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This is a one stop shop for all the latest Yak Street Boys news where you can find out everything that's been going on in preparation for our epic journey to Mongolia.

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The Yak Street Boys Diary

Okay, here is the finished article. Edited, expanded, re-ordered and uploaded for your convenience. Hope you enjoy it!

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Pre-Rally Shenanigans
17th July 2009

The journey began in Sheffield, several hours after it should have due to a seemingly neverending list of things that suddenly needed doing before departure. The traffic on the M1 also sucked big time which slowed progress even more. Later, innocently opening a rear window was met with Steve (the name chosen for our trusty Daihatsu Hi-jet by the pupils at an Eckington Junior School) jettisoning his first piece - a window winder. Predictably, as son as the window was stuck down it started raining. A hasty solution was created with carrier bags and duct tape until we got to some services and took a spanner to it.

We arrived at Goodwood and got lost. After a lengthy search, we finally found the nondescript field we had been kindly provided because we followed some flashing lights in the distance. The flashing lights were attached to a pickup truck that was busy removing the mangled remains of a small Datsun or suchlike from the side of the road. It turned out that said Datsun had been involved in some uninsured automotive fracas with a rally vehicle earlier in the day. The Rally had its first casualty, and it hadn't even started.

We picked a shady spot and pitched our tents. Our newly reinforced and snorkeled Steve looked the business as he took his place alongside his dilapidated brethren. We then cracked open a celebratory beer and poured one to the kerb for our absent teammate Paul, who was sadly unable to join us on the rally on account of being horribly diseased.


DAY ONE - The Rally Begins
18th July 2009

The Yak Street Boys without diseases awoke on the morning of the Mongol Rally in high spirits. Drops of morning dew had decorated Steve like tiny beads of glass which glinted happily in the warm sun. There was an electric crackle of excitement to the crowd and the air was full of the heady aroma of adventure!

A bacon sandwich and a shower later and we were ready. The launch party was pretty good, lots of excellently crap cars to look at and a few veterans from past rallies. We also got our passports back with zero hassle, filled with official stamps and long place names. As we perused the vehicles on display, it became apparent that some people had made a great deal more effort than us and suddenly our beloved Steve started to look a bit outclassed. However, time will tell his true greatness.

A lap of the Goodwood track, some goodbye waves to our loved ones and we were off!

The weather deteriorated rapidly the closer to Dover we got. We stopped off in a garden centre and purchased a children's sandcastle bucket to cover the air filter on the end of the snorkel. A few fellow ralliers passed us on the way and much mutual horn use was enjoyed. Got on the ferry just in time and we were informed of "adverse weather conditions" for the crossing. This translated to the ferry being tossed wildly about at the mercy of the rough seas. Everyone walked as if they were pissed. Amusement occurred.

By the time we hit France the rain was terrential. We disembarked the ferry and headed East on the motorway. En route, we elected to head for Bruges, purely on the basis that a humorous movie was made there. Three countries in a day we thought, wasn't bad going.

On entering Bruges we got lost. We drove round until about half one in the morning trying to obtain directions from late-night supermarket proprietors. We continued to make things progressively worse for ourselves until Paul got us back on the right track by mercifully cheating with his iPhone.

We pulled into a camp site about 2am and found it to be already populated by Rally folk who kindly smuggled us in after hours. We found the onsite bar colourful to say the least, full of inbred carnival types and electro dance music that was as shite as it was loud. Selected staff also favoured a more naturist clothing policy than us stiff brits were accustomed to. The young children watching the naked bar wench cavort with the drooling clientele were particularly disturbing to observe. But hey, they were the only place selling beer.

We got talking to some Belgian professional rally drivers who seemed intent on getting progressively more shitfaced until 7am. The fact that they were due to start a race at 8am didn't seem to strike them as a problem. The rain had stopped by the time we finished converting ale to urine and we drunkenly pitched our tents and flaked out.


DAY TWO - Belgian Steaks and Border Police
19th July 2009

We had a nice long kip and got up about eleven. We gathered under the vans back door to get out of the rain. We fired up the stove and made hot drinks until the sun came out. We got the van up on the jack for the first time and had both front wheels off to investigate a persistent knocking noise that turned out to be a loose indicator light. We then adjourned to a local Belgian restaurant and had some wicked nice food overlooking a picturesque lake that resembled Rother Valley. Proper scoff was most welcome after last nights imbibed evening meal.

The team then left Bruges behind and got back on the motorway. We mistakenly strayed down the exit towards Brussels centre instead of righteously staying on the ring road. This resulted in us performing our usual trick of becoming lost. It was a nice change from the motorway though and we got some snaps of Brussels that we wouldn't have had otherwise. At one point Paul turned up a side road and we collectively shat ourselves to the sound of almighty thuds from the wheels. Fearing the worst, we pulled over only to find that it is apparently the custom in Brussels to randomly have 6 inch high suspension wrecking lane markers on their streets. We finally sorted out our directional woes by asking the phone again and got underway once more.

Passage through the German border was so uneventful we didn't notice it. I wanted rolls of barbed wire and a wrecked motorbike with a skeleton of Steve McQueen, but I was happy to receive endless beautiful rolling hills encrusted with thick forests and dotted with massive wind turbines. The Fatherland soon showed its true colours however as we were almost immediately pulled over by the humourlessly uber-efficient Polizei Deutche to ask if we had packed any human beings in our luggage. We hadn't. They politely sent us on our way.

Our tyres steadily pushed away more miles until we pulled over at a quiet, scenic roadside picnic area for a cuppa. The amount of cars that arrived and paused briefly before driving off again convinced us that we had stumbled upon a popular German dogging site. As sunset retreated and night fell we made ourselves scarce and decided to devour more tarmac. The next few hours were filled with road noise, white lines smoothly sliding by and the repetitive thud of cats eyes.


DAY THREE - Czech It Out
20th July 2009

We drove through the night and arrived at Klenova Castle in the Czech Republic about 8am. Only a few cars had beaten us there and a well earned rest was had by all. We awoke in the early afternoon to the sound of decent tunes and the smell of cooked bacon. I poked my head out of the tent to see that the campsite had materialised around us while we slept and the festivities were now in full swing. Breakfast, sunbathing and cold pints of Budweiser for 30 Czech Krona (a quid) followed.

In order to obtain more cash, we went for a brief excursion to the nearby town of Klatovy and discovered a Tesco. We bought some beers and a bottle of vodka apparently flavoured with cannabis. We returned and got ready for the party at the castle. The venue was excellent and despite some very long queues for drinks everyone was in the party mood very quickly. Ska and dub bands, fire eaters, and a dance tent were just some of the distractions on offer.

The best costumes were undoubtedly the spacemen who geniusly repurposed spherical paper lampshades as comically oversize helmets. Also extremely noteworthy were the Knights of Ni who looked right at home in the medieval environs. Andy and Paul discovered that the horrific reputation of Absinthe is not exaggerated.

More alcoholic beverages later and Paul hit upon a nifty costume idea. A trip back to the tent, 50 glow sticks and lots of duct tape later and Paul and I had transformed ourselves into luminous skeletons much to the amusement of fellow rallyists.

We stumbled our illuminated asses back to our tents about half four in the morning and somehow managed to sleep through the riotous cricket game that had manifested in the center of the camping area.


DAY FOUR - Are We in Austria?
21st July 2009

Awaking and packing up the next morning proceeded with all the enthusiasm of a petrol station attendant working Christmas Day overtime. We were pretty much the last to leave and we revisited Klatovy for some breakfast. We discovered that the Tesco instore eatery was in fact a chinese restaurant and we feasted on duck stir fry with rice to prepare us for the day ahead. We bought some random odds and ends from Tesco, like biros to bribe officials with and some shades for the car windows to shield us against the 30 degree sunshine. We also purchased some chocolate ice cream bars called "Nogger", which we found amusing for some reason.

We got on back on the road and headed for Linz. En route we worked out that it had a German sounding name because it was in Austria and the "unmanned toll booth" that we had just driven though was in fact the border. The architecture immediately changed to something much more Sound of Music and the green hills and pleasant Gasthof were most tranquil.

We entered the small town of Freistadt and found a McDonalds which had free internets. We had some scoff and attempted to arrange our Letter of Invitation for Azerbaijan (one of the ingredients required to cook a visa). We had a quick look around the beautiful town which appeared to be built around a fortified castle structure. Grass and trees now decorated what once was the bottom of the moat.

We drove on through the sunset and into the night until hunger struck and we stopped at a services. We chowed heartily on our salami sandwiches and discussed our kipping arrangements for the evening. The People's Republic of Sheffield team showed up and informed us that they knew of a campsite in a National Park near Wien so we tagged along. As our journey continued we noticed a searchlight cutting through the night sky, which ended up to be handily eminating from exactly where we wanted to go.

By the time we rocked up, as usual, the campsite was shut. Somewhat irked by this, we all set up camp on a nearby roundabout underneath a sign that said "campieren verboten" which we most certainly did not understand.


DAY FIVE - We Aren't in Kansas Anymore, Dorothy...
22nd July 2009

After a nice kip, we awoke to the sound of remarks being shouted in German from passing cars. They were obviously compliments about how attractive we all were, but sadly we did not understand them. We waved goodbye to our companions and pushed on to Budapest.

We elected to head for the city centre jointly out of a need for more internet and a boredom with long stripy tarmac. We got into the centre and parked most easily. We were awed by the ornate architecture that just oozed texture and history. We located an internet cafe mere streets away and attempted to jump through more hoops in persuit of Azerbaijani paperwork. Failure was ours again for reasons I won't bore you with and so the gang left to hunt down some lunch by the Danube.

We chose a bijou little eatery close to the river and enjoyed a most pleasant rapaste. We then customarily got lost again as we attempted to use our common sense to navigate the backstreets of Budapest. We eventually chanced upon a string of signs that led us along a path that quantum physics couldn't make sense of, but did indeed deliver us at our chosen route south.

More miles slid away and apart from an encounter with an unbelievably surly Hungarian mini-supermarket clerk, they were without incident. We arrived at the Serbian border and joined the queue of vehicles waiting for admission. This crossing was obviously going to be the first one that wasn't plain sailing.

The entry to no-man's land was great, with smiling border guards exchanging pleasantries about Sheffield while beckoning us in. The exit from no-man's land into Serbia however was staffed by a much sterner fellow who demanded to see our vehicle's Serbian green card, which was a new one on us. Sing hosannas however, because as luck would have it they were available right there at the border for our convenience! Only $170, a bargain i'm sure. After we'd shelled out for the jack, sorry, necessary paperwork, I was nabbed by a Serbian customs official for the heinous offence of taking a picture of one of their piece of shit police cars. He made me delete the picture in front of him and then demanded that I erase all my other pictures of the border crossing. Nice chap.

Needless to say, these events left us with less than a glowing first impression of Serbia. The decision was made therefore to drive through the night to Bulgaria so as to silently register our complaint by contributing as little to its economy as possible. The Serbians were one step ahead of us however and had craftily placed toll booths along the main highway. It really did feel as if they were trying to skank us for cash at every step. Tolls would eventually add over 40 euros to the mandatory bill.

The road users of Serbia appear to have no fear. Immediately after entering the country we were greeted with no street lighting, no cats eyes and asphalt that appeared to have been laid by a child with a bucket and spade. On these roads the natives chose to drive maniacally fast, constantly overtaking on the wrong side of the road, only ducking briefly back in a hair's breadth before oncoming traffic removed their wing mirrors.

We stopped in a services however and there were some redeeming features. I got to wash my hands and face in a real sink (luxury), a nice Syrian guy shared his Arabic tea with us and there was a cute little stray dog that we fed. We also encountered biscuits called "Noblice". Snigger.

Our trusty Steve soldiered doggedly on with Paul at the helm who somehow had become immune to fatigue and seemed intent to conquer the entirety of Serbian highways himself.


DAY SIX - My Kingdom for a Bed... and a Shower
23rd July 2009

As dawn loomed over the horizon it became apparent what an awe-inspiring country we had been missing in the blackness. Low mist hung hauntigly over vast farmland and shells of cars alongside ramshackle houses firmly underlined the notion that we were now very, very far from home. All trace of familiar European convenience had now vanished and we were interlopers in a foreign land. At one point we passed the full size front portion of a World War Two bomber nestled innocently between two domicides as if it had every right to be there.

