Wrapping up an adventure….

Riot police and river crossings, blatant corruption and mindless bureaucracy, and of course mechanical breakdown. These are the things that threaten to get in the way of a small car driving over 9,000 miles across 19 countries in aid of charity. Such are the challenges of the Mongol Rally, an event that sees more than 200 small cars set off from the UK and attempt to drive across one third of the earth’s surface on some of its worst roads to reach the capital of Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar.

Amidst whispers of ‘mid-life crisis’, we took on this challenge in a four door Smart car and, perhaps against the odds, we succeeded and raised just over £18,000 for CRY along the way. Our journey was full of incident and adventure, taking us across deserts, over mountain ranges and through great swathes of breathtaking expansive wilderness. From the relative comfort and familiarity of Europe, through the exotic (& hot) Silk Routes of Central Asia to the spectacular steppe region of Mongolia, we traveled through regions seldom visited by tourists and largely untouched by modern life. The warmth and generosity of the local people we met along the way, most of whom lived simple lives with few possessions, was at times overwhelming and certainly one of the most memorable aspects of our adventure.

Our greatest challenge was probably the quality of the roads. To drive a small town car that is built for safely negotiating the weekly shopping run across some of the worst quality ‘roads’ and roughest terrain imaginable was interesting to say the least. Despite fitting a sump guard and suspension blocks to increase our chances of not breaking the most vulnerable parts, we still managed to crack the sump whilst driving through the Gobi desert (and towing another car at the time!). Luckily for us, we were rescued by fellow rallyers Ruben & Miguel, both Spanish mechanics. Such was the instinct for survival and ‘esprit de corps’ among the multi-national rallyers that we spent much of our 1,000 mile journey across Mongolia traveling in convoy. Every effort was made to ensure the cars made it to their destination – nothing appeared to be unfixable. Ingenuity and improvisation counted for everything in such a remote environment. A pair of flip flops were zip-tied into a broken suspension spring, providing enough support to get the stricken Suzuki Alto to Ulaanbaatar, only to then be removed and returned to their owner’s feet!

Highlights along the way were many and varied, but most memorable were the scenery and the people. The scenery was ever changing and spectacular, from the Gates of Hell in the Karakum desert in Turkmenistan to the mountain passes of the Transfagasaran highway (Jeremy Clarkson’s “best road in the world”) to the huge valleys of central Kyrgystan to the stunning storm clouds, rainbows and wild eagles in Mongolia. We met so many kind, friendly people, including Turkmen truck drivers, vodka drinking Kazakh mothers, proud Georgian businessmen, endless enthusiastic Mongolian children and of course many other rallyers from all over the world, each with their own stories to tell.

This was very much the trip of a lifetime. We had lots of adventure, raised some funds for a really worthwhile cause and came home with our faith in the human spirit fully restored. But what next…?!

Day 39 – Erdene Zuu to Ulaanbaatar

We’d gone to bed the night before knowing that the only thing that could really cause us serious problems before Ulaanbaatar would be a change in the weather. The off road sections that we’d covered to get to Erdene Zuu looked like they’d be treacherous in heavy rain and the only way to get back on the road to Ulaanbaatar involved retracing the steps of our detour.

There was relief all round when we awoke to sunshine and it only took about 90 mins to get back to the UB road. It was a beautiful morning and we probably saw more eagles that day than at any other point in the trip. The remaining American team, www.innocentsabroad.org broke a spring in the off-road section but they were able to keep moving and we knew that once we rejoined the road to UlanBataar we should all be ok.

Typically just as we were all relaxing the fuel pump in Julian and Fish’s Punto decided to stop working. Once again Miguel and Ruben were called into action, back seats were removed, hoses were cleaned, cable ties were used, and perhaps an hour later the convoy was back on the road.

Mongolia is a vast country with a population of only 2.9m. Ofthese 1.2m live in the capital Ulaanbaatar . It’s difficult to describe it as an attractive city and traffic congestion is utterly stifling.

It took us over an hour to drive the last 5 kms. Darkness was descending, it was raining and although we now knew that we were certain to make it to the finish we prepared ourselves for a low key arrival. In the city traffic we’d stayed with Julian and Fish and their limping Fiat Punto as the other members of our convoy moved on ahead of us. It was never going to be possible to keep 6 cars together in that traffic.

