RustBox.360's Mongol Rally

Rumor (a phone call from Cyrus) has it that Theo has arrived in Ulan Battor!

We ran into Simon Ostrovsky in Baku, a reporter for the French news service AFP, who helped us out quite a bit in Baku and also apparently found our little adventure stupid enough to merit a story: http://motoring.iafrica.com/newsbriefs/931568.htm

I've added a lot more pictures to our Archive here: http://public.fotki.com/mongolrally/. Look in the RustBox.360 folder to get to most of them.

- August 18: Cyrus went bust when Kazakhstan wouldn't give him a second visa at the border, and then there were two.

- August 22: Alex went bust when I had to fly back to work from Novosibirsk (but I have now taken a hot shower in my very own bathroom, and that almost made the 17 hour flight on three separate airplanes worth it) and then there was one.

- Theo and the LADA are still going strong. I am now convinced that the Lada is capable of just going forever, deliver her to the poor Mongolians, Theo - they certainly aren't getting a better car our of this rally!

Made it to Barnaul, Russia and caught up with a couple of other teams to keep Theo company on the way to Mongolia (including Dan and Simon, who had managed to escape Camp Baku to Turkmenistan a few days before the rest of us left for Kazakhstan)

Or how we got just a little lost and went off-roading in Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan is a really big country. Kazakhstan is a really big country with some of the consistently worst stretches of road we've seen anywhere along the way so far. Kazakhstan is a really big country, with terrible roads, that I lost our map for somewhere in Uzbekistan (have I mentioned we didn't enjoy Uzbekistan?). So, all of this being the case, Theo and I were actually making pretty good progress through the country - driving with few stops for things like taking somebody to a hospital, and on the morning of the 20th we had arrived at Lake Balqash, which is a vast, beautiful body of water on the way up North from Almaty. We had hoped to actually camp out there during the night, but getting out of Almaty took longer than we might have hoped.

After this brief interlude (which was also the closest thing I got to a shower during the three days in Kazakhstan), we were faced with a choice: our map said that we needed to get Norht to the town of Aktogai, we could take the direct route there, but the locals had warned that the road was bad, or we could take a roughly 250 km detour. In the stupid spirit of the rally, we obviously went straight. Over the next three hours, we were driving along the singularily worst stretch of road I had seen so far on the trip.

It wasn't really that the were a lot of pot holes (of course there were), the real problem was that the road had turned itself into a giant washboard, that was threatening to completely shake the car loose. Eventually, I realized that the washboard was actually the worst in places that were more heavily trafficed, so I first started trying to pick parts of the road that had received less traffic. This shortly turned to simply trying to drive next to the road surface as opposed to on it whenever I could see the surface well enough. As if to underscore just how screwed we would be if the car had broken down or anything else had gone wrong, over the course of the three hour drive, I did not see a single other car on the "road" and I saw something resembling a settlement once.

Theo, however, slept comfortably (we had been on the road for approaching 36 hours straight at that point):

Eventually, we reached another settlement, roughly where I thought Aktogai should have been, and I thought our off-roading days were done. This was once again proven thoroughly incorrect - Aktogai was still 18km away, and getting there now involved following tracks through open fields and meadows. Conveniently enough, there were actually people to give us directions in some of the most obscure places in these fields.

And then, we hit pavement again, and there was much rejoicing!

The final slap in the face came when we realized that our map had been copmletely wrong and we didn't need to go to Aktogai at all, and the paved route, that we thought was a detour would have actually been shorter... oh well, by then I felt being lost for 4 hours on unpaved roads in the empty middle of Kazakhstan was well within the spirit of the rally! The rest of the drive to the Russian border was fairly unremarkable, except for plenty more stretches of terrible roads, of course. And the Lada, for the record, came through the gravel washboard none the worse for it - these cars were built for this!

So now with Azerbaijan (I can still spell it) over a week behind us it's time to blog some of the events that happened there. Though being stuck in Beku for 10 days was extremely frustrating a LOT of good things came out of it. We met some extraordinary people in Beku and had some great times. As is well known we setup camp at the port customs lot and pretty much came and went as we pleased. Hatched many plans and even discussed what our chances were of navigating the Caspian if we commandeered a ferry.

This photo is from our group as we boarded our ship to Kazakhstan. By this point Simon and Dan had already left us as we discovered the day before that they in fact had VISA's for Turkministan the entire time. Woops. Pictured here are Tommy (125cc Motorcycle), Rambo (Suzuki SJ), Henry (Citron 2CV), Oliver (Rover Metro), Alex (Lada), Jamie (Suzuki SJ), Drew (Rover Metro), Hugh (Rover Metro), Cyrus (Lada), Theo (Lada), Elenor (2CV), and Bart (Bicycle)

So on one of the more frustrating days we had to go get our VISA's renewed since we had stayed long enough so Alex, Theo, Tommy and I wondered around town until we found the Ministry of Security (I think) and stood in line to get VISA's. While there we ran into the Pandit family bringing the count to six stranded Americans with expired passports. They had actually been in the process of boarding their plan when they were told their VISA's had expired the day before and they couldn't leave until they were extended.

