Roof of the World Rally

Launching 12th July 2008

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Posted by: Ryan
We awoke in our hotel in Khorog early, and whilst I stayed in bed grabbing some more sleep Sophie went down for breakfast. She ran into some French diplomats. She had an oily omlete, some tea and, erroneously some water she was told by the French was fine. We packed up, paid up and prepared to leave. Contrary to what we had been told earlier on in Tajikistan, no high quality petrol existed on Khorog, and so we filled up the car with the two jerry cans of 80 octane we had picked up from the rusty barrel back in Sary Tash, Kyrgyzstan. As we wondered what the car would make of it, after running on 92 up to that point, we chatted to a young Tajik, who said he was interested in doing our rally in reverse next year! We set off and drove back into town in order to complete the required KGB/Police registration required in the GBAO region of Tajikistan. After much wondering this turned out to be done in the bank. As we sat through the process of filling in forms and changing money we were slowly baking in the heat, and I was panting quite a lot (despite the decent from the Pamirs the day before, we were still well over 2000 meters). Eventually this was done, and we crawled to a local shop to buy some mystical cola and fanta type stuff (you know your in the back of beyond when you can’t get coca-cola). Anyway the stuff was foul, but at least cool and we hit the road again, with Betty running apparently fine on the dodgy Kyrgyz fuel. After leaving Khogog we began to run along the road adjoining the Afgan border. The border is a river, and in places you could literally throw a stone across to Afghanistan. We stopped to admire a village over the river, and waived to some locals on the other side who waived back. Sophie was not feeling too well today, and I had been driving. As the roads started to deteriorate she started to look increasingly unwell. Eventually, during a moment of confusion we cross a bridge by an unmanned guard post, appearing on another side of the river. As we knew that the other side of the river was Afghanistan, and illegally entering would be mildly insane we were wondering exactly what had happened. At this point I had to pull over, as Sophie got out the car and sat by the side. She was wretching as though to be sick, but nothing appeard. After about 15 minutes she seemed to recover slightly and could talk again. Her stomach clearly wanted rid of something – possibly the dodgy water from the morning – as we tend to eat the same food, and I was feeling fine. After a while she slowly recovered, drank more water and got back in the car. Although she was unwell for the rest of the day, that was the low point. As a result I took over driving for that day. The roads began to get worse, as we followed a track carved into the side of a cliff, watching the raging torrent of a river all too close to our left and pondering how the Afgans manage to get so much opium across. The scenery was still quite pretty, and we watched the Afgan villages with people trekking back and forth on donkeys. Not long after night fell we reached the split in the road. This we had been warned about - the road straight to Dushanbe we had been reliably informed by Mongol Ralliers and the Lonely Planet was exceedingly crap, whereas the southern road via Kulob, sticking with the Afgan border was slowly being upgraded. After confirming with a local police man which was the road we wanted we headed south. Although we have not driven the Khorog-Dushanbe road I would have preferred to take it over the southern road. It was indeed being upgraded and what I thought would be a nice smooth stroll to the finish turned out to be anything but. Anyway the road started out well enough, and we decided to try out the stereo system, which had been broken due to electrical gremlins for some time. We managed to get it half working – with short 10-15 seconds of song playing, followed by the stereo power cutting and several seconds of silence following. We loaded up American Pie on the MP3 player, and headed on into the night singing along and filling in the gaps. As the song was in full flow, we were flagged down by two young soldiers patrolling the border, armed with AK-47’s. They asked for a lift, but as tempting as it was to have two armed Tajik soldiers in the car singing American Pie with us, there was no room to do so. We continued to see the occasional pair of soldiers on patrol every now and then, although thinly spread out along the border. One gave me a scare at one point by crouching and running across the road, gun at the ready as if to ambush/shoot at us. They didn’t thankfully! We ran into parts of surreal motorway, complete with smooth tarmac. This lasted for 30 minutes or so before the road turned into a potholed gravel track