroyed, and their was fuel dripping from the fuel tank. We found the driver in a pretty bad state, bleeding from his face and arm, and covered in dust. Understandably he seemed in shock. We waited for the next car who was a local, and picked the guy up and told us to scarper, we were quite relieved as we were not particularly keen to be involved with the authorities incase of any misunderstandings.

On arrival in Ashgabat we were totally shocked, completely modern and covered in gold and marble, the place is a model city, nice cars and buildings, Turkmenistan seems to be thriving from its oil. We checked in to a hotel, 5 star, for 30 dollars each per night! bit of a steal. We had a day relaxing by the pool today, ready to press on tomorrow with a view to getting close to the uzbekistan border.

We shall update again soon when we next get the internet, probably Tashkent.

P.s. the phone network in Turkmenistan i apparently 4G, therefore none of our phones are working!

Ciao for now,

Stuart 

From Bulgaria to Qazvin

Salem,

 

To begin with we have had people enquire as to how far we have driven. To date we have travelled 4,500 miles and from now on we will begin our blogs with miles travelled.

 

The last blog left us in Plovdiv, away to depart on the road to Turkey. As Lewis and Leeks were feeling decidedly worse than myself that morning it was up to me to drive to the turkish border. The roads in Bulgaria were pretty hairy with some interesting over taking manouveres on single track roads. Once we arrived at the border we then had to buy our visa, insurance and road tax which left us a little bit lighter in the pocket but has set the tone for all the borders to come.

 

After a long shift at the wheel Lewis and Stu guided us expertly into Istanbul not taking a worng turning and found a perfect parking spot near the blue mosque with adequate room for another jump start. We went round a few hostel compared a few prices and found ourselves a bed at the King Sultan Hostel. We ate dinner at a restaruant just across the road and enjoyed 3 lovely kebaps and were now fit to hit the hay after a testing day on Turkish roads. Then at the end of the meal the waiter said to Lewis "Come you must see our Cave!" I thought he said cake so wasn't so shocked until he led us towards the back of the restaraunt where we ducked into a low entrance to find vaults of a byzantine palace. It was a nice little find but the stabilty of the structure was found thought to be questionable by our very own surveyor.

 

Then back at our hostel we met two Canadian girls who make up the team "Dust on the Throttle" a really interesting pair who work for the canadian forgein service. They are really well travelled having been to Mongolia before and Iran. We thought these we travelled veterans might be travelling in some sort of comfort but they have a toy horse tied to their roof and no AC so are getting about 200 miles to a tank and no AC as temperatures are starting to reach into the 40's.

 

The next morning we set off and made our way to Samsun stopping off at a traditional truckers stop off for lunch recieving some tremendous turkish food. We reached Samsun at around 8.30 and came across a ford garage where we decided to get our tempremental fiesta checked out. They diagnosed our ailing battery as the issue and the fiesta has started nicely every since (touch wood) the repair cost $100 and a bottle of vodka. We then found a camp site in the dark and were welcomed in by security gaurd on a bicylcle carrying a massive baton. Once in the camp site we were invited to drink and watch satellite televison with him and the day time security gaurd. It became apparent very quickly that they were both smashed drinking vodka with a mixture of Efes extra stong. We had spoken to each other for about 30 minutes with no success we the security gaurd decided to wake up another guest to translate for us. This guest brough out a whole cake for us as well some sort of boiled vegetable stew. The chat was pretty basic until I asked was the eastern part of turkey safe sometimes referred to as an area beginning with K. I then got "No K, K does not exist!! They kill our soldiers we kill them and now there is just one turkey!" this went on for a while and since then I have resolved to not utter the K word. In return for the hospitality we gave them some whisky minatures which they were very pleased with.

 

Then as we were brushing our teeth on our way to bed 2 Spanish tems turned up and we sat around chatting about the rally and sampling Iberian meat from one of the Spanish guys farms. In the morning Stu and I made our was from Samsun toward the E80 through Akkus across some carzy mountain dirt track which looked very straight forward on the map. (worth a google) Somehow we managed to make it through this mountain pass unscathed and rather more impressively Felix managed to sleep through the entire journey.

 

We travelled along the E80 until dusk when we decided to camp in the wild about 3 hours away from the Iranian border. We found a lovely little spot beside a river in a valley set up our tent and started a fire. We enjoyed another salami and rice dinner cooked by Lewis and then finshed off the Talisker and looked at the stars. It was really the middle of nowhere so the stars were really bright. We were lucky enough to see a few shooting stars and contemplated parallel universes, the compostion of a photon and other such important issues.

 

Stu drove another scenic shift through an eerie K.. with stunning scenery mixed with a heavy military precense made it a truly unforgettable drive (again Lewis slept through this). On the Iranian border we got fleeced of approximately $180 which was a little hard to stomach but as other teams travelling with us had all been fleeced of over $250 it made the loss a little bit more bearable. The sour taste of our border experience remained with us until we went to a petrol station and filled the tank for around $25 and we greeted by customary Iranian inquisitiveness.

