Well, we did it. If you have been following this thread you will know a year ago two friends and I signed up for the Mongol Rally, a dash from England to Mongolia with no back up, no GPS and no help if you screw up. Oh, and it's in a car under 1.2 litres, under 10 years old and preferably under £500. Although a lot of teams ignored these 'rules' in some way, we think we stuck to the spirit of things - a £400 Hyundai Accent 1.3. Slightly over on the cc limit but still rubbish. For more info on the car and preparations, see here.
So the start has finally arrived. 12 months of planning, visa stress, buying kit and the hunt for sponsors have brought us here, the beginning of the Mongol Rally 2009! There are around 300 other teams lined up in the paddocks in a collection of cars the like of which this circuit has surely never seen. I say this because most of them are crap.
The dominant favourites are the Skoda Felicia 1.3, Suzuki Swift 1.0 and a smattering of Nissan Micra 1.0s. Suzuki Jimnys are extremely common, and our choice – the Accent – numbers something like 6. There are the comedy entries – Joe and his team the Rolling Cones in a US panel truck converted into an ice cream van…the mad Bat Limo, a Volvo 740 stretch; Russ and Pepe with Thunderbird 4, which is the love child of a Suzuki Jimny, a Reliant Rialto and an angle grinder; the Great Balls of Fur in a 1979 Dennis Fire Truck, entirely covered with fur…and more. This is going to be fun…
Our car looked the business in full racing livery, jerry cans and spare wheels tied down to the roof rack, and far too much weight on board than is probably healthy. We are 4 up until Istanbul, when our friend Mark flies home, so it’s cosy but surprisingly comfortable. At 2pm we are led out in batches of 20 for a parade lap behind a Rolls Royce EX100 at an insanely slow 10MPH just as the heavens open; to waves and cheers from family and friends, we are off! We immediately take a wrong turn trying to decide on the fastest route to Dover, which bodes well for the next 5 weeks…
We reach Dover along with about 25 other teams booked onto the same ferry and after a swift crossing - including a mad clog race around the ship between a Dutchman (actually wearing clogs, for real) and a member of team Kernow Pirates - we were in France. We promptly decided, as Englishmen, to get across it as quickly as humanely possible.
Rule 1 of the Mongol Rally – ‘The Optimum Convoy’. The answer is 3-4 cars. We learnt quite quickly in France that a 14 car convoy tends to have draw backs, for example, traffic lights. Keeping that many together is even more fun when you all stop at the same service station in Belgium, and another 14 car Mongol Rally convoy pulls in. And you all want fuel. I can report the Belgians do not have much of a sense of humour.
By about 10pm we reached Gent, where 20 teams start driving around the city (regularly losing each other) looking for a festival, the name and content of which nobody was sure on but ‘it’s in Gent, tonight’. After an hour everyone gave up and we set up camp at the local service station. Which sounds weird, but proved quite good in Western Europe. Their services often have modern showers, acafe, and a nice green area to set up camp, where nobody bothers you. Imagine THAT in the UK! The weather was attrocious and most decided to to try and sleep in their cars, with varying success. 4 up, Mark and I decided it wasn't going to work and set up a tent on the concrete. Listening to the rain outside was surprisingly relaxing in a warm cosy tent.
In the morning we discovered about 30 teams had set up here and parked next to us..team Herohead. If you have read the build up you will know we had been a two car team and prepped two identical Accents, but decided to take one at the 11th hour. The other car was sold to another team, Herohead, who ended up doing virtually nothing to alter it. So throughout the rally, we would bump into our cars twin in random cities, and they would be asked ‘are you the Unprofessionals? I’ve seen your website!’. Many people thought we were just a two car team that didn't get on - taking different routes and never camping together...
