Been there, done that, got the T shirt.

Why did we do the Mongol Rally?

Well I had it in my own mind to attempt this for 2 or 3 years and tempus fugit. The longer I left it the more unlikely I would participate. At the start at Goodwood we realised we were not the senior team by several years.

Therefore some reasons for doing the Mongol Rally. I have wanted to drive the Silk Road and had intended to do it in our camper van. However as the middle east hit their self destruct button with a little help from us and the Americans it became more of a challenge and Liz was reluctant to participate.

I enjoy a bit of a challenge and the Mongol Rally seemed to fulfil an adventure and experiencing west meeting east. It was great fun and the only real regret I have is that it was all about nursing an old car over bad roads in excess of 8000 miles.

This left us less time to experience the culture of the countries and the people we have passed on the way. It was exciting and interesting to see parts of the world I would have been unlikely to see sticking to Saga Holidays.. It was gratifying, to raise by people’s generous sponsorship, some worthwhile charitable donations.

Would I do it again – probably not as The Mongol Rally, but if life permits then I would like to make it to Mongolia and back at a more leisurely pace in a more reliable vehicle. I would possibly be up for other challenges Morocco on a monkey bike for instance. One of the biggest challenges was travelling for 30 days with your team mate(s). Gordon and I had previous experience and were used to each other’s idiosyncrasies and  being reasonably pragmatic people apart from generally being grumpy geriatrics it all worked out very well – thank you Gordon.

In conclusion as aging baby boomers it is good for the soul to experience how lucky we are purely due to an accident of birth compared with a large proportion of the world’s population.

I would like to thank everyone who offered their support either by reading the blog and commenting or of course our generous sponsors.

The other senior citizens team.

Been there Done that

Been there, done that,

This is just one part of the Mongolia blog available at www.Rudramrally.blogspot.com 

I am sat on the Russian plane on the 6 hours flight from Ulan Ude to Moscow, bored so started writing.

 This plane flights starts to put into perspective the enormity of our endeavor, the time that it is going to take us just to get back to Moscow 6 hrs let alone London shows how far we have driven.

Whilst I enjoy travel and I enjoy driving, I have to admit, I had enough. Living out of a suitcase, or in my case, a rucksack is bad enough, but finishing a 500+ mile day only to be faced with the same prospect the following day becomes wearing especially in a car I expect to expire any minute.

Firstly an explanation as to why a rucksack, I was firmly under the impression the car would not make it and had prepared for a long walk from somewhere in the back and beyond to the nearest bus stop. I don't think there were many days when I didn't think, " that's it we are out", and always sighed in relief when I knew we were on a bus route.

I have a picture somewhere with the sat nav giving the direction straight on for 1,000 km. The distances we covered are difficult to put into perspective but lands end to  John o groats and back over four times is about right. Put into this equation roads that always had the potential of being really bad, not since leaving Germany could we really relax in fear of hitting a pothole or other obstruction.

In reality the further east we went the potential for really bad roads without warning rose.

At the finish line, we were asked for our high spots, I don't think I really had a high spot unless you catalogue the whole trip as one, I did enjoy it, and the more I reflect on it the more that enjoyment increases.

I suppose if pushed the one high spot was the change in perspective that I had of Russia, my expectations were about 180 degrees out. I thought that all Russian would be card-carrying socialist ready willing and prepared to report any irregularity to the secret police who would be following our every move.

Nothing was further from the actual truth, yes everyone in some kind of authority, being that the woman shooing us out of her kitchen when we tried to research the oven, to nearly every hotel receptionist could do with a course on 'meet and greet". They came across as Mr or worse Mrs angry, but I found if you replied with a sing-song voice kept a smile and tried to be over appreciative of their help, they soon melted.
Neil had difficulty with this and even at our last hotel started throwing teddy out when the male receptionist, who was, in fact, the security guard come handyman, would not show us a room. With a small amount of patience and some sign language, I found out we had to wait for the receptionist who was away from the hotel but back in five minutes.

On one occasion whilst trying to find a hotel in a very derelict part of industrial Ukraine, we passed a park containing some tanks and other weapons, I marked the location on the map to revisit the following morning. 

The following day whilst we were returning to the park we questioned ourselves whether we should risk taking photos, being that they were military hardware, but when we returned we found it was a public park/ war memorial and the workmen cutting the grass, were somewhat bemused by us requesting permission to take photos. 

Things were tiring though, it seems that each and every transaction is recorded in a book, be that for a cup of tea, or in one case for the payment of 5 pence for a plastic cup that I had asked for to put our used tea bags in.
Everything recorded and everything charged for. One morning I queried the bill as it had 4 something and I knew we had not had four of anything, other than the beer in the evening and that came on a separate bill, it turns out it was for the two slices of bread, ( cut in half) which we had with our breakfast.

