Bio:

Brian is a recovering rock star, procrastinating musician and skater... he is a software monkey by day, planning his next trip around the world by night.

been to: here and there, Italy (born near Venice), US (Seattle, New York, San Francisco, LA, points inbetween), Canada (Whistler, Vancouver, Quebec), France, Monaco, Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Italy (again), Greece, Switzerland, Netherlands, Jamaica, UK (Scotland, England), Mexico, Cuba (vamos bien), South Korea, China, Tibet, Nepal, India, Spain (again), Gibraltar, London (again)...

traveling through Asia he picked up a little Mandarin, Tibetan, and Hindi... can say Thank You in 9 languages, but his favorite favorite all time phrase is simply Hello in Tibetan - Tashidelek! (say it with gusto!).

Ya yimnoga guvaryu pa Ruskia, no ya punyumayu nu ochin heracho.

Brian has been married to Kim for 8 years, and they will celebrate their 9th anniversary during the first week of the Mongol Rally. They've been everywhere together and can get out of any sticky situation.

Read Brian's Posts:

Back in UB

I feel like I should post a ton of photos from the last few days, but it’s 3am and there are a couple thousand to go through and edit… at this point it’s looking like you all get more photos when I get home, sleep and recover from jet lag.  There are a 232 gigabytes of photos & video from the whole trip with a good chunk of that from just the past few days.

Needless to say, the home stretch here has been quite exciting.  Even though we sent our rally car back to UB and were taking it “easy” in the Mercy Corps vehicles, there is just no easy way to get around this country.

We woke from the Ger camp where I posted last and had a leisurely morning, leaving only at 8am and heading down to the bottom of the Flaming Cliffs to hunt for dinosaur fossils.  We did find a few, but they were not very big… most of the good stuff having already been picked over by archeologists of course, and sent off to museums. Leaving the fossil site, the Land Cruiser was stopped by a flat tire… even the best suited vehicles are made into putty by the Gobi. The drivers made quick work of the fix and we were all back on the road.

Next stop, sand dunes.  Not the giant ones far out west of the cliffs, they were too far away for our itinerary… we settled for the dunes only 20 or 30 meters tall.  Climbing these dunes was pretty tricky, but we could scale a few of them.  Tom, Kim and I also hopped on a few Bactrian Camels for a ride up to the top of one dune, and off to explore one of the further away dunes.  Again… words not sufficient. You get to wait for photos.

It took most of the rest of the day just to reach Arvaikheer in Ovorhangay aimag.  Deciding that the Russian jeep should not be punishment for one person, I decided to rotate in and give it another chance.  Not sitting in the middle of the back seat helped, not being sick to start with was better… but no doubt about it, anywhere you sit in this thing, on the best day, is a pretty punishing ride on the roads of Mongolia.  As I wrote before, it’s a tank, for sure.  But the alternator belt started slipping, and we pulled over a couple times to rig a solution.  The belt they had in there was the wrong size, which meant the alternator had to be slid up to the smallest position… and the belt kept rotating into the wrong position.  We just made it into town where our driver, Buggy, was able to get the ‘right’ belt.

We also actually lost the Land Cruiser for a little while.  They were out in front of us, and we turned off a section of road riding straight out into the Gobi… we were actually pushing fresh tracks in the sand.  They got so far ahead we couldn’t even see their little sand trail anymore… apparently they couldn’t see ours either, because they stopped to wait for us, and somehow we were just over a ridge of mountains and passed them by.  Cell phone reception is not exactly reliable in Mongolia… there are no towers out in the barren desert.  You have to be close to a town where there is a tower.  We stopped at the next town, called Mercy Corps HQ, and finally we were able to reach the other car as they neared the town we were in.  I wasn’t too worried except that Buggy was such an aggressive driver, and he was mostly just following the Land Cruiser, that I thought maybe he was lost.  The only word he spoke in English was “good?”, so I took a gamble and tried to speak Russian with him.  I say a gamble, because since we’ve been in Mongolia, contrary to what we were told before leaving, NOBODY speaks Russian here, and few more than that speak English.  That’s ok, we have gotten by without speaking the language via pantomime, and now we had Zaya with us to translate… but it was too bad that I had spent all that time learning Russian, and here in Mongolia it did me no good (not to say it wasn’t helpful in the former Soviet states though).  Well, Buggy was old enough to have lived prior to the revolution here, and he had gone to school during Russian dominated times, so he did in fact speak Russian!  It was great, we were able to talk about where the other car was, how far it was to the next town, where we were, etc.  I now knew he definitely was not lost, and it was clearer what had happened.  The only downside is now he is trying to have full on Russian conversations with me.  Woops, ya punyemayu newachin heracho dude.  The Land Cruiser caught up, and we made it to the next town  pretty late.

This morning had us sleeping in again until 8, but by 9am we were out visiting Mercy Corps projects in Arvaikheer.  These projects were not economic development programs that create self sustaining business, but were educational programs that are more reliant on grants since they don’t create recurring revenue.  These projects were all really touching though, as these kids really just want to learn.  The first school we visited was teaching Mongolian language skills to kids who have health issues that keep them out of regular school.  What they were describing sounded like they had seizures of some sort, but the kids mostly appeared healthy and happy this morning, showing us their Cyrillic alphabet lessons on the wall, the plants they are learning to take care of, and some of the handicrafts they learn how to make.  The kids were all interested in us, asking if we were “classmates”, and a few took interest in my tattoo, as they recognized some of the Buddhist symbols on my arm.

