Well, I guess this is going to be my last blog of the trip and so I will continue from where Andy P left off aboard the Transiberian Railway as the train pulled out of Ulan Ude and headed west across the vastness that we now know Russia to be.

The train journey itself was quite uneventful but I for one did find it a wee bit claustrophobic as we spent a lot of time in our four bunk ‘apartment’, which we shared intermittently with one or two other passengers. There was a buffet car next to our carriage and we became adept at ‘nursing’ a beer or a coffee for prolonged periods of time as we were only meant to sit in there if we were purchasing/consuming, the food/drinks available. Customers were attended to by a pair of formidable looking women, one who looked like the enemy agent in a James Bond film that had knives hidden in the toes of her shoes, (sounds like a Paul Simon song – ha ha); and the other who looked like she had stepped straight from the pages of the Brothers Grimm’s ‘Hansel and Gretel’. And I’m not talking Gretel here: more like the character who eventually gets her just deserts and ends up in the oven. Getting them to smile was not an easy gig and I think it only happened on one occasion for each of them which may just have been the result of a lapse of concentration on their part, or possibly (as is often attributed to babies), a touch of wind.

Bearing in mind one of my previous blogs from Turkey, I don’t want to dwell too much on the toileting facilities on board lest I be accused of having an obsession. Suffice to say that by the end of the trip, the comfort rooms (is there ever a greater misnomer than comfort rooms?) smelt not dissimilar to those intensive poultry farms you pass on your way into Edinburgh along the A70 from Carnwath. So, quite a challenge.

Needless to say we survived and were then ripped off by the taxi driver who took us from the station to our hostel. Nice to know that some stereotypes really are based on a sound, experiential footing.

Andy P had booked a hotel/hostel just 500 metres from Red Square which couldn’t have been more handy. From there we were able to walk to some of the iconic landmarks such as St Basil’s cathedral, Red Square, and the Kremlin. Which was just as well since as soon as he heard we were in town, Vlad (he insisted we called him Vlad), immediately invited us over for a bite to eat, a heavy vodka session, and some bare-chested wrestling, albeit in a very ‘manly’ way as his attitude to people of a different sexual orientation is well known. Which did set me wondering as to whether he is perhaps over compensating for something? Fortunately we didn’t have far to stagger in the rather grimy and intoxicated state we later found ourselves in and I have to say that we found Vladamir, sorry, Vlad, hugely entertaining and not the overbearing egomaniac that some people make him out to be. Having said that I now wish that I’d put up a tad more resistance to having the ‘I love Vlad’ tattoo plastered across my shoulder blades but he did turn out to be rather insistent in the end and had a surprisingly strong grip for a man of his height.

Joking apart, most Russians we’ve spoken to genuinely appear to ‘love’ him and even those that don’t seem to think that he’s a good leader for the country. He certainly commands the sort of voter approval that any western politician couldn’t even dream of.

Three other Mongol Rally teams we’d met previously and who were travelling home in convoy had contacted us about somewhere to stay and they pitched up late on our first night. They had done the Pamir Highway (which we didn’t), but had run out of time or money and had to turn for home without reaching the finish. Which did make us feel kind of good, hopefully not in a gloating way, that we had managed to make it to the end. Both Andy P and I agreed that we would have felt we’d let down everyone who’s supported us if we’d not got to the finish.

Second day in Moscow we braved the metro to visit a tourist market to look at what was on offer. I have never seen so many bloody Russian dolls in all my life! God only knows who buys them all, though I think I should warn you Jane that you may need to clear out one or two of your display cabinets in preparation for when the pallet that Andy P has shipped home arrives in Cornwall sometime around mid-October. I can vouch for the fact that he did choose the less garish colour schemes and also erred towards the more finely crafted examples. But I think opting for the quantity he finally settled on showed a slight lack of judgment and perspective on his part. The up side is that the paint is supposedly non-toxic and they are guaranteed to burn on the wood stove. So not a total right off.

The things for sale that I was most fascinated in were the animal skins and fur products. I have to admit to wolves being my favourite wild animal and it did make me sad to see numerous examples of beautiful wolf pelts hung up and lifeless. I wanted to ask how much they were just to have an idea of how much a wild wolf’s life was worth in Russia but I didn’t for fear of appearing to give approval by engagement. There was also a huge range of various farmed fox pelts, either recognisable as foxes or made into hats and stoles, plus mink, sable, rabbit, racoon, and a few other things that were unidentifiable. Some of the hats were beautiful but I explained to the stall holders that wearing real fur is frowned on in Britain and they resignedly, but good-naturedly, shrugged their shoulders and moved onto the next customer. But it is the wild wolf skins that I felt most sad and helpless about.