First thing we headed for Germany with Team Slipstream (gold Jimny), I Mongol’d Ya Mum (bronze Corsa) and Team Swifty (red Swift). We discounted the ‘Ring as reports from other teams suggested people had to unload the roof, so headed instead south through Germany via Nuremburg to the Czech border. Czech was the location for the first and only checkpoint on the trip and a massive party at Klenova Castle, a stunning location set in the Czech countryside. Mark, my team mate, drank so much he was bounding around like a Leprechaun until dawn, while Matt was MIA by 8pm. The setting was beautiful, the people hilarious and Gin and Tonic, of all drinks, free. Carnage is the word I would use...
Nursing hangovers as we packed in the am, a sight to behold. A team named the Jersey Boys, two US lads with a Ford Ka, had crashed in the UK on the way to the camp site the night before the start. We had all assessed their car as ‘stuffed’ and felt bad for them, but they had optimistic hopes of repair. No chance, everyone thought quietly. But that morning, across the field, I saw a blue Ka, it’s front end held together with welded steel from a refrigerator, a Fiesta headlamp and duct tape. It was ugly as hell but it was here! Two lads I have major respect for – eternal optimism and they never gave up, well done Rich and Alex. That car made it to just 1000km short of the finish too.
From Czech we hooked up with the Young Offenders (Thunderbird 4) and the Gentleman of Fortune (blue Terios) for a trek down to Hungary. Smooth, sweeping country roads and brilliant sunshine made for a very pleasant drive to the border. We stopped in Ceske Budejovice for lunch in the town square, after which Pepe of Thunderbird 4 thought it amusing to grab our car keys from the ignition while we were at the lights. I tried to stop him and the result was one bent key…and a load of Czechs beeping furiously. It eventually got straightened and we pulled out of the way, only for the Rimny (as Thunderbird 4 was known) to overheat and kick in it’s fuel cut off. Karma’s a bitch guys
We soon got going again and headed through Austria, hoping to see Vienna as we passed through. The Austrians though, in their efficiency have built a bypass tunnel under the whole thing – it was in front of us, then a long tunnel, then it was behind us. I’m sure it’s very nice though! Along the way we bumped into several other rally teams, something you get used to – despite the distances involved, most teams are taking obvious, major routes through countries and though random, you do see cars you saw 4000 miles ago every now and then.
The roads from the border to Budapest blew our minds – perfect tarmac, new signage, good driving. Fantastic! At a service stop we bumped into Ulaan Baatared, Tom and Mike in their red lifted Jimny, and they joined our convoy into Budapest that night. What a city. We did learn Rule 2 of the Mongol Rally – Cities here though. You need to budget a minimum of one hour cruising around lost looking for where you are staying, regardless of any guide book or directions you think you might have…in a comedy of errors we even managed to lose each other and pass Thunderbird 4 going the other way at one point. Brilliant.
Eventually we installed ourselves in a, er, ‘ram shackled’ old hostel and we hit the town…but our night on the beers ground to a hault around 11pm as everything seemed to be closed. Bugger. We woke up to Hungarian parking tickets we could neither read nor figure out how to pay – even if we had wanted to – and had a quick wander around the city (which is beautiful, by the way) before hitting the road. The Hyundai had been rock solid until today, when the exhaust started blowing a bit – sounded awesome but something to keep an eye on.
Next - Serbia, a night in Belgrade and the long drive to Istanbul…
– it was like walking into a nut-allergy-support-group and licking peanut paste out of the jar and rubbing my nipples
Quote, originally posted by -Khaos- »
Seriously, cows "emit" alot of gases compared to cars, yet I don't think any of these smog-test supporters have switched to a vegan diet or made any attempt to place a catalytic converter up a cows rectum.
Cheers for the interest guys. More soon, it takes a while to write it properly.
Quote, originally posted by unleashedd »
will you guys post a rough budget?
Sure. I would do it soon though as it's getting too big, and both Kazakhstan and Mongolia are building major roads. For us, the costs for the team were as follows:
£650 Entry fee* £400 Car £120 Insurance £230 Carnet** £100 Car Preparation £800 Petrol £300 Accomodation and Food £100 Repairs and Modifications £160 Border Fees and the Odd Bribe £100 Misc
Add on a flight home and £500 for Visas***....and you need your camping gear, but I think £1200-£2000 is about right depending on your route, time frame and where you stay / what you spend along the way.