The obedience to the rules where frustrating, but equally fascinating. At one place we asked for chips ( freeze) only to be told that we could not have them although they appeared on the menu, "but they come with this,  you cannot have them with that"

At one place the waitress would not serve Neil the local brew, "you will have that" he was told in no uncertainty.

It was amazing to see traffic light procedure, on most set of traffic lights there was a countdown timer in red for when the lights were on red and green for one green, nobody, and I did spend a long time over the trip observing went through a red light everyone slowed at about three seconds to change and stopped on red, going to green was a bit different they preempted the change by a second or two and we're moving when they changed and you did get a horn if that didn't include you. You could turn left on some red lights, like before you soon got a horn if you didn't comply.

Many people we met melted most unexpectedly, there was the security guard at the hotel in Sorotov Russia where the car was playing up so badly we had barely made it into the entrance and I was shouted at by the group of guards that I could not leave the car where it has expired. I was covered in dirt hot and really low, the car appeared to be on its death throws, backfiring and shuddering to a stop and at times running backward or dieseling, that is running on after the ignition was turned off. It had enough and I had had enough and was ready for the train home. I did try some checks, the fuel pump was working and we had a good spark, but she just would not run.

After being told several times I had to move it, they did relent and offered to push her out the way, probably to the nearest scrapyard, I fiddled,  they fussed and laughed when I told them 10 minutes all ok. Sure enough, ten minutes later Katie had got over her paddy and started on the key like the first day out the showroom.

 I duly and much to the amazement of the guards drove off to where they were telling me to go some 15 minutes earlier. 

That night I showered with swarfega I was that dirty, and when all cleaned and refreshed I was walking for lunch when the same security guard accosted me, and I do mean accosted I was directed to an office and told to sit, and expecting some fine or other sanction sat down preparing for the worse. 

The guard fired up his wall mounted computer he had been on his computer looking up ignition problems  + Kia Pride on the Internet and had a list of possible causes, we then spent the next 45 minutes him on his computer using google translate, Russian to English and me on mine, English to Russian having a high tec Internet chat with a difference putting the world and the car to rights.

Thanks I never did get your name, and I know you did look at the blog so if you do again and translate this thanks, WE MADE IT, and you said we wouldn't.

There are so many things that made the trip, from the first tentative slight scrape on the sump guard, Neil thought fitting it was overkill, so I said I would charge him 50 pence every time we touched base with it, Kazakstan killed that project, we spent most of one evening, until we gave up and tented it beside the railway, with the sump guard dragging the ground, at one point and frequently after the driver just because a throttle pusher there was no steering with one side of wheels in one trench and the other in another the sump guard ran down the centre like a Scalextric model car.

On more than one occasion we hit bone crunchingly hard which jarred my teeth fillings and everything in or on the car.

The potholes were the worse some were literally feet deep, some were manhole covers missing, you started to learn the ones to miss and the ones that just didn't matter, however, there were still far too many that you just hit and hoped for the best each night I would check the rims but much to my amazement we didn't bend one or suffer a puncture, which really must say something about the tyres, new remouldS bought off the internet and probably the best investment in our preparation.

Neil has given me the car about 6 weeks before we left and I busied myself in preparation, sump-guard, new tyres, hand-fitted by me to ensure I could change them on the road a new electrical system running separately to the cars own battery which fed all our extras, kettle, GPS and charging point camping lights and day running lights across the front, this meant we could leave all this on flatten the battery but still be able to start the car, our "camping battery" would charge once the car front battery was fully charged.

The day running lights, a strip of LEDs across the bumper was a good investment. Neil was stopped somewhere in Kazakstan having forgotten to turn on the headlights, day running lights are compulsory, and a keen policeman jumped out in front of us, after much bowing and scrapping we were allowed off, somehow I got the bollocking, I think the policeman didn't realize it was right-hand drive, so from that point onwards the daylights were turned on first thing in the morning and off the last thing at night.

It was amazing how many routines we got into during the month, as I have said somewhere else Neils a bit hard to start in the morning so I would normally get up check and repack the car and make a coffee, whilst Neil was doing his necessaries.

We would then drive off with the chant, "wallet, phone, passport, lights, seat belts", to ensure we had everything, we later added petrol cap as I became paranoid about forgetting to put it back on.