On then to St Petersburg, on a high speed train that travels at something like 150 miles an hour. It was a very different experience to the Transiberian railway with attendants more akin to those you might find on a luxury airline. Not every passengers’ experience was as joyous as ours however as across the aisle, the guy on the inside suddenly took it upon himself to ‘throw’ his whole cup of coffee over the lap of the businessman sitting next to him. I presume this was an accident and I helpfully handed over some of my napkins on the pretext of assisting whereas really it was to confirm that the businessman’s neatly pressed jeans really were as soaked through as I had initially thought. They were.  It’s very hard to stop laughing when you start, even if it is laughing at someone else’s misfortune, and so Andy and I reinstated a little word game we’d used previously to distract ourselves which involved a play on the names of different fish. So along the lines of ‘the man who spilt his coffee should have been ‘herring’ on the side of greater caution!’ Or, ‘he should ask for another coffee or do you think maybe that was the ‘sole’ one on offer?’  You get the picture and it helped us over the worst of it because it could so easily have turned into an embarrassing situation for ourselves. At the end of the day the guy with the coffee shouldn’t have let it ‘perch’ on the edge of his table like he did. Mind you he did seem a ‘dab’ hand in what he was doing. Okay, I’ll stop now.

St Petersburg was somewhere I have always wanted to visit since reading the Ken Follett book, ‘The man from St Petersburg’. It did not disappoint. The architecture is breath taking and round every corner there is something else to delight you. We even went to a museum (I’m not really one for museums), the Hermitage Museum, which is housed inside the Tsar’s Winter Palace. And let me tell you here and now, this is what I call a palace. I have never seen such ostentatious opulence (except perhaps at Asda’s Christmas sale), with room after room of beautifully ornate interiors both in structure and decoration. Ballroom after ballroom, with intricate inlaid wood floors and glistening chandeliers, mirrors and gilded cornices. No wonder the bloody peasants in Russia decided to have a revolution; I’m only surprised they didn’t do it sooner.

I don’t want to try and describe the other things we saw using ever increasing superlatives because it will only sound increasingly dull and exaggerated. Suffice to say that The Church of our Saviour on the spilled blood, reportedly modelled on St Basil’s in Moscow, has a stone mosaic decorated interior from top to bottom that is surreal. St Petersburg is well worth a visit.

To end I will briefly give you a flavour of the taxi journey to the train station this morning on our way to Tallin, Estonia. Without going into all the details, I usurped Andy P’s idea of getting the metro when, after waiting for about ten minutes at 5.15 in the morning for the metro station to open, I spotted a vacant taxi whose driver  agreed to take us to where we wanted to go (or at least somewhere the driver thought we wanted to go), for 500 Roubles, about £6. Now I have alluded before to the fact that taxi drivers so far encountered on our trip seem to have no sodding idea of where anything is but I reasoned that the main railway station in St Petersburg was a pretty safe bet. However, one of the problems is that Russian is written in the Cyrillic (no idea if that’s how you spell it) alphabet rather than the one we use in English and the two (plus the pronunciation) are completely different. Suffice to say that I wasn’t totally convinced that the driver knew where we wanted to go even though he sort of indicated that he did, (we have been lulled into this false sense of security on several other occasions and so I was naturally a little twitchy about it). Before setting off we had both repeated the name of the station to the driver in a louder and louder voice but after about fifteen minutes it became clear that he was driving around randomly in what I can only assume was the hope that we would suddenly say ‘Here we are,’ and give him his cash. Time by now was ticking on and I was starting to make alternative plans for how we would get to Tallin once we had missed our train.