* You don't get a huge amount for this, but the Adventurists organise a couple of parties, the start and finish lines, give you a T Shirt and sort out the importation into Mongolia (with varying degrees of success it has to be said...this year, teams were waiting between 9 hours (us) and 5 days to get through the border due to admin issues.). It does allow you to be part of something big though.
** Iran needed a Carnet De Passage, £150 plus an insurance premium
*** We took the Southern route, which means 7 visas... a central route would be a lot faster and visas would only be needed for Russia, Kazakhstan and Mongolia , I think circa £220
Budapest was a fantastic city but we have some serious ground to cover. After checking the exhaust, which had a nice hole in it but nothing major, we set off south. Our original plan was to head for Romania but talking to the Young Offenders we decided instead to head for Serbia, which sounded more interesting, featured less crooked cops and had better roads. We headed off alone with a view to meeting up later.
Serbia was our first proper border and all went pretty smoothly – a simple passport check and we were through., except for a rip off 80 Euro ‘insurance’ we needed. 90 days worth of cover for a 36hr stay. Nice. We hooked up here with 40 Days and 40 Nights (red Felicia) and Over the Edge (awesome old Lada Riva Estate) for the drive south. We reached Belgrade late afternoon; the outskirts are pretty sketchy but the centre of the city is very beautiful, and our hostel was on the 6th floor with a large roof terrace. Result. It was 8pm and time for a night on the town…
Mark went back to the car in the multi storey to get his shoes, and found a security guard writing a theft report. Mark asked him what he was doing, and the man explained he was writing the report for all the kit on our roof, which though here now, would certainly not be in the am. His feeling was it would save time to write it now. It was all locked on, but Mark unloaded the roof and stored it inside the cabin just to be safe!
The next morning the plan was to make it to Istanbul in a straight shot, which is a whole country away. On the drive south flat arable land turned to beautiful lush rolling hills, alpine forests and rocky outcrops, with great roads following the meandering rivers and creeks. Temperatures stayed high but on the move with the windows down, we weren’t really missing air conditioning.
As soon as we entered Bulgaria, the roads turned to crap, there were incredibly ‘well travelled’ hookers at the side of the motorway plying truck drivers for business and the place generally felt like a dump. Varna is supposed to be lovely but a long way off course, so we stopped only for 4 cans of Red Bull just outside Sofia and made it to the Turkish border by 10pm without stopping even for fuel.
At the Turkish border we met another team, The Londerners, two guys and two gals in a Renault Kangoo. They were aiming for Istanbul that night too, so we decided to convoy. What a fantastic drive – they had a disco ball mounted to their roof, and we had a couple of drag races to prove the mighty superiority of the Accent (84BHP Can Neva lose). We made Istanbul around midnight and got hopelessly lost.
Rule 3 of the Mongol Rally – Locals Rock. When lost, your best source, regardless of language, is a local. Show him/her your map and after lengthily gesturing, words you don’t understand and some arm waiving you will be on your way. We stopped at a petrol station and were prompted to follow a German registered C Class Mercedes. Seems the German connection is big in Turkey, so my high school Deutsch came in handy. We did start to wonder where the hell we were going when suddenly, signs for our destination, Sultanahmet. Without those locals we would have been totally screwed.
We made it to our hostel around 1am, a fantastic little place titled the ‘Women’s Only Hostel’. Except for the men I guess. We were woken the next morning by the call to prayer, and I think for the first time realised we had just driven to Istanbul…in a £400 car! This place had the most phenomenal roof terrace you can imagine – beautiful sofas under a wicker canopy, with views across the sea and the city in all directions. Mosques dotted the skyline all around. We spent 2 days here exploring the city, checking out the markets and relaxing in the sun.
