Mongolia - Part One

The crossing into Mongolia was incredibly easy. A few forms and stamps at the Russian side, and a brief search by the guards of our cars – who simply pointed at our bags and asked us what they were – and we were through to no mans land, about 20KM of baron nothingness. We were stopped half way by the most excited Russian guard on earth - clearly going a bit stir crazy out here - who waived us through…with his rifle.

We reached the Mongolian border and were through in about an hour, only to be sent into the ‘holding pen’, a fenced courtyard already containing about 20 rally cars. It seems some admin issues meant most cars were waiting 24hrs minimum to get the vital customs import form.

There was quite a party atmosphere and a few old faces; the great Balls of Fur fire engine had made it, though the back end had been entirely cut off due to weight issues. Our twin Hyundai was there, as were the Gentlemen of Fortune. They had all been there a day and had basically built a refugee camp, so we settled in for the long haul. We exchanged stories on other teams and discovered the Rolling Cones and the pink ice cream truck had sold it in Tajikistan - the plastic (?) radiator blew and could not be replaced locally. Other teams had had accidents (many cases of falling asleep at the wheel) but thankfully major injuries were low. Still an eye opener though.

A few beers later, tents up and thoroughly relaxed, we suddenly got the call – we could go! Only 7 hours stay for us in the end. Entering Mongolia feels like you have just been transported to the moon. There is nothing as far as the eye can see, and the ‘road’ is a wide, gravel track, meandering off into the distance, often splitting in different directions with no indication of which goes where. There are no trees whatsoever, just rolling hills and the largest deep blue sky I’ve ever seen. It was 4pm or so and for the first time we realised just how little in the way of landmarks we would have here. There was nothing! All you can do is follow the tracks, which are so rough it feels like you are shaking the very bowels of the car to pieces. Can we do 1500KM on this? We’ll find out.

Driving in Mongolia is by far the most fun country of all. There is nobody for hundreds of miles – or at least it feels that way – so car surfing time kicks in. It’s actually quite cold this time of day but the feeling of riding on the roof in convoy is pretty immense. Heading in roughly the right direction (following the power lines, which must go somewhere) us, the Siberian Tigers (white Felicia) and the Kiwi Vikings (Volvo Ambulance) headed for Olgi the first major town. Gravel gave way to rutted sand and back again, and the challenge became keeping the car so it straddled the gap over a truck rut, but you can keep up a surprising turn of speed. 30-40MPH was doable. We also realised when tracks split, usually it’s to get around a big hill and they meet up on the other side.

After 3 hours or so we suddenly hit brand new, perfect tarmac. Have we been conned? What’s this?! Apart from wild horses and the odd cow in the road, we could be driving in Germany….the road took us to Olgi where it did deteriorate again, but it as a sign of changes in Mongolia – they are building a proper road across the breadth of the country, and one day, there will be no Mongol Rally.

Olgi was pitch dark, apparently the Russians had cut the power and there was very little light, but we managed to find fuel and hit the road once again. We were aiming to camp by a nearby lake, but driving on gravel tracks in pitch darkness with no reference points becomes impossible, and we decided to camp just off the road. It’s so dark, you can see nothing – we drove 100ft from the road at 90 degrees to make sure we could find it again tomorrow, and set up camp. It was very, very cold and very windy!

The next morning we awoke to see where we were and it’s a bit of a shock to the system – in the dark it somehow felt nothing like the huge open rolling hills we were now camped on. The Skoda boys had tried to drive a bit further north of our spot and cursed their car for lack of power when it could not climb a slope, but that morning we could see why – two faint tyre tracks where they had tried to climb a mountain slope of about 70 degrees!

We set off at about 30MPH on very rough gravel tracks, and within about 10 kilometres had our first puncture. We had two spares, would this be enough? Before long we were at our first river crossing which went pretty smoothly. The second one…didn’t. It looked deep but ok, the problem we had decided was the boggy sand under the surface. We spent 20 minutes trying to decide what to do, and I thought there might be another route. Rule 5 of the Mongol Rally: Locals cross in certain places for a reason.

I ventured off around the river on my own while the others tried to build a crossing for the Skoda in an attempt to find another way across. It was going well for a while….but soon it turned to soft mud and long grass. Uhho. I crossed a creek and thought I was on the other side, only to see I had just managed to put the car in the middle of about 15 other creeks. Not good, so I turned back, and immediately got stuck trying to drive back up the other side of the creek I just crossed. Rule 6 of the Mongol Rally – Never Do Anything Alone!. I was in deep trouble, and panicking.

The rest of my team were with the Skoda about 1KM away, and I was getting deeper in mud. My only choice was to rev the balls off it and try and get up the slope….I managed it, but ripped off the sump guard and smashed the mounts for the rear bumper in the process! I limped back to where the others were, sump guard dragging, and we were quickly met by another 8 teams who literally drove straight across. It was deep, but the ‘boggy sand’ was pretty stable…how foolish I felt. Lesson learned…

We made Khovd that afternoon, another frontier kind of town with basic shacks, a few places to eat and a wealth of little garages, all seemingly filled with rally cars. This is where the torture we were inflicting on all our cars started to show, with teams dropping like flies. In Khovd we met our car’s twin (Team Herohead) and others along with The Day Trippers, three girls with a dead Felicia. They had cracked the gearbox, and a plan formed to rebuild another Felicia in the graveyard (a drop off point for dead rally cars, including the I Mongol’d Your Mum Corsa - three flats and collapsed suspension!)…

However it seemed this one had been stripped, as half way through swapping over valves, ECU and plugs, we noticed the exhaust, alternator and god knows what else were gone. Game over unfortunately, and they jumped into a mini bus to catch up friends in Altai. We hit the road once again with the Siberian Tigers - onwards into deepest Mongolia!

Next - The Home Straight?



1 Comment

1. Kylie Batt says:

   May 19th, 2010

   Какие трогательные слова :)…

   Дизайнер интерьера We were […….

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.