This is the place where you can keep up to date with your favourite Mongol Rally team - Blame it on Big Dave. Dave and Chris are travelling overland to Mongolia, 10000 miles, often without roads, to raise money for CNCF and Help for Heroes. Covering deserts and mountain ranges and in a vehicle totally unsuited to the task and no support crew. Just 2 big blokes in a 1 litre Suzuki Swift....

SMS Update

we made it. Never in doubt...

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lost mario this morning. Panda has lost power. Making good progress but tank still leaking fuel...

SMS Update

heavy couple of days. 12 breakdowns yesterday. Mo is out. Zoltan now running on a spring off the punto and we have just fixed a major fuel leak. Onwards...

SMS Update

finally free after 3 days stuck in customs. No tarmac and only 80octane fuel...

Russia

We are in Russia. Mongolia on Monday if all goes well.

Kazakhstan proved interesting after Mario rejoined us with three corners of his suspension broken on the Panda. Chris sorted out the front end, but both rear leaf springs has snapped, and it was running on the stops. After a while, the driveshaft started complaining. We made a few goes at propping it up. First with tins of tomatoes (messy). Then with rubber bungs. We this worked on one side but the fuel tank pushed the right one into the whel and it rubbed itself to bits. So we lashed a piece of steel in there and tried to find a garage. 20 km and much local umming and ahhing and pointing left the car on a ramp being fitted at the rear with the front leafs from a 1970s Gaz truck that was rotting behind the petrol station. The locals worked into the night but it would not be finished, so we were put up in a cafe, where we were invited to drink vodka with a bunch of Kazakh army officers who were on a training exercise just up the road.

In the morning, the car was fixed. Mario was hungover and we set off to the border to cros into russia. The overnight border crossing was no fun, took 6 hours and we finally camped in a field at 5 am.

Yesterday we caught up Mojo and Mr E and 80 Clays at a nice riverside campsite south Bijsk. We are now 500km from the russian border, nursing holes in the roof for ourselves and 80 Clays, a suspect choke on the Mojo Skoda and a continual fuel leak from the Leopardy Panda. Curently debating hotel vs camping for tonight. Camp at the Mogol border tomorrow, before the most arduaous of final legs for the venerable Zoltan..... See you all in 2 weeks. Hopefully.

DH

SMS Update

is ok... We're in russia now.

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vodka with Kazakh army a good idea...

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fixed marios panda with half a truck. On to russia...

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north of almaty. Just waiting for the real bad roads to start.

Kazakhstan

Ok.  Let me try again after the last nightmare....

The last full blog was in Istanbul and I wrote anothe two days ago, and lost it.  Better luck this time.

The story from Istanbul so far....

Once we reached eastern turkey, the big change was in peoples' reaction to us.  Less did people stare at our ungainly load on the roof and more they were interested in our car's 'backwards steering'.  People also got a bit friendlier.  The predominantly muslim population of East Turkey were interested in us as travellers and began to wave and cheer us.  A taste of things to come.  Our last full day in turkey was spent climbing a steep mountain pass from Uzangol - a local weekend retreat - to the border in the shadow of Mt Ararat.  Our final night stop on the turkish side saw us invited to a local wedding that was happening in the camp site we stayed at....

Next was Iran.  The friendliest people you could possibly meet, the vast majority were totally made up to see western visitors in their country.  We arrived to heavy cloud, and thunder on the horizon which soon became a bit of a mudslide.  Roads ahead were closed as the locals bulldozd the blockage, and everyone wanted to meet us.  Once it had cleared, we moved on, camping behind a kebab and shisha bar (local equivalent of the pub).  As we made our way through the country, we notice that the already crazy and sometimes reckless driving was not helped by the locals all wnating to say hello, wave or video us.  At the end of our time here, we were invited to tea at the family home of a young english student.  Her family then showed us around an ancient mausoleum in their home town of Gorgon.  We had to disapoint the next people we met who wanted to have us come to theirs for more tea, but if we'd accepted every offer, we'd still be there.  Iran was the highlight of the trip so far, and it is difficult to do the people's friendliness and kindness justice in this short space.

Six hours border crossing later, we forund ourselves in Turkmenistan.  A country with beurocracy as crazy as its policies.  20 desks in 8 rooms had to be visited so that I could import the car.  Ashgabat, the capital is full of state funded palaces and ornate office blocks, with only the bottom floors occupied. We said goodbye to the convoy, and broke the terms of our visa by heading north to the gates of hell, a burning crater cused by cavitating natural gas, with Banana Hammock.  We then returned to Ashgabat, before taking a terrible broken tarmac road to Mary.  The next day we made the Uzbek border but couldn't cross.  So an the morning we wer the first over and made good time - catching the guys we'd previosly convoyed with - 80 clays and Mo.  Mario and Paul of Leopardy had gone ahaed, but couldn't continue dur to paul becoming ill.  He is currently recovering and will fly back to the UK.  Get well soon Paul, and Mario, we hope you'll catch us up before the end.

This morning we crossed into Kazakhstan.  Is Niiiice!  We are staying in Shymkent, and looking forward to more beers with the convoy after another border extravaganza.

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