We needn’t have worried about a low key finish, as we turned off Peace Avenue into Tokyo Street the line came into view. The other 4 teams in the MF Convoy had arrived a couple of minutes before us and as we drove to the line a wonderful crowd of people were there waiting for us, beers and champagne in hand. Many of them were teams we’d met along the way, and with horns blaring, lights flashing the last 2 teams of MF Convoy made it over the line.

It was a fabulous way to finish a fabulous event.

The finish line!

Day 38 – Arvaikheer to Erdene Zuu

We’d heard thatas we got closer to Ulaanbaatar the roads would be better. We were now only 350kms from the finish line, driving on tarmac and for all the teams there was an increasing confidence that the possibility of reaching the finish line in one piece was becoming a probability. Yet again the Mongolian roads had some surprises in store for us. With the tarmac came potholes and it wasn’t long before the Arkansas Country Cousins in their Alto had broken a spring. In classic Mongol Rally style a creative solution was found. Logan took off his flip-flop, Ruben found some cable ties and 30 mins later the shoe was doing the job of a spring. (After the Alto made it to Ulaanbaatar  Logan retrieved the flip flop and is wearing it again!)

Ruben sorts out the flip flop solution

Whilst the Arkansas Country Cousins were being helped the Dutch team www.ramblinmen.com lifted their hood to check an unusual noise and found that the bolts fixing their engine in place had been worked loose by the constant vibration. The engine was moving in the engine bay, interesting… At this point the Arkansas Country Cousins and TeamSkhandinavia were nursing cars that couldn’t take much more so they decided to push on to the finish line by the simplest route possible. The rest of the convoy decided to take one last risk and we took on a 70km detour (25km off-road) to visit the historic and important monastery, Erdene Zuu. This also gave us an opportunity to spend a night in a Ger,( a traditional style Mongolian nomadic Yurt). There can be no denying that it was a tourist experience, we were entertained by some Mongolian throat singing and posed with eagles but it was a highly entertaining detour. Some of the boys cracked open a few bottles of vodka and rumour has it that one of the Dutch team inadvertently spooned with Ruben when he crashed out in the wrong bed.

Monastery at dusk

The traditional hunting eagle

Day 37 – Bayankhongar to Arvaikheer

We woke up in Bayankhongar to torrential rain and a town that had become a mudbath. We’d set aside the morning to get the car put up on a ramp and checked over by a local mechanic. In doing this we found a smaller, 4th  crack in our sump. The car really had taken a beating in the previous days, and although our sump guard had saved us on countless occasions there is only so much protection it could give to a car that sits as low on the road as a Smart.

Julian and Fish also managed to get their car started again. It seemed that taking the engine apart, cleaning various bits of it and then putting it back together was all that was needed.

Ricard and Lucy of Team Skhandinavia also joined us again and the MF convoy was up to 8 cars.

The road to Arvaikheer was the easiest driving we’d had since crossing the border and although we had to deal with some muddy off-road and a river crossing there weren’t any challenges that we hadn’t faced before.

 

 

 

Day 36 – to Bayankhongor

With no mechanic in sight we decided to keep towing Julian and Fish until we found someone who could help. This was probably the most challenging day of driving in the entire trip. The tracks were a mix of sand and stones with steep climbs and steep descents, littered with ruts, holes and rocks that needed sudden avoidance. The cars were separated only by a 10 metre tow rope and Julian was relying mainly on his hand brake to maintain distance between us. Julian had spent a couple of years driving dune buggies in the Singapore Army and did a brilliant job of maintaining control behind us although he told us later that it was a highly stressful experience!

We towed the Punto for a further 70kms that day, we’d found a rhythm and had high hopes of getting to Bayankhongorwithout further problems. Yet again we learned that when people talk about Mongolian roads being “car killers” they do so for a reason.

In our Smart, throughout the trip we’d worked on a 90 minutes on, 90 minutes off basis for driver changes just to keep things fresh. We stopped, mid afternoon for a change and as we took a couple of minutes break by the car we saw a huge pool of oil leaking from our engine. This was potentially catastrophic. A broken sump is a big problem and without oil the car is finished. We were literally in the middle of nowhere, a convoy that consisted of a crippled Smart, a crippled Punto and a Suzuki Alto with a 1litre engine. At this point we thought it was highly likely that our rally was over.

Rally over?

We decided that it would be best for the Arkansas Country Cousins to drive to the nearest community (about 50kms) in their Alto and find either a mechanic or truck drivers who could tow us to somewhere we could get help.

