What begins with 'F' and ends in 'uck'?

The less than 10-year old rule is waived for teams taking emergency vehicles on the Mongol Rally. This year there’s at least five ambulances, a school bus and a couple of fire engines. Having met Team Ready to Mongol at several points along our journey, we were most chuffed when they joined us at our camp halfway between Khovd and Altai. As the brave six pulled up in their trusty Carmichael/Volvo ‘H’ reg firetruck, we let them know that the price of admission for the campsite was a driving lesson for each of us.  

No problem! No problem at all, said Drew, just let us get set up and we’ll take you for a drive. As I advance in years it’s always a treat when I can tap into the energy and enthusiasm of young adventurers. They have no boundaries and the world is a better place for them. 

Drew got his LGV license as a 21st birthday present and has been around lorries all his life. He has an easy ability to instill confidence in the novice driver and in short order I’d slipped the handbrake, found second gear and started this comparative behemoth on a her way. Earlier in the day the lads had lost a spare wheel off the top of the firetruck, so our objective was to spend a half hour looking for it. We headed onto the dirt track road and despite Drew’s warnings about keeping an eye out for potholes, I opened her up a bit. Mongolia is no kinder to large vehicles than it is to small ones. We immediately hit a brace of divots and humps that had the truck nearly lifting off the ground. Naturally enough I braked, only to discover Volvo’s excellent stopping power was fully capable of throwing the rear seat passengers through the windscreen. More subtlety and finesse was required. Too soon it was time to change drivers and in short order Tom’s sure hand on the wheel had us turned around and back in time for vodkas by the stove. 

Lady Carmichael was donated to the Mongolian fire service at the finish line and will continue to see duty in Ulaanbaatar or its environs. When calculating the smiles per mile ratio, for about £3,000, split six ways, she was a real bargain and did the lads proud.  

Cliff and Berm go to Mongolia

There are no roads in Mongolia. That’s not entirely true. There are roads, some of which are paved after a fashion, but they amount to a paltry 1,500-ish kilometers in a country twice the size of Texas or three times the size of France. The rest of the unasphalted populace runs around on highways that are really only gravel reinforced dirt roads. The good news is if you don’t like the track you’re on, go ahead, make one of your own. Who knows? Others may follow and you’ll have created a new road. Plus driving off the beaten path rubs the sage and releases an incredibly fragrant bouquet.

Liberating as it is, this freedom comes at a price. Just when things are going smoothly and you’re haring along at 40mph, flying through swales of rock and sand like an out of control HotWheels racing car, you’ll run smack into a ditch, a car killing boulder, or both. In short order you learn that driving in Mongolia is organic. You not only have to know your car and its limitations (hint: it’s capable of far more than you might think), you have to know your skills and your limitations (hint: you know a lot less than you might like to believe). Perhaps most importantly you have to understand the topography of the countryside and predict where water will collect, because where there’s water there’s craters and potholes. If you can’t learn the lessons the road is trying to teach you, either your car will die or you will. At 40 mph there’s a lot of learning and a lot of processing going on. We soon realized that to stay alive we’d have to cut our driving shifts from the vague “however long we wanted” down to a maximum of two hours. 

In the last few days we have crossed rivers, sand dunes, rock strewn alleys, marshes, mountains, and climbed 8,500’ passes. We spanked Swifty pretty hard more than once (her bumper is zip-tied on now) and so far she has bounced back. At one point as we zoomed along on a river of mud we worryingly started losing power. Turns out that for almost 50 miles Swifty was firing on only two cylinders - one of her spark plug leads had shaken loose during our third stream crossing. Another time screeching metal on metal sounds made us stop and remove the front right tire for an inspection. Turns out we had inserted a few shards of gravel in the brake caliper after a failed attempt at jumping over a berm. But when you’re doing 40mph, steering by compass, watching for the dips and the cliffs, then accelerating through the curves, Swifty and Mongolia are the best fun on four wheels there is! 

No Stone Left Unturned

Mongolia! Mongo-liah! Ah! Mon-go-li-ahhh! The rally finally begins in earnest. Those of you that have run a a marathon know that at 21 miles you’re halfway to finishing the 26.2 mile race. The Mongol Rally is no different. We knew there were no roads, no signs, no means of getting to Ulaanbaatar other than on our own. Yet, nothing really prepares you for a week-long drive at 20 mph in the most incredibly beautiful scenery imaginable. But more on that later. 