The next day I got a text message from them inviting us to Mexican food for dinner. Me and Theo jumped on that invite. Well ok it actually took us almost two hours to get there but that was super fast in Azerbaijanian time. On the way over Theo asked how they were cooking Mexican food without a kitchen so when we showed up at their hotel we laughed because they had taken over the hotels kitchen to make Mexican food. When we arrived the food was almost ready and the staff at the hotel was extremely curios and seemed to have never seen Mexican food before. All told there were nine of us eating and everyone helped show the locals how to make Taco's. My favorite part of the meal though had to be when they grabbed some flat bread to put on the table since you simply cannot eat a meal in Beku without flat bread.
Pictured here is Neelima, Theo, Salil, Cyrus, and Anjuli. In the background is the hotel Concierge who was pretty cool and helped out with everything we needed and mastered Mexican food after just a few taco's. Well I'm being liberal with the term mastered. Due to my crappy memory I can't remember his name right now but I'm sure Salil will remind me. Neelima lives in Kazakhstan with her husband who was working and couldn't make the trip but Salil and Anjuli are going to college in the US. They also gave us lots of advice for navigating Kazakhstan and told us some great stories about both the current and past trips they had been on. This is one well traveled family, they got me beat hands down and I'm up to 30 something countries.

The next day we all "dressed" up and put in an appearence at the office of the folks who owned the ferries. They were more interested in figuring out how we managed to find them than actually talking to us and told us point blank that it wasn't financially viable to send a ferry to Kazakhstan right now so we would be stuck for at least another week. The person on the right is Simon. He was a local expat working for the AFP as a field journalist and tried to help us broker a deal with the ferry owners. But at the end of the day we knew we had failed.

Later that day the Pandit family invited all of us to go to a local restaurant called Chanek Kala so we showed up in four cabs and sat down to a table of 16. The place was this absolutely amazing outdoor restaurant that could literally seat 200 easily. It had a giant dancing area with load music. I of course left my camera at home (Customs lot) but hopefully we'll get pictures of it soon and I'll edit this blog. We had just gotten news that Simon and Dan had VISA's and would be leaving the next day so we celebrated their good fortune. Maybe a bit in excess. By the end of the night I was sure that the Pandit family would never talk to us again and that we were on a permanent ban list at Chanek Kala but it was a great evening. Food for 16, 25ish bottles of beer & 7 large bottles of Vodka put the total bill at $208. The place was amazing. We had all assumed we were in for $30 - $40 each by the time the meal was over.

I texted Neelima the next day and apologized for how rowdy we got and she told me not to worry. That was quite a releaf. We then got a call from the Ferry Management office telling us they were sending a ferry for us the next day so we were in high spirits. We still don't know why the ferry came but we all doubt it was actually because of us. Unless you include the MASSIVE disturbence we made when we returned from Chanek Kala in the wee hours of the morning... So went back to Chanek Kala that night expecting to get turned away but instead they immidiatly seated us and started bringing Vodka which we turned away as we'd given our boddies enough abuse for the day.

Well we always knew the lack of a double entry VISA would bite me in the ass and it did.

Let me give some background. All three of us had to get VISA's to Kazakhstan, Russia, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan. For Uzbekistan & Kyrgyzstan we needed single entry VISA's. For Kazakhstan we needed double entry VISA's and for Russia we needed a multiple entry VISA.

Now for Alex and Theo this process was simpler since they could ship off their passports to Washington D.C. and get the VISA's they needed. However since I've been traveling non stop for a while I needed my Passport with me so that wasn't an option. As a result I got my Kazakhstan & Russia VISA's in Hong Kong and my Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan VISA's in Beijing. The only slight issue around this was that the Consular official for Kazakhstan in Hong Kong wasn't authorized to issue double entry VISA's. However he told me to call him and he would arrange for a VISA to be waiting at the border for me. He also said I could get a three day Transit VISA at the border if needed.

Needless to say I wasn't overly confident this would work out fine so the night before we went to the border we hatched a plan during Bart's birthday celebration. Bart is a Dutch guy we met in Baku who has been bicycling around Europe/Asia/Africa for the last 6 months and we talked him into joining our group to go on to Mongolia. Anyway the plan was I'd just show up at the border and try and bluff my way into Kazakhstan and if it didn't work out I'd meet up with the crew and hitch a ride into Kyrgyzstan which is the direction the rest of the Camp Beku group was going.

So we got an early start only to be waylaid by the incredibly inefficient banking system in Uzbekistan. It took us over an hour to get money at the bank. We asked around if this was normal and everyone said the bank was always broken. So we made it out of the city by 11:00 and then stopped on the side of the highway about half way to the border so that we could have yet another Customs Agent change (we change customs guys in each city) and that took over 3 hours in 100 degree sun. Then we drove for about 30 minutes before we had another 45 minute "Watermelon" break. Finelly we got to border but try as we might they wouldn't let me in. We had to convince them to send just me back and let Theo & Alex continue on with the car. Otherwise the car would have been in Customs hands again and we didn't want that.