We would swap who started day to day, and then drive for about 100-150 km when we would stop for breakfast three fried eggs and one tea and one coffee with milk no sugar, repeat, nix sacran.   The Russians like their sugar, ( but do not do desert) 

We would then drive for a similar time and stop for coffee and ice cream if we were lucky and continue throughout the day. 

I have a problem, I need to know where I am sleeping, I don't mind going all night if necessary but for some reason, I get fidgety if I don't know where I am sleeping by about 6:00pm. I think it's come back to the night I slept with Dianne's new Dyson vacuum, in a hedge somewhere on route to her bed and breakfast in France, anyone looking for accommodation near to Lemans would not go wrong at Dianne's, she and Claude are always prepared to go the extra mile to make your stay worthwhile.

Her bed and breakfast is behind the bandstand in the center of Chateaux du Loir.

Getting back to sleeping, Neil on the other hand deals with       one              thing              at            a               time. ( the gaps are deliberate). 

Neil however soon learned to deal with my idiosyncrasies and we didn't have to sleep in many hedges and surprisingly found hotels relatively easy.

The routine became the norm the same he would do the necessary checks to ensure we had two beds and a clean loo, whilst I wound the car down, took the mileage, and checked her over.

The only maintenance I did was to tighten the fan belt twice. The car didn't use a drop of oil over the whole distance and had one slide light bulb fail.

Late one night Neil and I killed an hour or so trying to remember the hotels that we stayed in some of which are a complete blank, I could not even remember the first border crossing into Ukraine until Neil reminded me it was where the girl who was dealing with us,  on the stoke of seven downed tools and said she was going home and someone else would carry on. 

I don't think there is one hotel I would not go back too, even the dormitory near the Mongolia border, some were brilliant and we made real friends some like the wooden log cottage in Manny was as frosty when we left as when we arrived. 

One of the interesting things that once out of Germany you had to pay for things up front, not even a cup of tea without payment, which made getting petrol especially for us that could not use a full tank challenging, I soon learned to keep one can empty and then I could be a bit freer with my estimates. 

You may or may not know that we are trying to raise money for charity there are two that we are supporting ourself  Drs without borders, who are similar to the Red Cross give urgent medical treatment without recourse to political or religious needs, and the Honiton based charity The baton which supports army veterans from the recent conflicts, we also have to give a percentage to Cool Earth the charity that the rally is supporting. I hate writing pleading letters but Neil through his social circle has raised an amazing amount, I am a long way behind, all I would ask if you have enjoyed reading this please pledge a small amount on our virgin giving page, and please be assured that nothing, not a penny comes to us it all goes towards those deserving charities is found on the blog or here www.virginmoneygiving.com/neilrudram 

Ude believe it we got there

Sunday 14th August

Relatively easy day left to complete the final 150 miles or so. Went to the shore of Lake Bakal and actually had time to take some photographs. We turned off to a village mainly to take some pictures of typical Russian village houses. We met some children and left one of the footballs we had transported for over 8000 miles. The road ran around the edge of the lake and then followed the river into Ulan Ude. There was a little sting in the tail as some sections of this road were not up to the standard we had become accustomed to in Russia.

This is a big city and even with the aid of Gordon's newly acquired app. we had some problems finding the hotel that was the designated finishing point and Katie decided that she had had enough of  this game and decided to cut out in the heavy traffic several times. We finally made it and there were several other teams there to greet us.

It seems that the first few teams did get through Mongolia and one team that got to the border after us paid the deposit and surprisingly were not able to claim it back on leaving at the northern border. It seems they may have to appoint a representative and give him power of attorney and he would go to the Central Customs Office in Ulan Baatar.

The logistics of us returning via Ulan Baatar seemed insurmountable show we booked a flight to return to UK on Thursday.

Arranging for the car to be returned to the EU for recycling was straightforward just required copious form filling and delivering it to a shipping company.

My little mate Vladimir Lenin

 Over 8000 miles later.

Mongol Rally Grave Yard

 Lake Baikal

Little and large

Ulan Ude

Our last bit of dirt track

It's a long way to Ulan Ude it's a long way to go

Wednesday 10th August.
We left Bijsk and headed along minor roads northwards to pick up the A road heading East for Irkutsk and Ulan-Ude. The non A roads were better than those in Kazakhstan they varied from dirt tracks through pot holed black top to very good metalled roads. At a town called Kiselvesk we actually found ourselves on proper two lane motor way.

Katie the Kia had decided that the fuel problem  was no fun any more so decided she would have a distal fracture of her right hind coil spring, so we removed the fragment and continued with a distinct list to the starboard.

As the bearing on the rear left hand wheel was getting louder and louder we stopped in Novokuznetsk at a car parts shop and after going from one department to another failed to get the required part.