Andy P was also getting a little agitated at this point and was frantically trying to find the station on his Maps.me App and show it to the driver. By now the driver was also getting somewhat het up as it slowly dawned on him that ‘lady luck’ was not going to smile on him that day. Indeed I think he was very close to stopping and tipping us out because he kept saying ‘give me money’ at the same time as rubbing his index finger and thumb together. All looked as though it was just about to boil over when suddenly, as though by divine intervention, the scales fell from the driver’s eyes and he said ‘Moscowvisky?’ and when we responded with enthusiastic relief he went off on a rant that I can only assume meant ‘well why didn’t you bloody say so in the first place.’ To which we replied, reasonably I thought, that we had been saying this, (perhaps with a slightly different accent or emphasis on a different syllable), for the last half hour. Of which, of course, he understood not a word. He now set off at fairly high speed in a different direction, muttering and cursing and indicating with both hands (God knows what he was using to steer), that he had been driving round in circles which I of course could have told him as I was now very familiar with a particular set of traffic lights that always seemed to be red no matter from which direction we approached.

Ten minutes later we arrived at the station but our driver was now demanding a minimum of 1000 roubles at the same time as doing the round and round motion with his hands. I decided to get out to negotiate from a position of increased height but he had locked the back doors and was clearly not going to open them until he had his money. His shouting got louder and I gave him an extra hundred but this was clearly not going to be sufficient to assuage him. Andy P then joined in the shouting and every few seconds I gave the driver an extra hundred and by the time I reached eight or perhaps nine hundred roubles some sort of armistice seemed to have been agreed upon. The doors were unlocked and he took out our bags from the boot clearly still feeling a bit disgruntled. In my experience there are two ways of dealing with a situation like this. You can get angry and aggressive and as a consequence have a decidedly bad start to your day. Or, you can laugh at the sheer absurdity of the situation and pass it off as part of life’s rich tapestry.  Now I don’t like leaving any situation on bad terms and so once the driver had strewn all our bags across the road I gave him a big smile and offered him my hand. He responded in kind and then I think all of us saw the funny side and we had ‘a bit of a laugh’ about it. As I said to Andy P the whole experience makes a story for our blog, and I’ve no doubt our driver has had similar mileage out of the events over a bottle of vodka with his mates; telling them about those stupid bloody Americans (I really hope he thought we were Americans), who looked like Pinocchio and Father Christmas.  If only all the problems and disagreements in the world were so easily resolved.

So, I bid you farewell and will leave Andy P to have the last word. It’s been a great journey and I’d like to thank all of you who have read our blogs and said kind things about them. Most of all I’d like to thank you all for your generosity in donating to our causes on Justgiving and to let you know that put together with our other fundraising we are sitting at around £10,500 so getting pretty close to our £12,000 target. I’m confident that we can get there with one last effort.

That’s it for now and, God willing, I’ll see some of you very soon.

Cheers, Andy Coe

 

 

 

 

We are on the last leg of the rally. We are heading north to the Russian Border and plan to cross it tomorrow morning and then onto Ulan Ude and the finish. It feels to me like I am approaching the end of a very special event in my life. Something that has been a real challenge but great fun and opened up a lot of different ways of looking at and interpreting life.

We have been in Mongolia for four days now and I think we’ve see about as much as we could hope for in such a small space of time. The first day we headed south almost to Ulaan Baatar and then turned west with the intention of driving for perhaps three hundred miles into the interior and then camping ‘wild’ for the night. Along the way we saw many mixed flocks of sheep and goats and almost as many herds of horses; there are certainly more horses here than there are cows. The horses are very different from those we saw in Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan where they were much more like the Arab/thoroughbred/hot blood type. These here in Mongolia are more pony like; stocky and clearly hardy and allegedly with great stamina. They have probably changed little since the days of the great Chinggis Khaan (Genghis Khan to you and me), and were the means by which he was able to travel and conquer great swathes of land to the west of what is now Mongolia. Now they are used for herding the goats, sheep, cattle and other horses, and they are also raced over tens of kilometres and used for traditional games that involve a type of mounted tug of war with a goat carcass. They are also eaten and a few nights ago we noticed one of the dishes available at the restaurant was ‘horse rectum’. I’m not sure if there is any way of ‘dressing’ that up to make it sound even remotely appetising, and needless to say that is one culinary delight that neither of us felt bold enough to sample. Perhaps if I hadn’t eaten for a week … but even then I’m not convinced. The sheep spleen soup was no more appealing. Apparently it looks like tomato soup but it  is clearly not at the top of the list for the average vegetarian.

After driving west for a couple of hours we realised that the scenery of empty green rolling hills with the occasional rockier, small mountain, was not going to change for at least several hundred miles and so we decided to find somewhere to camp. The landscape is wide and expansive with even bigger skies than Kazakhstan and with white pillows for clouds ‘painted’ against a blue background. We found a track across the grass and drove off the road and up a hill for several hundred yards and parked where we had a vista in all directions, completely deserted and peaceful.