again. That, it seemed, was the extent of the road renovations. Also along the border, all day but with increasing frequency as we drove in the night were landmine signs. Quite obvious red writing with a picture of a leg being blown apart. These were on both sides of the road, so going for a wonder or even a pee was not an option – as we were effectively driving through a minefield. As the time got late and the roads got worse – bigger rocks, smaller tracks, larger potholes and steep inclines – all on a dubious mountain side ‘road’. We started debating the best way forward – to we sleep next to the Afgan border in the minefield or plow on, tired through the night. Just as I started cracking open the energy drinks we cane to a military checkpoint and registration. The guards took our details down and seemed friendly – so we asked if we could stop there and cook up some food on our stove and sleep next to the guard post. They agreed – and as it happened turned out to be absolute legends. They were charged with protecting the Tajik-Afgan border, and said they shoot at opium smugglers who travel on the other side of the river on donkeys. There task was not easy, with no electricity, only a lantern for light and a single paid of army fatigues between them. We cooked up some couscous and soup for sustenance on our stove – the guards were impressed with our petrol stove, and showed us there cooking facilities – a rusty tin can with some ashes in. We were both shattered and after cooking resigned ourselves to sleeping in the car by the guard post for the night. The guards advised us not to try and sleep anywhere else due to the mines and soldiers. We wound the car seats back and passed out pretty quickly. We awoke with the sun for our last day on the rally. The guards were still up and about and, in true Roof of the World Rally style we shared some tea with them. A good cup of Ringtons finest was had by all, accompanied with Tajik bread and golden syrup cake. Over breakfast, we pulled out our phrasebook and had a language session, learning some Tajik with the guards who tried out English. We took the obligatory photos posing with them by the Afgan border and prepared to head off. The guards said the road was bad for 18 kilometers, and then got better. Sophie started the driving and we said our goodbyes and headed on down the road. As it turned out, the roads turned from bad to worse for 18 kilometers, before returning to merely bad. All started well enough though as we drove under a waterfall rolling down the cliff onto the road. As traffic was very light (a vehicle every half hour or so) I decided to stop and have a shower in the waterfall. Possibly shocking the Afgan village on the other side of the river, I stripped down to boxers and had a super-power shower overlooking Afghanistan. It was very refreshing, and I felt good getting back in the car. Sophie had also recovered from her illness the previous day. I got back in the car wearing a towel instead of trousers in order to dry off – and due to the shenanigans to come promptly lossed them somewhere in the car, and remained wearing my towel to the finish. The roads then turned bad. Very bad. The inclines got worse, caring Soph to have to step on the pedal and take a run up on the incredibly narrow path with a cliff face to the right and a shear drop to the river to the left. Big rocks began appearing, some unavioudable and clouting the underside of the car – which was pretty mangled. The exhaust at this point was still attached to the car, but proving no use as it was blowing at the manifold. Our ground clearance was down to some 4 inches or so, making driving tricky. Next up was a steep incline with a series of ponds at several stages. Backed by a waterfall on which several Tajik soldiers were positioned – which I only noticed after I stuck a camera at them. This was tackled by charging up and just accepting that the car would take a pounding. Next up was muddy track with several water features, at points crawling through overhanging undergrowth. We ran into a posh 4x4, which we saw struggle over a stream. Looking at each other dubiously we headed for it anyway, and made it unscathed. The 4x4 said we had only 4 kilometers or so left. Although this contained the piece de resistance. An Iranian construction site. The Iranians were upgrading the road, and the construction site was filled with clouds of dust and fine gravel tracks with large rocks resting on top. The car got stuck going up an incline, and dug in slightly to the soft gravel. A bunch of Iranian workers appeared, introducing themselves they helped us get through the site. Easier said than done, it started with an Iranian driving the car and everyone else pushing. This got us a little way up the incline, but the road was still horrible. I was still wondering round the construction site in a towel, moving rocks out of the