Half the Circumference of the Earth
So exactly 6 weeks after we trundled around goodwood race circuit today we drove over the brow of a hill and were met with the sight of Ulaanbaatar nestled in a long valley covered in smog. Not a grand city for such an epic journey to end but the historic end of this mental Rally. 11,000 miles, 24 countries, 2 continents in one Nissan Micra manufactured in Sunderland in 1999. Muir and Josh have accompanied me on something I've wanted to do for the past 10 years of my life. Along the way we've had moments of glorious madness, shear determination, minor tizzies but every step of the way been met with people giddy to meet 3 dirty hairy Scots in a rusting Micra. There are places I'm glad I've been to so I never have to go again but these are grains of sand in a desert of places I'd happily live the rest of my days. Fancy doing the Mongol Rally? Unless you can find a green Nissan Micra and two mates called Muir the negotiator and joshy leadfoot then maybe Marbs in August is a better option.
Homeward Runs
So the time has come for the penultimate day of driving. Blessed with the promise of tarmac stretching before us for 300 miles to the finish line the Ravers awoke with a relief riddled excitement that maybe this whole thing had been for some sort of purpose. Packing up camp in record quick time and after one final frebreeze of the Micras dusty body fluid soaked seats we set out into the sun drenched Gobi. Muir who the night before had discovered a love for pickles, while obtaining the number of a Mongolian shop keepers daughter, feasted on a breakfast of the remaining gherkins while Josh and Dave opted for the health freak breakfast of champions, snickers and fanta. Sadly as is the way these days things went very fast down hill. Muir developed a sudden and quite violent case of D&V, thankfully not on the Micras velour, resulting in frequent visits to the most horrific attempts at toilets ever seen at Mongolia's petrol stations. The promised tarmac decended into a black ribbon of bomb craters and the Micras troublesome rear suspension had sunk so low that even driving over ants resulted in an ear piercing screech and subsequent puff of toxic fumes as the wheel arch caught fire. To top this if you felt the need to brake, the pads had reached such critically low levels that grinding metal and an alarming lack of stopping was experienced. But fear not readers as the 3 Ravers cannot be found upside down on a gers doorstep but tucked up in bed 30 miles from Ulaanbaatar with champaigne on ice for tomorrow's checkered flag!
World Rally Championship Mongolia
I'm not going to lie today was the second worst day of our lives but credit where credits due colin mcJoshy had lead foot out in force to try and make it go faster. Refusing to travel at anything less than 30mph abily navigated by Muir for another 250 mile shift across the Gobi. An explanation of just how bad Mongolia's roads are, may be required in the absence of photographic evidence. To put it bluntly they're just crap. Using a technique of I will drive from a to b no matter what the landscape many tracks are created across the landscape to resemble something like the m25 after an earthquake. To add to the fun these tracks are also all multidirectional so be sure to keep your whits about you at all times. Not that you're going to have time to concentrate as your skull is fractured by a thousand shakes a second. Here comes the killer blow, instead of giving you a nice smooth gravel/sand surface its been corrugated into a solid ridge every 2 inches. This bone braking pattern can only be combated by either driving at 5mph or hitting a crazy speed of 50+ to allow you to aquaplane between the bumps in an insane out of control continual powerslide. As you can imagine joshy lead foot chooses option two every time.
Probably the Worst Day of Our Lives
The title may seem a little over dramatic but honestly if you wish to spend an utterly thoroughly unenjoyable day doing something, spend it driving for 13 hours straight between Khovd and Altay in southern Mongolia on whats very generously named the southern route. Not only will you be bored to death by the sheer desolation of the Gobi Desert as the novelty of seeing bactrian camels quickly wears off but you can experience what it is like to have your spine reduced to a fine powder and your eyeballs removed from your head by vigorous shaking. Josh awoke on this day of days utterly blind in one eye and as stevie wonder isn't the best candidate to drive in Mongolia, Dave put in an epic 13 hour shift to travel the 250 miles fueled only by a 2 litre bottle of coke and a completely melted snickers. The only really good thing to somehow materialise from this day to never remember was that by some miracle the Micra lives on with a rear chassis, suspension system and axle all held in place by cable ties and gaffer tape. The Japanese know how to build them!
Mongolia's Maned Up
After a thoroughly disappointing introduction to Mongolia yesterday things could only really get better. The Ravers had camped at Olgiis airfield as Muir had decided he'd had enough the night before. Fear not though fans, Muir has suitably bottled bottling it and decided to rave on! Unsure if it was because his alarm failed to go off to awake him for the daily plane to Ulaanbaatar or that he'd had a talk with himself overnight, in Daves words Gazelles run together. Onwards they trucked to be met with 60km of perfect tarmac as reward for their patience. Almost delirious with this astonishing discovery an impromptu rave erupted fueled by Mongolian haribo. This tarmac did end but when it did the Ravers didn't care, somehow the Micra had decided that it could carry on breaking and we would just botch it or it could just not break and save the lads from taking out mortgages. To match this ballsiness Mongolia brought out yaks, beautiful lakes, gigantic birds of prey and a small Kazakh boy and his hunting eagle, all of which were suitably selfied with. At times the Micra vibrated to the point of blindness for its passengers but there's always speed to cure some bumps in the road. 4 days away from the finish line the Ravers cruised into Khovd only requiring minimal welding and a puncture repair, put the salty tea on ice people!