We took out our tent and cooking gear and opened a bottle of Georgian red that I’d squirreled away several weeks earlier. As the midges descended on us Andy P had the bright idea of digging a little fire pit and we collected up a mass of dried cow dung which amazingly burnt slow and warm and with plenty of smoke and kept the worst of the little tykes away.  So we spent the evening there in the warm sun and went to bed when it got dark to be woken in the early hours by a huge thunderstorm overhead and torrential rain. But our pop-up tent proved mightily resilient and we stayed dry and kind of warm though it is certainly much colder at night now that we have headed further north and to higher altitudes.

There are scores of the round Yurts or Gers as they are called in Mongolia, scattered throughout the countryside. Many of them have a chimney poking from the centre and some have solar panels for electricity and the occasional satellite dish. These are the traditional habitation of the Mongols, now canvas clad on the outside whereas in the past I guess they were clad in animal skins. It is difficult to understand how making a living and a life ‘works’ here in the Mongolian countryside as much of it is so alien to our own life experience. The goats and sheep generally appear to be herded all day by someone on a horse, on foot or occasionally on a motorbike, something that died out in the UK a long, long time ago. With a western perspective it seems a strange way to live but I guess in some respects it is a very simple, satisfying and ultimately pleasurable way of spending one’s day compared to being stuck in front of a computer screen or on the M25.

After our night in the hills we headed to the capital Ulaan Baatar. On the way we saw a little livestock market so pulled in to take a look. Goats and sheep were for sale and members of the public were feeling this one and that one to see how fat they were. Every now and then some money would change hands and the sheep or goat would have three of its legs bound with tape and then be wheeled away on a type of barrow or carried over a person’s shoulder, I presumed to be taken away by the new owner. There were some fascinating characters there and I took the opportunity to photograph some of them. Then Andy P came over and said that one of the Mongol men had explained to him (with sign language,) that in the building across the way was where they were ‘washing’ the animals and that there would be some good photo opportunities. We wandered in and found that this was in fact where the new owner had the newly purchased animal killed and butchered! Being vets and having worked in abattoirs in the UK we did find it fascinating if a little shocking at first in the way things were done, and no one minded us wandering around and taking photos as they filled intestines with congealed blood to make the Mongolian equivalent of black pudding. I guess it’s not the normal sort of thing one usually gets to do on your ‘holidays’ but it does give you an insight into the different lives and values of people from different countries and cultures.

On then to Ulaan Baatar and after finding a hotel we headed into Chinggis Khaan square in the centre of Ulaan Baatar. This is where the parliament building is situated with a statue of the great man himself at the entrance, guarded on either side by two of his most famous generals on horseback. They look fearsome as statues, heaven knows what they looked like in the flesh, and I have no doubt they could be brutal back in the day, just like most nations (including our own), have been at various stages in the past. But on a Sunday afternoon there was a very peaceful and friendly atmosphere with children playing and enjoying driving around the square in little electric cars. Children are beautiful the world over but Mongol children, especially the girls, really take the biscuit.

Getting back to our hotel was easy. We just stood on a street corner and after a few minutes a complete stranger stopped his car. We told him where we wanted to go, agreed the price and in we jumped. These unofficial ‘taxis’ seem to work really well, I guess a sort of ‘Uber taxis’ without any regulation at all. It worked for us anyway.

The next day we visited the Gandan Monastery temple complex, an arrangement of perhaps ten temples with some stunning internal architecture and colours. In some of them religious ceremonies were taking place with Buddhist monks chanting and poring over ‘scriptures’. Many members of the public took part in the ceremonies and others like us were just allowed in to observe. It was both fascinating and moving but also a little unnerving in that I felt I was intruding somewhat on what is clearly a very personal and deeply felt devotion. There has been a revival in the Buddhist faith since the 1990s, up until then it was largely discouraged by the former Communist regimes. Mongolia is now a democracy and from the way people behave and dress in Ulaan Baatar it is clearly liberal with a lot of western values being pursued, for better or worse.