Carefully making our way down the rocky, pothole strewn pass towards Tsaaganuur, one particular motorcyclist made himself known by flashing a Christina Noble Children’s Foundation (the official Mongol Rally charity) t-shirt at us. Temujin followed us and eventually we gave into his spirited entrepreneurialism and agreed to join him for dinner, besides it had been some 24 hours since we’d eaten and we were starving. Almost as soon as we sat down with his “I Love You”, a head of mutton was produced and Temujin proceeded to carve it up for us as we hungrily dived in. Hygiene, like asphalt, is a thing of the past now. Horse, camel and goat cheeses, traditional breads and hearty broth complemented the meat. 

Grandpa and Grandma welcomed us and after dinner we were joined by the archetypal disco-dancing drunken brother and his young son, then later by the sober, sensible brother who worked for the army, along with his fetching wife and their new son. The circle of Mongolian family life was completed the next morning as we watched the goats being milked. Our version of couch surfing was for us a perfect introduction to this vast, empty country. Temujin gave us directions and recommendations on what and who to avoid along our route. He reassured us that Swifty’s new Barum tires would reach Ulaanbaatar and so far they’re holding out. 

Two Steppes Forward, One Step Back

Morning brought tired heads and communal support. The entire camp, now three teams, the Dutch, the Danes and the Americans (us), woke about the same time and started figuring out the next steps for the wrecked Peugeot. Breaking camp and heading back to the crash site found us meeting with another rally team, Ready to Mongol, made up of six strapping lads from the UK driving a firetruck. A cadre was formed and plans hatched. Dominic and Mike headed off for the local hospital in search of another Dutchman, this one suffering from appendicitis, but with a Russian/English speaking girlfriend in tow. Tracking him down led us to the daughter of the head of local administration who spoke English well and knew everyone including a friend in the customs department at the border. Progress was being made! Our new interpreter rode with us back to the crash and from there proved herself invaluable. The firetruck crew and a local rag and bone man collectively manhandled the broken car onto a flatbed truck and the goal of a border crossing that day started becoming a reality. 

Then the border closed for lunch from 1:00 pm to 2:00pm. Swarms of children were entertained with, among other things, strips of duct tape. Official forms were filled in and eventually the gates were lifted. The Peugeot along with its team were towed the 20 kilometers across no man’s land ultimately making their way to Mongolian customs. In short that meant ending up in the holding pen like the rest of us. Swifty’s paperwork came through in about 90 minutes and we were on our way. We left behind an English team participating in another rally that had been there for 36 hours waiting for a bank transfer, another Mongol Rally team driving ambulance, and the Dutch crash victims. The Danes and the firetruck both made the crossing in short order. 

Crashing at the Border

My mother used to tell me if I didn’t have anything nice to say don't say anything at all. So here goes. The Altai are frickin’ gorgeous! Growing as they do out of the fields of sunflowers in the rest of Europe they come as an invigorating surprise. The rolling foothills gradually become full sized mountains with some of the most impressive glacial landscape that anyone can imagine. The huge valley torn and formed by the mineral-green Katun and Chuya rivers brings delight and change at every turn. Sweeping moraines and eskers form a foreground for rugged hills with smoothly carved vales, their blends of reds, greens and browns transmuting by the moment. The excellent road climbs steadily and eventually reaches a vast, high plateau that borders Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia and China. Hiking four countries in a single holiday may one day be possible, but given the size of the local radar installation with its extra passport control point it’s unlikely to be soon. 

Pausing only long enough to build a stone cairn to honor those we love and snap a few photos we zoomed towards Tashanta and the border with Mongolia. A team from the Netherlands, the Dapp’re Strijders, coming the opposite way beeped us and we pulled over. Dominic, Anne-Marie and Iwo had just met the Fast and the Furry (a Danish team) and both cars had arrived too late to cross that day. So they were heading back to the village for cash and a bite to eat. We said we’d probably catch up with them, but wanted to have a look at the border anyway.  

The border was indeed closed when we got there. Another double back found us late for a date with a bottle of beer and supper. About 700 meters from where we had first met the Dutch team we had a communal moment of “there but for the grace of G.. go I.” Their Peugeot sat crushed and ruined amongst a field of debris stretching for yards in all directions. Onlookers watched as Anne-Marie attempted to stitch a gash in Iwo’s knee, while Dominic wandered around making phone calls. That these three were alive and almost unhurt is either a miracle or a testimony to Peugeot’s engineers. Reluctantly pulling the medical kit from Swifty’s boot, we examined the troops, dressed their wounds and were amazed at their sang-froid.  It was the silliest of faultless accidents, but without a car the team faced a series of logistical challenges, not least of which was how to reach Ulaanbaatar and how not to pay a huge fine for abandoning their car in Russia.