Ulaan Baatared and Thunderbird 4 caught up on our last night, and a serious night of ‘relaxation’ took place on that roof terrace, one of the best of the trip. Istanbul remains a major highlight for us - definitely a place to revisit, but it was time to hit the road again. Sadly Mark had to fly home today and 4 became 3.
After having some local kids help us load up the car (and ask us to give them pretty much anything and everything we have), we headed off with team Ulaan Baatered for Ankara and then the coast. We had plans to meet up with On Corsa 4 Mongolia on route. Our exhaust was starting to sound pretty mad by now – straight pipes on a 1.3 produces a surprising roar – so a garage would be in order soon.
The road from Ankara up to the coast and east up to Samsun was two lanes and in pretty good condition, but it seems the EU paid for infrastructure improvements and a new road was in the works. Unlike home though, where they build a bit, open it, build another bit, open it and end up with a new highway, the Turkish do it all in one go. So for 700 miles you have the foundations for a road alongside you and the odd 400m stretch of tarmac, but no road. Locals told us the Mafia control the construction crews, steal all the money and now nothing is left to finish it – hence why we only saw the odd loan JCB pathetically moving a small pile of dirt every hundred miles. Mad…
That day we covered something like 500KM and set up camp for the night a little of the main road. Farmers quietly tended their fields off in the distance but apart from that we were entirely alone. We dined on pasta, sausages and warm beer (no fridge).
We were trying to get as close as we could to Trabzon the following day and set out relatively early along the coast. On Corsa 4 Mongolia spotted a garage for us and we went in to sort our exhaust. They sat us down for tea, identified the problem immediately and welded in a new section for us for about $60 – not bad for instant service and the visual spectacle of a man with no mask or gloves welding under our car with a cigarette between his lips. Our first repair, and the car now seemed virtually silent!
The nearer we got to Trabzon the more it felt like the French Riviera – palm trees, sea side cafes and smart restaurants. Team Canadialand (gold Honda HRV) caught up with us and we became a 4 car convoy that would last all the way to Uzbekistan. More importantly, it brought us Kent Fabian – a man with the worlds coolest name. This was to be highlighted regularly.
We stopped for lunch in either Ordu or Giresun, we weren’t quite sure, a fantastic little town where we were able to pick up some meat for our camp, the first in a while. We set out with a plan to camp by the sea, but our hopes were looking optimistic as the sun began to set – we couldn’t find anywhere to stop…
Then, in the fading light... a little campsite right on the cliff, just off the motorway, with a small restaurant and a bar. PERFECT. As we pulled in a big guy came over to greet us and introduced himself as Murat. Murat struck us as having a hidden past, the kind of guy who spent 20 years in Special Forces before tragically losing his whole squad. Now he was just trying to live the quiet life, running his own small business on the coast. We were sure local gangsters were putting on the pressure and Murat would be forced to do the only thing he could – open his stash of weapons and return to his past to defend what was rightfully his, and maybe save some orphans too. Definitely.
We enjoyed a few beers on the cliff with some beautiful fried fish courtesy of the ex assassins and set up camp. The rain came in the morning and with it thousands of mosquito’s, but Murats was one of our favourite stops. That’s the funny thing about the Mongol Rally – to a tourist, it was a crappy campsite by a motorway with cold showers….to us, it was an oasis of perfection.
We set off along the coast into eastern Turkey, and the further east you go, the more it declines. This is the poorer side of the country, and it becomes quite obvious… neat towns give way to little huts and muddy alleys, and children start to appear, begging by the side of the road. The roads got atrocious, disappearing almost completely and being replaced by rutted, potholed gravel. As darkness closed in we dropped to just 30MPH in an attempt to dodge the potholes…locals sped past at 50MPH and to this day I don’t know how.