So there is a quick round up of our experience of Mongolia. I can’t hope to include it all and I’m not even sure if I fully understand everything I’ve seen or written about. It’s easy to get the wrong end of the stick when you don’t speak the language and don’t have the depth of knowledge and experience to put everything in its true perspective. There is much much more to see in Mongolia, over in the west and further south in the Gobi desert where there are snow leopards and two-humped camels respectively. But those are places I’m going have to visit on another occasion. Suffice to say that the Mongolian people are cheerful and welcoming and wave to us constantly when passing our car, with big smiles on their faces and it’s a place I wouldn’t hesitate to return to. Not though, I hasten to add, with any intention of partaking of that delectable horse rectum dish or the sheep spleen soup that I have ‘sadly’ missed out on this time.

Cheers for now, Andy Coe

WE HAVE JUST NOTICE OUR TRACKER HAS NOT BEEN WORKING FOR THE LAST TWO DAYS. IF ANYONE NOTICES THIS HAPPENS AGAIN PLEASE CONTACT US.

 

Andy in his last blog publicly thanked all his donors, I would like to do the same you have all been very generous, I know it will make a big difference to the charities concerned. I would also like to thank http://trurotyrecentre.com for fitting our van tyres, driving through Kazakhstan would have been much more hazardous with ordinary tyres, thank you. Thanks also to http://www.mersongroup.com for the signage on Bluebell 2. Thanks to Town and country Nissan https://www.nissan.co.uk/dealer-homepage.1111.html/used-vehicle/search.html for servicing our car.

We had a good breakfast at our last stop in Kazakhstan and then headed to the border. We had been told the roads were much better in Russia, we were not sad to see the back of the Kazakhstan roads. Our abiding memories of Kazakhstan are potholed roads ramshackle housing, mosques (in limited numbers), non utilised land and cows and horses roaming free by the side of main roads.

The border crossing was very straight forward. The Kazakhstan guard asked us if we had any fire arms aboard, which we denied despite having the Kalashnikov behind the divers seat, we thought it would only in crease the paper work if we admitted to it!!

The passport control seemed very happy and actually laughed when the Mongol Rally was mentioned. The last guard on the Kazakh side who opened the gates for us checked our passports. We had a long conversation about English football, he was delighted to hear that I was a fan of Chelsea Football Club, but when Andy C said he supported Watford he was not impressed!!! Anyway we left him with a smile!!

Next stop Russian border and record clearance, fifteen minutes to get through. The total time to cross the border was 1.5hrs we could not believe it.

Our first impressions of Russia was the roads, so much better than Kazakhstan, no potholes and smooth surface so we could make good progress with our travelling. We also notice that the land was being used to its full, very little uncultivated land, a large variety of crops wheat, sunflower, rye, sugar beet and various other crops. Where we saw stock it was in large numbers and under more control.

We headed to Barnaul for the first night, first stop in the town was a bar for a pint and wifi!! Per chance we asked a young lady where the nearest bar with wifi was, expecting her to not understand a word of English, she turned out to be an English teacher. First problem solved a bar with beer and wifi, however the security code required Russian characters which we do not have on our keyboard. However the barman spoke limited English but managed to get both of us on the net.

We found a the Hotel Malta again no speak English and wifi code alphanumeric so no joy there. We returned to the bar and had a bite to eat. Back to the hotel and bed intending to leave early the following morning, so the alarm was set accordingly. We had completely missed the fact that we had moved another hour on in the time zone so instead of getting up at 5.15 we were unbeknown to us up at 6.15. The roads are so good in Russia except for small sections, we were able to power our way through long straight roads in vast open plains contrasted with windy roads through pine forests.

Along the way we were the subject of amusement, interest and surprise. At one of our stops while Andy C was visiting the WC a young lady asked me what we were up to. Fearing she would have limited English, don’t forget we are in the wilds of Siberia, I was pleasantly surprised to find she understood every word I said. She had spent five years in America. We travelled 570 miles to try and get ourselves in a position to visit Mongolia if the borders opened. We spent the night in a hotel in Krasnoyarsk which was also a gym. We thought we ought to have a work out, but instead opted for a pint, food and bed.

With our clocks set right we managed an early start and forged ahead. The country side was much the same, the vastness of Russia is impressive. We were happily travelling along when we approached a roundabout with our exit blocked by a police officer diverting traffic through a local village. We looked down the road and saw a jackknifed over turned Lorry, this was to be one of three serious accidents we saw that morning. Possibly caused by early morning fog but more likely due to the way thr Russians drive, overtaking on bends, overtaking at speeds that shocked me (and I drive fast) and pulling out with oncoming traffic a short distance away.