The Bulgarian border came and went with only a most reasonable 10 euro fee for the use of their roads. We headed for the center of Sofia, the capital, as we thought they might have some spare internets we could borrow. As the big city neared, familiar signs of home started to return. We stopped in a McDonalds and a young kid sidled up. His great attitude and most smiley demeanour earned him a packet of biscuits and we let him sign the van with a marker pen.

Our quest for connectivity led us to the Sofia Radisson hotel and we had a nice meal in the bar. Our e-mail informed us the visa efforts were at long last progressing and we decided to have a bit of luxury in the form of a proper bed for the night. Some rudimentary Googling yielded the Sofia Arthostel and on arrival it proved full of character, most comfortable and full of friendly people. We had a couple of bedtime beers, gratefully used the shower facilities and finally got our heads down about 2pm. We awoke at 7ish and ventured outside for more beverages. Good conversation was had with fellow hostellers and the in-house chef whipped up a mean chicken curry.

We then strolled into Sofia for a poke about before returning to the hostel for more drinks. We added our Yak Street Boys stickers to the eclectic decor of their basement bar and hit the hay.


DAY SEVEN - Are Those Kilometers You're Eating?
24th July 2009

Andy woke us all up at the hostel about 7:30 and I thanked random deities that I'd switched to coke around midnight the night before. We got out of Sofia painlessly and the journey proceeded without incident. We arrived at the Turkish border and everything was handled professionally. We had to buy some visas and another green card, but this time the charge was a much more palatable $20 and $50 respectively.

Yet more pleasant but uneventful journey followed. The main things that struck us were the sweltering heat, the fact that the motorways were bereft of other cars and how much stuff appeared to be under construction. Mile after sweaty mile was dealt with entirely unaccompanied and we passed countless building sites and roadworks.

Upon entering Istanbul, we encountered a huge toll plaza. Being amateurs, we found ourselves in entirely the wrong lane with no hope of turning round in the face of an avalanche of oncoming vehicles. This meant we required an electronic keycard to proceed. At this point, two helpful fellows in a van let us in front of them and somehow managed to communicate to us without English that they would let us use their card. As we approached the booth, it was obvious many other people were also having the same difficulty as there was a huge crush of cars trying to cram into our lane.

We surprised a few people by letting them in but then drew the line. We shunned one driver who was then all the more determined to get in after us. Thing is, the guys in the van behind us were sticking to our bumper like AIDS to a blood cell 'cos they were helping us get through. The persistent bloke didnt care though and got closer and closer. We felt sure he would back off before he traded paint with our new friends, but we were wrong. He edged in once too often and the van behind us carried straight on. We could see the car rock on its suspension in our wing mirrors as the van guys scored a lesson into his bodywork. Don't mess with Turkish drivers.

When we reached the checkpoint, the Turkish guys approached the booth with their card and 50 lira (20 quid). They handed it to the teller and we were both beckoned through. It looked for all the world like the Turkish guys had paid for us. Utterly gobsmacked by this act of goodwill, we thanked them profusely and headed on our way.

The ride to Sile was more of the same pleasantness, only with lots of hills added. After a brief potter about in the town, we found a computer shop and niftily got directions to the campsite with the aid of Google Translator. We arrived and all possible expectations were surpassed. "Woodyville" had cabins, treehouses, a beach right on the Black sea, hammocks, a swimming pool and a decent restaurant. All this for... wait for it... Ten quid each a night.


DAY EIGHT - Mosquitoes are Bastards
25th July 2009

Humans are not at the top of the food chain. Mosquitoes are. A combination of lacklustre repellent application and being sat outside the restaurant drinking beers the night before had given us all a fine collection of itchy sores. Opening the tent flap in the morning to the spectacular beach view however was enough to take our minds off the irritation immediately. Breakfast, swimming, sunbathing, showers and lunch followed and we headed off in the early afternoon. The only notable from the journey was a passing petrol tanker. Notable because one of its wheels was nothing short of on fire. It puthered thick acrid smoke as it passed us going in the opposite direction. We continued onward quickly in order to put as much distance in between us and the potential bomb as possible.

As night fell, we again lamented that we had left it too late to find a camping spot. All we could see was the road ahead and blackness at each side. The narrower roads were too dangerous to pull our usual driving through the night stunt jointly due to the locals insane overtaking and the fact that the tarmac was holier than the Pope's caulinder. We left the highway to try our luck in a random local town. The place looked like the aforementioned petrol tanker had driven here and detonated. The buildings were eroding away and any pedestrians we saw were swaying about in the center of the road blind drunk. The van started to get a bit of attention so we headed back to the main road and stopped at the next services.

The services turned out to be a truck stop and we grabbed a bite to eat, and so did the mosquitoes. Despite having the worst toilets on the trip so far, the guys knocking about were friendly so we elected to just chuck the tents down between some of the bigger wagons on the forecourt. Surprisingly comfortable snoring followed.


DAY NINE - Some Death Occurs
26th July 2009

We awoke early the next morning, breakfasted lightly and got back down to the business of moving eastward. The native driving style was even more loony in broad daylight with people pulling some quite ridiculous manoeuvres in order to further their position in traffic. We lost count of the amount of times we found the road ahead of us filled with large oncoming lorries that only just managed to scrape their way back to the correct side at the last second.

It wasn't long before such behaviour came at a price. We noticed a small crowd gathering in the road about half a mile ahead and the traffic started to slow and bunch up, obscuring our view. When we stopped, we were only three or 4 cars from the problem, so we sat on our window sills to get a better look. A blanket was being draped over a lump in the road and there was a beat up car on the right hand side with a human-sized hole in the windscreen. We got back into our seats. An ambulance came out a few minutes later with its sirens wailing and we were beckoned through. The blanket had gone, but a large puddle of thick blood remained. Suitably sobered by what we had seen, we gave a tug to make sure our seatbelts were securely fastened and continued on our way.

We proceeded along the dual carriageway that runs along the Black Sea on Turkey's northern coast. A campsite showed up near Akcay and we gratefully turned in. By no means as swish as the last one, it still sported an amazing view of the water over the black volcanic sand and we pitched the tents right next to it. The blessedly mosquito free outdoor eating area was host to a plethora of animals. A chicken and her chicks, a black puppy that was so cute it made your eyes bleed and my favourite, three kittens! We feasted on chicken, kofte and beer and the cats climbed about all over me.

Shortly after we ate, two English rally teams ("Lunch in Mongolia" and "Another Speedboat Adventure") pulled in and they joined us for beers. Much fun and good conversation was had they kindly let us have a go on their portable shower. Tomorrow we head nearer the Georgian border.


DAY TEN - The Heavens Open
27th July 2009

Awaking and packing up to glorious sunshine, we left the campsite and headed along the coastal road of Turkey looking for banks and internets. A bank was quickly found and a couple of stops later yielded our second goal. We had stopped in the shadow of a huge mosque and the van got lots of attention from the local kids and we let them draw on it, much to their amusement. We communicated what we wanted and were shown to an internet cafe a few steps away.

We received complimentary coffee and were made to feel very welcome as we chatted to the proprietors of the local roadside shops. Waving goodbye, our journey rambled on. We encountered a van bursting at the seams with coloured footballs and we all got our cameras out. We inadvertently reached the border, which resembled a muddy industrial estate and turned around looking for a place to sleep.

We returned to a beach front bar where we had passed some fellow Mongoliers shortly before the border. We got the owners to let us into the car park for the night and we erected the tents on their volleyball court. Team "To Almaty and Beyond" fired up their stove next to ours and we had our first van-cooked meal.

We got into our tents to the sound of the patter of raindrops. The zips had barely closed when the skies opened. Massive rolls of thunder, terrential rain and wind battered our fabric homes and the sky was peppered with the strobe of multiple lightning strikes. We hunkered down for what was obviously going to be a most restless night.


DAY ELEVEN - Across the Georgian Border
28th July 2009

The storms relentlessly came and went and we got little sleep. The rain was still hurtling down in the morning, only stopping thoughtfully after we'd packed eveything up. The tents had stood up amazingly well, only letting in the smallest of trickles.

The rain had started again by the time we reached the border and was getting back to the business of wetting everything thoroughly. The border patrol had a poke about in the back of the van and apart from the most modest of charges we were on our way into deepest Georgia. Quite literally deep as the incessant rain had caused somewhat of a flood. Cars swam their way along with waters reaching a foot up the doors. The Georgians had it covered though, they simply hacked a hole in the road. This created a vortex the size of a coach wheel as the sewers beneath slurped up the murky liquid.

The main cities of Georgia looked run down and in dire need of a paint job. Outside them, the country itself looked devastated. Decaying cars and rotting buildings proliferated. Everything metal was rusting away, everything concrete had chunks missing and everything wood was splintered and broken.

The road to Tbilisi took us up into the hills, but the steep drops at the roadside did nothing to dissuade the locals from their passion for overtaking. Suitably numb to this by now, we soldiered on until we happened upon the scene of another accident. The customary debris and worrying fluids on the road were being washed away by the continuing downpour and there was a brown Lada that had been shunted so hard in the front that it had concertinaed to half its normal length.

We passed makeshift shelters by the roadside offering various wares that seemed to change by the mile. Damp looking corn vendors were replaced by stalls selling wicker goods, after that honey was available and then pottery items. We made it to Tiblisi before nightfall and the sharp divide between city and country life was again very visible. We chanced upon a hotel down a muddy backstreet and despite its most questionable external appearance we decided to investigate inside. We were most pleased to discover that the interior was plush as hell with a friendly and helpful guy called Ka who proceeded to sort out all our needs. We went round the local shops and bought some beer, bread and roast chicken, feasted, washed and passed out in our comfy air conditioned beds.


DAY TWELVE - Beaurocracy, Azeri Style
29th July 2009

We awoke rested, fresh smelling and ready to hunt down the Azeri embassy. Our visa ingredients had arrived via email and we got straight down to business. The warm sunshine made Tbilisi appear much more pleasant than the drab rain of the night before. Locating the embassy was quite a simple matter with the aid of a map we purchased from our ever-obliging host.

We ran into team Knight-Micra who helpfully informed us that we also needed passport photos and had yet another form to fill in. More news was that we could reduce the visa cost from $100 to a mere $20 with a $5 tourist voucher obtainable from the same company that sold us the visa ingredients.

More than slightly peeved that said company had neglected to volunteer this pertinent nugget of information, we located more internets and quickly obtained the necessary dross. When we returned to the embassy we were told that, despite it blatantly being manned, it was now closed and we needed to return at 4pm. After a brief search, we located a coffee shop and ate pizza while we filled in our pointless papers.

We traipsed back once more to the diplomatic festival of pain to be told that the 4pm window of consulary openness was not for new visa applications, only for picking up existing ones. Admitting defeat in the face of insurmountable beaurocratic gayness, we returned to our hotel and booked in for another pleasant night.

We decided to have a quick nap. Three and a half hours of brief snooze later we awoke thirsty and peckish. A stroll into town was decided upon and we soon located a bar that served more pizza. We drank until a very merry 3am was reached and drunkenly stumbled back to our hired lodgings.


DAY THIRTEEN - Good Morning Azerbaijan
30TH July 2009

At 10am the embassy opened and we were ready and waiting. The Azeri officials took our flawless paperwork and gave us a bill for $60 which we were told to take to some random bank on the other side of town and pay. This final hurdle was navigated painlessly thanks to some nifty sign spotting by yours truly and yet another page of our teeming passports was decorated with a nation's seal of approval. We had a brief stroll around town, gave Steve a drink and set off, smoothly exiting Georgia and navigating our way to the border.

The border was just a dirt track with some rudimentary shacks, iron gates, barbed wire and camouflage clad guards with big guns. Paul and I were separated from Andy and the van and strolled through as pedestrians. The Messengers team arrived in their Spanish ambulance to join the checkpoint fun and we chatted as we waited. An hour later, Andy emerged at the gate asking us for additional money as he had been drained of funds by the Azeri paperwork charges. A half hour later and a total of $80 in useless documents and we were on our way into deepest Azerbaijan.

Once again, the huge cultural differences the border separated were instantly apparent. The roads weren't just incomplete, some weren't even started. The first 30 miles from the border were lumpy dirt tracks that snaked tauntingly between untouchable segments of newly laid tarmac. When we finally reached decent asphalt, progress was good. We passed shiny new buildings and a full size stadium adorned with olympic symbols.