By amazing good fortune within minutes of our breakdown, and on a road where only one other car passed in the next 2 hours, Miguel and Ruben from the Spanish Team,Tempranillo and 3 other MR teams appeared out of the blue.

Miguel and Ruben are both mechanics and were heroes of the rally. At the finish line in UlanBataar they counted up how many teams that they had helped get back on the road during the rally, 18, an amazing number and we are incredibly grateful to them.

It transpired that we had been lucky. In stopping the car to do a driver change we had ensured that the engine had been switched off before it ran out of oil, if we hadn’t done that the engine would have been finished. It also turned out that the oil spillage had been caused by cracks in the sump rather than a big hole. The Arkansas Country Cousins discovered they had some liquid metal to fix the cracks, and Miguel and Ruben were carrying 5 litres of spare oil. It took a few hours but we finished the day back on the road and still in the rally. We’d also now become part of the “MF” Convoy. Miguel speaks some English but his favourite phrase (which can apparently been used in all situations on a rally) begins with the letters M and F. Our new convoy consisted of 7 teams, Spanish, American x2, Dutch, Swiss,Singapore and British. We could have called ourselves the UN convoy but MF seemed a better fit.

The MF convoy push on eastwards

Day 35 – East of Darvi to Butsaagan via Gobi-Altai

Altai is the capital of the Gobi region and is also a key stop off point on the Mongol Rally. According to Lonely Planet it’s the home of the “Mongol Rally Graveyard”, half wrecking yard, half repair centre. It was a real eye opener to spend a bit of time here. Some cars had been towed in and were left as scrap, to say that they looked beaten up would be an understatement. Other rally teams (with consent) were scavenging for spare parts, others were giving away most of their possessions so that they could get into other cars for a ride toUlaanbaatar . We later heard that one convoy of British lads had to leave a Fiat Punto and in an attempt to get to Ulaanbaatar in time for flights home 6 of them were trying to squeeze into another Punto for a 1000km ride to the Mongolian capital. Oh to be young again!

Leaving Altai we had a massive bonus of a 100km stretch of tarmac suddenly we were making real progress and faced the possibility of getting through a day without any major problems.

Stunning scenery once again

Lesson Number 4: When in Mongolia never assume that you are in the clear.

40kms after we had left the tarmac we were driving a challenging stretch of off-road when Julian and Fish bottomed out on a rock after a dip in the track. Their Punto came to an immediate stop. They were able to turn the engine over but fuel was not being delivered to the engine. Again we spent an hour or two trying to solve the problem and on this road there was absolutely no passing traffic. Once again we got our tow rope out and towed the Punto 30kms to a small village in the hope that we’d find a mechanic. On this occasion we’d found a village without a mechanic.

Setting up camp outside the village in an area surrounded by wild horses the evening  was unusually still and of course we weren’t smart enough to recognise that the phrase “lull before the storm” exists for a reason.

At about 2.00am the wind started to pick up and turned into a ferocious gale. The sheer scale of Mongolia and the massive plains means that there is nothing to stop the wind and when it blows, it really blows. Stuck in our one man tents that were being flattened by the wind we knew that our weight was probably the only thing that was stopping the tents being blown to oblivion! Not much sleep that night!

Day 33 & 34 – Olgii to east of Darvi

Much of Mongolia is at a high altitude, and even when camping on the open plains we were above 2000m. This makes for cold nights and of course, thinner air. On day 2 in Mongolia we’d found a place to camp off road at the bottom of a grassy hill in a more mountainous area.

As it started to rain the next morning we realised that our under powered cars were suffering in the thinner air and getting back up the hill on wet grass was not nearly as straightforward as we would have liked.

Lesson Number 3: Always think about how a change in weather might affect your exit in the morning!

Mongolia is an epic, truly beautiful country and on this day, driving through the mountains and the ever changing, dynamic scenery we really began to settle in to our task. Whilst we dreaded seeing certain road types ( the washboard roads) we started to really enjoy driving in sand and a decent tail slide merited high fiving and plenty of boyish excitement in our Smart.

Another river crossing

One hour into the 4th day in Mongolia one of our convoy had the first major problem. Ricard and Lucy of TeamSkhandinavia came to a halt on a dirt track in their Ford Fiesta with a completely sheared radiator hose having  lost all their coolant.  Out came the Swiss Army knives, Araldite, a coathanger,duct tape, a pair of pliers and some old scrap tin as Julian & Fish led the way in trying to fashion a creative short term fix.