We traveled a few more miles down the road and stopped for breakfast which Andy order using sign language and entering the kitchen. It was really tasty and set us on our way.

Further down the road we were overtaken by a Skoda that started its hazard warning lights and indicated to us to pull in. It was sign written Skoda35000km.ru. We were worried that there was something wrong with our car, but no, they wanted pictures of us and the car as they were journalists from Top Gear Russia magazine. We also got an invite to meet up with them when we arrived in Moscow after our trip on the Trans Siberian Railway.

At another stop we met two young men who were driving a Lexus 4wd, they were amazed at what we had achieved so far in a tiny Nissan Micra

We have heard that we can now go into Mongolia, so we will head for the border south of Ulan Ude tomorrow to spend 2-3 days in Mongolia

Sorry this is a rushed blog but late at night and I need my bed

Cheers for now Andy P

We had a welcome relaxed stay in Samarkand to recharge our batteries, remember we are a couple of sad sixty year old pensioners doing this mad rally to raise money for four worthwhile charities. If you feel like donating (if you haven’t already done so) then go to the donate button on the home page of braveoneandall.com . Advertisement over!!!

The hotel we stayed in was really nice and the owners son, who helped us, took us around Samarkand and even got a ticket for speeding, which he assured us he would never get as his Uncles police cap was in the back of the car. He kindly arranged for us to have breakfast at 6 am, so that we could get an early start, which we duly did. The first part of the journey took us north to the Uzbekistan boarder. We had a new toy on my iPhone which works like a sat nav so you do not require Internet, maps.me. How the hell we ever got into and out of cities without this devise heaven only knows. Remember lost in Bucharest? The iPhone got us onto the road north quickly so we were able to sit back and enjoy the scenery, and bemoan the state of the roads. Uzbekistan has gas and oil wealth but it seems like it has invested little into the infrastructure of the country. We feel they are very short sighted as better infrastructure produces better communication, better trading and a stronger economy.

The poverty was demonstrated by the poor standard of agricultural machinery and we saw many instances of donkey pulled carts carrying various produce and equipment. Along the way we decided to stop and test one of the roadside melons. There are numerous sellers along the route with hundreds of melon, where they go to goodness only knows. We had a delightful 15 minute stop testing all the melons before we eventually bought this luscious, sweet, juicy melon for a grand total of 50p (£2 in Tesco). The local people are delightful, helpful and so kind and as I have said many times before authority is the problem not the people.

That brings us to the border, which started with about an hour plus outside the gates of the Uzbekistan border post. We were joined by two Americans who pulled up behind us, both really nice people half our age. Eventually we were allowed through the gates and were told to pull up just short of the inspection area. We had to go through passport control which was totally disorganised, we had learnt by now that if you did not stand your ground people would push in front of you and you could stand around for another two hours. No polite queuing and taking you turn as we were taught in England. So to sum up the passenger me (as the car is registered in Andy C name) has to go through border control as does the driver, however, the driver then has to deal with car documentation and inspection. As Andy C has already explained, he made a mistake on his documentation, it allowed the young Americans to pull in front of us for car inspection. The end result was the Americans getting through the border about an hour in front of us, c’est la vie.

The Uzbek inspection was interesting. We had to remove all the contents from the car, the border army officers then proceeded to rummage through every cubby hole, under every seat and every nook and cranny in the car. Any piece of electrical equipment had to be opened and its use explained.There was a cursory look at the contents on the table beside the car, but he noticed Andy C’s camera then asked me to show him the photos. I proceeded to hold the camera and click the view button (bearing in mind Andy C’s camera had nearly 2000 photos) running in reverse order. The soldier was amused, my arm and finger were aching, but his greatest amusement was reserved for the photo of Andy C in a Uzbek hat, at that point he waved his hand and said he had seen enough. I must admit seeing that photo I would have said the same!!

We then had to load up and proceed to the next border. This is where we lost so much time on the Americans, several Lorries had got through the border gates and had parked such that there was no space for cars to get through. A Russian in a car behind us walked down the line and told the Lorries with drivers in to move over leaving one blocking the way, he got really mad banging on the side of the Lorry. Eventually he returned carrying loads of paperwork and moved his Lorry.