Azerbaijan was by no means finished, but unlike Turkey and Georgia, you got the sense that the Azeris actually intended to complete their structures. Primitive dwellings mingled with modern construction and what was incomplete actually had people working on it, rather than simply being abandoned.

The lovely smooth road didn't last. We soon found ourselves bouncing along rutted, sandy paths that taxed Steve's suspension to the utmost. Hours of bone-jarring misery followed until night fell. We shakenly turned into a dimly lit roadside cafe and mimed our desire for food. I was taken round the back and shown a variety of dead animals presumably to choose between. I picked the one I recognised the most and it duly turned up in stew form with some vegetables, cheese and bread.

The dangling lightbulbs struggled to illuminate our dinner through the shadows cast by hundreds of orbiting insects. An old television nailed to a wall blared an eastern European music channel, and extremely large cockroaches crawled on destinationless journeys past our feet. What little meat we found on the unidentified skeleton in our broth resembled tough chicken, but there was enough of a meal in the potatoes and garnish to ensure we didn't go hungry.

At this point The Messengers team pulled their medical machine into our dusky roadside hideaway. We chatted briefly and decided to turn in for the night. The best course of action was to sleep in the van, so all three of us squeezed into our faithful wagon and hoped to awake in the morning.


DAY FOURTEEN - Baku to the Future
31st July 2009

I lost count of the number of times I awoke during the night with pins and needles in various body parts. The television never stopped jangling and the flickering headlights of the passing cars did nothing to aid relaxation. We awoke around 7 and I felt suprisingly rested, which was fortunate as it was my turn to tackle the ruined highway.

We followed the ambulance and despite being vibrated to death with half the roads being absent, good progress was made. At one point we were happily speeding along a section of motorway in the fast lane and were randomly confronted by a sheer trough that had been gouged out of the road. The damage should have easily finished our intrepid vehicle off, but thanks to the speed we were going, we just flew straight over it.

We reached Baku around lunchtime and it was yet another large modern city amidst bleak abject poverty. Tall buildings reached into the sky and the roads were wide, smooth and filled with honking, snaking lines of traffic. As we looked for the ferry port, a taxi pulled up and ejected one of the guys from "To Almaty and Beyond". Due to having no Azeri visa, he had been forced to leave his teammates and get a plane. He joined our two teams in our search.

Shortly after, we luckily chanced upon the nondescript shack that served as a ferry ticket office down the first random backstreet that we investigated. There was a makeshift shanty town of rally teams and vehicles by the dock itself that were in the process of navigating another beaurocratic minefield. Some people's visas hadn't come through, others had been refused passage on the ferry, others had to divert to Kazakhstan.

Luckily, we had no similar problems and were able to procure passage on the next available ferry to Turkmenistan that evening. However, it was $100 per person and $50 per metre for the vehicle. After some haggling and cigarette fuelled bribery, we got it down to the princely sum of $460 for the lot. Then we got skanked for a $40 tax for the use of the bridge. Swine.

Rumours were rife of further taxes at the other side of the Caspian. Many tales of passports being witheld, ferries stopping before the port and customs exit doors being locked until hundreds of dollars were surrendered. All we could do was hope that didn't happen to us. The supposed 10pm ferry actually left at 1am and 4 gallant bands of adventurers had secured passage. The ferry appeared rather run down, with flaking paint and rust everywhere. Our main hosts were three women of middle age and surly Russian demeanour.

The leader of the coven had a voice like a Jack Russell's bark and sported a rotting grill of gold filled teeth, sunken eyes and a rutted, sullen face that looked like it needed pumping up. Think Dot from Eastenders dressed in combat trousers and a tight, leopard patterned tank top and you're halfway there. The second one could have been Aunt Bessie but she'd clearly eaten all the Yorkshire puddings. Her beady, squinting eyes peered out at you from her porcine face like you were something she'd just scraped of her shoe. Number three was the quietest and made an effort, therefore she was the most pleasant of the bunch.

They tried various methods to extort additional cash from us. There was a charge for bed linen, for a room with a toilet and the key to the showers also appeared to be made of dollars. Narked from the arbitrary taxes in Azerbaijan, everyone stoically refused to pay anything. The only thing they got out of us that night was a round whipping of acidic sarcasm which ended up going so far that it was a damn good thing they didn't speak English very well.

After a brief walk around to orient ourselves, a quick chat and a light meal, we climbed into our bunks for a good night's rest on our bare, stained, florally patterned mattresses.


DAY FIFTEEN - Never Tell a Brit There's Booze Available
1st August 2009

We awoke after a most satisfying slumber to the itch of bed bug bites, the pang of hunger and the irritation that our hag-like hosts still hadn't unlocked any showers. We went up to the top deck and sunned ourselves for a while. Our empty bellies eventually compelled us to trade cash for food and we enjoyed a pleasant soup in the onboard eatery.

During our meal, Dot showed up and yapped at us that we weren't going ashore today as the port was closed. Our initial displeasure was bolstered by the discovery that they had vodka for sale on board which started something of a party on the top deck. The volume got louder with every bottle purchased and when the entire ship's alcohol supplies had been consumed, things were getting pleasantly rowdy.

The broomstick riders came up and requested that we keep it quiet more than once to no avail, our previous displeasure fuelled by beer made for an awkward attitude. We started paying attention when about 5 big Russian speaking ferrymen came up and told us to move off the top deck in no uncertain terms.

We moved to the back of the ship which had a seating area. There were more crew there and we chatted to them, they taught us some Russian and how to play dominos. A cultural misunderstanding earned Paul a slap in the face from one of the shipmen but what could have turned quite nasty was calmed down most effectively and a good time was had by all. We stumbled into bed about 3am still extremely merry.


DAY SIXTEEN - The Wicked Witches of the East
2nd August 2009

It was 4am and someone was thumping hard on our cabin door. The cauldron stirrers were back and all false decorum had been totally abandoned as they went up and down the corridor hammering and shouting. "Open di du! No sleep!" was being repeatedly barked in an all too familiar canine voice. I investigated and opened the door. Docking was apparently imminent and they needed us out of the rooms. We slowly forced our bleary-eyed, inebriated carcasses vertical and packed up.

We were all tetchy about passports due to the rumours that we had heard and were eager to reposess them before we hit land. Much fruitless key withholding and argument ensued, all to no avail. The initial massive rush to exit our cabins turned out to be much more for their convenience than ours as we were left to lie on the floor until dawn broke and the ferry eventually nudged Turkmenbashi.

Even after docking, we were far from touching soil as another laborious wait ensued while they manually processed the passports with a biro. Doing this during the delay obviously hadn't occurred to them. Yet more hours trudged slowly by until all the boxes were ticked and we were allowed to disembark. Our cars trundled about 500 metres until we parked outside our next pointless time-wasting irrelevance which was Turkmeni Border Control.

The first notable was that the natives were considerably more Asian in appearance than those we had so far encountered. We were traipsed around endless office windows in order that a series of seemingly meaningless forms could be graced with various official stamps. I will spare you the yawn inducing details, but it took so long that we stopped to cook a meal half way through beside the nearby railway track. Each of us exited customs a great deal older and $150 dollars lighter. We finally got back on the road in the late afternoon.

Thanks to the border gatherings and shipboard shenanigans, friends had been made and four vehicles were now in convoy. Us, Team Intrepid (a couple on motorbikes) and The Original Mongolists (two cockney lads in a Suzuki Swift). The first thing we noticed was that all the Turkmeni people treated us like rock stars. Everyone that passed us was beeping and waving. We stopped for drinks and our vehicles were immediately surrounded by crowds of smiling faces. We gave some marbles and glowsticks to the kids and they went down very well.

Further down the highway, we saw our first camels. In the middle of the road. We stopped and took photos before continuing onward in search of somewhere to camp. Shortly after, a suitable flat piece of desert was chosen off the main road and we pitched up while more camels strode across the sunset just behind us.


DAY SEVENTEEN - Off the End of the Thermometer
3rd August 2009

We awoke early to make the most of the day and headed for Ashgabat. Beautiful marble covered buildings towered amidst smaller dwellings and endless fountains and statues. We found a supermarket and stocked up on supplies and meat for a desert barbecue. We struggled to eat our newly purchased ice-creams before they disintegrated in the intense heat. I would love to be able to tell you how hot it was, but the thermometer on Craig's motorbike only displayed a series of dashes after it passed 50 degrees. We soldiered on towards Mary, intent on doing as many miles as possible.

Shortly after this, a policeman stepped out and waved his baton at our convoy in a signal to stop. Mesmerised by the passing road, I completely ignored him, incurring shouts from my co-pilots. We continued on uninterrupted however, causing us to deduce that just ignoring the usually footbound police might be a good way to go. This is probably also a good time to mention that Turkmeni for Police is "Pygg".

Later, we pulled off the motorway and found a good camping spot in the shadow of a desert hill and I went to the bathroom for the first time with the use of a shovel. The desert floor was slowly releasing the heat it had been charged with during the day and it was like pitching tents on a huge sandy radiator. We dug a pit, filled it with coals and made a barbecue. Quite an astonishing amount of meat was consumed and we turned in for the night with the Fires Of Hell just visible on the horizon.


DAY EIGHTEEN - Zip Up Your Tents in the Desert
4th August 2009

We packed up the tents to the sound of Gayle of Team Intrepid shrieking. The cause of her distress was the discovery of a spider that had chosen to share their tent for the night as the flap had been left open to combat the desert heat. The sand coloured hairy sucker was the size of a beer mat. We all took photos and resolved to cope with the heat in future.

After a quick visit to the shovel, we were off once more. We headed through Mary and stopped at the ruins at Merv. I went to a mobile drinks stall and ordered a Fanta, only to discover that the attendant created it with soda water from a tap with a filtering rag stuck in the end. The water dispensed into a dirty glass and the relevant syrup was manually added from a nameless, creased plastic bottle. I walked away from the stall with my cloudy liquid prize and politely discarded it behind a nearby truck. I returned the to the stall and gave back the glass, happily said "mmm" to the smiling attendant while rubbing my stomach and thirstily left in search of an alternative beverage.

An ice cream and some bottled water later and I returned to the van. In my brief absence, the vehicles had been surrounded by a crowd of enthusiastic fans. Drawing on the van was a winner as always and we gestured some pleasant conversation. An old woman gave us two cucumbers and a tomato, just to be nice. When a local father started offering me his daughter, it was time to go. We sweatily clambered back into Steve and continued bouncing our way towards the border at Farab.

We passed a small township deep in the baking desert and some inhabitants were by the roadside waving plastic bottles in the air. A small boy almost got himself dented as he enthusiastically tried to stop our van by running out in front of it. We pulled up about a mile down the road for a toilet stop and noticed a small figure approaching in our wing mirror. It was the suicidally determined kid who had legged it from his village through the blistering heat.

We rewarded his persistence with a dollar and turned around to see what was so important. Our reception was a very happy one and Paul approached the drinks vendor. It was the same rag and tap operation as before, so Paul paid and left the drink. They presumably thought we were totally bonkers. We then deduced that their bottle waving meant that they were collecting them. We had two big black bin bags full of campsite remnants that we had been looking for a home for, so we handed them over and they were eagerly accepted.

Next, we encountered a donkey and its offspring going in the opposite direction. The larger animal appeared to have its front two feet caught on something as it was hopping along in some discomfort. We stopped and freed it from its bonds. On our way back to the cars, we heard shouting and turned to see a man on another donkey waving a stick angrily. It appeared that our good deed of the day had turned sour as the first donkey had been deliberately disabled by its owner and he wasn't pleased that it was now free to run away from him. We scarpered.

As the sun touched the skyline we reached the queue of border traffic. They skanked us $20 to cross the bridge and a short drive later we approached the border itself to see that it was closed. Another team was already there and I was delighted to discover that there was also a cafe that sold cold drinks and kebabs. Small frogs hopped along the dirt floor into the nearby river as we braved the mosquitoes to recline on outdoor sofas. We scoffed and chatted until the early morning and hit the hay under the border floodlights.


DAY NINETEEN - The Sweet Taste of Revenge
5th August 2009

The Turkmenistan exit border consisted of a half hour queue outside to earn the privilege to queue for an hour and a half inside. This yawnfest earned us a stamp in our passports and then we waited outside some more while the border monkeys got ready to inspect our vehicles. They found our stash of fuel and insisted we couldn't take it out of the country. The fact that we had paid for it and paid fuel duty when we got into the country didn't seem to matter to them.

