Wednesday 16th August - Mongolian Insurance Scams
Waking up in the yurt Haylee and Patrick most likely needed a chiropractor. Cultural experiences such as this fantastic one come at a cost. Us Aussies, our Swedish friends and UK friends all walked back to our cars that we needed to get processed so we could enter the country. Twenty minutes later we were all officially stamped and driving into Mongolia! The road just before the border gate is horrendous! The cement is all cracked and broken; an ominous sign of the roads to c
Tuesday 15th August - No Man's Land & Yurts
We packed up our tents as quick as we could. The aim for today was to reach the Mongolian border before it closed. We'd heard that teams had spent 7 hours trying to get through the day before. Fingers crossed we wouldn't need to spend that long there. Our tents were soaked. The area we'd camped in was great but there was so much moisture in the air, it was as if we'd thrown our tents in a pool. We had no choice but to pack them away all wet. Sorry tents! The Swedish team were
Monday 14th August - Wild camping under the stars of Russia
Maccas served as our greasy yet satisfying breakfast this morning. It was the western fast food goodness that we needed. Everyone was savouring the hash browns and bacon & egg mcmuffins, they were a welcome change to the oily fried eggs we're always given at hotels. We decided to run next door to Maccas and look into buying SIM cards for our phones. The young guy at the store started entering all our details on his computer and kept talking to us assuming we knew Russian. Eve
Sunday 13th August - The Crowpocalypse & the Mudpocalypse
We enjoyed breakfast with Anja and discussed our plans for the next few days. Anja and her boyfriend Matthias have a flight booked on 23rd August so they're planning to completely leg it to the finish line once he returns to Pavlodar on Tuesday. Goodluck to them! We packed our car and James checked the tyre pressure. After another session of luggage tetris we were off to the Russian border. Finally, we would be entering the land of Putin and dancing bears! We arrived at the b
Saturday 12th August - 'What do you recommend?' 'The manta ray is good'
After some breakfast at the hotel (which of course consisted of some oily eggs, bread and cheese) we played tetris with our car again and headed off. Our destination for today would be Pavlodar. A small city near the border of Russia. We drove for a few hours then stopped in a very tiny town called Ereimentau to find some lunch. There was only one restaurant in town so we pulled up to it. Walking inside everything looked very dead. We could smell food and hear some ladies out
Friday 11th August - Entering the death star
Rest days are a rare thing on the Mongol Rally but we were well overdue for one. Plus how could anyone resist the amazing city of Astana?! This city only became the capital of Kazakhstan in 1997 (previously it was Almaty). Basically there was nothing here in 1997, in a similar fashion to Dubai the whole place was built up from scratch. It was quite evident walking around that numerous buildings had been modelled on other cities. There was even one that looked identical to the
Thursday 10th August - Police bribes and hitchhikers
This morning we said a temporary goodbye to our Swedish convoy friends as they've decided to leave Kazakhstan to travel north to Omsk (Russia). We're optimistic our little car will do okay on the Kazakh roads plus we're quite determined to see Astana (the capital of Kazakhstan). Our Swedish friends only have a little 0.9 litre car so need to save her for the Mongolian roads. They're hoping the roads to Russia are in better condition and think the Russian highways will treat t
Wednesday 9th August - Karaoke in Kazakhstan
We woke up with the sun beaming down on our tents making them a mini sauna. It was going to be a hot one today. Fitting everything back onto the roof tray was a bit of a Tetris game but we got there in the end. We headed out on the dirt road back past the Muslim cemetery to reach the paved road. All of a sudden we heard a car horn beeping. In the distance we could see our Swedish friends driving along the road directly in front of us! What are the chances?! Slim to nil. If we
Tuesday 8th August - Panda surgeries and mosquito mania
Quite a sad morning as we said goodbye to our convoy friends. Everyone had decided to do different routes all over the country. Our young Swedish friends Niklas and Andreas wanted to see the Aral Sea which is down south. We said goodbye to them hoping we might see them further on in Mongolia or Ulan-Ude. We also said goodbye to the Aussie friends we'd met the night before. They still had another few weeks of their trip left to Scotland. Another sad goodbye to our young U.K. f
Monday 7th August - When Panda met Patrol
First things first today we had to fix our roof rack. The front roof rack had moved off place after our bumpy trip yesterday. James got out the hammer and started smacking away to budge it back into place. It seemed to do the trick. We started convoying with the UK guys (or as well call, 'boy band'). The inside of their car door has a tally of all the times they've run a red light, pulled over by the police, fuel stops etc. A great addition to the car! Adds a bit of character