 

It took us a little under 3 hours to ge to Tabriz where we got a really firendly reception getting waved at, tooted and smiled at. We felt like minor celebrities in our little ratlling ford fiesta. Driving in Iran is something else, Turkey was wild but this is survival of the fittest. 2 lane roads are by rule of thumb 3 lane roads, traffic lights are not generally taken into consideration and in summary "he who drives with the most aggretion/ conviction has right of way. As soon as we got out of the car we were met by a young optician who took us to a kebap shop for dinner and showed us to our hotel. Where we slept in around 30 degrees loosing a serious amount of water.

 

(Stu has just reported from the window that he has just seen a guy on a motorbike driving with no hands, pull out from behind a car and over take the car all with no hands!)

 

This morning we left Tabriz after getting lost several times asking people for directions as they waved and smiled at us. A policeman even walked down the street beside the car as we crawled in traffic giving us directions. Eventually we made our way out onto a slip road where a guy over took us on the slip road then power slid onto the motoeway.

 

We travelled along the toll road until we ran out of Rial an exhange rate of $1 USD to 11000 rial is making prices somewhat difficult. Then the people at the toll booths started letting us through for free after asking us where we were from. Iran has been unbeleviebaly friendly as people have stopped us in petrol stations for photo's given us food in the middle of the day in Ramadan.

 

Tonight we have treated ourselves to a room with AC and are now enjoying the spectator sport of watchiung the traffic outside our window in Qazvin.

 

Khoda Hafez

Czech out to Bulgaria!

Morning all! Zdrasti!!

 

So I think the last blog was left us at the czech out party. So after the czech out party we only made 4 hours drive to Linz in austria through a very windy road from Klatovy. I was the only one fit to drive and I think it's fair to say we all needed to hit the hay again pretty sharpish. Linz was a really nice place considering we had never heard of it before the city had a brass band playing and we had a very nice austrian dinner to sort our stomachs.

 

After Linz we made our way down through Hungary and into Romania setting up camp in Timisoara. Lewis was petty keen to get the camping gear out and cook a meal on the stove out of mess tins. Dinner consisted of salami and some free vegetable rice given to us at goodwood. Getting to Timisoara was anything but straight forward on some pretty average roads getting lost in Arad and traffic now consists of horse drawn vehicles as well as cars. (It's proper Borat country)

 

We made a 14 hour drive from Timisoara to Plovdiv in Bulgaria made a little bit more testing as we got lost in Plovdiv for an hour finding before eventually calling the hostel owner to come down and meet us on the main road to guide us into the old town. This was a bitter sweet moment as we were all exhausted but to find that it was the first place we came an hour ago was really frustrating. To be fair our navigational skills have been pretty spot on so far (touch wood) but now the signs are in cyrillic and our map is in latin font it is making navigation quite difficult.

 

Once at the hostel we chopped down some beers, dinner and headed to a rock club called Fabric. Pretty heavy rockers mixed with good looking girls and a baby abandoned in a pram meant it was a bit of a bizarre place. Some of the girls told us there was a "Pasha" in Plovdiv so we made our way to "Pasha" to find it was just a club called Pasha. For anyone who went it was just like a more friendly version of H2O in Belgrade when inter railing. A few more beers and a bottle of Vodka later and Lewis had made plenty of friends in the club and it was a really good night.

 

Lewis made his way onto a podium usually reserved for scantily clad girls or the DJ who was equally conservatively dressed... On this podium Lewis then decided to stick the bottle of absolute down his boxers, which was later found by a bouncer prodding him with a baton.

 

We then tried to source some food on the way home and Lewis thought that we might be able to get a breakfast at a casino but was swiftly escorted out by a bouncer called Nemo! Stu and I made friends with a woman walking her dog called Falley who escorted us and Falley to a Kebab shop which was probably the best Kebab I have ever had! The chicken came with salad sauce and chips all stuffed inside the kebab!

 

Having lost Lewis on our search for food I was relieved to find him in his room this morning when I got up. That leaves me here; hung over probably writing a whole load of rubbish and trying to answer coherently a million questions about the rally from backpackers who have all seen our little chariot sitting outside!  

 

Hopefully this is enough for now!

 

Zbogom 

Brussels

Morning Alles,

Final Preparations

So with two more sleeps until we set off down to Goodwood final preparations and last minute tweaks are under way. The roof rack is being fashioned into a stable Ngineering masterpiece ready to travel over 2 continents. Finances are being put readied spare parts have been bought and packing is next on the agenda.

So far we have raised nearly £1400 for our charities which is a great achievement and hopefully we can raise some more before we are finished.

I can only speak for myself but last minute nerves are starting to creep in as I begin to wonder why I am going to leave this good job and friendly office to travel accross some less than desirable terrains.

Hopefully we get everything ready in time for Friday morning!