The countryside was now much more varied with areas of arable and smaller plots of fruit and some livestock. Road side sales included apples, potatoes, yellow ochre mushrooms and honey.

We stopped for the night in Kemerovo, a large mining town with a thriving centre surrounded by the drab Soviet blocks of flats. We were unable to find our if the coal was mined from deep mines or extracted by open cast mining.

Thursday 11th August.

The hotel were able to direct us to a motor factors that specialised in bearings and printed us out a nice map to help us find it. We had done some research and now I new the bearing dimensions. On our way to the shop we saw that the city had trams, trolley busses, ordinary buses and a metro. The motor factors did not open until 10am so we were able to go around the Mar in er nearby. As well as produce melons potatoes peppers mushrooms honey tomatoes etc. There was fresh milk being sold from a small refrigerated mobile tank and lots of hard ware as well. We were befriended by the coffee stall man who wanted to have his photo taken with me.

Back at the bearing shop we made a successful purchase and Gordon quickly fitted it. Consequently a late start and had difficulty in finding our way out of Kemerovo until a kind gent in an old Lada Niva lead us out to the road east. At this point we met two Irish lads from Kilkenny on the Rally. We had coffee with them and discussed The Mongolian Question. They told Gordon about a mapping application for smart phones that would work in Russia. So that scuppered any chance of looking for a detailed proper map.

The farmed land changed to more and more Forrest, mainly soft wood spruce and larch with a lot of silver birch. Due to our late start on the road we only made 270 miles to Achnisk where again a helpful local couple lead us to a hotel in their car and yet another selfie.

In the hotel we met a group of lads who were construction workers laying oil and gas pipe lines which would link through China to Japan. In the spirit of good democracy I brought in my bottle of whisky and Gordon had some gin. They had already disposed of 3 or 4 bottles of vodka so we had quite a lucid discussion on the merits of  football v. rugby, Gordon on assorted motor cycle issues and  track racing road cars, the fact that Scotland is different from England - the concept of being British or the United Kingdom does not seem to be readily grasped beyond Calais in my experience. Gordon went off for an early bath and I ensured the whisky was drunk in an orderly fashion, One of the men had a farm with a few pigs, 2 cows and over 100 horses which I think he said were bred for working used by the herdsmen and shepherds and not for meat.

I then declined the offer to go clubbing and the local sauna and meet big Russian girls and in fact even the foreman as I presume he was I think suggested this was not a good idea as they were due to be on site by 7am. Leaking welds in the Siberian section of the gas pipeline would I guess have quite serious consequences.

Friday 12th August.

Our newly acquired Russian friends had left on time in a big 4 x 4 crew bus. We left at a more leisurely hour in remarkably good condition obviously the advantage of vodka with little cogener content to give you a toxaemia head ache the next morning.

We had to try and get some miles on the clock to make up for lost time. We were now passing through continuous Forrest with rolling hills, long ascents and descents. Every time we stopped Katie the Kia attracted attention with interest on where we had come from and why we were trying to go to Mongolia. We met a Pole in a Toyota 4x4 who had driven through Mongolia by the same route as we were hoping intending to and had also seen some rally cars in Ulan Ude and he was now on his home. A motorcyclist with a bike with UK number plates with whom we had being playing tag with we eventually spoke to at a railway crossing also turned out to be a Pole from London. He was touring by himself and camping.

We have never been very far from the main trans Siberian railway and often saw mainly long goods trains headed by up to 3 engines. Today was our highest mileage at 520 miles we crossed another time zone and are now 7 hours ahead of British summer time. We stayed the night in basic hotel in Ruling which was more than adequate and good value.

Saturday 13th August.

We had reckoned there was no point in slogging another 400 plus miles today to get to Ulan Ude as we would not be able to do anything on Sunday to sort out the car or perhaps get another Mongolian Visa. The road now passed through more open country side with some big agribusiness and less woodland MN we passed area of open cast mining with quite large towns close by. I saw in the distance a mega dairy and there was 2 or 3  milatary camps secreted away.

We stopped and took photographs and generally had a more leisurely day. We had what had now become our routine fried eggs with bread and coffee  after driving around an hour and a half which had been our little ritual every morning when we didn't have breakfast.

The disaster of the day was at our afternoon coffee stop Gordon left his log of mileages and fuel purchased in the café. We reached Irkutsk on Lake Ball and followed it's periphery to a resort town called Bajlaisk. We are staying in Guest House which could be a Youth hostel or even a reform centre. Now only 200 miles from Ulan Ude.