They initially wanted us to leave our jerry cans too, but we refused so they produced some of their own for us to fill. We got a good handful of sugar cubes from another team and added that to our can along with as many sugar sachets as we could find. Smilingly compliant, we produced our offering and filled their stained, leaky receptacles to the brim. They seemed happy with that, so we didn't tell them about our other cans and left.

The Uzbekistan entry border was efficient and free, but just as tedious. Form filling, passport stamping and more car inspection followed before we were permitted to get underway. We parked up just after the border and were immediately accosted by a gaggle of local black market money exchangers. One woman offered 1500 sum to the dollar, but quickly upped it to 1600. Another guy came straight in with 1700 so we used him, much to the distaste of the others. As more and more mongolers came through and we told then who to use, a huge argument erupted with touts physically elbowing each other out of the way to get our business. This didn't go down well with us and we stuck with the chilled guy, almost causing a fight.

Our clan stopped at the next town to pick up water. Gayle tried to purchase a few cakes but they were sold by he kilo. When she explained this, the shop owners just gave her a few for nothing. We were feeling slightly less famous in Uzbekistan. Everyone was still super nice and we had many waves, but our reception was noticeably less riotous.

One thing we noticed was that the Uzbeks liked driving Steves. Clones of our faithful friend proliferated, only outnumbered by the ubiquitous Lada Riva. Our convoy, lead by the Suzuki Swift, lumbered on until Theo narrowly missed a van due to running a cleverly hidden red light. This curried the attention of a very shouty policeman and Theo got a telling off.

Next we encountered a guy sat in the open boot of a moving car shooting footage of another car with a video camera. They beckoned us forward and we gave them a few drive-bys. It turned out they were filming a wedding video as we could see the happy couple in the car behind as we passed. As dusk drew slowly in, a team of French guys showed up and joined our convoy. We must have looked hungry, because they pulled alongside us and passed a loaf of bread through the passenger side window.

We hit Samarkand as night fell and found a hotel fairly easily. Like Georgia, the hotel looked like a plaster shell with an unremarkable doorway from the outside, but was beautifully decorated inside. Paul took off his shirt to get washed and revealed a back teeming with insect bites from the riverside border the night before. I immediately sank into a huge hot bath and the water sucked out all the filth I had accumulated since my last shower in Turkey. The bathwater looked like porridge afterwards.

We organised to have the hotel do our laundry, drank beers, ate a light dinner and clambered gratefully into bed as the air conditioning wafted a cooling breeze through the room.


DAY TWENTY - Drinking Vodka at the Bank
6th August 2009

We were awoken by our clean laundry arriving at half 8 and were off into town in a taxi at half eleven. We strolled round Samarkand's ancient Medressa, being ornate churches covered in intricate symmetrical mosaics. Round the back, there was a large bazaar where you could buy fabrics, jewellery, food and my favourite: a goat's head with flies on it. There was a problem though. The wrinkled shawl-toting head vendor would not let me photograph her wares. I REALLY wanted a picture so I offered her 300 sum (13p) and she bent over like a sapling.

Next, we stopped at a shashlyck restaurant and ate bread and kebabs. When the time came to pay they refused our dollars, despite earlier statements to the contrary. Nobody had any local currency left so we had to change some with another customer. We strolled around a few more shops, bought some gifts and left the market. On the way back, we passed a mobile ice cream stall and Gayle and Craig both bought a pot each. It was only then that I noticed that the top of the machine was open to the air and the swirling ice cream mix inside was full of dead flies. The bikers discarded their purchases. We then continued back to the hotel via another internet cafe and promptly decided to stay another night. The bike riders gave their vehicles an overhaul and Steve got an oil change.

We then hailed taxis for a night off in Samarkand. We needed currency exchanging so our rides took us to a local black market money man first. We arrived at a pretty standard looking house and the taxi drivers seemed very familiar with the owner, a jolly looking man with a thick Russian accent proudly displaying a huge, tanned belly through an open, loudly coloured shirt. His two male colleagues were also very large. Some of us got money exchanged and then we were seated round a table with a plastic floral tablecloth in the overgrown courtyard.

The owner got out six vessels that closely resembled chinese rice bowls and proceeded to fill each with about 4 measures of vodka. I looked at mine worriedly. Call me a pussy, but I knew there was no way I could down that much vodka without hurling. I didn't want to be getting drunk in this situation anyway so I just sipped it and took the jibes. Some bread, meat and cheese were placed on the table and I tucked into that instead, but the rounds just kept on coming.

Another bottle was produced and I was now very relieved indeed that I had made my wuss status clear from the start. Each round equalled over half a bottle of vodka and by the time the second bottle was done, everyone drinking had consumed about 3 quadruple shots inside half an hour. Another large man arrived with yet another large bottle. You guessed it, more rounds. That's when the wrestling started.

Two young men arrived. One was stocky and wearing gym gear and one was slimmer and a bit taller. The stocky one was introduced as a local olympic wrestler and Dan immediately volunteered to have a go. They both got up onto a sturdy nearby bed and began. It all seemed very lighthearted and in good humour, with the winner apparently the first to pick up the other off the floor. Dan and Paul fought valiantly but were both raised to a clamour of cheers.

Then the taller one was pushed forward and I was beckoned. After short inept fumble, I somehow managed to get good footing and lift him up. The end score was 2-1 to the Uzbeks. Another goodbye vodka and we were permitted to leave. In the hour and a half that we had been in the house, everyone, apart from me, had downed about half a bottle each.

We re-entered our taxis and continued on to the Shinzano pub where we met up with the French team. I ordered a pizza and a most welcome beer. The guys got an apple flavoured shisha pipe from the english-speaking bar owner who remarkably, had the same birthdate as me. She taught me how to say "happy birthday" in Russian and gave us a round of complimentary shots. We got back in taxis and returned to the hotel. One last bedtime beer and we were done.


DAY TWENTY ONE - Zdyome Rasjenye Matt Te-ba
7th August 2009

First item on the agenda this morning was planning our route as we had decided to stick together and miss out the Pamir due to warnings received from the rally organisers and the Foreign Office website. After much messing about trying to find an ATM in a city that we later discovered had none, we set off for Tashkent.

The journey was uneventful and the roads were mostly good. It seemed that the poorer people got, the more dangerously they overloaded their various modes of transport. The winner today was a cyclist with an entire tree on the back. We hit the city still looking for a cash machine. We found three that were all either empty or out of order. We ended up stumbling upon a manned desk in a hotel that would let us pull money out of a Visa card. This yielded $100 bills that were in themselves another problem as nobody had enough change to let us use them.

Our next trial was finding somewhere to kip. It was unlikely that we would find a campsite in the city, so a hotel was required. After two tedious runs of the main strip, we gave up trying to find the hotel listed in the Lonely Planet and started asking locals. Dan befriended a car and they took us to a nice looking place, which was sadly full. The extremely pleasant receptionist rang round and got us an alternative, but it was deemed too expensive for some members of our band. Hours later and we were still driving round starving hungry.

We stopped down a back street and had a welcome meal at a 24 hour restaurant with Russian karaoke blaring in the background. The food was good and we chose to kip in our vehicles on the roads outside, while the motorcyclists got a hotel.


DAY TWENTY TWO - We are Rock Stars Again
8th August 2009

After a night bending my legs into various yogic positions around the steering wheel, I felt fairly rested, bought a cold Coke from the local supermarket and drank it in the sun. We met up with the Intrepid motorcyclists and waved goodbye to the Original Mongolists who had to go to the Kazakhstan border directly due to having no visa for Kyrgystan. We headed for the border at Osh.

Like John Travolta before us, our fame seemed to have returned. People literally jumped out of their seats to whistle and wave, we were absolutely mobbed when we stopped for drinks and Gayle was given a free melon for fertility.

We reached the border and pulled up next to a bunch of French people in big 4x4 vans who were driving from Paris to Peking. We waited in line and feasted on ice creams from the local vendors as the sun went down. A bunch of cute kids came up and their eyes gleamed with wonder when I cracked some glowstick bracelets for them. They ran off to show their friends. This resulted in a procession of eager young faces that approached me with polite hope in their eyes. I was Willy Wonka for an hour and I loved it.

The Kyrgystan border was the easiest so far, with just a quick passport check, a stamp and a wave. We drove for a while until we were sure that we were on the right road for a quick start in the morning and then pulled off onto a deserted track to make camp. A nice rice and chilli later and we were ready for bed.


DAY TWENTY THREE - Saw Our First Ger Today
9th August 2009

We arose early to force-feed Steve some serious miles and prepared for another hard day's waving. People seemed more subdued when faced with our famousness again though, as if the last movie we starred in was a bit shit. We headed through local villages and made for the Fergana mountain road to Bishkek. Tapping away on a laptop as we drove past people transporting straw with donkeys felt a bit like I was driving a burger van through Ethiopia.

The scenery got more and more epic the higher we got. Rolling green hills and valleys gave way to sheer rocky mountain ranges and massive mirror flat reservoirs with huge concrete dams. Local families living by the side of the road sold fuel in plastic bottles and as we proceeded higher, the temperature fell rapidly and it started to rain.

Then we saw our first ger: a traditional portable dwelling resembling a large round tent with a chimney in the middle covered in animal skins. Most had paths leading up to the door made from lines of white stones and some had quite posh 4x4 cars parked outside. The mountain farmers were busily herding their animals over the flat plains and the rivers were running fast, engorged with the fresh rainwater.

As Steve neared the top of his huge climb, we needed second gear as the roads were so steep. The power in his engine was reduced noticeably by the thin air. We encountered tunnels that were pitch black apart from the light sneaking in at the narrow mouth at each end. We descended down similarly acute paths, the brakes on the van struggled to slow us enough and we had to overtake slow vehicles to maintain our stopping distance.

We approached Bishkek on the longest, straightest most boring stretch of tarmac ever. Unremarkable grey buildings lined each side, the sky was grey and the road was grey. It was like driving through Stockport. The dullness eventually gave way to the brighter lights of the city centre. After a few feeble attempts at deciphering the cyrillic street signs, we gave up and paid a taxi driver to show us the way to a hotel we found in the Lonely Planet guide.

When we arrived at our destination, we paid the taxi driver and he left. Then we found that the guide might be a bit old because the building we were looking for wasn't there. But now we knew our location on the map, we found another hotel fairly easily. A few other rally teams had found it too. We had a wash, found a money exchanger and ate a pleasant, suprisingly battered, steak dinner at the nearby Pit Stop diner.


DAY TWENTY FOUR - Kazakhcident
10th August 2009

I awoke a few minutes before the alarm went off after sleeping like a rock. We got our stuff together and went back to the Pit Stop for a pleasant breakfast of pancakes. A quick scoot round the supermarket for supplies and we were on the road again.

The border crossing into Kazakhstan was easy and free with only a short, extremely pushy queue for the entry stamp. Straight after the border there was a huge petrol station with money changing facilities and mercifully, the Kazakhs had worked out that having shops in petrol stations was a good idea. This was not the country we had been expecting from the Borat movie. More suprises awaited us, too. The road to Almaty could have been in Europe with similar countryside and smooth asphalt. What was different were the drivers. Easily the maddest, most impatient and pushy buggers so far. Plus, we were no longer famous; the odd nod or wave is all we got.

Rounding a corner we saw people all over the road and a huge cloud of puthering black smoke. As we approached, we realised there had been another accident. The smoke was coming from the burning shell of a vehicle on the left verge. Some people were bloody, others crying. There was a black saloon in the middle of the road with its front completely destroyed and the deployed airbag splashed with blood. We passed so close we could feel the intense heat from the gutted hatchback. I looked to the right to see the body of a large man laid in the grass, his white shirt stained red.

We approached Almaty and the big city concentrated the automotive insanity which took its toll on the bikers. To top it off, it started to rain. It took us a while to find the right road out as the cyrillic signs once again made things difficult. We drove north and seemed to outrun the storm. Eventually finding flatness near a huge man made reservoir, we battled our tent pegs into the hard sandy ground. We enjoyed an excellent sunset followed by a warm starry evening and got an early night.

The Yak Street Boys Diary

DAY TWENTY FIVE - Kazakhs Can't Carve
11th August 2009

We woke early and decided to use the morning to be tourists and check out some ancient carvings we read about in the Lonely Planet. They were Buddhist inscriptions apparently hewn by early settlers into the massive mountains not far away. We set off to find these impressive historic artifacts.

