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!

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!

Making Our Last Stan

That “lamb shish” that I “just finished” in my last post?  It was a vile poisoned thing!  Either they rushed it out or the whole kitchen was filthy, because that was the 2nd worst food poisoning incident I’ve had yet.

After finishing that post I heard my name called in the courtyard outside the internet cafe and joined the guys in our convoy, Tom, Boris, Hugh and Will, along with another German, Sebastien, whose birthday was being celebrated, again, because we didn’t make it to Bukhara the night before.  It was after 11pm and Bukhara had completely shut down, but we sat on the steps near a fountain and shared a few drinks and stories… such as Hugh’s work with the UN and a funny German “perfection”-ist trainer who tried to show American NGO aid groups why the houses they built were all wrong… and our favorite funny movies.  After Hugh was slightly harassed by the fuzz and a very drunk Uzbek became convinced Tom was Mike Tyson, we decided to pack it in and finally go to bed.

After sleeping just a few hours I woke up trembling and emptied the contents of my stomach which had turned rancid in my belly and were begging to escape.  I tried to drink some water and go back to sleep, but I couldn’t even keep that down for more than an hour.  At 8am, I woke up Tom, told him I was ill and needed to sleep some more, asking him to figure out our fuel situation.  I tossed for a few hours, and tossed my cookies a few more times (all just water I couldn’t keep down, even with re-hydration salts), and when I finally emerged at noon I was surprised to find Tom was *still* trying to sort out our gas!  The Uzbek fuel shortage was no joke.  By 8am all rations were tapped out already and he had to talk to two different guys to find enough black market gas to get us to the border.  Supposedly the situation was improved nearer to Tashkent, but we did not want to risk it and just wanted to make the border.

Getting such a late start did not help, but finally we were fueled up and on our way after noon.  While Jean & Tom drove in convoy with the CooperTroopers, I fidgeted uncomfortably in the passenger seat.  Boris opened up his pharmacy to me and provided some foul tasting concoction that successfully eased my stomach… but now I found that my muscles, particularly my back, ached, and I could not sleep much in the car.  At least I could stomach water.

We made Samarqand in the early evening, took some photos of Tamerlane’s statue & mausoleum, and grabbed a quick bite to eat.  I was too uncomfortable to join the group for more photos & minaret climbing at the Registan (this one dazzlingly lit and accompanied by music, in stark contrast to Bukhara’s solemn square)… I’m jealous Boris must have gotten some amazing photos!  We pushed on toward the border and stopped in a field just before midnight to camp out again.

New day, new man.  When I woke up again I was feeling completely better.  Whatever nasty bug had gotten into my system had finished excreting it’s toxins and I vanquished them from my body, ready to move on.  With the CooperTroopers and Will heading to Tashkent to pick up their Tajik visas and Pamir highway passes, we split the convoy again and BaatarHero was on its own once more.  We made pretty good time to the border, and had a relatively smooth Kazak border crossing, similar to the Uzbek crossing.  What a pleasant surprise after dealing with such long process & expense in Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan.  Another nice surprise were relatively well paved roads in Kazakhstan!

Our drive up to Shymkent was a breeze and before we knew it we were sitting down to dinner at a Kazak barbecue place with live entertainment… well, it was basically 1 guy doing karaoke all night, but beggars can’t be choosers.  Chicken for me this time… very well done.  We crashed at a hotel rather than drive out into the country and camp again, knowing we would need a good shower and breakfast before today’s long drive.

Thinking we woke up early, we learned at breakfast that we’d lost another hour due to the timezone change, so we dashed out of Shymkent and sped off for Almaty.  The cop who pulled us over for accidentally making an illegal u-turn was nice, and let us off with a warning instead of shaking us down.  This great start to the morning was improved by absolutely stunning views of the country along the M39.  Each border crossing brings about a stark change in geography, from the desert of Turkmenistan to the lush cotton fields of Uzbekistan, to the rolling hills of grass and various crops in Kazakhstan.  We drove east, skirting around the feet of the towering Tian Shan mountains which climb off into Kyrgyzstan, passing herds of cattle and horses.  Big Kazak horses, not like the tiny ponies we expect in Mongolia.  Some of these look domesticated, but many look wild, roaming free along the freeway and crossing the road in their own convoys. It is killing me not having Kim here because I know she would love the landscape and the horses.  We will just have to come back… maybe do the rally again some day?