Our convoy ended up stopping close to the Iranian border in Dogubayazit, in the shadow of Little Ararat, where Team Taxed and Tested had told us about a neat little camp site. We arrived around 10pm to find about 9 other teams, all heading for Iran in the morning. Only about 25 were going this way, most other southern routers were heading north now to Georgia, Azerbaijan and a ferry across the Caspian.
Leaving Turkey the next day was ok; once you figured out queuing is not a concept well know outside the British Empire and everyone basically pushes everyone else out of the way, we developed a blocking technique where one of us would hold them back while the others got the exit stamp.
The Iranian side was quite intimidating….large black gates, plenty of Police and a huge banner of the Ayatollah glaring down at you. On the wall, ‘Well Come to Iran’ – a nice touch. We were ushered to park in a line on the left and head inside. Our self appointed ‘fixer’ guided us through the process, which was the usual stamps and waiting. 7 hours land $60 for insurance later and we were through!
Once in Iran everything changed. The buildings, the landscape, thee people, the cars...it all felt immediately worlds away from anything we had ever experienced. This was a major waypoint on our route and we were not sure what to expect, but what we had researched held true. The welcome was exceptional – so many people were so pleased to see us, you would think we were celebrities. People from all around would swarm over to say hello, people in traffic would wave, beep and welcome us to Iran. When we stopped for directions, three or four cars would pull up to help. Smiles and warmth wherever we turned – what a place.
Maku, our entry point, seemed to have had some kind of mudslide. The whole community was out clearing muddy flood waters while JCBs shovelled mud and upturned trees aside. The place felt so alive – fairly scruffy and full of character. There was a moment of sheer panic when we saw road signs in Farsi – how the hell are we going to navigate? But then, thankfully, signs in both Farsi and English - phew. We’re a long way from home now Alice…and we drove here
For cars, Iran is like a real life Grand Theft Auto. Outside Tehran, where you will see BMWs, Mercedes etc, everyone drives one of about 6 set vehicles. The Saipa Saba is the small saloon, a modified Mazda 121 and later Kia Pride from the early nineties. There are billions of Peugeot 405s. There’s the Iranian built Samand for the Taxis and a generic 70s style pick up. And that’s it. Brilliant. No wonder we are being welcomed like aliens from another world…
Fuel for locals with a fuel card is 1000 Rials a litre. As there are 10,000 Rials to the USD, that’s pretty stunning, but without a fuel card you pay the tourist rate, 4000 Rials a litre. Petrol attendants seemed shocked you are ok to pay this, but as it’s insanely cheap to us Brits we filled the tank and our Jerry cans immediately! After the £1.33 a litre of Turkey (even more than at home) Iran was a godsend. The roads were also phenomenal – silky smooth, silent tarmac as far as the eye can see.
We made Tabriz around 10pm. City driving was mental…roundabouts with no markings are a free for all, lane discipline or speed pretty irrelevant. It all seems to work though and once you get into it it’s really rather fun! A local ended up helping us find a great little hotel, and Matt headed straight for bed as he had been feeling unwell for a couple of days – time for some much needed sleep. The rest of us were directed by the owner to a local kebab house for some fabulous lamb kofta kebabs - all for $3 a head.
Our convoy left Tabriz with plans to head for Karaj and then the mountain road to the Chalus and the Caspian Sea beyond. The road quality to Karaj was phenomenal, if a little boring at first – standard motorway through fairly featureless terrain. Later that morning we had our first bit of Police related excitement …Ulaan Baatared were pulled for speeding. We were all going a lot faster but they were at the back, so the easiest to pull. The Police demanded….four million Rials. That’s about $400, which Tom and Mike bartered down to $6. I like it here…
We hit Karuj around 4pm and headed nort, snaking through the mountains with stunning views and the reservoir below. What a fabulous area. Here Iranians come to relax and holiday, so every bend is littered with local stalls, restaurants, gift shops and more. As with most of Iran it’s a bit of a mess – litter and clutter all over the place – and it’s teaming with people. But that’s its appeal, it feels so many miles from home. The vibe was quite infectious, it felt like one giant wedding with people smiling, cheering and beeping as always for no apparent reason.