Five hours later and we still hadn't found the suckers. After some random driving about between various hills we found some drunk Kazakh girls that pointed us in the right direction. The "striking" monolith turned out to be about 12 foot wide. More satisfied that we'd managed to find this piece of hay in a massive stackful of needles than we were with the find itself, we got back to the business of moving ourselves northeast. We resolved not to bother with Lonely Planet "points of interest" in the future.

We passed through the elusive Taldyqorghan with only the smallest of U-turns. The road continued north past seemingly endless uneventful countryside. We got bored of the view and decided to camp on some of it. A track peeled off to the left and revealed a flattish bit of ground near an irrigation stream. The ground was covered in grass that had the strong scent of lavender and filled with crickets that leapt out of your way with each step.

The sky threatened to wet us so we got the tents up sharpish and also erected a tarpaulin to cook beneath. A corned beef hash supper was gulped down and then we climbed into bed and drifted off to sleep to the light patter of raindrops.


DAY TWENTY SIX - Super Noodles are Shit
12th August 2009

Our eyes opened to warm sun shining through the tent fabric. After the time wasted yesterday we resolved to get moving and recoup some of our losses. The roads did their best to stop us, consistently being some of the worst yet. We avoided what we could, but the shudderingly pitiful surface quality took its toll. The long, straight highways droned on through the vast, flat nothingness. We pulled over when we got peckish and made the mistake of cooking Super Noodles. The howling winds were so strong they blew both bikes over while we ate and the windscreen of one was snapped off.

After lunch we got going again. A policeman waved at us frantically to stop, but we pulled our usual trick of ignoring him. This time however he hopped in his speedy Lada and gave chase. Despite the roads, he was no match for the power of Steve and we lost him quickly.

We thought we'd camp early so we stopped and picked up some beer in the town of Ayakoz. A dirt track just ouside it yielded a suitable camping spot overlooking a railway track and we got set up about 6pm. A jeep showed up and instead of telling us to move on, a nice local man smilingly gave us permission to stay on his land. A train passed by in the distance belching smoke and pulling so many carriages that it must have totalled half a mile in length.

A few beers and a vegetable curry were consumed and Steve doubled as a great jukebox. We noticed that the temperature had dropped noticeably and we were cold for the first time in a while. We wrapped up warm and were treated to a crystal clear night sky and a moonrise over the horizon.


DAY TWENTY SEVEN - Nursing a Semey
13th August 2009

The man in the jeep turned up again as we woke just in order to ask if we had had a pleasant night, which we thought was very nice of him. We packed up, and got busy. If the roads were bad yesterday, today they were apocalyptically awful and yours truly was at the wheel. We headed for Semey which had the dubious distinction of being a Soviet nuclear weapon testing site and by the look of the roads, they hadn't cleaned up afterwards.

Ruts, cracks, gouges, invisible pot holes and outright trenches were ripped into the road, where road existed. Steve took an almighty pummeling and by the time we reached the Russian border near Rubtsovsk both front suspension springs had snapped. The two halves of spring still managed to cushion things a bit, but most bumps banged and jarred as the axle hit the bump stops.

We bounced up to the border to find a Skoda and a Suzuki jeep both containing Americans. The border cost $20 and took a soul destroying 5 hours. It was dark by the time we managed to get the last barrier raised and limp painfully into the cafe car park just outside. We ordered some drinks and after a lengthy mime session I got some kind of cooked meat leg that had been microwaved from frozen and some bread. We'll see how my intestines handle that one tomorrow.

I'll take a moment here to describe the toilet facilities. Ever since Turkey, we have had to deal with either porcelain holes in the floor with a flush, or just plain holes in the floor. The latter usually have a drop to a large mound of excrement and a varying amount of flies depending on the quality of the establishment in question. The toilets in the creaky blue shed outside the cafe took the prize for the most horrific. The stench was apparent from a good ten feet away and it only got stronger as I approached and slid back the rusty bolt. The door swung open and inside was blackness. I could just hear the buzz of hundreds of flies and feel them as they bumped into my bare arms and face. My eyes struggled to make out a jagged concrete hole in the floor spattered with the chunks of missed attempts that had then been thoughtfully smeared up the walls. Breathing through my mouth now, the reek of decaying shit still made me gag as it was so thick I could taste it at the back of my throat. I retreated and turned back towards the cafe just as two other patrons approached, looked at me oddly and entered the outhouse like nothing was amiss.

We followed the Suzuki Jimny filled with pleasant Yanks to a hotel that looked like the one out of the Tower of Terror ride at Disney World. You got the impression that its decor had been opulent in its Soviet hayday but that day had long since passed. Every painted surface was peeling and wooden boards bowed where they had lost a battle with persistent trickles of unidentified fluid. The chipped and stained toilets stank and the sink in our room was missing, leaving just a drain sticking out of the wall. Despite its shortcomings though, the place was mostly clean, had bags of character and I liked it. It was 3am and we were beat, so any horizontal surface was most welcome.


DAY TWENTY EIGHT - Bike Crash and Gravel Rash
14th August 2009

After a well deserved lie in, we had a pleasantly hot shower and walked into town past the obligatory statue of Lenin to find a bank. When local funds were obtained, we wasted some on tourist tat at the local market and started looking for some lunch. We chose the eatery next to the hotel and got seated. Again, we encountered the problem of language. In most places thus far it had been possible to muddle through, but in Russia there was no linguistic common ground. All we could order was a soup called Boursch because it was what the Americans told us they'd had and a beef dish because I managed to pick out the word "stroganoff" in what the waitress was patiently trying to articulate.

A most pleasant meal consumed, we exited Rubtsovsk to vibrate Steve towards Barnaul. The hugely long highway lined with vast, flat, unremarkable greenery continued. The day passed and we looked for a place to camp. We spied a track to the left and pulled in on the right to turn round. Craig hit a pile of gravel on the hard shoulder and came off his bike. We all hopped out of Steve and went to help. He was laid grimacing on the verge and we feared the worst, but despite some nasty gravel rash on his knee he was fine. We cleaned the wound and bandaged it.

As we worked, another bike pulled up carrying two English ladies that had chanced by the accident. They were also on their way to Mongolia, but were not part of a rally. They joined us and we found a place to camp down the aforementioned track by the side of a field of swaying crops. The temperature was well and truly back to the familiar English chill now and we were glad we'd spent the extra on the sleeping bags.


DAY TWENTY NINE - More Miles Anyone?
15th August 2009

We rose to another chilly morning, parted company with the female twosome and continued on our way. We reached Barnaul and passed Dan and Theo in their Suzuki Swift. We pulled in and the Original Intrepid Yak Street Mongolists were joyously reunited. We eagerly swapped stories of our respective adventures. The Mongolists had apparently been forced to camp in no man's land at the Kazakh border for two days as they had turned up before their visas began. During their stay they were delighted to discover that the border was right next to a large field of wild Marijuana. Apparently the time seemed to pass easier after that.

Our journey continued, but the scenery got more exciting as our journey led us through a National Park in the southern Russian mountains. Beautiful hills scribbled with rivers and streams awed us into silence. We stopped for some lunch in a layby lined with shops selling hand made wooden articles. We sat on the pebbly beach by the lake and ate to the blare of crap Russian dance music as two bikini clad locals washed their car about 50 yards away, desperate for people to notice them.

It started to rain and we moseyed on. A campsite was found just off the beaten track and we enjoyed our first proper campfire. I chilled my beer in the nearby river and we chatted around the embers until midnight.


DAY THIRTY - The Road to Mongolia
16th August 2009

We arose and prepared for our third day of scoffing communist kilometers as we headed for our final country. Our plans of an early start were scuppered as usual and we eventually got rolling at the customary time of nineish. The scenery got more and more staggering as we continued and we stopped on a rocky precipice for a snack. Gophers popped out of rocky hideaways and our cameras snapped the breathtaking view. As we neared the border snowy mountaintops emerged as the road extended as far as you could see across the flat plains.

The small town of Tashanta that was home to the border point was quaint and filled with ramshackle wooden buildings. Local kids were cute and were most grateful for our tidings of plastic toy cars. We grabbed some food at the small local shop and gathered at the gates as the queue formed for the opening in the morning. The border itself was satisfyingly traditional with grey metal gates and miles of barbed wire draped on wooden fences that seemed to stretch to infinity. The temperature dropped dramatically as the sun set. Camp was set up by the roadside and we cooked up some vegetable curry for supper. We decided on an early night due to the cold and retreated to hibernate in our icy shelters.

About an hour later we were woken to the sound of squealing tyres. I looked out of my tent to see a car full of Russians handbraking it about next to the line of cars. The car stopped showing off and a bloke got out and started hammering on car windows. He stopped at a vanful of natives, wrenched open the door and shouted at the occupants. After a brief diatribe, he got back into his car and screeched obnoxiously away. I went back to sleep.


DAY THIRTY ONE - Bored at the Border
17th August 2009

I woke up for the ninth time about 6am and decided to get out of my cosy sleeping bag. The temperature outside it was baltic. Frost glistened crisply on the outside of the tent and I had an extremely draughty morning slash in the pungent toilet nearby. The line of cars had extended to over thirty, about half of which were rally vehicles.

I packed up the tent and then defrosted myself on Steve's heater. In the meantime, a cheeky car full of natives had driven straight to the front of the queue and pushed in one car from the gate. This didn't go down at all well with us plucky brits that had braved the arctic night in the persuit of queuing excellence. We tried to articulate this to the driver who protested indignantly. This earned him the word "cock" and a rudimentary drawing of a phallus on the back of his vehicle.

The nightmare of apathetic customs officials started at nine. We got some paper stamped and then had to walk to the other end of the town to get another stamp. That got us past the first gate and then the wait began. An hour and a half later, they made us unpack the van so that we could pack it up again and then we were permitted to exit Russia and drive to the Mongolian entrance. More form stamping ensued and then we were told to sit and wait once more. Two hours later, they turned off the lights and ushered us outside because it was their lunchtime. An hour and a half after that, the officials returned, some other ralliers were let in and our wait continued. Our Intrepid motorcycling friends were with the Charity Rally, who had organised things properly, so they were allowed to continue onward without delay.

We were only waiting for the vehicle, so our stamped passports let us freely enter Mongolia on foot. We walked to the nearby village in search of supplies. The houses were no more than white boxes with windows and ill fitting doors. Two kids approached shouting "shop, shop" and ushered us towards one. We succumbed to their cuteness and stepped in. The family had converted the living room of their hovel into a makeshift mini-mart. Fake designer clothes of varying styles and colours adorned the walls and there were racks of shoes, most of which were not part of a pair. Behind the counter there were shelves of various food items, plastic bags of loose biscuits, cans of beer called "Hite" (which after tasting, i think should have had an S at the start) and packets of pasta. The lads bought some vodka with a name we couldn't pronounce and we moved on.

Someone had written "shop" above one doorway in what looked like biro, so we tried that next. This one had the same dry, powdery walls but was better stocked. Cakes, chocolate and bottled water were among the offerings here so I grabbed some of that and then we headed back to our cosy compound. On our return, we heard that a 4x4 vehicle had come a cropper on the road approaching the Mogolian entry gate. They had been a tad overconfident with the savage terrain and their vehicle had rolled over and thrown the seatbeltless driver out of the window. He had to be airlifted to hospital with various broken bones.

After a long time of nothing happening, we inquired as to the reason for our wait. It seemed there was some confusion over the import duty. The Adventurists (who organised our rally) said they had paid it, but central customs said they hadn't got it. No further information was given and as closing time approached, we gathered this was going to turn into an all-nighter.

We revisited the village in search of something resembling a restaurant. We came across a ger with another homemade sign that we chose to translate as "cafe". Inside was a family preparing their evening meal. We mimed "food" and were ushered inside. It was amazingly warm and spacious, heated by a metal stove in the center. Patterned rugs covered the walls and a television decorated with rally stickers silently displayed a children's programme. We were served salted tea with mare's milk, followed by a clear noodle soup with gristley chunks of what tasted like yak knuckles. We forced it down, paid and left.

We found another ger containing other teams who had obviously also found the vodka shop. Mongolian dumplings were on offer here and we had a go. They tasted rather nice, a moist dim-sum-like outer wrapping with a minced cornish pasty style filling. The women of the house cooked and served the food while a small and extremely cute child entertained us with his extremely drunken grandma.