We spent 90 minutes in a vain attempt to get the car back on the road and during this time the only cars that passed us were a 3 car Mongol Rally convoy. This was the only time in the entire rally that another Mongol Rally team passed us by without stopping to say hello or to offer help. 99% of the time the collective “We’re in this together” spirit of the Rally was fantastic and left us with many great memories of the selfless way that people helped each other. For some reason this one team hadn’t bought into that philosophy. We know who you are!

The constant, brutal vibration from the roads had done more damage to Ricard and Lucy’s cooling system than we had first thought and it became clear that they needed to be towed to the next village,Darvi, which by good fortune was only 30kms away. Up stepped our Smart car for her first towing session of the rally!

Darvi turned out to be a delightful place to stop for a couple of hours whilst the local mechanic got to work on the Ford. A small, utterly unhurried one street community of little houses with brightly coloured roofs and a little café that served outstanding meat dumplings. In these communities you are more likely to see a horse or a motorcycle outside a building rather than a car. It would have been easy to stay there for a day or so but we had to push on.

Darvi high street

Darvi

10kms outside Darvi Ricard and Lucy stopped again. They were leaking coolant and it was clear that their problem hadn’t been completely fixed. The next town was over 200km away and reluctantly we all agreed that the best solution was to take them back to Darvi to get a proper fix and that all being well we would catch up with each other the next day.  On this occasion another Mongol Rally team who happened to be car mechanics did stop to offer them help (stand up Doug + Ben of the YardMonkeys) and they were back on the road.

We finished the day driving through a storm and whilst it was amazing to see several weather systems in such big skies it wasn’t much fun trying to set up camp in driving wind and rain miles from any shelter.

Day 32 – Tsagaanuur to Olgii

On our first night in Mongolia we made camp a few hundred metres off road as the sun began to set. We’d picked a spot where we were surrounded by cattle skulls and realised that this must be the site of the Foot & Mouth outbreak that we’d read about a couple of months earlier.

We were camped in convoy with Ricard, Lucy, Julian, Fish and the Arkansas Country Cousins who we’d met earlier in the day and who were responsible for introducing us to a couple of bottles of Vodka and a shot glass while we cooked supper.

We’d been told that everything up to Mongolia would be the “warm-up act” and the next morning we got our first taste of just how true that was. Having entered Mongolia by it’s western border at Tsagaannuur we’d chosen the toughest route to get to Ulaanbaatar. It’s a journey of 1700km and only a small part of it is on paved/tarmac roads. The rest is a network of paths and dirt tracks that have developed over the years.These are incredibly tough and challenging roads made even harder in adverse weather conditions. There are almost no signposts and the best way to navigate is to follow the main tracks as much as possible and just keep heading East. If you are driving a truck or a 4×4 this is fine. If you are driving a small city car then around every corner there are likely to be new, occasionally daunting challenges lying in wait.

A local boy takes an interest in our convoy

On our first morning it took our convoy 5 hours to drive 120km. Our first river crossing took over an hour. One of our number got a little over-excited and decided to drive straight through the middle of the river, not appreciating that although it wasn’t particularly deep it was sitting on very soft and thick mud. Two of our convoy cars tried and failed to tow them out but the car was well and truly buried in the mud.  These are roads where traffic is an occasional rather than a common sight and we had to wait a while for a truck to drive by and help rescue our friends. Lesson Number 1: be patient and make group decisions about how to tackle obstacles!

Stuck in the mud

We tackled 3 rivers on that first morning and quickly adopted the “river crossing fist pump” from each car as we made it safely through the water.

The second thing that we learned on that first morning was the importance of travelling in convoy. On one hand it makes things slower as each team, almost in turn, has to deal with problems such as flat tyres, but we saw very quickly that we all needed each other and going it alone would greatly multiply the risk of failure.

We got through the rest of the day without too much incident but it had been a steep learning curve and even the roads of Turkmenistan hadn’t prepared us for the challenge of Mongolian roads. At one moment you can be driving on sand, then stones/rocks, back on to dirt tracks and then worst of all the “washboard” tracks that are ribbed by truck use and are like driving on corrugated concrete. It’s almost impossible to describe the beating that a small car takes on these roads. Even at very slow speeds the car shakes violently and the springs and shock absorbers are pushed to their absolute limit.

Day 31 – Mongolia!

