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 Central Asia |
 This summer, I completed the Mongol Rally as part of a team of two in a one-litre Nissan Micra which we named Mungo. The Mongol Rally is organized by a group called the Adventurists, but is entirely unsupported. All the teams start from Goodwood race track in the UK and the goal is to reach Ulaan Baatar, the capital of Mongolia. What you do in between is between your teammates and your car! The teams choose their own route, their own time scale and sort out their own problems, effectively traveling independently but as participants in a larger event. The only 'rules' are that your car engine should be no more than one litre and cost aslittle as possible, and you have to raise a minimum of £1000 for charity. We supported the Christina Noble Childrens' Foundation and raised more than £1500 thanks to the generosity of friends, family and colleagues. Our only official sponsors were Vestey Foods, who make ration packs for the British Army, and they kept us well supplied with rations for the journey. |
| 500 teams took part this year. Due the to the variety of routes, the different timescales, and various mishaps along the way, we spent most of the Rally on our own. There was only one occasion when we chose to drive in convoy with other cars. We crossed paths with other Ralliers almost every day until Kyrgystan and then again once we reached Mongolia, but this happened by chance rather than design. The teams had a mix of young students, middle aged couples, father and son teams as well as an international vibe, with people from Denmark, the Netherlands, Australia, Canada, the US, Spain, Italy and France. |
| At the point where this article begins we were beginning the last leg of our journey on the road from Barnaul in Siberian Russia to the Mongolian border As we drove further east we could see the countryside changing. With a subtle inexorability the verdant alpine crags were slowly fading into softer, rumpled mountains, worn with time and the elements, until they crouched low and almost unobtrusively on either side as if they were trying to go unnoticed. In geological, if not political geography we were already in Mongolia--one more border crossing and it would be true. It had taken us (Quentin and me and our car, Mungo) 24 days and 11 countries to reach this point. We'd sweltered across the deserts of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, hurtled across the Kyrgyz Mountains, and endured the painfully straight, scenically challenged roads of a brutally hot western Russia. The merciless heat beat down on our little Nissan Micra like an attack.We'd encountered a lack of hospitality from half a dozen cultures and entertained numerous police, border officials and truck drivers with our projected route as they looked pityingly at our apparently woefully inadequate little car. After weeks of drinking hot chlorinated water that reminded us of a warm municipal swimming pool, we'd reached the blessed cool of the mountains and some of the most stunning scenery I ever expect to see--all the more so because so few people actually see it. All of our adventures along the way had brought us here and the goal was in sight. This is the Mongolian chapter of our story on the Mongol Rally 2009. |
In Mongolia:
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Perhaps the most harrowing moment came as we skimmed over the top of the Gobi Desert, when our fuel gauge plunged to zero. Thinking we had leak we were out in an instant inspecting every nook and cranny that we could access. Somehow, by this stage I couldn't muster the energy to be frightened, although on reflection it could have had an ugly ending. There was no guarantee someone would come by. By the time we established that it was the fuel gauge which was at fault and not the fuel line, we were compensated for our angst by the sight of a caravan of camels stalking silently towards us across the desert and sailing past us in disdainful silence, wholly unconcerned by these strange interlopers on their territory. Not long after this I glanced behind us to see in the distance the hazy sand dunes of real desert. Tinged with red and purple, they were majestic and austere, and my one regret is not having a powerful enough camera to capture the beauty. |