We merrily stumbled back to our barbed wire playpen quite a few beverages later and discovered that the entrance was completely unmanned. Theo and Dan drunkenly practised J-turns in the car park before driving out of the gate and round Mongolia for a bit. Then we went to bed.


DAY THIRTY TWO - Surpassed Boredom
Tuesday 18th August 2009

This day consisted of us waking up and being told nothing again until nearly lunchtime when the rumour circulated that the Adventurists were at the Mongolian parliament in Ulaanbaatar getting some customs official to sign a paper that would enable us to leave. More and more teams arrived throughout the day and the vehicle holding area got more and more full. Now illuminated by the midday sun, the skidmarks from the previous night's shenanigans seemed to come alarmingly close to the other cars.

We filled the day playing football, cooking lunch, reading and sunbathing. As night drew in we headed for the village again, had more dumplings in a different local eatery, got some beer from the shop and joined more mongolists in a ger. Pissed granny was there again with the cute kid and this time she got publicly felt up by a drunk American rallyist. Nice one mate.

Back to Customs Camp we went, more inebriated J-turns and thence to our cold concrete beds.


DAY THIRTY THREE - The Power of Protest
Wednesday 19th August 2009

We awoke eagerly andticipating news, but were greeted with more nothing. It seems that the form still wasn't signed or stamped and by lunchtime, we were starting to get tetchy. 38 cars and their associated teams were now held in no-man's land and it was getting beyond a joke.

We got together and walked into the customs building. After our repeated questions were greeted with the usual lack of answers we all just sat down on the floor and refused to move. The customs guys didn't like that one bit and called the camo-clad border guards in, who most sternly and repeatedly asked us to shift. When this didn't work, they started to physically drag us out one by one. After Dan and Theo were removed, everybody on the floor linked arms in a heatwarming show of solidarity. They tried to shift us again to no avail. Then the side door opened to reveal Dan, who walked back in and sat down again. After the guards had taken him outside, he'd just strolled round the building and found another way in! Next a bloke came out and said that if we left the office, they would have an answer for us in an hour and if not, we could come back in and sit down again. This seemed reasonable so we happily and politely left.

Half an hour later we were informed that we could leave, with all the necessary paperwork, for the princely sum of $17 per car. Never underestimate the power of peaceful protest. We gathered the required funds and promptly paid up, exiting the border after more than 72 hours to shouts of triumph and the sound of 38 car horns.

Our journey was short, as we got stopped at a guard booth shortly after the gate. The large but aging border guard wanted to see our paperwork, which we duly supplied. He then demanded $25 and refused to return our precious document. After three days trying to obtain it, this didn't go down at all well and Andy waited until the guard wasn't looking and snatched it back. Then the guard just physically went for him in an attempt to retrieve the paper. I nipped round the back and grabbed it from Andy to keep it safe while a crap scuffle ensued. It all calmed down quite quickly and it transpired that the $25 was for the usual insurance skank. Paul got the docs sorted as quick as possible with the another female guard as the old guy had called the police. We got out of there as fast as possible.

We pointed Steve in the direction of Olgiy and pressed the accelerator. The scenery was epic, but the roads were rubbish. They were basically just marks in the craggy dirt where many other people had passed before, and that's it. Rain had washed bits away, jagged stones serrated the surface and nature had removed random chunks. Progress was slow. The road snaked as it climbed into the mountains and it seemed that the Original Mongolists' Suzuki Swift couldn't hack the steep incline. It got half way up and just stopped, making a hollow chugging noise. A helpful passing team towed them to the top where it transpired that a spark plug cable had come off so they were literally not firing on all cylinders. This was replaced and we were off again.

Shortly before Olgiy, the road changed to tarmac and we sighed at the feeling of smooth travel once more. Little were we to know that this would be the last quality surface we would see for a while. We entered Olgiy and found a petrol station. Many local kids came up to make a fuss of us and the traditional signing of the van was enjoyed by all. A local man offered a place to sleep for the night for $10 each and we accepted. He turned out to be a local policeman and he had quite a lot available. A room, food, currency exchange, beer, vodka and bizarrely for a man of the law, prostitutes. Not fancying the general idea of a whore, and certainly not the idea of utilising one in a room with 4 of your mates around, we declined the latter.

The room was comfortable, a white boxlike construction like the previous village buildings with the usual rugs on the walls. Unusually, the cupboards at the sides of the room were laden with large boxes of chocolates and plastic wrapped soft toys that stared out at us smiling blankly. There was no electricity until 10am, so we ate and drank by candlelight. The soup was much better here, with lots of veg and lean, knuckle free, mutton. The glowsticks went down well with his 5 children and the condoms that he happily took from me presumably went down well with his wife.


DAY THIRTY FOUR - Steve Growls
Thursday 20th August 2009

Dawn was peeking through the net curtain and we stirred, preparing ourselves for another day driving up the cheese grater. We packed our stuff and loaded it into the van. Paul had lent the policeman his head torch, so he was forced to knock on his door and wake the family to retrieve it. One of the children answered and a quick mime later he had his torch back. Dan had been unable to find his flip-flops and on request the child produced those as well. How they got into the policeman's house was a mystery. They kindly filled our water can and we set off. 200 yards down the road, I realised my phone was missing. Legging it back sharpish, I was most relieved to find it in my bed. It was lucky for Dan I had returned to the house as he had left his sleeping bag on the chair.

We continued on toward Hovt, with the corrugated roads dictating that we never got out of third gear. Large rocks and potholes punished us mile after trundling mile and any memory of tarmac faded away into a distant dream. Finally, Steve's underbelly was subjected to one boulder too many and with a crunch he started to bellow loudly. We stopped to investigate. Unable to see the cause of the problem, Andy guessed that the exhaust had become dislodged from the manifold which resulted in a dramatic v8 style roar with each push of the accelerator. Power seemed unaffected so we decided to proceed, our beloved van now able to voice his discomfort.

A short distance down the road and Andy noticed the temperature gauge was reading hot. We stopped to the burbling sound of boiling liquid coming from the engine. It seemed that Steve was starting to give up the fight. After some investigation, an imperceptibly slow leak in the radiator was discovered that had sneakily been dripping away vital fluids until there was insufficient liquid to adequately cool the engine. We gave it a drink of our warm bottled water and sighed in relief as the problem abated. A few more shunts and bangs down the road and the growling stopped too. Steve heals!

Further on, we felt the pang of hunger and stopped at a roadside cafe. We were warmly welcomed by a small crowd of children and ushered inside to find another team of ralliers. I used the outdoor public convenience, which had the distinction of being constructed with walls so low that you had to show everyone your arse as you bent down. We feasted on dumplings, soup, breadsticks and cheese while we enthralled the kids with an iPhone. We noticed through the window that the children outside were playing with something, so we got up and had a look. Their toy turned out to be a rotting, jawless ram's head complete with long curved horns, matted fur and moist, empty eye sockets. We immediately reached for our cameras.

We continued down the foul roads until we could take no more. Our annoyance compelled us take a chance on one of the many tracks made by similarly annoyed travellers that eminated from the roadside. The track was smoother for a while and took us past decaying carcasses, bones and heads. Suddenly it turned sandy and a wayward bounce grounded us on a rocky dune. We broke out the shovels and sweatily dug ourselves free. Miles onward, just before we reached Hovt, we came across a local motorcyclist by the side of the road. Via the universal language of mime, he told us that he had a puncture and was unable to fix it. Dan and Theo had a foot pump, but were similarly lacking a puncture repair kit. We cobbled together a solution with sticking plasters and duct tape and managed to aid the stricken biker. Our good deed done, we continued toward the city.

Just over the bridge approaching the town we saw a sign saying "Rally Campsite" with pictures of showers, beds and beer. That was all the encouragement we needed and soon we were sat in a warm ger with some other teams drinking cool lager. I ordered a meal which turned out to be the best of the holiday comprising potato salad, rice and a beef and vegetable stir fry. While Paul and Dan ventured into town for supplies, the rest of us were approached by the pleasant lady owner of the campsite who asked if a reporter from the local paper could do an interview with us. We agreed and she translated a series of questions about the rally that we enthusiastically answered. Next, we went outside, arranged the cars appropriately and posed for a photo. We gave the woman our addresses and she kindly agreed to send us a copy of the paper.

Paul and Dan returned with our essentials which comprised 15 bottles of beer. We congratulated them on their flawless sense of priority and brandished the bottle opener. While we were outside a lone motorcyclist showed up on a large black touring bike. His black bikewear was somehow still immaculate despite the desert dust and his helmet looked like the one out of Airwolf. He rode toward us, his back ramrod straight, slowed and dismounted. He turned out to be a guy from Turkey who was journeying round the world and he asked if he could use our campsite. We secretly christened him Easy Rider and welcomed him in.

The next arrival was Mo, who we had met at the Klenova Castle party and again at the border. She was travelling alone as her friend had dropped out before departure. Her car had no windscreen or front windows left and was alarmingly bent out of shape. It turned out that she had hit a particularly nasty bump after the border and rolled it. She had to enlist the help of other passing ralliers to get it back onto its wheels again, then climb inside and put their feet against the roof to push the frame straight.

The campsite had a barrel full of water and generator connected to a shack with a shower in it. We cleansed our filthy pores as darkness approached and sighed at the luxury of clean clothes. A few more bedtime beverages in the toasty Mongolian beer tent and it was bedtime.


DAY THIRTY FIVE - Good Samaritans
Friday 21st August 2009

The first order of business today was to procure cash and supplies. We pottered about in the town until we met our needs and filled up our trusty wheels with petrol. The station attendant was a bit haphazard with the nozzle and while filling a jerry can strapped to the Mongolists' roofrack, he managed to douse their car in fuel. While they were arguing about having to pay for what was spilt all over the forecourt, we set off in search of the road to Darvi. A local pointed the way and we duly followed his instructions, only to find ourselves in the middle of what appeared to be the town dump. Swarms of flies dined on the eye sockets of countless goat carcasses and the stench of decomposing bowel contents made our eyes water. We headed back to the city to find a preferable route and discovered a stretch of actual tarmac that while unfortunately short, properly delivered us back to the main highway of corrugated hell.

About 60 miles out, we came across the team from the roadside cafe the day before. They had broken down due to a snapped gas line that now spat petrol all over the engine whenever they turned the key. They were defiantly trying to fix it with Araldite but the fuel was eating through the glue. Andy came to the rescue with some petrol tank sealant and an hour later, they were patched up. The fix had to wait overnight to dry so we bid them farewell and continued onward.

We had purchased some pots of spicy Chinese noodles in the town and stopped to scoff them. The Mongolia Machine pulled up and we chatted to the team while we ate. We moved off nicely satisfied and the road coursed through a small village. Wandering camels crossed the road, seemingly oblivious to the urgency of moving as we approached. The incessant bumps showed no signs of abating as we neared Darvi where we were reunited with the Intrepid bikers. We proceeded to the town shop and stocked up on more noodle pots. As we loaded our produce into the van, Street Hawk turned up from the campsite at Hovt, borrowed some fuel and joined us in the search for some flat ground we could call home for the night.

The wind howled around us and threatened to steal our tents as we struggled to peg them into the dusty ground. The temperature dropped rapidly as the sky darkened and we wrapped up warm as we cooked our dinner round the stove. We shared biscuits and beer for dessert and hit the sack.


DAY THIRTY SIX - Stealing From Car Wrecks
Saturday 22nd August 2009

We scraped ourselves slowly vertical about half six in the morning and commenced our customary packing up ritual. An old mongolian and his grandaughter showed up and sat around our stove as we made tea. We offered him some and we gave the girl some coloured pens which she shyly accepted. Easy Rider gave her a balloon with a map of the world on it. We got on our way about 7:45 and after about an hour, we thought we'd gone the wrong way due to the iPhone's GPS readout. A passing local soon removed all doubt however and correctly informed us that we were indeed on the road to Altai, proving the accuracy and value of native info over maps and GPS.

Further down the road, Gayle lost traction on her back tyre and ate sand. We stopped the van and rushed to help as it took about three people to pick up the massively laden bike. A few miles further and we encountered Mo's dented Skoda that we had seen at the campsite at Hovt. This time however, the nearside front tyre was at a right angle to the car as the CV joint had snapped. Many of her supplies were still in the car along with a sign that read "Free Stuff!" so we spent about half an hour siphoning her tank and helping ourselves to all the goodies.

