Thursday 17 May 2012

A little bit of FAQ


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...

image from: http://theplanetd.com/adventure-travel/
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.

image from: http://mongolrally10.theadventurists.com/index.php?page=festival-of-slow-uk
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.

image from: http://thesocialmediasyndicate.com/challenges-to-face-in-the-mongol-rally-14
image from: http://thesocialmediasyndicate.com/challenges-to-face-in-the-mongol-rally-14


Anymore questions, just let us know!



5 comments:

  1. According to The Long Way Round, there's 80km of tarmac in the whole of Mongolia, all of it in UB. Just thought you'd like to know.

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    1. Well thats not quite true, there is a tarmac highway from the Russian border at Kyakhta to UB. Naturally this is not the way we are going.

      Whether our car is considerably better than Apu or Holly remains to be seen! It makes a jolly odd sound as you pull away. Fingers very crossed for the garage assessment this weekend

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  2. Does your little punto have air con and a sound system?

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    Replies
    1. No air-con unfortunately. In fact, if there was a sweep stake, I'd put money on the electric windows being the first thing to break down!

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  3. We ended up getting a Suzuki Ignis.

    Sound system - check! Plus I'm sure my theatre mates can help me beef that up a bit!

    Air con - Uhmm, can't remember! Rach?

    ReplyDelete