 For the first few days, all went swimmingly. The landscape became ever more beautiful, with smooth velvety rolling mountains, tinged with warm red earth, aqua blue lakes and white ghers, the round tends of the nomadic natives, flung against clear blue skies. Camping in the wilderness was a refreshing and exhilarating experience for a townie, leaving me wavering between utter relaxation, absorbed by the deep quiet and soothing rhythms of the insects on the one hand and on the other hand with sheer terror as I convinced myself I could hear stealthy footfalls outside the tent. On our third day we were heading towards Baynkhongor, a long dull drive across the top edge of the Gobi desert. Since there is only one road marked on the map, this shouldn't have presented too many difficulties. But the roads in Mongolia are mostly dirt tracks worn by use rather than laid down by planners. The result of this is that people repeatedly create their own tracks, and the main road ends up looking like a vipers' nest on acid. Somewhere in this mêlêe of converging and diverging tracks we ended up on the wrong one, which gradually changed direction until we found ourselves, 70 km south of where we should have been, and in the most miserable, forsaken spot I can imagine. We were on a flat plain on high ground, with low visibility due to stinging dust kicked up by gale force winds. There was a ger village along the banks of a torrent of river, and there was nothing but grey for as far as the eye could see-- which wasn't very far, as even the sun was blotted out by the dust. It had the feel of a galactic outpost from a Star Wars movie, the very end of the world.In these cheery environs we managed to deduce from the locals that we were well off course and that our only alternatives were to ford the river--there were buses going across with water over their top wheel arches, and the current was ferociously strong--or go back and find the track we'd missed. Well, if we'd missed it the first time, we weren't going to find it again, especially as now it was getting dark. I was not enamoured of the idea of going over the river, but the local chap assured us that 5-10 Mongol Rally teams had already taken this route, and the tractor which did the towing of smaller cars did indeed sport a Mongol Rally sticker. So, with me praying fervently, we found ourselves hooked up to a little tractor-buggy, bags all placed as high inside Mungo as we could, and delving into the raging torrent to amble slowly across to the other side. The river was shallower than it looked, but at any moment I was expecting a broadside from a wave that would sweep poor little Mungo's wheels from under him, and away we would go. At this juncture, Quentin's reiteration of the catch phrase, "This is what the Mongol Rally is all about!" fell a little hollow on my ears. After the crossing, it was too dark to travel far on the off road tracks, so we huddled Mungo by a bank of rocks and slept in the car. Turned out we were sleeping in a dried up river bed--hardly reassuring given the recent flash floods in Mongolia.We reached Bayankhongor without further mishap or misadventure and had an uneventful, if bumpy ride to the next provincial capital. (The roads here have hidden launch pads, we've discovered, and on more than one occasion Mungo has had a mini flying lesson--not to mention the soft and loose surfaces: I sent Mungo into a 50mph spin and landed us in a field of dirt at one point, and Quentin lost traction a few times but recovered it a lot better and less dramatically than I had done.) |
| Quentin's off-roading skills and two days of practice paid off on the last night. From Arvaikheer, we were on tarmac all the way to Ulaan Baatar, or so Lonely Planet assured us. The road was beautiful right up until the last town before UB, and, on that basis, we had decided to press on to the finish rather than camp out. We expected to be there by 9 pm. But all of a sudden, the road turned into a rocky track, and we noted that all the local automobiles were going off onto swampy and boggy old time dirt tracks. To add to the challenge, night was falling, and we had to negotiate the myriad of boggy bumpy tracks in the dark. All you could see were distant headlights weaving across the horizon like drunken fireflies. The slow, scattered lights were unreassuringly reminiscent of a 1990s disaster movie. Ironically, one local car seemed intent on following us, making us wonder what kind of person, under those conditions, follows a foreign car with multiple dents and lacking a rear bumper? We finally made it back onto asphalt, but everyone was still creeping along for fear of suddenly losing the road again. The tarmac took us all the way in, however, and city lights have never looked so lovely. It had been a long journey. |
| Ulaan Baatar at Last: |
| Total Miles Traveled: 7,935 The trip took Team Mungo through France, Belgium, Germany, Czech Republic, Poland, Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, back into Kazakhstan, back in Russia and then into Mongolia. In the process, we traversed 8 time zones. Throughout we maintained a website tracking our progress with a blog and text updates and an interactive map of our route. For the full adventure, please see our team website at: http://mongolrally09.theadventurists.com/mongomicra Photo Credits: Emma McCarthy, Quentin Curran |
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© 2009 ROMAR TRAVEL GUIDES
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