We got here

We made it

Whilst this hopefully will not be the final post we are getting on for the final 100 miles of our run into Ulan Ude which for the car will be its final resting place, well almost, its really strange driving  a car on what we know will be its final journey, not that I have done it but it must be like taking a dog to the vet to have it put down. The car has been running well today we have driven 200 km without much more than a couple of pops from the exhaust, Neil seem to have mastered driving it and  changed his "old world driving style" Katie needs to kept on song, lumbering it up a hill in too high a gear just causes problems,. I have not found the exact problem with the car I think in fairness it was more than one single problem probably a series of problems. The hole in the filler neck which we found relatively early, followed by the filler cap one way valve problem, certainly were major factors, that was proved when we left the cap off for a hundred miles, when all the problems reoccurred, how fortunate we were to have balanced the cap on the roof for nearly hundred miles, unbelievable taken the state of the roads, but it did sit behind the spare wheel in a small well.

The car has been a real pain, not because of the problems, more from the fact that it ran so well for most of the time, the wheel bearing and spring I could live with, it was just the uncertainty, every day every overtake every hill, just like Russian roulette you didn't know what the car was going to do.

Yesterday we dropped down to a fantastic lake, lake Baykal, it's more

Ike a sea as in places you cannot see the opposite side, the whole area is surrounded by mountains and the air is mountain lair clean and cool. As we were trying to crunch miles we waited until as far as possible to find somewhere to sleep, it was too wet and cold to camp, and I had recently started using a fantastic app for travel "MAP ME" if you are traveling anywhere then this aid to navigation is a must. You can download street level maps of I think anywhere in the world and then use them off line, I think you need a gps enabled phone, if we had know about this app at the beginning of our trip we would probably have saved two or three days, also the rigmarole of trying to find accommodation, and banks, would have been so much easier. Be warned it does eat your battery in fact despite being plugged into the car, my battery went flat, so now I only turn it on when we need it.

So using our newly acquired app, we set off for a hotel  and it took us off the main road into back street which would normally not used, well not intentionally, and sure enough right where the app took us was a hotel or hostel we still have not worked out exactly what it was but we were given a room with five beds and a more than acceptable  hot shower and loo. It even had internet although tremendously slow, it had a well stocked bar, with everything from champagne to bottles of wine,but no beer, for beer you had to walk to the magazine, or shop, about 200 meters away.

Now I am not saying that all Russians are alcoholics but the availability of booze is somewhat amazing, theses magazines and they are situated everywhere even in the most rural of locations stock a vast array of beer and I mean vast, even those isolated shops would have probably three dozen different types and the more urban ones even have it on  draft, you simply take a lemonade bottle, or as we saw on more than one occasion a triple size lemonade bottle and they fill it from a pump especially designedfor the purpose, some shops had ten or more of these pumps, presumably with different beers the smaller shops always had at least two.

Neil with his Scottish background peaking through was examining bottle after bottle determining strength and price, well trying to he had forgotten his glasses,and had chosen three dubious looking bottles of ale when a very respectfully dressed woman of about thirty came into the shop and ordered. Now I don't know if your aware but a lot of communication is non verbal, and body language and this woman leaked her obvious disapproval at what we were purchasing. I thought it was just we were buying beer but when the shopkeeper served her, Russian as in many countries will do this stop serving you and serve someone else and come back to you, she was served with two large cans of what looked like premium beer, " and what's wrong with this beer" I asked she obviously understood my question and mimed her reply that we had chosen falling down water, so hastily two of our plastic bottles were sent back in exchange for hr premium beer, which she obviously approved of and we parted company with approving nods to each other.

The meal was basic but edible and surprisingly filling and there was no problems us having our beer at the table although there were no large glasses so we had to resort to drinking out of glass cups. 

Just to jump to the end 

                                                   WE MADE IT

We got here to the end yesterday at about 4:00pm with a probably more dramatic finish than we needed, despite our app telling us almost exactly where the hotel and finishing point was we couldn't find it, so had to dash back into the city to get wi only to find we were searching in the right direction, this time however we peered through the trees and saw the hotel about 100 metres from where we had been asking .