The next school was for kids learning English.  Some of these kids also had hearing difficulties and were learning American sign language.  The teacher at this school was so passionate about teaching these kids.  She recently lost her husband to a car accident, and her daughter also has learning disabilities, so she seems to have thrown herself into teaching these kids.  Her face lit up when she told us how she’d downloaded the sign language symbols and lessons from the internet for the kids, and all the games and computers she was able to purchase for them with Mongol Rally money.  She showed us how the kids even made their own games to learn English, which was pretty awesome since they are teaching themselves and learning how to learn at the same time.  She also had an extensive library… including Stephen King, which I asked if the kids enjoyed reading!  The computers she had in the classroom were not connected to the internet… the fee of 30,000 Tugrik, roughly $25, a month was out of her budget.  I want to ask Mercy Corps if there is a way we can help provide that funding in a sustainable way that doesn’t keep them dependent on annual grants that could go away… it seems like such a small amount to connect these kids to even more resources which they would obviously put to good use.

The last school we visited was for the blind, where they were learning Braille Cyrillic and other skills to become more independent and confident.   One of the computers they had was purchased by Mongol Rally funds, but unfortunately didn’t have a Braille keyboard, and the accessibility software they had was in English.  I don’t know if they even make the software in Mongolian, and it is probably not much more helpful for them to have Russian software… but I’d like to at least see if they can get a Braille keyboard.  I’ll be looking for a Braille Cyrillic keyboard on Amazon first thing when I get home.

Most of the rest of our day was driving back to Ulaan Baatar.  A few more breakdowns as the new “correct” alternator belt kept slipping and eventually snapped.  Buggy wanted to continue on the battery alone, which Tom & I thought foolish… we threatened to pull our spare Fiat belts out of the roof box (oh yeah, it was strapped to the top of the land cruiser after it shook the roof racks loose from the Fiat! hah) and better judgment set in.  He decided he had a spare after all, and we barely made it into UB on that belt, with the battery indicator continually dropping below 12 volts.

It took us about 45 minutes to part out all the gear we were donating to Mercy Corps and leave it with Zaya in their office in UB.  We took some photos, said goodbye to her and our drivers, and made for the luxury of our final hotel.  Tom, Yasmin, Jean & Amy headed back to the LG Guesthouse, while Kim & I are treating ourselves to Ulaan Baatar’s (and Mongolia’s) finest hotel, the Chinggis Khan hotel!

This post comes to you from the comfort of our room, with high speed internet again, and the benefit of a warm shower and toilet.  The fingernails are trimmed.  All the grease, grit and grime has been scrubbed away.  I am ready to cross the finish line with our Fiat Puntos tomorrow and party with our fellow Adventurists at the final finish line party, week 6 of the rally since departing Goodwood.  Kim asked me a few days ago if I would feel sad handing over the keys to the Fiat, and I said, truthfully at the time, that I was not that attached to them.  But that response came during the arduous drive through the Gobi, when I was actively battling the steering and suspension, and feeling no joy.  But when we pulled into the Mercy Corps parking lot today, I was so happy to see #206, with freshly powdered Gobi dust all about its edges, that I did feel a coming sense of loss that I’m sure will be bittersweet tomorrow at the finish line.

Then again, I just want to make sure The Adventurists repay that customs duty so Tom & I can get our $1000 back!

Ok, 4am is knocking at the door.  I’ve got to get some sleep before tomorrow’s long day.  Our flight home on Sunday is really early and I’m doubting I’ll get much sleep tomorrow night.  I tell myself this will help me get back on Seattle time, but I know I’m just going to be exhausted regardless.

Have Mercy

With just a few hours sleep, we were up and back on the road at 5am this morning to make up for time lost breaking down before Dundgobi. Jean, Amy and Yasmin were off in the Land Cruiser with Tom, Kim and I following in the Russian jeep. Zaya said it the best, “Russian jeep is built well, but not designed for anybody to ride inside”. The thing is a tank, with its awesome Russian nuclear submarine gauges, and the brutal road can do no harm to it. But the same can not be said for its inhabitants. As much as the road was shaking us and the Fiat to bits, the jeep took its blows and just passed them along to us. For several hours the seat was punching me in the back until I got sick. We rotated for a while, I took the front seat until somebody, I think Kim & Zaya, wisely put me into the Land Cruiser. I was finally able to sleep until the 5 hour drive to Dalanzadgad was complete.

The Mercy Corps office in Dalanzadgad treated us to breakfast before we set out to see the project sites around the city, and we all recovered from the drive with a well needed energy boost.

The first site we went to was a community wood working group that custom makes parts for Gers. With a grant of several hundred thousand Tugrik (a few hundred dollars) which came from Mongol Rally fund raising, they bought a table saw and some of the raw materials they needed to kick start the group. They are already building a reputation for the quality of their work and it was awesome to see that they are creating a sustainable business to benefit themselves and their community.

The next site was a similar set up, but this time making bricks out of recycled ash, to be used as construction material. Mercy Corps had helped them with a loan guarantee for some equipment and was providing business oversight & advice. They are already looking to expand production due to their success.

A few blocks away, we visited a building where women were making the canvass Ger covers and growing their business with grants from Mercy Corps.