road, and in some places moving gravel to make a new road. It came to the point where the Iranians suggested taking the jerry cans and tires off the roof in order to raise the car off the ground. This we did, and they carried them whilst I drove the remaining way through the site. We made it – although the underside of the car had taken a pounding and the car was smelling bad – after some heavy clutch use. We loaded the tires and jerry cans in the back of the car, said thanks to the Iranians and carried on. The road became passable, but still bad. Not long after this we turned away from the Afgan border – which we had been excited to see at first but were rapidly tiring of. The road got worse again, and we were struggling in the heat. Highlights included a section of river bed and a point where the road ended abruptly in a shear drop (navigated by turning back and taking a side path). It was around this point that we noticed the front number plate had come off somewhere back. Turning back to find it was not an option, so we carried on. Villages came and went and we were sick of drinking hot water in the 30+ heat. Eventually, the road improved as we arrived into Kulob. We picked up some cold water, re-hydrated and felt much better. The roads gradually improved into tarmac. Police checkpoints started appearing regularly, and we got stopped at every one – as we would normally. This time however they kept asking why we had no number plate. We got slightly annoyed by the repeat stoppages (at one point two less than 100 meters apart). Each time I would get out of the car, still wearing my towl and try to explain in broken Russian that we would not be paying a fine as if they maintained there roads properly we might still have a number plate. The sun was setting as we approached Kurgan-Tyube. The run in was quite pleasant, and Sophie took great pleasure in trouncing a childish Tajik in a Lada who decided he was going to have a race. He was slightly suppressed to see Sophie (being a girl) overtake him in a battered Ford with no number plate – although still sporting its 2.9L V6. We arrived into K-T, and navigated to SWORDE-Teppa without too much trouble. We parked up outside and met Paul, relieved to be at the finish! Relief is the word, last year we were quite elated – but the Tajik roads had really taken it out of us. A word on the other teams for the curious – the Italians made it a day before us, although had to fly straight out of Dushanbe and did not make it to K-T. The Citroen is in good heath, and has not been taken to S-T where Umed is the proud new owner. The Australians had to leave there car in Russia due to time constraints and catch a train. They did at least manage to give all of there tea away - a large portion of it to a Kazakh wedding! We are still in Kurgan Tyube, sorting the car import and planning our further travels. These include departing for Tashkent next Monday, and from there on to Kazakhstan and China. That is the vaugue plan at any rate. I hope this blog has kept you entertained, I am going to leave it there for now but there will be further information on our travels and general reflections to follow. I hope you are all well reading this!

Time: August 27th 2008, 04:45PM
IP: 217.11.177.247

Posted by: Sophie
Day 29 Murghab to Khorog We have a dilemma whether we will go to Ishkashim today. A Mongol Rally Tam – mongolmania, they are heading the way we have come, drove off the highway to say good morning to us outside the Meta homestay. They have told us that the Italians are ahead of us and that there are a few Mongol Rally Teams also coming up. It is good news though we were hoping to finish on time. We were also hoping to visit the Wakhan (via Ishkashim), and doing that will make us later. So this morning we had a debate about, and I got annoyed because I thought Ryan was procrastinating. We didn't make a decision and instead have decided to see how long it takes to get to the Wakhan junction and speak to some locals there to find out a bit more info as to the road condition. We don't think Betty can handle much more abuse. It's good that we finally have some mobile reception here. We also have another worry. The Mongol Team are running on 80 octane and have found nothing better since Dushambe, their 4x4 is starting to lurch around. Betty only has about 100miles left in her before we shall have to resort to our 80 octane. We need to register at the OVIR office. It is a legal requirement and needs to be done within 72 hours. There are two offices, one in Murghab and one in Khorog and we should do it here. However, it is Sunday and the office is closed. It may or may not cause us problems but there is nothing we can do about it until be get to Khorog. We hit the road again, quickly leaving Murghab behind, it is a rather small and desolate town. The road was not so bad, though certainly not good. Shortly