Southern Exposure

Kulunda - unremarkable save for its place on the border. Having lost our way in the dark and seen more of the town than we wanted we finally consulted a map. Our campsite was on the way to Rodino (sans Hart and Scott) and Barnaul. Reckoning that the road signs were as screwed up as they usually are in Russian towns, we turned left and headed blissfully in the right direction for the next five kilometers - until we ran out of asphalt and understood why the signs for Barnaul were pointed the opposite way. Bugger! We turned around and found the sign we’d missed in the darkness of the night before and were on our way at last.

Romanov presents itself as the county seat for Romanov prefecture. How did we know this? That it has the same name and birches line the main street with its community college, official buildings and statue of Lenin were all clues. A sharp right turn presents a department store and strip club which seemed, perhaps, a little incongruous, but we rolled with it. Carefully cranky some 22 hours since our last real meal we needed to eat! The local supermarket yielded a full roast chicken which we devoured with our hands in the town’s memorial park. After lunch, as Mike took pictures of Lenin’s statue, Tom met an elderly gentleman who said something in Russian, that to Tom’s ears sounded nostalgic. Tom asked him if he spoke English whereupon the man turned pale and said, “Nein!”, then swiftly walked off. 

Barnaul - city of crap signage. Biysk is not southwest, but southeast off the M52 which lies far beyond the city limits across the river. Another doubling back, instinct, intuition, and a check in with the local fuzz had us pointed at the end of a baton in the right direction. Our prime directive, that the driver makes the final decision on which direction to go in, has paid off more than once. 

Mayma is in the foothills of the Russian Altai. The landscape had changed from open expansive fields to rolling forest with a river at our side.  We stopped for a late dinner at a disco cafe. The matron of the restaurant called a woman with perfect English to take our order. We declined the offer of accommodation and instead made camp in a high field overlooking the river in the cool moonlight. 

Back in the USSR

“You need a form like this! For your car!” The boyish-looking immigration officer demanded for the third time as he pointed to the small rectangle of paper that was our pass through the border crossing. You pick it up when you arrive at the border gate, they write down your license plate number and how many people are in the car and you get it stamped by immigration. Without it you can’t leave and you have to go back to the beginning. 

“Yes, we know. That’s it. That’s our piece of paper!” we said in unison.

“No, you need a form like this!”

“Yes. That’s it! The one you’re holding.” 

“You mean,” he said, turning the paper over, “This is it? Ohh! [Swears in Russian]” He laughed and turned beet red as his colleagues in the back room started razzing him. 

This was easily the most fun we’d had crossing a border. It’s a universal truth, once you get people laughing life gets a little easier. We’d had a couple of attempts at being good samaritans during the day. Flying along between Astana and Pavlodar we spied a gentleman optimistically waving cars down. Flat tire, let’s see if we can help. He had been busy taking a shredded tire off its rim and indicated that he needed an inner tube, which we didn’t have. We apologized, but looked for a tube in the next gas station 10 minutes up the road, anyway. To no avail. Our next stop was for a body lying the road, but by the time we’d turned around someone else had revived the corpse. 

Back in Russia we missed the turn for Barnaul in the dark and wound up camping in a field without crickets. The silence was a little disconcerting, but perhaps they’d been eaten by the gigantic mosquitoes. 

Kazakhstan - A Few Final Words

There’s a lot to like about Kazakhstan. The roads were faster than we expected, traffic was minimal, and Astana a surprisingly easy town to get around in, but after 48 hours we’d had enough. Stopping overnight in the capital gave us a chance to explore some. Lonely Planet suggested a hotel  that was less expensive than the Ramada at $319 US per night. Our young, Asian, receptionist spoke little English, but when we asked if we could see a room, she said, No. Why not, is it a secret?, Mike asked. She giggled charmingly and changed her mind. Our goal for the rest of the stay was to try and make her laugh. Breakfast in the morning was served by a humourless waitress and we ate in the company of a taxidermy wolf and lynx. 

The Khan Shatyr tent is apparently the largest in the world and rather beautiful in its way. Turns out, though, it’s really a shopping mall, replete with stores like Addidas, Cinnabon and Levis, a monorail, water park, arcade, food court and Tower of Terror. People love it. Facing back towards the city the tourist is presented with dozens of avant-garde buildings, a huge mosque, colorful fountains and a gigantic ball on a stick, all glittering like Las Vegas. Again, it’s a melting pot of ethnicities. 

Our impression is that the government is doing a fair job of investing its oil money and building out the country’s infrastructure. And, yet, with dominant party politics and a strong authoritarian streak it’s not really a democracy. As such it displays some of the aberrant behaviors that goes along with the insecurity of not having a clear mandate from your citizens. Chiefly, controlling the press and media and preventing bloggers from accessing their accounts (yet oddly allowing people to Twitter away). Police checkpoints abound and seem much more enthusiastically staffed than their Russian counterparts. 