We continued to a few more sites, one which made handicrafts for sale in UB, and another which made felt and clothing for school uniforms. These uniforms are a little funny to us… today was the first day of school and we could see the kids strutting all over town in their new duds. The girls uniforms look like French maid outfits, and the boys wear these suits that are straight out of a 1920’s gangster film… all shiny with pin stripes. It was a total crack up for us. At many of these project sites we would see the Mercy Corps contracts proudly displayed on the wall with Mongol Rally logos stamped right above them. The fourth site we visited was operated by a group of women who were all struggling to pay to care for their children with cerebral palsy. With the grants from Mercy Corps they were able to start a business that now affords them the ability to better care for the special needs of their children, creating a steady and recurring income that far exceeds the minimal amount the government was providing for assistance previously. It was awesome to see that for a few hundred to a few thousand dollars, the fund raised from the Mongol Rally could set these groups up in the community to start sustainable businesses. Just the fund raising from Baatar Hero could create several of these grants next year, and we only saw 5 projects in one town. I can only imagine what the impact is in aimags across the country from the funds of the entire rally.

After yesterday’s horrible day of driving and final break down, it felt completely worth it today seeing how the rally positively impacts these projects. It was incredibly touching when these women told us how much the rally funds help them and thanked us personally… their parting words, “Tell people at home about our work here”. So, while you may not all be able to do something like the Mongol Rally, you now know the impact that Mercy Corps is making in these people’s lives.

While it seemed our day couldn’t get much better, it was only just beginning. Zaya took us to a great restaurant for lunch, and after a few hours drive one some really nice dirt roads for a change, we found ourselves at the Flaming Cliffs just in time for sunset. The view was stunning… words can’t do it justice and I’m not sure photos can either. Tomorrow morning we’ll wake up early from our nearby Ger camp and look for dinosaur fossils at the foot of the cliffs before heading West to sand dunes and then North to visit some more Mercy Corps projects. If their is time, we may even be able to drive through Karakorum and visit the Erden Zuu monastery on our way back to UB on Friday.

Gobi Breakdown

It’s 8:30 at night, the sun has already gone down, and I’m chasing a Russian jeep through the Gobi desert with rally fog lights and high beams lighting a path over rocks and sand berms just begging to take me out for good.  I find myself asking again, as I did at the top of that Russian ski resort… “how did I get here?”  Only this time I am in the rally milieu, this is exactly where we planned to be.  Well, “planned” is a strong word.

Our original route had us blazing through well paved Russian roads for the Altanbulag border in the North of Mongolia, and then heading west before ever entering Ulaan Baatar so we could visit Chinggis Khan’s old capitol at Karakorum and do a loop south to the Gobi desert, riding triumphantly into UB across the finish line.

You all know at this point how amazingly well the blazing through Russian roads and crossing at Altanbulag went.  And of course now we were already in UB reuniting with Kim and trying to figure out what to do with the rest of our week before this is all over.  I am wondering if we are the first Mongol Rally team to drive into UB, *NOT* cross the finish line, and leave before returning successfully.  I can’t say for sure, but I do know one first we accomplished.  According to Mercy Corps Mongolia, we are the first Mongol Rally team to ever visit their office in UB in person!

Not knowing exactly how we would head out of UB, but knowing only that we wanted to go to the Gobi and that we wanted to visit some Mercy Corps project sites, we contacted Mercy Corps to see what projects we could see on that route.  Not only did they have a list of sites we could go to, they generously offered to send one of their staff and a driver along with us in their Toyota Land Cruiser to personally guide us around their projects.  How sweet is that?  Bonus: we are following somebody who knows where they are going, they also offered to show us to some sites we wanted to see (the Flaming Cliffs and some famous sand dunes), and we would have instant help in the event of the inevitable mechanical mishap.  Given that #201 was really struggling with a torn off muffler (did I forget to mention that it basically just fell off on the way to Irkustk?) and some very sketchy steering shake at around 40mph, we decided to leave her parked at Mercy Corps.  On the other hand, #206 had new life breathed into her in Krasnoyarsk. With a rebuilt front right strut, exhaust, and radiator fan, she was driving smooth as ever and ready to take on the Gobi.
And she was freshly cleaned!  Surprise of the day was Monday morning when we walked out of our guesthouse to see UB, and we noticed our windshield wipers were flipped up.  After hearing about all the theft in UB, we were worried about a break in, and had cleared the car of all valuables the night before… but with the wipers flipped up we assumed somebody had broken in anyway.  To our great enjoyment, not only were the cars not broken into, they were spotless.  We had acquired a new paint job of mud and smog after the rainy drive to Irkutsk, but that was now gone.  The cars shone again, cleaner than they were when we left Goodwood (Tom and I did a good job of dirtying them up during the prep week).  Certainly we couldn’t cross the finish line like this.  We would have to remedy this right away.

Tuesday morning, we drove both cars over to Mercy Corps’ office on Peace Ave, and stripped everything out of #201 we thought we would need for the journey.  Most of it went into/onto the Land Cruiser, and the rest we piled into #206. Our new friend, Zaya, a project manager for Mercy Corps, would accompany us from their office to project sites, educate us about their projects, and translate for us along the way.  Another bonus for us: she’s a part time tour guide and her family is from the area of the Gobi we are visiting!  The drive south out of UB was fairly uneventful for the first 100k, with only slightly degraded pavement we passed the airport, a new stadium being built, and some herds of sheep and camels.

Then, the road just… ended.