We stopped for lunch and cooked up some of our freshly looted foodstuffs. Suitably satisfied, we headed off in the van with Street Hawk hot on our heels. A good few miles down the road we stopped because the traditionally speedy Mongolists were nowhere to be seen. We waited and then turned round. After backtracking a few miles they showed up with the bikes, driving much slower than usual. Apparently the lads had stopped to help the bikers who had crashed in sand again and got stuck themselves, necessitating a time-consuming digging session. They had also burned quite a lot of clutch in their attempts to free themselves, the stench of which was doing nothing to improve the smell of spilt petrol from the day before.

The road widened and straightened, but still relentlessly vibrated Steve to submission. We found another sandy side track and headed down it. As we approached Altai, Craig's bike stopped dead. It seemed there was no power to the electrical system at all. I turned the van round to help and ended up getting it stuck in the sand again. Another half hour digging session freed it, and I parked next to the stricken cycle. We checked the battery whch was fine, and proceeded to check the wiring. Each plug was disconnected, sprayed with WD40 to clean it and reseated. We put the bike back together and crossed our fingers. With a turn of the key it roared into life once more and we quickly set off again before it changed its mind.

We reached Altai and hit tarmac. This wasn't a good thing however, because the potholes in the tarmac were worse than the dirt roads. We searched for an ATM, only to discover that when we found one it didn't seem to like foreign cards. We parked up at the side of the road and spoke to some natives in an attempt to get some dollars changed for local currency. Of the men we approached, the most drunken one seemed to be the leader and he staggeringly showed us to a shop. After a long boring discussion, the shopkeeper refused to give us a fair rate, so we handed back the purchases we were going to make and left. We stocked up at a different shop further down with what little money we had and filled our tanks at the petrol station.

We drove a few miles out of town and pulled over to camp. We had liberated a carrier bag full of dried yak dung from the remains of Mo's car and we set about making a campfire with it. With the addition of some petrol, it combusted most satisfyingly and we soon had an effective, if rather pungent, source of warmth. We got the stove out again and cooked up another concoction of various tinned goods, ate a satisfying meal and got some rest.


DAY THIRTY SEVEN - We Lose a Team Member
Sunday 23rd August 2009

When we rose the next day, we slowly became aware of our surroundings that had been shielded by the cover of night. Not 20 metres away from where we slept was a large area of open land strewn with unidentified objects and I went to investigate. As I approached, the objects grimly revealed themselves to be bones, ribs, spines and skulls that thickly littered an area of about half a mile. There were also an alarming amount of shoes and tattered strips of torn clothing included in the debris. I saw the disembodied front section of a van standing upright a short distance away and sauntered over. In front of it there were two human sized shallow graves covered with loose earth. I went back to the camp.

Our journey resumed once more and we were pleased to find some quite reasonable flat desert on which to travel that actually allowed us to get into fourth gear. A four wheel drive car approached and ejected two girls who were on their way from Ulaanbaatar to England. They informed us of the state of the roads to come and the news wasn't good. It had apparently taken them 6 days to get this far. Hoping beyond belief that they were just slow drivers, we soldiered on somewhat demoralised.

A few miles further on, Craig's bike decided to show us that we had done nothing useful the day before and died again. A van of passing locals stopped to help and after about half an hour it seemed that the front headlight had worked its way loose and was shorting out something as it rattled about inside the fairing. We disconnected it and the bike bellowed into life again. Steve was the next vehicle to complain as a nudge from a wayward rock resurrected his growl. Shortly after, a trip up a steep mountain pass rectified his bronchitis and as we descended from the hills a desert wasteland extended away from the track on both sides as far as we could see.

The surface quality was intermittently reasonable and mostly shit. In the vast expanse of otherwise featureless desert, Gayle somehow managed to find three large bumps in quick succession to ride over. She held it valiantly for a while, but eventually crashed spectacularly and came to rest with the bike on top of her leg. We rushed to assist and picked up the bike to see a large dark wet patch on her thigh. My heart skipped a beat. Seeing the worried expression on my face Gayle quickly informed me that the liquid was oil that had leaked from the bike and sighing with relief, we got her to her feet. The windscreen of the bike and the left mirror had been completely destroyed and there were some large cracks in the front.

Everyone got together for a chat and Paul told us all that he needed to get home as soon as possible to see his pregnant wife who had woken that morning with a contraction. The Mongolists' Suzuki Swift was by far the fastest vehicle so it was agreed that he should jump in with them in order to make a dash for the finish line. The rear bumper on the car was hanging off so we kicked it loose and tied it to the roofrack. All the non-essential gear was emptied out onto the desert floor to make room for Paul and then we stood there for a while wondering what to do with it all. Luckily, a van full of locals drove past and we flagged them down and showed them the pile. They were cagey at first and offered money for a couple of things, until we made it clear that it was all free and then they eagerly grabbed the lot. One of them came back and gave us two loaves of bread and some cheese in return, which we thought was very nice. We took some group photos and the lads got on their way leaving me, Andy and the two bikers to go it alone.

After another hour or so at the wheel, we decided to camp. The sunset was amazing as there was nothing but flat land right up to the skyline in all directions. We opened a vegetable curry and threw in a packet of cous cous, 3 packs of super noodles of random flavour and 2 tins of sweetcorn. The wind picked up considerably as we cooked and blew sand everywhere which resulted in an ever so slightly crunchy meal. It was enough to fill is up though and we settled down for a blustery night's kip.


DAY THIRTY EIGHT - Scared of the Water
Monday 24th August 2009

I awoke at the prearranged time of half five but it was too dark so I hit the snooze button 'til after six. When we eventually emerged from our tents we were awestruck by the sunrise peeking over the perpetual horizon. The immense bleakness removed all perception of depth and created the impression that we were watching the dawn inside a massive 360 degree cinema. As we got ready a large lorry veered from the passing highway and approached our settlement. Out hopped two middle-aged Mongolians and we obligingly began the day's first polite mime-fest as they brashly kicked our tyres and laughed at our ruined suspension. After one strolled straight into Gayle's tent as she got dressed, their nosiness appeared satisfied and they left.

We followed the compass east and soon we reached a village, and a river. A big one. We drove upstream a bit, but it seemed no better and I completed my hat-trick of sticking the van in sand, much to the frustration of my long-suffering copilot. The wet sludge mercifully gave up without much of a fight and on the way back to the village we encountered an old woman who informed us that there was a shallow point about a kilometer downstream. We caught up with the bikers with our news to discover they had also found a helpful OAP. He proudly produced an exercise book and drew us a map, apparently showing a path to a bridge upstream. Given the blind choice of conflicting directions, we picked the map and moved on northwards.

An hour later we were cursing the cartographer as the barely visible row of ditches he had sent us down was persistently taking us NorthWEST, gradually nibbling away at our treasured eastward progress. The bikers constantly fell over on the impossibly gripless sand and Steve periodically growled his disapproval as boulders and the root clumps of deceased plants repeatedly thudded into his belly. We stubbornly continued and by two in the afternoon we had happily moved 40k north back to rejoin the main highway, but crushingly 40k west back on ourselves.

A couple of hours later and an ominous knocking noise compelled us to investigate the nearside rear wheel. A leafspring had snapped and had moved askew, rhythmically bumping against the wheel rim. Andy efficiently hammered it back into place and secured it with jubilee clips and we were on our way again.

We descended into Bayanhongor as the light began to fade around 8pm. We had no local currency for fuel, dollars were not accepted, and there was no ATM. As we hung about worrying about how we were going to feed Steve, Knight Rider showed up and repaid an earlier kindness by filling our tank. Chocolate and some cold beer (called "Sak") were obtained from the local shop and glowsticks once again amazed the local children.

We paid a toll to access a road out of the city and were most narked when we found that it was closed off by piles of gravel. We camped in a ditch by the side of the road and resolved to work it all out in the morning. The beer turned out to be quite pleasant and we cooked up a similar noodle fracas to the evening before which was satisfyingly gulped down in large portions.


DAY THIRTY NINE - Tarmac Gives Us Boners
Tuesday 25th August 2009

We immediately worked out with the help of locals that the big obvious road wasn't the right way to today's destination: the town of Arvayheer. After the directional disappointment the day before, we warmed up the GPS straight away and rocked on flawlessly. Somehow, we made really good time despite the roads once again being shat straight from Satan's rectum.

We pulled over for a chocolate bar and a break from the incessant jarring about half ten. I decided to express my brimming frustration with the complete lack of smooth transit by writing "fuck mongolian roads" on the side of the van. However, the sand choked marker ran out half way through resulting in a large inscription of "fuck mong" instead. I quickly deleted this unfortunate advice.

Further down the road, we stopped again to consult the map and a team of Yanks pulled up. The worse our suspension became, the more our distaste grew for the blatant cheats who chose to drive off-road vehicles. We Britishly indulged in a quick chat anyway before righteously clattering onward. By lunchtime the mountains had levelled out into wide plains and in the distance the road branched off into numerous snaking tendrils where past travellers had fruitlessly searched for a smooth ride. We pulled over and whipped up a quick snack. As we ate, we noticed the dry desert floor we were sitting on was crawling with ants. We fed them our noodle remnants and watched as they dissected them and transported them back to their nest.

As the roads vindictively continued, Steve's last unbroken leafspring succumbed to the unrelenting torture. Then, 20 kilometers from Arvayheer, we orgasmed as we hit smooth tarmac. We stopped and smiled at each other. It stretched as far as you could see. With shouts of relief we set off. The soft hum of tyre against road soothed our battered ears and the van felt like a cloud moving across a velvet carpet. We slid effortlessly into town and pulled up where the kerb would normally be. There was a large drop from the main road down to the city streets and we cunningly crafted a rock bridge to help our trusty wagon traverse it.

First stop was a bank. It took them ages to change our money as they were filling forms in triplicate by hand. I went back outside and Andy was busy dealing with our first puncture. As he worked, a local kid kept pestering him to give him something so, as soon as he got the deflated wheel off he gave him that to shut him up, rim and all. The child seemed quite pleased with this gift that was over half as tall as he was.

A quick refill of petrol and chocolate and we were on our way. The joyously smooth roads uninterruptedly continued and much distance was satisfyingly chomped through. Rain started and although it was no problem for us, nestled in our heated mobile sanctuary, the bikers were having it rough. The wet multiplied the refridgeration brought about by our increased speed and they were slowly but surely freezing up. We stopped and let them thaw for a while in Steve's cosy confines. This was only enough to fend off the arctic winds another hour or so and they were soon shiveringly indicating their desire to make camp.

We pulled off the road near a ger and the family came to meet us. They allowed us to make camp and helped clear a space for our tents by brushing away the numerous piles of animal excrement. It wasn't long before we were welcomed inside and offered food; a basket filled with chunks of room temperature goat's cheese. I chose the smallest nugget I could find, removed the attached hairs and cautiously sampled the cuisine. It tasted nicely sweet and nastily bitter at the same time. Next we received the usual salty tea, an additional watery milk drink and the mother of the family cooked us some salty rice pudding. The meal was rounded off with fermented mare's milk which had a bizarrely fizzy sensation. We returned their kindness with tidings of glowsticks and chocolate. Our phones fascinated them as we flipped through pictures of home and played videos of our journey.

We bid them goodnight and returned to our tents, apart from Easy Rider who had secured a bed for the night in the ger itself, a testament to the boundlessness of Mongolian hosptality. We gathered quietly in Gayle and Craig's tent so as to not seem ungrateful to the ger folk by cooking our second evening meal. We chatted excitedly as we hungrily scoffed the now staple amalgam of noodles, eager to reach our goal on the morrow.


DAY FORTY - The Big Push for Ulaanbaatar
Wednesday 26th August 2009

The alarm went off at 5am. This was it. I felt as excited as when I was a child, opening my eyes on Christmas morning. I annoyed everyone awake by playing "Move to the City", "Get the Funk Out", "No Sleep 'Til Brooklyn" and "Paradise City" from my phone. Some family members from the ger came out and helped us get underway. We gave them some choice prezzies from the van to show our appreciation, and they gave us a nice big bag of hairy goat cheese.

We headed off into light rain with yours truly at the wheel, still elated that the roads were permitting us to travel in peace. The velvety asphalt was mesmerisingly seductive and soon all memory of pits and troughs melted away. We kicked back and happily reflected on the ups and downs of the journey as we sluiced effortlessly along the mirror flatness. I hardly noticed, but the compulsive relaxation translated into more and more pressure being applied with my right foot.