After our shakedown (see previous post), we hightailed it for the border. Kazakstan’s unchanging landscape was  punctuated only by the occasional strip mine or toxic waste factory. Power stations here seem very inefficient and their brown hazy fumes, blown by the northerly winds, permanently settle on the horizon. We pined for Mother Russia and determined to make the border crossing Saturday night. 

Fear and Loathing in Astana

Editor’s note: This recently discovered manuscript sufficiently closely paralleled our experience in Astana that it is reprinted here in full. 

The edge was coming off the mescaline and my mind cleared just enough that I could see the jack-booted thug waving us down. Gripping the steering wheel I inhaled and glanced over at my lawyer. He lay sleeping off a tequila and ether high, small spit bubbles forming and then bursting on his lips with every rasping breath - I knew he wasn’t going to be of much use. The window cracked with the sound of a baton and I opened my door, stood up and palmed a black bird - I was going to need to focus. 

Indicating that I should follow him into the checkpoint, his Gestapo cohort, sporting a burl handled AK-47, made me understand there was no choice. Gaining equilibrium as the speed finally starting taking effect I followed, reaching into my back pocket for a cigarette. Standing a full head taller than everyone else in the room gave me a view of these petty larcenists I didn’t want to see. The timing and rhythm of their demands, passport, visa, car documents, was practiced to the point of atavistic perfection. Dammit, I needed my lawyer or a belt of scotch, preferably both. 

Reaching into my shirt for another black, I was startled to hear my name, Duke, you Mr. Duke? Twisting around I found myself facing the archvillain, a weasel eyed senior officer, with more coffee stains on his shirt than bars on his shoulders. Sweat broke out on my forehead when he told me to follow him into his office. What did this sick sadistic pervert want with me behind closed doors? My sphincters clenched involuntarily as I slipped the pill under my tongue and dried my palms on my shorts. 

The stench of his greed, the rank odor of dirty money, permeated everything. You not have Kazakhstan insurance, that is very bad. His smoothly broken English lulling me briefly as the walls started closing in. In his left hand he held my license and with his right he reached over and pulled open the top drawer of his desk. Suddenly the room was full of spiders, pouring out of the desk and climbing the walls. Shuddering in horror I jabbered insanely, begging for my life and terrified at his obliviousness to the emergency in hand. We were both about to be consumed by flesh eating arachnids and he only wanted cash. Shaking uncontrollably I scattered roubles on his desk only to see his smile splay into grimace as a giant tarantula savagely tore at his cheeks. 

Somehow the racket of the melee outside broke through my consciousness. The door suddenly blew open. My lawyer, all 6’ 6” and 350 lbs of him drew a bead on me and bellowed, I’m your attorney dammit! How dare you enter into a negotiation without me? We’re leaving. NOW! Staggering to my feet I could only marvel at the carnage. Give me the keys! commanded my lawyer. Raising a choking pall of burning rubber he finally released the handbrake and took off, the gearstick in one hand and a half empty bottle of tequila in the other. 

Stepping Out

Our crossing from Russia was efficiently uneventful - the quickest border crossing of outside of the EU so far. The biggest immediate difference was passing from the Caucasian to the Asian in a matter of 500 metres. We looked for an insurance agent, but didn’t see one and figured we’d find one later, or take the risk. It was time to put the hammer down and head for Kostanay and a field for the night. 

Kostanay is one of those dimly lit towns that aspires to be more than the electric grid will allow. Dusty side streets with a small neon-lit core of banks and shops, the town is wholly dingy and on the surface sleepy. Then, what the hell?? In the space of 90 minutes we had been waylaid by an overly friendly woman looking for a ride, a job, a beer - who knows?, ordered blindly from a menu we couldn’t fathom, gotten followed by some sketchy Latvian in a Mercedes, and driven around and around trying to find our way out of town. The highlight of the whole shenanigan was scooting onto a side road with our lights off to evade the Latvian, all the while laughing like teenagers avoiding their parents. Tom booted up his laptop which held our one detailed map of Kazakhstan and looked for our way out of town. 

Northern Kazakhstan is one big field, treeless and as flat as a warm three day old Coke. Straight as a lay line the road stretched out invitingly towards Astana, the capital. If we  had wondered where all the high tech farming had gone, here it is. Huge mechanized reapers like something out of a James Cameron movie thunder down the roads in search of the next harvest. Vast pig farms and chicken coops consume whole villages. All that’s missing is the ADM logo, or perhaps its there, somewhere in the fine print.