No fanfare, it just turned into dirt.  We bounced along for a few hours, trying to keep up with the effortless pace of the Land Cruiser.  Taking our fair share of scrapes we would stop every once in a while to look for leaks, but the new shocks and sump guard seemed to be doing their jobs.  Kim expressed some concern… but I assured her this was all “normal” and that the car could handle it.  Then, as if to spite me, the road turned absolutely evil.  Now, I can only assume that the roads from the West are just as bad, but if that’s really true I have a hard time understanding how any of these Mongol Rally cars can make it.  Maybe it was just the pace of trying to keep up with the Land Cruiser, but our newly rebuilt car was taking an complete thrashing.  The words “pot holes” do not do these exploded mine fields justice.  And when the road was “flat”, it was covered in cat tracks left by Russian construction vehicle treads, the spacing and depth of which are perfectly designed to shake a Fiat Punto with 14″ tires, and it contents, completely apart.  “Don’t worry, we’ll be ok” I confidently reassured Kim as we scraped against every rock, bush and cow skull on the road.

And it was ok.  Until the muffler came off.  This wasn’t so bad actually, it came apart right at a U-bolt and we were able to reattach it somewhat, but during our exhaust reconstructive surgery we noticed something else… something bad.  Oil was flowing pretty steadily out down over the sump guard.  Crap.  We were done for.  The car would not hold oil long enough for us to get to the next town, let alone the South Gobi and back to UB.  Thankfully we handily had a Toyota Land Cruiser with an experienced Mongolian driver ready to tow us.  I attached the tow hook to the front of the Fiat and before you could say Chinggis Khan we were being dragged through the sand 10 feet behind  a screaming dust machine.  A thick layer of sand and dust was making quick work of the car wash we’d never asked for in UB.

When we arrived at the next town, Tom and I quickly went to work pulling the sump guard off so we could see what had happened to the oil pan.  The town mayor or governor came out and offered his help.  Zaya called the Mercy Corps office in the next town to start arranging for a backup plan.  After we got the sump guard off, we could clearly see where one of our brutal pounding scraps had pushed the guard up against the oil pan creating an indentation which was weak enough to leak oil through a small hole.  This is a risk with every rally car, but we knew from the start that this one was susceptible since we’d seen an oil leak there in London.  We had driven out to the Fiat dealer in Slough and briefly purchased a new sump, but when we tried to get a local mechanic to replace it (a long job) he insisted he could patch our leak cheaper.  He slathered epoxy resin all over the sump, gave us a batch of quick steel, and sent us on our way to return the new part and protect the whole bit with the custom made sump guards Tony made for us in North London.  Well this new hole was just below where the resin patch was, and it was time for the quick steel to do its job.  Tom cut off a bit of metal from the exhuast foil repair kit so I could push it up against the hole and create a flat dry surface for the quick steel.  We pasted over the whole business with the quick steel and in 5 minutes my work of art was complete.  We poured in 3 liters of oil, started her up, and low and behold… NO LEAK!

While we were pretty impressed with our amazing mechanical skills, we were also certain that our little Punto couldn’t take 3 more days of this abuse, and leak repair aside, she was starting and running pretty rough.  The kind of vibration we were taking can’t be sustained for long, at least not by this fine example of Italian engineering.  So when the Russian jeep arrived, we followed as far as Mercy Corps’ office in Dundgobi where we left #206 to catch a ride back to UB on the back of some monster trailer.  Zaya said Mercy Corps could arrange to return the car to their office while we continued on our route with the Land Cruiser and the Russian jeep!  We’d have to pay for fuel (which we would have anyway), and to send the Fiat back to UB. Other than that our rally dreams continue!

Tomorrow, on to Dalanzadgad!

Together Again In UB

Quick update: After several more hours wrestling Mongolian customs bureaucracy yesterday morning, we finally cleared at about 1pm and raced towards Ulaan Baatar.  We entered the city at about 6pm, navigated this huge maze of traffic and finally arrived at the guesthouse Kim had arranged after 7pm.

We are finally all together again, taking a day of downtime to recuperate and evaluate what we want to get out of this next week.  Will post more update later, but wanted to let everybody know we’re here.

Cell phone does not work in Mongolia, so txt message updates to eKit & map won’t work… we’ll be using WiFi and sat modem for updates until we get back to Seattle.

We are in UB, Mongolia, but the adventure is not over yet!

A Grand Don’t Come For Free

Sheltered by a stand of trees, we didn’t quite wake up as the sun rose over the eastern shore of Lake Baikal this morning, but we were up and back on the road as early as we could muster after a full day of driving the day before. Driving along the lake reminded me a lot of driving north up the Puget Sound, with lots of evergreen trees surrounding us. By 9am we were speeding our way to Ulan Ude. Well paved roads allowed us to cross nearly 400 klicks in 4 hours.

Turning south to Kyaktah at lunch time, the landscape changed as if we had crossed a border, but we still had more than 200k to go. What was happening was Irkutsk Oblast giving way to the Buryat Republic… both states inside Russia, but with Buryatia really having the feel of Mongolia already. The Buryat people are Mongolian and we started to see Mongolian writing, Ovoo’s (rock shrines with blue banners tied to them) and the odd Ger or two. The flat expanse of Siberia lay behind us as the rolling hills opened up, lined with evergreen trees where the road cut through the forested hills. The road was good enough that we could go pretty fast, but not so good that we didn’t have to avoid pot holes and animals… this was real rally driving again. We only slowed down a few times for towns & police checks (”documents please, ok, carry on your way”), and by 3pm we were exiting the Russian border at Kyaktah.

Everyone was pretty thrilled with excitement. We had just completed this really amazing driving section of the rally, and now we were finally about to cross into Mongolia, our last crossing before going home, and make our way to Ulaan Baatar to be re-united with Kim. I couldn’t wait to see her and hold her in my arms again, and everything was going amazingly to plan.

