In an effort to avoid thesis writing I thought I’d
make a little blog post answering some of the questions I’ve been coming
across. Not because I’m tired of talking about the Mongol Rally (though I’m
sure various people are tired of me talking about it). But because not everybody has the questionable joy
of seeing us on a regular basis, so just in case you were wondering....
How long will it take?
Well, we don’t really know. We’re expecting it to
take somewhere between 4 and 6 weeks, but who knows. The last part through
Mongolia has the most potential for the unexpected, since that’s where the
roads tend to disappear...
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| image from: http://theplanetd.com/adventure-travel/ |
How are you getting home?
Since we don’t know when we will get to UB it is
difficult to book flights in advance and booking flights at short notice is rather
expensive. So instead we’ll finish the adventure by doing the last
stretch of the trans Mongolian railway (an offshoot of the trans-Siberian) into
Beijing. Depending on how much time we have we’ll hopefully manage to get some
Chinese sightseeing in before we go. Ant will be back on 1st September and Rory and I will back on 14th September.
Is it a race?
Absolutely not. If there is any competition element
it is to have the biggest adventure on the way there. The adventurists
specifically don’t keep any record of who gets there first. The fastest route
which could actually be done is about two weeks but would involve spending most of the time on the
same Russian motorway and that just doesn’t sound nearly as much fun.
We do get to go on a lap of honour around Goodwood though.
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| image from: http://mongolrally10.theadventurists.com/index.php?page=festival-of-slow-uk |
Can I come?
I’m afraid our little car is going to be fairly full
with just the three of us! Stowaways will be thrown into the Channel.
Plenty of people have been muttering about doing it next year. Let us
know if you go through with it and hopefully we might have aquired some useful experience by then.
Why are you doing it?
Well I can only speak for myself. I remember being
a little girl when Outer Mongolia was the most strange, exotic and far
away place imaginable (I’m not sure I even knew it was a real location). Anyway it’s always held
a certain fascination.
Besides, having been in continuous education for the past
twenty years it’s about time I took a break! .
Are you crazy? (mostly asked by my parents)
No. Well, no more than usual anyway. Yes there are risks
involved in what we are doing but life without risk would mostly involve
staying in bed. This would be boring.
What if you break down?
Well, then we’ll fix it! Or more likely wave some
cash around until we can persuade a local to help us fix it. If we break down
in a non-repairable way we’ll have to get the car properly disposed of,
apparently just abandoning a car in a country is quite illegal. While it is
unlikely that we personally would get any repercussions from the country, it
does damage the reputation of the rally. In fact we have to provide a vehicle
deposit to insure against us doing this.
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| image from: http://thesocialmediasyndicate.com/challenges-to-face-in-the-mongol-rally-14 |
Anymore questions, just let us know!