Next stop the gates into Kazakhstan which were opened then we faced a barrier looking to our left we saw the Russian at a kiosk about to show his passport, so not to loose another place in the queue we bolted from the car to the kiosk. To give the Russians credit they waved us through first. Back to the car barrier still down. The guy in a Lorry next to us entering the country watched his barrier raise and fall five times but his lights would not turn green. When our barrier raised and the light went green at the same time he just raised his eye brows.

Kazakhstan entry was also interesting! Firstly we had to go through the paperwork process which was straight forward but because Andrew was the driver I returned to the car first. The border guard waved me forward and even though I was not the driver I jumped into the car a drove forward to make sure we did not miss another place!! The first guard asked a few questions and then proceeded to ask me to empty the whole car again. Fortunately a senior officer appeared and could speak reasonable English, he asked my name and then he said he was called Borat, it was difficult to keep a straight face, but I kept saying to myself he does not look like Sasha Baron Cohen. He asked me if I had any whiskey onboard I said no, with the get out, that if he did find any I would have said, it is not mine it is Andy C’s!!! He asked me if I had any narcotics, I said no, only a couple of vials of morphine in case I break a leg. Then he asked if I had any weapons again I said no only the Kalashnikov behind the seat in case we got attacked by bandits. He then spotted the remaining bottle of Spitfire ale, which we had intended to drink at the Heidelberg party if they had brought out the Messerschmitt lager. As we had no more use for it I asked him if he would like it, he said “Is it a present for me?” I confirmed it was and he salted it away in his little shed. Andy returned to the car to announce that he had to pay $20 to one of the border guards to “help” him get through customs So with a little bribery and corruption we managed to get across the border.

The border guard then said I had to go to the big White House to have the car scanned. We duly followed his instructions and had another official who could not speak English, we didn’t understand a word he said but worked out we were not allowed in the car during the process. Everything was fine and we were allowed to leave.

The early part of Kazakhstan the roads were fair but in places deteriorated into dirt tracks, so when we reached the first large town we stopped for a break. There was a large market which we explored where we saw food standards which would have put most of the butchers in prison in our country. I had lost my sunglasses at the border and they are a must currently. We found this small stall that was selling sunglasses, I tried on a pair looked in the mirror and pretended I had the fright of my life. It frightened the life out of the young girl serving me much to the amusement of the stall owners around us.

We notice the Mosques in Kazakhstan are a different design to those in previous countries, no tower for calling the worshippers.

Our first stop over night was in Shymkent, approaching our journey’s end we witnessed a lovely sunset.

The hotel we stayed in was very plush but excellent value for money with a great breakfast to set us on our way. Cattle seem to be everywhere and in the early evenings and mornings the owner take them fro and to pasture, so occasional there is a road hold up we the cows crossing a major road. When the get to pasture it seems they live on nothing!

Our new devise on the iPhone got us out of Shymkent very quickly, a few miles down the road we spotted the Americans car but not them. We gave a loud hoot on the horn and continued on our journey. A further few miles down the road we stopped to change drivers and they pulled up in front of us. We had a chat and during the conversation the subject of police checks came up and they had been stopped four of five times to our twice. At One of their stops a police officer demanded $200 from them for apparently speeding. Now I think what he told is very quick thinking on his part. He refused to pay the sum but the police officer insisted and said they had to come with them to the police station. So the American keyed into his iPhone translation US embassy, showed it to the police officer proceeded to pretend to telephone the embassy relayed the number plate down the phone (to no one) at which point the officer said you can go on your way!!!! After a further discussion we said our goodbyes and headed on our way.

You would not believe the views the vast expanse of land that has no visible occupants, but suddenly you see someone on the side of the road apparently doing nothing. Kazakhstan is the largest land locked country in the world!

We had a further stop for small bite to eat and a cold cola, coupled with a little bartering for money and gifts from a large Kazakh lady intend on cooking her kebabs!

Ten miles down the road we got pulled over by the police, we both looked at each other expecting the worst. He was a very jovial chap could speak a word of English looked at Andy C passport and indicated that his passport showed a fuller face than Andy C currently is! Apparently we did not have our headlights on and it seems in Kazakhstan they need to be on all the time.

Off we go, the road suddenly got better and for most of the rest of the journey it was pristine dual carriage way. At one point we travelled 30 miles in a straight line without a bend, the Romans would have been proud of the Kazakhs. We did so well that our estimated time of arrival of 9.30pm turned out to be 6pm. We are in the Ambassador Hotel Almaty catching up with our blogs, one day’s rest then heading north to the Russian border. Limited Wifi will catch up with you in Northern Kazakhstan/Russia

Cheers for now Andy P

Andy C has got you on the Ferry and crossing the Caspian Sea, now I will pick up the baton, not quite as philosophical as his blog, although I agree whole heartedly with his comments.