Gordon's latest

I have not posted anything on the blog for a couple of days, the reason I was too tired really tired we have had a few harrowing days.
We made it to Mongolia only to be told we would have to pay a temporary import deposit of nearly $6000 US dollars in cash, with the nearest bank a days drive away only we could not take the car and would have to either get a taxi, there were none, get a lift or walk.
It was an impossible situation which we had waited nearly 24 hrs for
Firstly the border was closed Sunday when we arrived and didn't open until 8 9 or 9:30 depending on whom you spoke to, it was actually 8:30 but it moved so slow you couldn't tell. We do however view some queue rage when the group of polish bikes were going to be let through a bit earlier much to the annoyance of the cars waiting.
Anyway having decided that to try and pay the tax was not viable we decided that we would have to continue to Ulan Ude via Russia so had to turn around and drive the 20 km back into Russia and then a 2000 km drive through Russia to get to Ulan Ude .
Backtracking over our exact previous route was not something I relished, however, we did see many things we had missed the two days and we passed through some truly beautiful scenery.
To say that it wasn't our best day was an understatement however the car ran like a dream which proved my assumption that part and probably the main problem that we have been having is the overheating of the fuel in the tank, the rain kept everything cooler, we covered over 330 km and eventually stopped at a delightful three storey log cabin, everything possible was made from wood including the light switches and electrical sockets.
The food was more than reasonable and after a good nights sleep, we again started heading as we had since leaving home, east.
 Now just to bring you up to date we are currently further east than India, so for me, it's virgin longitude.
The car has started to show some strain the rear wheel bearing is becoming a real worry as its howling, although there is no sign or play.
Whilst we were travelling along, what is for Russia a relatively smooth, rough road, we had an unusually loud bang from the rear, now not only have I removed the rear seats, we unwashed unshaven sexagenarians were unlikely to "pull" on this trip, but we also had an enormous amount of rubbish in the back, but this was not an ordinary bang and when it was followed by the smell of burning rubber  we thought we had better investigate and we found that a rear Spring had broken, fortunately at the bottom coils, so it was out with the tools to remove the rear shocker and dismantle the spring fortunately because we had played around with the springs before  I had already worked a way of compressing the spring with the weight of the car + a bit more. In preparing the car Dave Holley had suggested fixing some eye bolts to the side of the car not only to secure our roof gear but to hang a hammock from, I was able to use a ratchet strap attached to this and the other end to the wheel to compress the spring enough to get the fixings on, sorted in less than 30 minutes thanks, Dave and Bertie, the pop rivets performed better than expected.
We did try and find a bearing shop but despite trying could not find what we needed. The following night after a frustrating search for hotels we found a large and by our standards expensive hotel in the centre of the city I am afraid to admit that night we ate Italian as it was the nearest restaurant and even had to resort to drinking Carlsberg as for some reason the waitress, Lisa, would not serve us with local beer and we were  too tired to argue.
By now the bearing was getting more than desperate so making use of our luxury hotel Internet and front office staff, google translate and some useful drawings on paper we were able to get a map to a "bearing shop". The previous day we had been forced to look for a Kia pride wheel bearing but Enterprising Neil had managed to find the bearing sizes for the Euro parts website armed with this information we set off to the bearing shop only to find it didn't open until 10:00 o'clock so we spent and enjoyable 45 minutes in the local market, Neil the ever so conservative was worried  about upsetting the local by taking photos but I wanted some to show My wife I forced his arm and borrowed his camera, camera shy was the last thing they were, all wanted their photo taken even the proprietor of the tea stall, who instantly became Neil's best friend and insisted I took a photo of them draped over each other.
This time at the bearing shop I was better prepared and had a script written out
"Мне нужнодва подшипникам колеса для моего автомобиля размер"
Which translates to "I want two bearings this size", the assistant looked, stared and then started into his computer after 5 minutes with a number scribbled on a piece of paper he disappeared and returned a short time later clutching two bearing. That certainly looked the job, so it was off to a nearby carpark wheel off and bearings checked and indeed they had the same numbers, jobs a good one!

When I packed tools for this venture  it was difficult knowing what to take especially as I was going to have to sacrifice them along with poor old Katie, I had packed a set of metric ring spanners some sockets and a drift, how pleased I was with my selection I think I have used every spanner on this trip including the 6 mm I nearly didn't pack.

I think it probably took less than ten minutes working as a team to get the wheel off, unfortunately, the seal was ruined but the outer bearing was unmarked so Neil rushed back to the shop to swap the outer bearing for a new seal.

I don't think I have seen a bearing as badly chewed as the inner bearing, no wonder it was howling probably about ready to let go in a big way. By the time I had replaced the inner race Neil was back with the seal, so bobs your uncle wheel bearings replaced and on our way by 11:00.