Until we hit the Mongolian border that is. The Mongolian border was necessarily a little trickier than the rest, because now we are importing the vehicles for donation, and have to make sure all the right paperwork is complete before we can move on. We couldn’t do that however, because we were told we couldn’t “make declaration”. We tried and failed for about 30 minutes to find out *why* we couldn’t make the declaration today… and were constantly told we had to come back tomorrow… come back from where!? Were we camping out at the border or what? Well, we’d find out later that we could not camp there, but that’s beside the point. Eventually we were told that the customs agent who does the declaration was “absent”. Why? The border is open! She was “on holiday”. And there is nobody who can do her job when she’s on vacation or sick? Does all traffic from Russia wait on the word of this one woman? It seemed like there were other people who could in fact do the job, and as we talked to more people we were told they could but they were “too busy”. Really frustrating. We begged to call her or find somebody who could process the customs declaration, when out of the blue she just shows up! With all the time wasted, it was getting late and the border was almost closing. Even though she was finally present she tried to also tell us “tomorrow, tomorrow”, because the border was closed. We explained we’d already been here for 3 hours and pointed at the clock because the border was not in fact closed yet. So she reluctantly started doing the paperwork… hunting and pecking at the keyboard, laboriously entering our car details into the computer one painstaking letter at a time.

Then there was a new twist. Only one of the cars had customs duty paid. It seems the Adventurists neglected to pay duty on both of our cars!! Why? I have no idea. We paid them our registration at the same time, our deposit at the same time. There is absolutely no reason duty on both cars should not have been paid at the same time. Somebody’s clerical error somewhere was keeping us at this border. Thanks a lot guys. I called the Adventurists and was told that if we paid the duty ourselves in cash, we could be reimbursed. Customs duty: $1007. Tom and Jean and I scraped together our emergency stashes of cash and had $1k ready to go. But this had to be converted to Tugrog, so we ran down to the exchange desk to get 1.3 million Tugrog… bank closed, come back tomorrow. Seriously!! This was the deal breaker. They absolutely would not exchange our money after 7pm, and we could not pay for the duty in dollars. No negotiating. We begged her to take our money and exchange it herself in the morning. We offered to pay “extra fees”. We tried everything. Anything to get through this border and make it to UB tonight. Nothing doing. The border guards had all gone home, and nobody would even look at our paperwork to let us through even if we could pay. Truly, a grand don’t come for free.   The day started out so well, only to lead to such disappointment.

Hastily we packed some of our gear out of the car (laptop. satellite, sleeping bag) and walked a kilometer into town for a cheap hotel and a bite to eat. I was able to get a hold of Kim at her hotel and explain this miserable situation. We’ve had a few hours sleep and it’s time again to head back and start all over. I can only hope there are no hangups due to it being Sunday now, and they can process us and get us on our way.

Trans-Siberian “Highway”

When we first signed up for the Mongol Rally I never pictured myself riding a ski lift to the top of a mountain resort… not exactly the rally milieu. Then again many of my expectations for this trip have had to acquire flexibility enough to bend along the changing course of events. Despite these expectations, standing on a cool Siberian mountain top looking down on a beautiful European looking city is exactly where I found myself yesterday afternoon.

An early morning followed our previous Siberian camp, and we made quick work of the road, past Barnaul and into Novosibirsk. Our good time was obliterated by traffic in Novosibirsk, and without cool air flowing into the front of the engine, our fanless radiator overheated and bubbled over… the temp sensor wouldn’t allow us to restart the car until it cooled down. As long as we could stay on the main motor way moving quickly, we could suck enough air to keep the engine cool… but these Russian “freeway” systems do not bypass cities, they drive you right through them, turning the motor way into the main drag through town, clogged by traffic. This was a showstopper if we couldn’t get it fixed… especially when we hit Mongolia and have to drive slowly over unpaved roads.

After escaping Novosibirsk we got stuck in another of these traffic jams in Kemerova, and pulled off into a Toyota dealership to let the engine cool down again. We figured where better to ask for help… maybe they had a fan for a Toyota Yaris or something that we could rig into the car… or a spare shock? They were extremely helpful, pulled our fan apart and showed us the melted electrical bits that prevented it from spinning. One of the girls who worked there, Irina, spoke pretty good English and helped translate between us and the service manager who was telling us there wasn’t much they could do. So she looked up Fiat services in Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk for us to visit at our next stops. They were really nice there, allowing us to use their hot water to make some of our camp food, and clean up a bit before getting back onto the motorway. We can’t thank Toyota enough! Even though we ended up driving Fiat’s, both Toyota of Seattle and Toyota of Kemerova have been so helpful!!

We pressed on, driving late into the night to try to make Krasnoyarsk, but had to stop just a few hundred klicks short and sleep in the cars at a rest area until morning.

Many of these rest areas have ramps, so Tom & I took the opportunity to get under the car and discover that our brilliant exhaust patch had come undone, and our repaired strut was leaking hydraulic fluid once again. We took another stab at patching the exhaust and got back on the road with the girls, but apparently exhaust pipes are a lot hotter than the 500 degrees that Rescue Tape can withstand, and by the time we pulled into Krasnoyarsk our exhaust was loud as ever. Not only that, but car #201 had pretty much no brake pads left. These cars were about to be stopped in their tracks.