We ended up at a fairly comfortable hotel, one of our more expensive stays ($50 a room) but a welcome one after a few days camping. The meal we had that night in the open air of the hotel restaurant was simply stunning – chicken kebabs and lemon and lime rice. No beer, of course, as Iran is a dry country (though this must exclude the whiskey everyone seems to be quietly drinking, everywhere). Our meal for 10 came to 1.2 Million Rial – bargain.
The next morning we continued up the mountain pass in a thick mist, slowly climbing to the summit behind hundreds of other cars and buses. We hit the Caspian see at Chalus around lunch time and headed along the coast. We were a little disappointed; we had heard the coast was where the wealthy of Iran holiday, but it seems we cut in too far down and were greeted with run down industrial towns, mud and a lot of rain...so we grabbed something to eat and some phenomenal local pastries near Sari and pushed on.
The Turkmenistan border was not far now and we made it at7am. The last 80km felt pretty scary – the road felt like something from a Hollywood movie set in Iraq, a desolate baron no mans land of rolling scrub and mountains with the odd abandoned shack and not a soul headed in either direction. It did not feel like a road anybody should be on, but one where aerial drones delivered precision bombings to old Russian trucks…
"An escalator can never break. It can only become stairs. You would never see an Escalator temporarily out of order sign, just Escalator temporarily stairs. Sorry for the convenience."
"When someone hands you a flier, it's like they're saying here you throw this away."
Good grief, this has potential to be one of the best posts ever on TCL. Certainly the best road trip post ever.
Bookmarked for later, on a side note I need to do the BABE next year.
Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You must not only refuse to hurt a man, but you refuse to hate him. - Martin Luther King Jr.
The GTI is like swimming in a sea of $1,000 bills coated in Grey Poupon, while the MS3 melts the asphalt, rapes babies, and shoots nails in random directions.
For the most part. If memory serves, it's also the cucumber capital of Japan. Hence the home-market ads for the FT-86 featuring Takeichi-kun, the cartoon cucumber whose meteoric rise through the underground drift world has shamed him in the eyes of his school-master.
The Iranian / Turkmenistani border itself was at the summit, looking out hundreds of miles in each direction across the tundra. A few Iranian trucks were lined up and one, Spanish Mongol Rally car sat at the gate. Always a good sign! Turkmenistan is renowned as the hardest country in the world to get a visa for, and a truly mad place. We had to buy our visas at this border (the only one we could not pre arrange) so had our fingers crossed.
What followed was about 6 hours of pure, unadulterated sodomy without consent. No other border required more scraps of paper, more stamps or more money. The place is guarded by conscript soldiers who appear to be about 12 but have guns, so you don’t argue, and overweight, sweaty guys in their late 40s who are only interested in lining their own pockets. Mind you if I had to sit in a bleak, faded magnolia office that literally reeks of the old USSR in the middle of nowhere, maybe I would be the same.
In the end it cost us nearly $400 to get through, 10 times what we were told to expect. Mind you it’s not as bad as those who took the ferry from Baku to Turkmenbashi, which jumped from $150 to $550 this year meaning Turkmenistan cost them the best part of $1000. Clearly Turkmenistan’s borders have caught on to the Mongol Rally.
We had transit visas and were given an official document which featured a map, showing us the only road we were permitted to take out of the country. Deviate from this route and we would be arrested. How welcoming! We were finally allowed through and began the scariest drive of the trip…
We had been told many stories about Turkmenistan. Most centred on it being a toilet, filled with unfriendly people ripping you off, corrupt cops wanting bribes every ten feet, and a general air of foreigners not being welcome. The road from the border to Ashgabat was supposedly bandit country and we should stay in tight formation, watching out for ambushes, for the 30KM to the capital.