Navigation has been a bit of a nightmare, Neil, rightly so, was not to pleased with the Sat Nav, I had forgotten to get maps of Russia downloaded and in any case would not have got them for the roads we were now forced to travel on. Having tried several different exits from the city we resorted to asking a local who once he understood what we wanted or at least gave the impression he did, jumped in his car along with his equally burly mate indicating we should follow, which we did, as the roads got smaller and smaller, bearing in mind we were looking for a motorway, the more I started to become anxious, I went through several scenarios in my mind and thought back to my anti-high jacking training and wondering if I could get Katie to perform a backwards J-turn. Neil I could tell was equally worried he does not give much away, but he was twitching more than usual, but just at the point of no return, we pulled out of a lane beside the motorway, for motorway read single carriageway road where turning right and even u-turns are allowed. With much relief and our faith in human nature restored we were on our way.

In fairness, touch wood, fingers crossed etc etc we have only had positives in Russia, I think it's at least four times now we have asked for directions only to have someone say follow me and they have led through a maze of junctions to our request venue.

Today whilst stopped on the main road for a kettle cup of soup, One of the many additions I put into the car was a secondary electrical system with for those technical propel a split charge diode, which basically means we can use the secondary system without affecting the main system. Even flattening it completely would have no effect on the car, it would simply recharge once the main battery was up to charge. Off this system we have a electrical kettle in the front foot well, and although it takes about 30 minutes to boil, makes a mean cup of tea or soup.

Today Friday we needed to crunch some miles so having got the old thing started and ready to go by eight thirty, Neil that is, I wanted to make the most of the day.
One of my concerns before leaving was the electrical system and more importantly the alternator. I knew we would be extremely unlikely to find a replacement on route and after some considerable searching online found QX Components Urmston where a very friendly Gary offered us sale or return on a reconditioned unit which sat under my seat, just in case, Thank you, Gary, I slept better knowing I had it should needs must. Ironically one of the Italian teams had blown their Alternator before leaving England and had wasted two days getting a replacement.
The normal pattern of our day, when the car is running right, is to take it turns starting in the morning and then drive for two hours and change, in the afternoon we swap more often. Today I got the timing a bit wrong and it meant that we had to stop on the side of the road for our soup, because we were on the main road and not wishing to upset the local police I pulled the bonnet up, whilst we drank our soup, in the minutes that we were stopped, we had two cars pull up to check we were ok, one had turned around to see if help with any problem the other was a polish driver who was with his family having visited Mongolia on the route we had planned just stopping in case.
Today the car ran like a dream for 350 km and then started playing up, Neil,has now learnt how to tease the car past the problem, carefully adjusting the revs to stay below the problem, we have also found kicking it into neutral on the long down hills also help.
We are now at 520 km about 300 miles into today's trip and shortly it's mine turn  to drive so I will take a few random photos and post with this for today 

Kahn't come here with that car

We did get to Mongolia but shown the door.

Alta scenery 

Easy rider Russian style 

Monday 9th August.

This morning we set off confident we would achieve our aim of getting into Mongolia and heading for Ulan Baatar. At the end of the day we were 70 miles west back in Russia at Kosh Agach.

What happened was:
We had breakfast a la ration pack cooked outside our hotel and then joined the queue for the border.It being Monday and the border having been closed over the week end there were a line of lorries, several local cars and 18 motor cycles from Poland. Three and a half hours later several forms completed some more stamps in our passports take everything out of the car, gave you any drugs or guns - sure we have a kilo of heroin and 3 AK 47 stashed away in here, we were through the Russian border. There is about ten miles of no man's land to drive to the Mongolian border. We met a couple of guys on the Rally who told us the Mongolian customs were requiring a payment of $5000 plus. Us being seasoned travelers assumed this was negotiable and proceeded through immigration and car temporary importation and finally customs where they were asking a deposit of $6000 plus a payment of 15% duty. We were assured this was returned on removing the car from the country. This is all well and good
But they had no means of taking payment by card, and wanted us to take a 100km taxi ride to a bank where we still would not have been able to draw this amount of in cash.

So there we were between a rock and a hard place our Mongolian Visa used, a fistful of useless Mongolian money and over 8 hours wasted. It was back to the Russian border more forms, stamps and told customs man the same answers as 5 hours before and that his dog remembered me and the car even if he didn't. (and some fell on stoney ground). Then we managed 100km back down the road and found a basic B and B hotel. Had a pleasant evening with a young German couple who we were able to sell some of our Mongolian monopoly money they had a bargain. A lady Russian translator with 2 Russian guys also came and joined us as well. She put us right on Russian geography explaining we were in Siberia and no Siberia wasn't all frozen wasteland on the Artic Ocean and no there were other things than the Gulags in Siberia. In fact generally lived up to our Old Gits name by being educated in better English than we spoke by two German Students and a Russian girl!

Tuesday 9th August.