We confidently drove down Karl Marx ave with map in hand, heading towards a hotel that would give us our visa registration, when a white Ford Focus pulled along side, occupants waiving and saying “Hi.”. This is really not an uncommon occurrence that we’ve gotten used to. Usually we just waive back and they keep driving, but these guys were persistent at getting our attention, and wanted to know where we were going. They offered to help us find it, and even though we felt pretty good about getting there, who were we to turn our noses up at expert navigation? Upon arrival, Nikolay and Alexey peppered us with questions, keen to practice their English. We explained we were in Krasnoyarsk to register our visas and visit the Fiat service that the Toyota dealership in Kemerova had written down for us. They generously offered to take us to the Fiat service so we wouldn’t get lost! A little incredulous, we asked them how they could afford to stop what they were doing and help us out… apparently they have their own business operating mobile phone payment kiosks, which offers them very flexible schedules, and they did not even pause to help out total strangers visiting their city. What could have been a few phone calls and a drive to a service station for them turned out to be almost two days of getting our cars sorted and back on the road.

First, the Fiat “service” apparently only worked on busses and trucks. So they took us to a dealership that used to be the official Fiat dealer in town, but now was only for Kia, Renault and Citroen. That dealership wasn’t much help, so Nikolay and Alexey hopped on their mobile phones and called about 8 different parts stores! We found one that supposedly had the brake pads we needed, but when we got there the pads didn’t quite fit. No worries, our new Russian friends knew a service that could grind away the bits that didn’t fit and MAKE them fit our brake calipers… no joke. They also knew a master electrician who could repair our fan. We dropped the fan off with their friend and made our way to the garage to reshape the brake pads. While there, we found out they could also fix our exhaust and repair our botched strut patch. Now, none of this came out to be very cheap… and we were skeptical about the cost, but after some probing I felt pretty confident that we were getting the straight deal. Apparently parts are hard to find in Krasnoyarsk, especially something that will fit a Fiat Punto (even if it does have to be custom machined). Brake pads ended up costing 4x what they did in England. Our strut repair was 5x what we paid in Rubtsovsk, but this time they actually straightened it out and replaced the hydraulic cartridge altogether… it was actually like new when all was said and done.

The only real downside was the time this all took. It was hard to fault Nikolay and Alexey for this, and they knew we were in a hurry to get to UB… but rigging this all together was just a time consuming exercise, and as we had hit the shops and garages near closing, we had to wait for the following day for most of the work to actually be done. In the meantime, they were determined to entertain us and show us their city. Alexey’s wife, Olga, and their son, Ilyesnae, had joined us by now, and after getting the new brake pads fitted and dropping off the other car at the garage, we cleaned up at the hotel, picked up Jean, Amy and Yasmin, and joined the four Russians at a banya on the outskirts of town. It was so hidden our taxi driver got lost finding it, calling Nikolay on the phone a couple times for directions, but we eventually arrived at this really nice hotel & bath. Our banya’s room, named Mexica, had a large-ish pool of cold water, a steam sauna, a lounge like seating area, and a kitchen/dining area where we were served smoked salmon, chips, wine and beer! Nikolay took Tom & I into the sauna and beat us down with Vyenik, branches of what I think is a Birch tree, before plunging us into the cold bath. We repeated this a few times until we were solidly relaxed, and Olga treated the girls to the same (although we hear it was substantially more gentle) treatment.

We couldn’t believe after such a long day of parts hunting, in the middle of their work week, that they’d take us out until 3am, but they were genuinely happy to do so, despite our protesting too much hospitality. The late night did not impede our progress the next morning too much because it took several hours for the fan to be repaired, and for the strut to be driven 40k outside of town to the repair service and back. This took substantially enough time that rather than wait it out at the garage, Nikolay, Alexey and Olga drove Tom & I ten minutes to the outskirts of town where this ski resort overlooks the city, and I surreally found myself in the most unexpected of rally environments. I looked down and was able to see all of Krasnoyarsk spread out before me. Our hotel, which sits just behind the famous bridge of Krasnoyarsk featuerd on the 10 ruble note, was easily visible, thanks to it’s ugly blue exterior. The fancy new downtown area where Nikolay & Alexey had their office was just beyond that to the north. And the whole waterfront along the river cut across it all like an artery feeding the city.

They drove us back to the garage as all the parts where arriving, and we looked on as the pieces all went back in to make our cars whole. Our new exhaust silencer was welded into place Uri, whose wide smile was filled with an entirely silver grill, using a CO2 welder named Sputnik. We joked that our car could be shot into space (although I grimace to think it would meet the same end as the original Sputnik), and they noticed our TerraPass CO2 offset sticker… wondering if the welder’s carbon output would be included in that calculation. Uri took an interest in my tattoo, and pulled his shirt off for some photos together with his tattoos. His less colorful green ink bore the classic sign of prison tattoos, and some of the designs clearly related to prison gangs (confirmed later by Nikolay). But he also had some fantastical graphics for such rough work, cats with bowties over each side of his chest… and despite a former life in a prison gang, he was the nicest guy at the garage, making sure we were taken care of and our car put back together right. After posing for some more post-repair photos, Nikolay took us back to our hotel and we swapped photos on the laptop before saying thanks for all their generosity and goodbye as we finally made our way out of Krasnoyarsk at about 10pm.