We were doing about seventy when we hit the bump. Steve leapt into the air and jolted me sharply out of my blissful reverie. All four wheels were airborne for what seemed like forever. Then came the sickeningly inevitable thuds and scrapes of rending metal as the crippled van repetitively slammed back to earth. No sooner had we landed than another unannounced ramp sent us skyward again. This time my foot was firmly on the brake resulting in consecutive squeals from the tyres as we violently touched down once more like an aircraft with a crap pilot.

The engine burbled wearily so I stomped on the clutch. It spluttered, coughed and died. I coasted to a stop at the side of the road and put my head in my hands. Andy silently opened the door and climbed out. I felt awful. After our miraculous machine had carried us thousands of miles over god-awful terrain, I'd killed it on good roads, with the end in sight, by being stupid. The bikers pulled up behind us and told us about the showers of sparks they had seen shooting from the van's underbelly. I dejectedly got out and we opened the engine compartment. There was a strong smell of oil and burnt metal. My heart sank even further.

Then Andy reached in and turned the key. The engine started first time without missing a beat. I will never forget how I felt at that moment. I had convinced myself that it was all over and the wave of relief was so strong that I physically hugged the side of the van and gave Steve a big kiss. Andy smiled as he saw the look on my face and nodded towards the van. We clambered back in and continued onward towards our destination. I paid more attention to our speed after that. The tarmac continued as the rain worsened.

Then, sixty miles before Ulaanbaatar, the rain suddenly stopped and so did the roads. Our path was encrusted with deep potholes to such an extent that there wasn't enough space between them to fit the van through. The rain had also filled them up which made judging their depth tricky business. We pulled over at a roadside diner and ordered a pleasant fatty goat stew for lunch while we surveyed the scene. Our bellies filled, Andy took over the driving and we began the fight.

The roads were rockier, more corrugated and had more bits missing than ever. This, combined with the rain causing random mudbaths everywhere translated into hell for the bikers. Andy was in his element as he made the most of his 4 wheel drive experience bouncing Steve through one brown pool after another. However, Craig was having no fun at all and we were stopping to pick up bikes constantly. We took some paniers off and loaded them into the van which seemed to help a bit and we bumbled along doggedly until we entered a small town.

Somehow we got seperated as we passed through the settlement and ended up away from our motorcycling companions on the opposite side of a long piece of road construction. There was no way across without going back on ourselves and we certainly weren't going to do that again. The ground on our side was rapidly deteriorating into a bog and we needed an exit. We approached the new road which had large ditches carved into the soil on each side presumably to dissuade miserable motorists from sampling its smoothness before it was ready. The bikers realised something was going on and came to meet us. We kicked a bunch of rocks into the ditches and soon created a path for Steve to cross over onto the other side. More muddy miles passed beneath our tyres until the dozens of brown trails we were following converged into one as they snaked back towards a ramp that returned us to the road once more. We accelerated happily, hoping beyond hope that we had seen the last revolting roadway.

Indeed we had. 50 miles of unblemished asphalt later we pulled over, had a slash and reattached the paniers to the bikes. A few corners later and Ulaanbaatar sprawled into view before us. As we entered outskirts of the city, it seemed like just as much of a dump as the other half-constructed gatherings of buildings we had encountered, but as we neared the centre it improved vastly.

The traffic was mayhem. We were unable to follow the directions that the Adventurists had supplied because both directions of the six lane highway that we were travelling down were being directed up a two lane one way side street for no reason that we could discern. Naturally this resulted in a massive snarling traffic jam as everyone abandoned any kind of road courtesy as they jostled for position. We obviously didn't care about our paint job and used this to our advantage as we just ploughed straight through the middle.

A short while later and we pulled into the Tengis Cinema that was decked out in Mongol Rally regalia to double as as the finish line. We were greeted with a small ripple of applause from the other teams that had also found their way home. Ours was about the 260th vehicle to finish out of about 500 that had attempted the journey and we knew that there couldn't have been many that were slower than us. We backed Steve onto the podium and took some photos before emptying out all our equipment and loading it into a large container for the charity to take away. We gave some bread and the bag of goat cheese to some homeless kids before locking up and hugging our victorious vehicle for the last time.

We entered the cinema which was largely in darkness due to a power cut. We located the pokey, unremarkable charity office down an unlit corridor and waited our turn. A rallyist wandered past and we enquired about flight availability. He informed us that he was off round town to see what was available, but the best option so far was the internet. We entered the office and handed the keys over to the young Mongolian volunteer behind the desk. A few signatures later, we received our rally certificates and wearily dragged our bags to the bar downstairs.

A few well-earned pints later and we were surrounded by fellow ralliers. Much enjoyment was had as everyone swapped stories of their respective voyages. Suddenly the guy we spoke to outside the charity office showed up and told us that there were spare seats available on a flight to Moscow the next day at 8am. We had 20 minutes before the shop shut. We left our bags in the bar and legged it.

Two other plane-hungry ralliers followed and we made it just in time. The travel agent agreed to stay open a little while longer and we sighed with relief as he informed us that there were indeed two seats available. He asked to see our passports and Andy looked at me wide-eyed. I had luckily got mine in my pocket, but in the panic he'd left his in the bar. He gave me his credit card and bolted out of the door. Next they wanted us to pay. I handed over my credit card and signed to purchase my ticket, then I gave her Andy's card. Her face was a picture as I proceeded to sign a totally different name. She wildly beckoned to the travel agent and showed him the two receipts. I explained that the second card belonged to Andy and that he could re-sign when he returned if they wanted. He seemed happy with that and the transaction continued. The other two guys just finished sorting out their transport needs as a red-faced, panting Andy arrived brandishing his passport.

We received our tickets with no further problems and triumphantly headed back to the bar for more beers. We called the bikers who had sorted out a bed for the night at a hostel called "The Golden Gobi 2". Arrangements were made to meet up with Craig outside a nearby department store as there were apparently more beds free. Ten dollars each got us a bunk bed in a dorm room with 8 other people. The place was cosy and best of all, it had hot showers. The hostel owner also eagerly volunteered her husband as taxi service to the airport the next day. An hour later and we were all washed, changed and on the way back to the cinema bar.

The evening proceeded with more drink, some nice food and lots of great conversation. As bedtime approached the main bulk of the group proceeded on to a nightclub with Andy enthusiastically in tow. I was beat and very aware of our 6am taxi ride so followed Gayle and Craig back to the hostel.


DAY FORTY ONE - Airport Hell
Thursday 27th August 2009

My phone rang on the dot of six awaking me from a sleepless night. A happily drunk but exhausted Andy was outside the hostel and the taxi man was waiting. I quietly manoeuvered our belongings around the bunks of snoring travellers to the front door. Andy loaded the taxi while I made use of the hostel's decent western-style toilets.

The ride was short and comfortable. I was praying for a decent airport and I was most relieved when we approached and could see no livestock on the runways. Chinggis Khaan International Airport was small, but looked the part with lots of glass and shiny metal, x-ray machines and automatic doors. We strolled confidently up to the check-in desk two hours early and presented our tickets and passports.

The clerk took one look at our documents and told us that we had no visa for Moscow so could not board the plane. We replied that we knew this and that we were only wanting to connect through Moscow. We were going to buy another flight, never leaving the Soviet airport. She replied that this was not possible. We had to have our connecting flight booked in advance. This was the last thing we wanted to hear.

We found out that our flight actually continued on from Moscow to Berlin, so we asked if we could pay extra and make our ticket go to Berlin instead. The clerk took us to a windowed office at the side of the airport where we were ignored for half an hour. A large Mongolian airport official eventually approached who blessedly spoke fluent English. He explained that we could not travel to Moscow with no visa and that they could not modify our ticket as it had been bought from an agent in town and not from the airport counter. We would have to go back there and sort it out with them. We explained that the travel agent would not be open until the plane had left. He said in that case, our ticket was useless and we would have to purchase another.

This didn't go down at all well. The tickets had cost over five hundred dollars each and we weren't giving up without a fight. It was now less than an hour until the plane left the runway and we needed a solution, fast. In a flash of inspiration, I asked if we could buy an additional ticket from the airport that would take us from Moscow to Berlin and have the bags transferred. He looked at me for a second and then without a word, turned to the clerk in the office, gave her our documents, said something in Mongolian and walked off. The clerk started typing and we looked on in hope. Shortly after, another clerk arrived and took over. Next we were asked for our credit cards. I have never been happier to hand over anything in my life. A paltry sixty four dollars each later and we were set, with 30 minutes left and a whole airport to navigate.

The attendants rushed us through check-in and then we beeped clumsily through security. Next we had to fill in some form or other and get our passports checked. We sprinted to the plane with 5 minutes to spare, only stopping to copiously thank the nice English-speaking official for helping us with the tickets. We scrambled onto the plane, stowed our bags and sank into our chairs with a sigh of relief. Cattle class never felt so good.

The rest of the trip was plain sailing. We stopped briefly in Moscow, before reboarding the same plane with no delays. We had a 5 hour wait in Berlin, but that was only due to us choosing cheaper tickets off the internet that flew to Paris, before Manchester. The delay passed by almost unnoticed as we luxuriously ate nice food and drank beer in the Red Baron airport bar. We touched down on British soil at ten to ten local time, four flights, 24 hours and 10000 miles away from where we woke up that morning. We strolled through passport control, out of customs and my Mum and Dad were waiting to take us home.


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WME engineering sponsor the Yak Street Boys

We are very pleased to have the support of WME engineering Ltd who are based in Clowne, Derbyshire.

A massive thank you to Bill, who has done a fantastic job fabricating steel protection plates under the van in order to protect the fuel tank, radiator, oil sump etc from the truly terrible roads that we are going to be attempting to drive over !

Roystons sponsor the Yak Street Boys

We are very proud indeed to be supported by Roysons of Eckington who have very kindly made sure that our little van will be more than ready for its journey east.....

Roystons Ltd have vey kindly donated their time , parts & expertise to help pimp the hi-jet, to include new cam belt, brakes all round, servicing etc & have also re-routed the air intake into a snorkel so that we can now better navigate the rivers en-route..... 

Roystons can be contacted at the following address:

Iran is a no go !!

We have recently found out that one of our team (not sure who yet) has not been accepted for a visa to Iran

Not only is this a complete bummer since we would have all loved the opportunity to visit this country, but it also leaves us little or no time to alter our plans......

Our only option now, is to drive through Europe into Turkey as planned, but then head into Georgia, into Azerbaijan & then across the Caspian sea into Turkmenistan to pick up our original route towards Tajikistan & the Pamir Highway.

This is fine except for the fact that now with only 3 days to go, we will have to apply for a letter of invitation into Azerbaijan so that we can then pick up a visa in either Istanbul or Georgia...... nowt like a bit of last minute stress to keep us on our toes eh !!!

Also, it is illegal to cross into Azerbaijan in a right hand drive vehicle so not quite sure how thats going to work..... our mediation skills with the border police will surely be tested to the max !

 Oh yeah & one more thing...... none of us have our passports back yet !!!!   aghhhhhhhhhhhh

And then there were 3 !!

We have just had some really crap news from Paul H who has been ill for about 2 months & because of this, is now unable to make the trip

To say we are gutted is an understatement because since last August when the 4 of us had the idea of going on this adventure we have all put alot of time and effort into it and it really will not be the same now that Paul is not going !

Get better soon mate....... maybe next year eh ?!

The Yak Street Boys theme tune !

We now have our very own theme tune as kindly & geniously written by Louisa Welsby (to be sung in "Eye of the Tiger" stylee)

Local Fame for "The Yak Street Boys"

Details of our adventure and the charities we are supporting have recently been featured in the Sheffield Star (see below):

Twitter Ye Not !! (Ooh err missus)

We now have a Twitter page (see link below) 

This will be updated as often as we get the chance so all you lovely people can now see what we are up to and follow our great adventure:

Sheffield Festival of Transport

We have just had a very successful day at Sheffield Transport Festival, where we displayed the van & all the equipment and raised some more money for "The Childrens Hospital Charity"

All in all, between our 2 chosen charities we must now be well on our way towards £3000 which is fantastic !!!

2 & a half weeks left yet though so there's still time to raise that little bit more :-)

Approximately 15,000 people attended the festival and it was funny to see the shock on the faces of some, when they saw the size of the four of us, alongside our hillariously tiny van :-)

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