Another day retracing our steps. We found a group of doubtful Mongolian likely lads and managed to change the remains of our currency at what I guess was a highly preferential rate to them.
En route we stopped three other rally teams and warned them of the possibility difficulties with the Mongolian customs. 340 miles driving west and we were in a situation to break out onto new roads.
We crashed out at an interesting log cabin style hotel in Bijsk.

Five star accommodation at Tasanta 

P 

Mongolia or bust.

Friday 5th August.

Before leaving Semey Gordon wanted to look at the tank graveyard. There was as well as a lot of redundant / antique military hardware an impressive war memorial for 1941 to 1945 involvement in WWII. This was a socialist sculpture of brothers in arms freeing the people and the hammer and sickle in the middle something that we hadn't seen previously on our travels.

We then made our way to the Russian border. This time it seemed the difficult part was getting out of Kazakhstan with photographs and copies of everything lots of rubber stamping before we got to the Russian side where we expected to have a repeat of our previous entry into Russia and I had swotted up and practices my Russian form filling technique. In the event we had a pleasant lady customs officer who smiled looked at V5 and stamped our passports and an almost cheerful border policeman who just looked in all the car door boot and bonnet and off we went. The reason it took 2 hours to get through was queuing and being lunch time minimal staff present.

Now back in Russia the countryside changed with wooded hills and rolling terrain with the inevitable acres of  sunflowers. After the border we took a wrong turn but ended up on the scenic route  passing a large Ski resort at Zmeinogorsk, stopped at roadside to taste and buy some mountain honey. Now a more Alpine feeling to the countryside. We eventually returned to the "A" road which was amazingly good compared to the Kazakhstani A roads and stayed overnight in Aleysk. The hotel was on  a 3rd floor with a restaurant with loud music on 2nd floor, furniture store on 1st floor and supermarket on ground floor in a building that had previously been a clothing factory. Later when in the restaurant one of the waitress sent for her husband to act as interpreter. His name was Robert and he was a tank officer in the Russian army. He had served in Syria, Afghanistan and the Ukraine (!) his English was very good. We asked him if it was a hen night in the restaurant as there was a big group of girls and older ladies. He said his wife had told him that they were doctors celebrating opening a new clinic, in fact doctors for animals. Queue for NR to heave in on the party only to find out it was actually one of the girls 30th Birthday party and the vets had already left. So I I have made another Russian acquaintance but I don't think mother was impresses.

Saturday 6th August

The problem being Google maps on this area is it gives directions and distances as the crow flies. Reverting to good old paper maps we realised the Mongolian border was probably 2 days away.

Katie had a relatively good day and we made it to Manga and stayed at a bed and breakfast in a log cabin type house the owner was a bit scary! On the way lots more roadside stalls selling honey fruit and chai type tea. I did look at some bee hives but they were all empty and the owner couldn't tell me what had happened to them, purely down to linguistic problems. Pulled in at a device area with lots more stalls but managed to have a kebab for lunch. In the evenin we drove all around a large town looking for somewhere to eat but ended up in a pizza house near the hotel. This small town had more"jug and bottle" type off licences then I have ever known before and must have beaten Bridgwater in the sixties and for the number of watering holes per head of population.

Sunday 7th August

Today at last we started to get off the planes and into the Alta mountains. Stunning scenery with severe scree covered slopes and snow capped mountains wide vales with scattered villages. Quite different from the Alps or the Moroccan Atlas.

Today the car was particularly troublesome, starting the day the first 100 miles Katie was stomping along and then with some severe inclines and a lot of bends she decided she didn't want to play.

During one of Katie's rest stops when we were brewing up a cup of tea an Indian lad and his Russian fiance traveling with a Russian couple stopped and were pleased to drink English tea with us. The Indian guy was a guide in the North of India, the Russian called Roman was retired as a police photographer and the two girls Eleanor and Marina were medical receptionists. They had driven from Novosibirsk and were spending a week touring in the mountains. I found out the white flowering crop was called grecia and used as a breakfast cereal somewhere between porridge and Dahl. Bees are attracted to it and produce a dense white honey from it. I was given a packet to try and it looks like lentils to me. Gordon was now well into his 30 years a policeman routine but after a few photographs and exchanging emails we were on our way. The car definitely didn't like the mountain roads but Gordon nursed it along and we reached the border town of Tasmania and booked into a local hostelry consisting of 10 beds in a shed a bucket of water and a real hole in the ground toilet where as they used to say our aim is to keep this place clean your aim is obviously sadly lacking. Home cooked supper alfresco finished the perfect day.

Alta car boot sale!?

More tea vicer

Fulfilling all of Katie's needs

High in the Altas

Alta scener

Anglo Russian Indian detente cordial

just some photoswhich i shall upload whilst asleep