Rotating drivers and sleeping, we power drove through the night to Irkutsk, making our best attempt to reach the Mongolian border ASAP. We had heard the borders were closed for the weekend, and were worried we’d be stuck all day Saturday and Sunday if we couldn’t cross before closing on Friday. Fortunately, with the massive help of friends and family, we received several text messages confirming that the weekend border closing only affects other crossings, and that the northern crossing we are taking is OPEN on the weekends!  I even got a text & voice mail from the Mercy Corps Mongolia country director, Domonic Graham, who reassured me it was open and to take our time and enjoy the drive.  I say fortunately because it turned out to be impossible for us to make the nearly 1800 kilometers to the border anywhere close to the 6pm closing time on Friday. We were making excellent time along the M53 out of Krasnoyarsk… but about half way through the night, as Nikolay had actually predicted for us, the road turned into complete and utter trash. Our expectations of perfectly paved blacktop all the way through Siberia were dashed as we bounded across what turned out to be the worst roads of the entire trip. Big gaping holes opened up on either side of us, threatening to swallow the cars whole. Dirt turned into mud, kicking up on the sides of the car and caking every door crevice and even the gas cap. We knew for certain after this road that we never would have made it without the repaired fan motor and front right strut, so the nearly two days spent in Krasnoyarsk was indeed not optional.

It took nearly 20 hours for us to reach Irkutsk, but we ran into the ambulance team of the Magical Mongolian Mystery Tour yet again, after having last seen them in Azerbaijan. Their route took them to Aktau, Kazakhstan and across the north end of that country into Russia where we have reunited with them. We all stopped for dinner at this little cafe just inside Irkutsk, where we were again mobbed by local hospitality and treated to wine & vodka… just a small sip with dinner since we had to get back on the road 90 minutes later.

We made another effort to lay down some more kilometers towards the border which we’d still like to try to make before lunch tomorrow morning, but succumbing to exhaustion we have stopped to camp again along the shore of Lake Baikal. The single largest body of fresh water in the world, containing 20% of the non-frozen fresh water in the world, and 80% of Russia’s supply, Baikal is also the deepest lake in the world and getting deeper as the continental plates that converge at its bottom are separating. Eventually Baikal will split Asia in half and become the world’s next ocean, but until then it will continue to be the most massive lake, larger in volume and area than all of the Great Lakes combined. I had hoped to be able to make a day trip out to Olkhon Island to see some of the 80% of life that is indigenous only to this region, and stare into the clear blue deep water which has 40 meter visibility. I think now we will stop along the way tomorrow just for some quick photos.

Ulaan Baatar is our destination now. Kim is there and waiting to re-join the team, so tomorrow we make haste for UB and then if our cars can hold together we’ll tour the Mongolian country side. So until then, da zaftara, and Da Svidonya!

Siberian Camp

The desert heat has given way to cold, windy Siberia. For the second night after crossing the Russian border, we are camping out in a field a few hundred meters off the main road with the cold wind nipping at the edges of our staked out tents, threatening to blow them away if we didn’t secure them properly.

The drive from Almaty to Semey, Kazaksthan was pretty breathtakingly beautiful with more rolling hills and gorgeous sunsets. The road was pretty breathtaking too… as it nearly knocked the wind out of us bouncing along the way. The Fiat’s have been performing beautifully to this point, but the rough Kazak roads took their toll on us big time. Car #206 took quite a beating the last few days as pot holes attempted to shake our bones loose. Our exhaust leak worsened considerably, making for not just a noisy ride, but a powerless and inefficient one. Then we noticed that the front right strut was providing almost no shock absorption. Tom took a look and noticed hydraulic fluid from the piston leaking everywhere, and the boot & bump stop shredding themselves. Every bump becomes a head rattling experience.

Half way to Semey we hooked up with teams Car Go Far Go and an ambulence team, Divorced Eggs. The ambulence was having brake problems and looking for a mechanic along the way (on a Sunday, without luck). And then just after joining their convoy our radiator fan motor blew out. I smelled the smoke first, and then made Tom pull over when I saw the temp guage climbing. We blasted the heat on full and drove in what felt like a Turkish sauna for 45 minutes while the engine cooled back down. We seemed to be ok as long as cooler air was coming and we didn’t slow down into low gears for higher torque driving… but these problems adding up is a little disconcerting. We can’t fall apart now! I also noticed my horn is completely out. When we tried to pop the hood on #201 to compare the horn fuses, we realized the hood release cable was broken and we couldn’t pop the hood! I was able to hack the mechanism with a pair of long pliers… but again, problems adding up, uggh.

These were supposedly the good roads too, as the last 150 klicks to Semey were supposedly completely riddled with pot holes. On the advice of a local at one stop along the way, we decided to avoid the direct road to Semey. Well, to put his hand gestures into words, “Road to Semey, not possible, machina [car] kaput” Instead, we drove out of the way, a longer distance, but on better roads, to Oskemen. In fact, these roads weren’t just better… they were fantastic! Freshly flattened out blacktop, like velvet, streched on for miles. We figure despite the distance we still made Semey in the same time, only with less damage to the cars.

I was hoping ever since leaving Almaty that I wouldn’t have to call in that favor from my Kazak security agency contact… but when our first stop for an imaginary offense occurred just oustide Semey, I was quickly contemplating it. These cops pulled us over at a roundabout for failing to signal, but we were just continuing along the round about in the same manner as everybody else (also not signaling), so Tom & I refused to pay the “ticket”. As the cops grew more serious, I actually did dial the number, but the crazy Kazak cell network wouldn’t actually connect the call.I argued with the cop in Russian for a few minutes, demanding he show us photo of the offense (all the cop cars have cameras). Between asking for the photo and appearing to call somebody, the cop got a little nervous and told us to carry on. So we did, almost straight on to the border, stopping only for a bite to eat.

The Russian border crossing, at 1am, was much less painful than I was expecting. In under 2 hours we cleared immigration and customs, had the cars searched, our visas “approved”, and were on our way to Siberian campsite number 1.