After passing some tanks on the freeway we were surprised to come up on a bright yellow mini cooper with Superwinch written across the back.  We had run into this team at the Kazak border crossing and thought they were heading North.  It turns out they are, but not directly, first heading East a bit and then turning North before reaching Almaty.  We drove with them for a while, taking turns passing the slow trucks, and then they seemed to disappear.  Not having their phone or a plan to travel with them, we figured they stopped for a bathroom break or something and we continued on into town.  After a few minutes though, a local driver flagged us down to tell us our friends were in trouble, so we turned back to find them along the side of the road with the front right tire completely missing, and all the steering bits turned about in different places.  It turns out one of the steering control arms just bent.  For no particular reason.  They didn’t hit a big pot hole or rough patch of road… it just bent and drove them off the road.  As it happens, they have a spare of EVERYTHING in that car, and they were probably a quarter of the way to repairing it.  They just couldn’t find a bolt, which I happened to stumble upon and hand over.  Glad I could be of some use!  We stayed behind for a bit to make sure they’d be ok, but it was starting to get dark and we wanted to make it to Almaty tonight to reunite with Amy & Yasmin.  They reassured us they were fine, so off we went.

Trying to skirt the Kyrgyz border without actually entering, we had to get off the main road which goes to Bishkek, and took this nasty detour just North of the border which had a ton of construction, pot holes and gravel.  It made the night drag on, but we finally made it past the bad parts by about 11pm and hit really good pavement 200km outside Almaty.  We cruised the rest of the way, and despite some really bad directions from a gas station close to the hotel which sent us 45 minutes in the wrong direction, we finally pulled into the parking lot where Amy & Yasmin were staying at just after 2am.

I whipped out the laptop straight away to have a Skype with Kim as its been days since we could have a real conversation.  The internet connection here is decent and we will take advantage of it to finally catch up on photos & video in the morning.  We’ll probably be in town all day tomorrow fixing up the cars.  They’ve been taking a beating but are still holding together.  We think we have an exhaust leak in one which is robbing us of power and fuel efficiency… despite which I still seem to be averaging 40mpg after our just over 6000 miles.  I’ll have to corroborate the odometer against the map track tomorrow, but we’re now over half way through the trip in both distance and time.  We’re hoping the roads stay better than expected so we can make good time in Kazakhstan and Russia to be reunited with Kim finally in Mongolia.  We are also looking forward to meeting up again with the teams we’ve convoyed with the last few days who have split off in different directions.  There are several arrival parties in Ulaan Baatar, and as we’re swinging through there to pick Kim up before touring Mongolia, we might actually be able to make both of them!

See you all again on the other side of a few hours’ sleep with some photo updates of our progress.

Aral Sea and The Stans

Waking up early and leaving our desert camp ground at Darvaza, we made for the Uzbek border, filling our fuel tanks both internal and external to full, including some extra 5 liter water bottles, as we’d heard about a gas shortage in Uzbekistan. We made the Turkmen exit border at about 4:30pm and into the Uzbek entry by 5:30, just in time to strat processing by the 6pm closing.

Uzbek border guards were friendly and helpful, asked us lots of questions about the rally and America, and especially about my tattoo. One of them asked if I was Yakuza (don’t know how he thought I was Japanese… I was more worried he thought I was a gangster), but he was laughing and joking around mostly.

After the border we split up our convoy, with Just A Steppe Away saving fuel and heading straight for Bukhara. Romanda from 3 Blondes and a Beater joined us along with team CooperTroopers in their little 1 liter Daihatsu and we headed north towards Muynaq. Our “quick” stop at a market for water turned into a 45 minute ordeal as the whole town showed up to take photos of us on their cell phones. We were all a curiosity and pretty popular, but nobody more so than Tom. In both Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, everybody asks where we’re from and we say “America, Canada, Germany, Australia”, listing the nationalities of everybody in the convoy, but they inquire about Tom’s heritage and when he admits India they light up with smiles and say they love India… “Namaste!”. It’s hilarious. We’re all getting a big kick out of it. And Tom’s face is on more Uzbek cell phones than we can count. We finally pulled out of town and found a quiet camp spot in a field a klick or so off the road.