So I caught a ride into Tashkent with one of the guards while Theo and Alex continued on to Almaty. Unfortunantly for me the mobile phone coverage is such crap in this country that I wasn't able to get a hold of the Camp Beku crew until they had reached the border to Kyrgyzstan.

So I'm in Tashkent now and I'll have to fly ahead of Alex & Theo to keep ahead of them. This means either I fly on to Novosibirsk (On a Tupoluv..) and join up with Alex and Theo there or fly back to Beijing and go back to work. We'll have it decided in the next few hours.

Well we made it out of Kazakhstan into Uzbekistan and then the real problems started.
A note to any future ralliers reading this site:
DO NOT ENTER UZBEKISTAN WITH TRANSIT TAGS ON YOUR CAR.

Uzbekistan has been the weirdest climate so far. It started off as nothing but desolate desert but has slowly gotten prettier as we went through the country. Samarqand is beautiful and there's quite a bit to see. Temp is perfect here as opposed to when we entered Kazak/Uzbek desert where it was so hot that opening a window felt like getting hit with a blow torch.

The Problem:
We had to pay 120 Euro's at the border because of our Transit plates and we were assigned an escort who takes us slowly from city to city which has caused us to slip from the Camp Beku caravan. However we keep passing eachother.

Gotta go. Out "Customs Officer" is pissed I'm taking so long. Can't wait to be back in Kazakhstan where we will have our independance back.

A couple of news and notes, while using the slowest internet connection I've seen in years at a Baku Internet Klub.

- we are not actually as depressed as Cyrus' post makes it sounds like. Baku has actually been plenty of fun, in large part bacause there's 15 of us stuck here together. We just want to keep going. And, as somebody has commented, no we have not so far regretted our decision to come out here! I've regretted some (most?) of the major choices we've made along the way, but the overall idea has been sound.

- we're closer to leaving Baku than we've been so far. The ferry port is saying there's a 99% chance that the ferry atrriving at 7 tonight will go to Kazakhstan. Heading over there to find out more now. If we leave today, I think we still have a shot at actually making Ulan Bator!

- As we're likely to have extrmely limited internet access frome here on out, we finally seem to have the text messaging system working on the rally site, so you can keep up with us here: http://www.mongolrally.com/teamdata.php?teamid=189. We'll try to get the progress map correctly updated too eventually, but that might take a little bit of time.

I've been listening to a British comedian that one of the teams here has on their iPod. He does this skit about why swear words were invented, it's good and right now it really rings true.

Were fucked.

That's really about the only way to describe our situation. We talked yesterday with the head of the ferry boat administration and he told us they won't send another ferry to Kazakhstan for at least another week. So we are literally stuck here.

Our options at this point are:

1. Wait for a ferry to Kazakhstan which may someday show up.
2. Get VISA's for Turkministan and take the daily ferry there.
3. Drive North around the Caspian sea.
4. Drive South around the Caspian sea.

1) I've already described the issue with number 1. Specifically that it's a long ways off and we have no evidence it'll even go next week.

2) VISA's for Turkministan cannot be acquired in Azerbaijan because of a dispute of oil in the Caspian sea. So for us to get VISA's to Turkministan we have to drive to Armenia. Well the border between Azerbaijan and Armenia is also closed due to a border dispute. So to get there we'd have to drive back to Georgia. Apply for a VISA to Armenia in Georgia and then go to Armenia. Once in Armenia we could apply for a VISA to Turkministan. Then go back to Georgia and apply for new VISA's to Azerbaijan. Come back here and catch a ferry.

3) Drive North around the Caspian. Well here's the problem. Between the Black sea and the Caspian sea is Georgia and Azerbaijan. North of them is Russia. So easy choice since we've got multiple entry VISA's for Russia. Except the border between Georgia and Russia is closed completely and the border between Azerbaijan and Russia is closed to foreigners. Why are they closed? Because Chechnya and Dagestan are Russian republics to the north and there's a guerilla war going on. Now from everything we've heard Dagestan is actually fairly safe but they won't let us go that route.

4) Drive South around the Caspian. Directly south of Azerbaijan and continuing east around the Caspian is a little country called Iran. Which we would happily drive through at this point however we have to get permission from the state department prior to requesting the VISA and then we'd have to get Iran to approve the VISA which would take quite a bit of time itself. In addition we have to leave a $1500 deposit to bring the car in.

So were fucked. We've decided to go with option number 2 but we are leaning on our consulates to get the VISA's issued in Turkministan and courriered over here. I called the American Consulate in Turkministan and they told me to screw off. Actually their exact words were "I'm sorry it's against the law for us to help private citizens with VISA issues even in emergency situations." WTF? Who would write a law like that. Needless to say I've already written a long letter to both our Senators asking why we would have a law preventing Consulates from helping Americans.

The British on the other hand have been more helpful to their citizens (though it probably doesn't hurt that we have the daughter of a member of parliament with us) and to us as well. They agreed to not only work out VISA's for the Brits but to handle ours as well. However they aren't sure how long it will take. They say 5-10 days is likely.

So at the end of the day the chances of us making Mongolia are now extremely low. But on the plus side we are thinking of going into the mountains to go camping for the next three days.