Gettign to bed pretty late, we slept in a bit and made it as far as Rubtsovsk before we had to stop and get the cars looked at. We made for the bank to exchange our Tenge for Rubles, and found a garage that looked like it knew something about suspension. We barely exhanged info in Russian (they knew n0 English) and then they just started pulling the wheel off and working on the car. With a dozen old used shocks on a shelf we figured we might get one of those… but they were either spoken for or none would fit, because the mechanic set about *repairing* our broken strut. Yes, you read that right, repairing. He sent a friend to a shop to look for a new one, but they couldn’t be found. So instead, he drills a hole in the strut, injects some kind of hydraulic fluid in there, and welds up the hole! He was a little concerned that the strut mount was already slightly bent, but at this point, with no new one in site, we had little choice but to carry on. Tom and I crawled under the car while it was jacked up for them to get the strut off, and patched up our exhaust leak ourselves. Rubtsovsk is a surprisngly dusty town, and with wind whipping quickly through it, we both got blasted by sand as we worked on the car. I still seem to have dirt everywhere on my body (behind my ears!) and it felt like we were working on these cars in the middle of a sand storm. The exhaust coming out of the engine had completely separate from the silencer with about an 1 inch gap, meaning I basically had no muffler anymore. Tom slapped some quick steel on there, we hope holding the pipe together. I then wrapped it tight with Rescue Tape! Brilliant stuff. Self adhering silicone tape, withstands tons of pressure and 500 degree farenheit tempuratures. On top of all that we slapped an exhuast foil kit, and now #206 purrs like a kitten, and provides extra power on the freeway for overtaking big trucks. Hopefully now I can get back some of my lost mpg’s!

The fan motor couldn’t be replaced by these guys, but they did help us hack together a hood release solution, running a wire through the bumper so we can manually release it from the front. 3 out of 4 repairs isn’t bad, and we’re back on the road. All of that for 600 rubles, basically $20.

Getting a late start, we didn’t quite make it to Barnaul before stopping to set up camp tonight. We are staked out well in this cold wind, or the tents very well could blow away. I’m wrapping this up and heading to bed so we can get up early and start laying waste to the thousands of kilometers of amazingly awesome pavement between here and Mongolia. More velvety roads that we can’t wait to just tear through. If we make good time we may be reunited with Kim in UB by the end of the week! Then we should have plenty of time to drive around Mongolia, down to the Gobi and back up to UB, as a whole team once again. Can’t wait to see my wife! I miss her so much!

Aral Sea Pan

Drag around this VR panorama of the Aral Sea @ Muynaq.  I will create a higher rez version when I get home, but for now I’m rationing bandwidth, posting this via satellite from our camp ground in the middle of nowhere Kazakhstan

Photo & Video Update

A new batch of photos just posted to Flickr!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/autarken

And a quick video clip from the Aral Sea!

Wedding Crashers

I couldn’t really say how nice of a town Almaty is since I’ve seen little besides the parking lot of our hotel, but following the the trend that’s been set since Turkmenistan the people have been overwhelmingly nice.

First order of business yesterday was to sort out our tourist “registration”… something you have to do at your hotel or at the OVIR office when you arrive, NOT at the border… an archaic throw back to the soviet era, and I think a weak attempt to track your movement, or at the very least to make traveling a hassle. But the receptionist at our hotel was very helpful and in another broken Russian conversation I was able to arrange for our tourist cards to be registered with our passports yesterday.

With that out of the way Tom took a look at the cars with Justin from Just A Steppe Away and we think they determined the drive shafts on 201 are *not* devastatingly harmed… so we rotated the tires and will carry on as is. We weren’t able to look at the possible exhaust leak on 206, but we did get radiator guards and rally fog lights installed, and changed the oil on both cars. Frustratingly we got 201 wired for lights and verified the electricity is live after the switch… but the lights still don’t seem to work. Maybe we got a bum pair. It’s too bad too because 201 has had it’s passenger side headlight constantly going out. We’ve gone through four H1 bulbs already and I got four more yesterday… At least 206 can lead the way with an extra 55watts each of rally lights blinding any oncoming traffic.

As we were out working on the cars, a wedding party started to assemble at the hotel. We worried for a bit that they might take offense that we had set up a make shift garage in the parking lot next to their reception hall, but on the contrary the guys started coming out and taking to us throughout the evening. They were fascinated by the rally, and the fact that we would come all this way to visit their country. The guests were mostly ethnic Ukrainians and Russians who had all grown up in Kazakhstan and call this their home, but do not call themselves Kazak. They were all dressed pretty sharply and seemed well off compared to most, driving nicer imported cars (mostly Japanese, all original right hand drive!). Throughout the night they would wander out for a smoke break and make conversation with us before heading back into the party… but by the end of the evening they were taking pictures with us and offering us champagne! One of the guys gave me his phone number and kept telling me to call him if we had any trouble with the police… at first we thought maybe he was mafia, but after the 4th offer to help with police I boldly asked him what he did, and he leaned in and whispered that he worked for the national security agency here in Kazakhstan. I’ll reserve some of the details until we exit the country (and posting this over encrypted ssh tunnel… paranoid maybe but I don’t want to draw the wrong kind of attention or get this guy in trouble, and who knows who’s filtering this internet connection), and I really hope I don’t need to call on him for help, but needless to say he was very convincing and I’m sure if we do have trouble with police a call to him will help us out big time.

We’ll find out soon as we make our way today from Almaty to Semey. Hoping to hit the Russian border in the next 48 hours and hit really nice pavement until we get to the Mongolian border in the next week or so!