We arrived or we thought we had arrived at Turkmenbashi at about 4pm on Saturday 6th August only to anchor two hours off the cost. At 2 o’clock Sunday morning we started moving again and headed into port, thinking that all our waiting was over, boy were we wrong. We moored up along side the harbour but then had to collect our passports the fiasco began it took two hours to hand out one hundred passports, only speeded up when a couple of Mongol Rally passengers helped out. Understandably the ships crew could not speak English so we’re holding the passports up for a group of about one hundred people to see and identify themselves. Once all the passports were handed out a bridge charge for leaving the ship had to be made, with receipts done in long hand and in triplicate. So you can see how we lost 2 hrs in time.

Next stop was a make shift parking area on the dock, once all the cars and Lorry’s were disembarked and several discussion were made between the dock staff and the uniformed army we were moved to the other end of the port to again be parked in a car park made “for the job”. We then had to hand in all our passports and wait!!!!!!

Now there were a mixture of people on the boat some with valid visas that did not need extension, some with letters of introduction (LOI) and those whose visas had run out or were about to run out due to the wait at Baku, which was the category we fell into. Several telephone calls from the officials to head office at Ashgabat (every issue outside the norm has to be referred to head office) finally told us that we have to have a new visa issued which is the same price as the one we paid for in Baku. So the order in which they were going to process the visas was valid first, LOI second and you guessed it visa extensions last. So we were resigned for a long wait in temperatures of 40C plus. We arrived at the car park at 10 am and our processing finished at about 9pm, you might ask why so so long, well if I can remember the detail this is what happened.

Firstly we handed our passports in as earlier mentioned, we then had them handed back from one window and were told to form groups. All UK citizens in one and so on. The group then had to collect all the money for the visas amounting to $85 for UK citizens and $55 for all other citizens!!!! Once the money was collected it was handed into the second window were a receipt written out in triplicate was made. We then had to go to the second window and pay $14 with the receipt written out in duplicate in long hand for each of the ralliers. Don’t ask me what the $14 was for at this point I was loosing the will to live (and we were only a third of the way through the process).

At one point I spoke to one of the military men (there were hundreds) as we had been told that carpark charges past midnight were $12/hr. His English was very good. I commented on that fact and asked him where he learnt it. He informed me that he had studied law at Cambridge (I assume the university). It turns out that he was doing military service a two year stint, he was in his second year. Anyhow, I asked how long it was going to take to get through immigration, would it be before midnight. He replied “I am sure it will because I have to work until you are through!”

Continuing my explanation of our delay you will recall we have just paid our $14. We then went to the first window to have our visa stamped and say which exit from the country we were going to use so they could calculate fuel surcharges. Once we received the passport we then had to put our baggage through the X-ray detector only for four people to then rummage through our bags. I did notice that this process was speeding up with less baggage content emptied onto the table. I can only assume that this was because they wanted to go home as well as us.

Once through the baggage check the driver of the vehicle had to go to another window to have documents stamped to allow the car into the country this may have been three separate stations to achieve this goal I/We can’t remember. Then Andy had to, you guessed it, go back to the cashier to pay the fuel and insurance charges of $140 with duplicate receipt all written in long hand. Once that was completed he returned to the car for a three military men to look through the contents, again this was cursory compared to previous people simply because they wanted to get home.

In total we must have seen at least 20 different people and visited at least nine different stations to get through immigration. In the UK we would have said this was jobs for the boys!

Finally we were in the car and ready to set off. We ask someone the way to Ashgabat and they pointed us in the right direction, we were happily driving to the exit with the expected barrier awaiting us but with the unexpected request for a piece of paper. It turned out we had to visit another window to pay to get out of the port which we could only pay in local currency, we had none!! Luckily there was a kind Rallier who gave me the money.

By the time we had finished this stage of our trip I could see at least four letters of complaint that I will be sending on my return home!

We exited the port at about 9pm knackered, drove for several miles nearly hit a camel and finally decided to pull up on the side of the road and have a two hour nap. We were knackered I am knackered just writing about it so I will stop here and hand the baton back to Andy.

Cheers Andy P