The Final Cable Tie
The Ravers sit in a pub which claims to be Irish but displaying nothing Irish in any way, listening to a blue megamix in Mongolia's second "city" Olgii, frankly at their whits end. But thinking positively they are in Mongolia! After an utterly Baltic nights sleep, although sleep is being generous, the Russians gayly let the Micra leave but the Mongolians almost didn't want it and who can blame them! Arriving at the border post with half the back end dragging quite noisily along the ground wasn't the most convincing evidence to give them. After realising that with no Russian visa to be sent back to Russia with our tails between our legs, they simply had to let us in. A final demand of £5000 as a safety deposit for customs import on the car was met with a snort and to be honest they must have been hopeful as once again the Ravers have neglected personal hygiene for a solid 5 or 6 days and their clothes for much longer. So off they trundled 5 yards down the road to get the gaffer tape and cable ties out to reattach the vital parts of the back axle. Quite comically the perfect tarmac of Russia had ended at the gate to Mongolia and decended into a graded road with ridges the size of the Himalayas every 2 inces. Fear not Dave McRae borrowed Josh's lead foot and discovered that going at 60mph was worth the risk to avoid the spine crushing vibrations. It seems the Micra can also drift pretty decently. After being shafted by a petrol attendant clearly practiced in Mongol Ralliers confusion with new currencies on crossing borders and being offered a thousand pounds for the Micra we drove on probably the only bit of tarmac in Mongolia to Olgii to find an entire rear chassis for the Micra. We live in hope.
Marooned in Nomans Land
With a Micra that will be lucky to make it across the border post let alone to Ulaanbaatar the Ravers arrived to cross over into Mongolia 5 minutes too late resulting in an evening of being marooned in nomans land, with no money to buy supplies. Not to worry an epic game of penalties while Dave cooked up some pasta with pepper lifted spirits and a spoonful of nutella for dessert almost caused an impromptu rave. Today was simply an incredible days drive. The Altai Republic is by far the most beautiful scenery the Micra has had the pleasure of gracing. It's like looking at a holiday brochure for Canada and actually being able to find the scenery they put on the front cover. Massive snow topped glacier banked mountains with thickly forested valleys with clearings full of crystal clear ponds while Bambi drinks from the edge. OK maybe the nutella has made our Tops Off Ravers a little light headed but Christ was it a beautiful place.
Altai You a Story
After emerging from our tents at around midday there wasn't much time left in the day. Russia provided another glorious drive through its autonomous Altai Republic. The road wound its way through seriously rustic villages where the roadside was littered with small stalls selling wild mushrooms, berries, honey and of course the ever present water melons. We genuinely have no idea where these watermelons come from btw as they've been by the roadside for sale since turkey now in huge numbers and yet we haven't seen a watermelon field anywhere in sight! Anyway the Altai region seems to be the lake district of Russia as there is campsites and log cabins everywhere. The place is like the setting of twilight with huge forests and big mountains. The Ravers have camped just before the Mongolian border next to a gushing river. The sound of wolves is in the hills and it's pretty certain Muirs going to end up with a bear in his tent looking for a mate.
Slut Drops in Siberia
After spending the night outside a town in northern Kazakhstan called Semey, a bit of quick research revealed this was one of the most radioactive places on earth. The town had been home to the USSRs nuclear testing programme in the 1970s and to be honest the town looked like it was the remains of a nuclear holocaust. The Ravers counted their lucky stars that the Micra held its shit together long enough to get them through this place otherwise Dave and Muir may have lost even more hair than currently occuring. As the Tops Off Ravers entered Russia a smooth border crossing and even smoother roads greated them, finally was their luck holding up! Blasting it across Siberia it was not as expected. To be honest it looked like Yorkshire which gave quite a comforting sense to these adventurists far from home. Originally the plan was to take a more scenic route across the Altai region but safe in the knowledge the micra is going die asap and having past experience of Dave's scenic routes before the boys decided it was safer to cruise on to a town called Barnaul where maybe there would be somewhere to eat. By God were they surprised as Barnaul turned out to be quite a large city. Choosing the most likely place to show the footy we were soon joined by another 2 rally teams who clearly were using the same logic. After the usual exchange of war stories as is common practice on meeting of two professional ralliers the Ravers, minus Dave, and their new found friends decided to drink copious amounts of local vodka and beer. By the time they emerged from said venue it was 2 o'clock but this is happy hour it seems in Siberia. Accosting some locals it was asked where may be an appropriate facility to drop some shapes as Dave was gaging for a dance after being starved since Istanbul. Arriving at an absolutely banging club the Ravers were told that clothes that hadnt been washed for a few weeks and bodies of similar dirt level were not appropriate attire. This prompted a quick stand up spit wash and collection of some sort of odour free clothes on the high street and we were in. Suitably buzzing off the Siberian House Music Dave let loose an outrageous level of creativity on the dancefloor and introduced the Russians to the slut drop. After plenty a Altai vodka and dance offs the Ravers retired to their tents at 6am.
When Grass and Road are the Only Words Available for I Spy
Dave had a snickers for breakfast today. And that is probably the highlight of today's events for you. The already depleted moral of the Ravers which has been sapped dry by this truly monotonous country hit rock bottom when the now unmistakable rubbing noise could be heard coming from the back wheel again. This time it wasn't Joshy lead foot wasn't at the wheel to everyone's surprise but it was the granny driver Dave. Wounded for a 4th time the micra limped into quite a large town where after finally describing to the Russian mechanic that we simply wanted it botched in a few hours and not the whole axle replaced in a few days we eat like kings to try and bury our sorrows. The Ravers returned to the garage to find a scaffolding pole welded to the underneath. A double thumbs up from the swety browed mechanic suggested it was now said botched. Onward!