On day 31 of our trip we finally got to the Russia/Mongolia border between Tashanta and Tsaganuur. We’d heard that a number of the teams who’d preceded us had taken 2-3 days to get their paperwork processed before being allowed into Mongolia. We’d also heard that only 5 or 6 cars a day were getting through. Importing a car into Mongolia is a laborious and expensive process and given that at every previous border crossing en-route no-one had heard of Smart Cars we were prepared for the worst.

We arrived at the Russian border at 8.30am and joined the queue with Ricard and Lucy from “Team Skhandinavia”, Julian and Fish from Team Singapore (we’d last seen them in Bulgaria) and Schuyler, Logan, Ben and Marc, the “Arkansas Country Cousins” who were squeezed into a Suzuki Alto.

A couple of hours later we’d left Russia, and after a 20km drive through no-mans land we arrived at the Mongolian border. The first thing we saw was a car park packed with 19 other Mongol Rally Cars. In fact it looked less like a car park and more like a refugee camp. Tents had been erected, people were playing cricket, cooking on stoves, lounging in hammocks and generally looking like they’d been there a while. A customs official took our paperwork, directed us to the car park/camp and told us to wait. We immediately resigned ourselves to an overnight stop at the very least.

Held at Mongolia border customs

The other Mongol Rally teams told us there’d been an internet problem that had slowed the process down, most had been at the border 24-36 hours, some a little longer. The atmosphere in the camp was great and very relaxed. A combination of cricket/football/rugby games mixed with some beer and Vodka and various teams (including us) trying to offload extra gear to reduce our weight going into the tough roads of Mongolia.

In the end we were lucky and the Mongolian officials appeared to decide that it was time to clear the backlog. The border closes at 6.00pm and we were the last team to get clearance and got through just as the guards were locking up for the day.

Finally we were in Mongolia!

Briefly in Russia

Getting into Russia was perhaps easier than we had expected. After the usual document checks and car inspection on the Kazak side came the obligatory forms and further car inspection by the Russian customs officers. All was done in good spirits and completed in a very acceptable 2 hours. The most striking change on entering Russia was the quality of the roads. We now luxuriated on smooth, pothole-free stretches of tarmac that took us north east towards Barnaul. Through much of Europe we had enjoyed the sight of sunflower fields brightening our path, but the size of the Russian sunflower fields was breathtaking. Add to this the many birds of prey soaring above the expansive landscape and you have a recipe for a relaxing day’s driving.

Barnaul itself is a typically big & bold looking Russian town with busy traffic and trams cross-crossing its grey streets. We found the Barnaul hotel and were glad to have Valery, the security guard look after our car overnight. After a sushi supper at the nearest restaurant we could find, we returned to our hotel for ‘a night cap’. It soon became clear that our hotel did not have a bar, but only a nightclub staffed by a bevy of pretty young girls and costing @£6 to enter. Rather taken aback and not wanting to pay anything just to get a beer, we declined and headed back to our room. Sadly, our days of relishing the prospect of a Russian nightclub appear to be behind us.

Up bright & early, we breakfasted in the hotel on cereal, eggs and ‘koc juice’ (we later found that one can buy cartons of fruit juice that boast they contain “100% koc”!). Next we headed straight for the local supermarket to stock up on provisions. Having attempted to buy some beer at the same shop the night before, we were once again prevented from doing so by a burly shop assistant who seemed bemused by our apparent desperation to get hold of alcohol. It turned out that Russia still has quite strict licensing laws that allow alcohol to be sold only between 9am and 10pm. Never mind, we would surely find some along the way.

Our drive towards the Mongolian border took us through the Altai mountain region and was a spectacular route. The scenery had a very Alpine feel  as we passed clusters of chalets and camp sites amid the pine trees and along the river banks. As in other locations we met some cyclists. This time a group of four Americans en route to Mongolia from Europe.

Altai mountain region

Although Ricard & Lucy were close behind us, they didn’t manage to catch up before it was time to camp for the night, so we found our spot beside the road and set up tents and our tarpaulin cover. We were a mere 50km from the Mongolian border, which would open at 9am the next morning (it closes daily at 6pm and our plan was to be in the queue by 8.30. We spent a quiet last night in Russia, joined by the local cattle herds as they headed home for the night. Supper was pasta with tuna (again) washed down by a couple of tins of local beer (which we did of course manage to find along the way). Tomorrow we would head into Mongolia. There was a definite sense of expectation and growing excitement in the air, along with plenty of mosquitoes……