It was total rubbish. We reached the outside of Ashgabat without seeing a soul to find a highly modern service station and met a 19 year old guy helping install a satellite system. He spoke perfect English, having studied in New York. We ended up chatting for about an hour (while we had our cars washed – another crazy Turkmenistan myth was it is illegal to have a dirty car in Ashgabat, but more on that place later) sharing all the stories we had heard and how wrong they could be.
Turkmenistan has quite a mad leader, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow, who took over from a previous, equally mad leader, ‘President for Life’ Saparamurat Nivazov, on his death in 2006. Since then a lot had changed, and a lot has not. Our new friend was embarrassed to hear about our treatment at the border and explained we would have no issues - everyone loves foreigners. He was right too. We were never pulled over once and the people were nothing but friendly, the reception almost rivalling Iran’s.
Ashgabat itself is possibly the strangest place I will ever visit. Nivazov demolished the old city and his vision of a new capital began. It’s essentially a man playing Sim City with the money cheat firmly on. He has built, from scratch, a metropolis of white marble and cut stone, every building more impressive and expensive than the last. The 6 lane highways in every direction include elaborate landscaping and water features, and every municipal building could rival anything in DC. He has an ‘Olympic Stadium’, built some time ago but used, to date, but absolutely nobody at all. There is even a statue of the leader himself, in gold, that points to face the sun during the day.
The sheer amount being spent is hard to grasp, even more so because there is virtually nobody there. About 1/3 of the city is actually in use, and the highways deserted outside the absolute centre. Most Turkmen people cannot afford to live here, yet he still keeps building the ‘perfect’ capital, his image hanging above every bank lobby, hotel desk and public foyer.
We ended up at a 4 star hotel as that is virtually all Ashgabat offers, and headed to reception to ask about a taxi. The hotel district is miles from the centre (good planning there Nivazov) and standard practice is to hail down ‘anybody’. For 5 Manat (£1.20) you can go anywhere. You soon get used to the idea and before long we were in an ‘English Pub’ – full of American confederate flags, baseball shirts, references to Spanish football and other clearly British artifacts – drinking the most expensive beer off the trip, about £8 each.
The cars? Well apparently it’s relatively new to show your ‘wealth’ here, so none Ladas have only started to appear. Like many of the Stans though it’s used German cars (well cared for) that dominate. There are loads and loads of clean E34 BMW 5 Series and Audi 100s kicking about, with the odd E39 5 Series starting to appear. Ashgabat was a fantastic place to see, but the road beckons and soon we are headed for Mary, one of only four places you will ever see on a road sign in Turkmenistan.
The further East we ventured, the more baron it became until it turned to complete desert, with nothing for hundreds of miles, sweeping dunes, camels and a big wide road. The four hours we spent on this road were some of the best; spirits were high and were were with around 10 rally cars, all in convoy heading for Turkmenbat in the fabulous light of a setting sun. Many photos, many videos and many laughs.
We made it to Turkmenbat late that night and again spent the standard hour looking for accommodation. We ended up at a decrepit ex mental hospital – in the soviet style of course, unforgiving and intimidating – now being used as a ‘hostel’ (and I use the word loosely) by a stern, angry lady of not inconsiderable girth. She was VERY firm on every aspect of our visit, from where our rooms were to where we eat.
The place of course was horrendous – it was one up from derelict, but it was indoors and $7 a night, so suited us fine. Another great Turkemnistani fact – gas is entirely free, but matches are expensive. As such, locals leave their gas burning all day and night, and if you turn it off, prepare for a beating! We gave the landlady a box of matches and you would swear she had just been handed the keys to a new Ferrari – we instantly became her new best friends.
Awesome thread and some great pictures. When did you guys go through Iran in relation to all the election unrest? Was it before or after?
We were there very late July, so the bulk of the trouble ahd died down, though I heard it was starting up again in Tehran. We avoided the capital to be sure we didn't get mixed up in it, to be honest there was no evidence whatsoever of any problems during our stay - just a few cars driving through the mountains waiving Mousavi banners and cheering...no violence or evidence of violence
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