We didn’t even wait for the sun to break camp early and set out for Muynaq. We also wanted to get to Bukhara on the 15th to rejoin Romanda with her team… plus we have to make progress as our visas expire on the 18th. But first we just had to see the Aral Sea, or lack thereof. Unfortunately I’m at a slow internet cafe in Bukhara now, and there isn’t enough line of site for the satellite to work here, so you don’t get video or photos quite yet… but I can’t wait to upload this stuff. The devastation caused by the draining of the Amu Darya river for irrigation is amazing. As we drove north from Darvaza, we started seeing the lush green cotton fields grow more abundant and in this northwestern corner of Uzbekistan it is all green and marshy (with accompanying mosquitos) despite the arid desert environment. Then as you pull off the road at Muynaq the desert just opens up, and there is a cliff at least a hundred feet high where the sea port used to be and the dead sea bed drops off below. At the bottom are 10 rusty ships amidst sand dunes and sea shells and it’s hard to belief that as recently as the 1970’s they were floating up in the harbor of this fishing village. Words really can’t describe it, so you’ll just have to wait for the photos, but Darvaza and Muynaq are competing for most amazing sites on the rally so far… and actually some of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen.

As we drove south towards Bukhara the cotton fields began to disappear, though as we crossed the Amy Darya, now barely a few hundred feet across where it used to be miles wide, you could see the irrigation canals streaming off either side off into the distance where they feed farms in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. There are resevoirs where kids are playing, unaware of the barren landscape just a few hundred kilometers to their north.

The drive to Bukhara was another brutal day of rough roads, and we quickly began to realize the scope of the gas shortage here. Every gas station you see looks deserted… and the stations that do have attendants tell you they are empty. Every once in a while some shifty guy will approach you leaving the station and tell you he can sell you his gas for twice the price, but it’s stored in 5 liter jerry cans and nobody knows how much of it is really water. We begged off all these early offers hoping we could find a bigger city before Bukhara, but nothing materialized. We made it within 250 klicks of Bukhara before we were too tired to keep driving on horrible roads, and pulled off into the desert to camp. Pitching tents and sleeping on the sand made for a pretty comfortable night’s sleep, and we wook up again at dawn to push on for Bukhara. The road conditions improved and we made good time, but the needle on our fuel tank crawled towards E and the light came on pretty quickly.

We finally found a station that had a line up of Uzbek cars, but when we pulled in they insisted they had no gas. Incredulous, we decided to wait them out and see if they started pumping for a local. Stubbornly, the attendants and owner left the station. We thought the locals might be angry with us, but they made conversation… also insisted there was no gas (we wondered and asked what they were doing there though, without much explaination), and took more photos with Tom. We finally gave an and putter on towards Bukhara. There was another station along the way where a tanker truck was supposedly showing up at 1pm, and it had a half mile long queue of cars in front. Not waiting for that, we coasted into town on fumes and were refused gas at another station that WAS pumping petrol for people, but apparently only for Uzbek firms with prepaid invoices. We are now parked at our hotel and will be hooking up some black market gas from some guy’s house in the morning… probably paying too much, but at this point we need full tanks to make the border and get to Almaty to pick up Amy & Yasmin.

It was nice to arrive in Bukhara in the afternoon. A decent lunch was available and we were able to meander around the Registan and the Ark, relaxing a bit and taking lots of photos. I was anxious to see the Ark, including the Zindon or Sia Chat “bug pit” where British officers Stodart and Connolly were tortured by the Uzbek Emir before execution. The bug pit was closed but we wandered around the outside at sunset and slowly made our way back to the hotel for some excellent night photography.

I just finished a lamb shish kabob dinner and am ready to sleep in a bed again before getting up and pressing on to Samarqand tomorrow.

Next post hopefully with photos & video!