after spotting another small scenic high altitude lake, around 3pm we hit the turning to Ishkashim. It was luckily fairly obvious as there were a number of Chinese trucks there. We pulled over and a friendly Tajik young man came over and started chatting to us. We asked him about the road to Iskashim, he called over his mate, they both enjoyed looking at the map and they both emphatically told us not to go that way, making it clear it was a lot worse than the one we were on. Bummer. So at least our decision was made for us and we continued on our original course to Khorog. When passing through the Pamirs, there can be seen a fair number of NGO small scale projects set up to help the local people. Some of them are clearly great ideas, and they do tend to be very small scale, such as goat breeding (nr Khorog), and some just seem off the wall. For instance, next to this small high altitude salty lake, there was a sign saying that it was the site of a NGO community fishing project. However, the high altitude should mean that the lake is lifeless. So how that works we really don't know. Shortly after the junction we rounded a corner and saw what looked like 3 Nissan Micras barrelling towards us. It turned out to be the first convoy of Mongol Ralliers we had seen, most of their cars were falling apart and they were getting rather depressed with how long Tajikistan was taking them. We took our leave of them and shortly after we crossed another pass - though not too obvious one as we are driving on the flat at around 4000m anyway. We started doing a bit of wildlife spotting - there are giant hairly marmot/beaver things here with right orangy shiney coats. We also thought we might have seen a wolf and got a photo of it, but it is a bit unlikely. At the pass we could see a thunderstorm going on over some distant peaks and for the first time the weather decided it was going to give us a bit of a break from the terrible heat. As we came down the pass we ran into 2 more rally teams, Ben and Lewis in their mini with the phonebox and Heel on Wheels. The mini was looking distinctly worse for wear, but it brightened our day to see a red phonebox coming towards us across the mountain plains. We did however get some helpful advice, along the lines that the logical road and shorter one to Dushanbe is "the road from hell" and we should try and take the new, longer route that is under construction, because it could possibly be any worse. Shortly after this encounter the scenery started changing completely, and the road also took a turn for the worse, The landscape changes as you come off the high plateaux and greenery, a view of the mountains from the bottom, and lots of clear swirling rivers coming off the mountains, the goat herders and some clusters of houses started appearing. To sum up, we went from the lunar scenery of the high altitude to simply jaw droppingly stunning valley scenery, the only sad thing was that we were both fairly wind blown and knackered, and other than pulling over and going paddling in a couple of streams and waterfalls we didn't rally get to appreciate it as much as it should have been. It would have been pretty special to have woken up around there and been greeted by such a sight, but perhaps that will just have to wait for another year. The valleys generally got more inhabited the closer we got to Khorog, People in the villages here seemed quite disconcerted by us and there were a couple of places we couldn't decide whether we were actually welcome or not. On the approach to Khorog we started following the large River Gunt (?), this joins the Panj at Khorog, which is also when the road starts to run alongside Afghanistan, which is simply on the otherside of the river. This road is frankly diabolical, it is truelly appalling. The river is fierce, and the road is suspended on the cliff edge as it runs alongside. There is most of the time only room for one vehicle on the dirt track, even though it is used by trucks. On the otherside of Khorog the areas alongside the road are landmined. Poor Betty and the things we put her through. Frequently we were driving under cliff ledges, next to land slides, clambering over piles of rocks around cliff ledges. To begin with the valley was stunning and we really appreciated it - thats when it was novel. After a couple of hours of dust and struggle we were not quite so impressed. We didn't know where we were, there were no signs. At one point we pulled over at a petrol station - or the nearest thing to, which was a man painting a building, next to with a rusty small tanker. We were now running on 80 and Betty had suprisingly been handling it well but we needed more fuel as the jerries were empty. This chap was lovely and friendly, we tried to find out what octane fuel he had,and expecting 76 or 80 I started drawing on the car, he looked apologetically as me and said he only had 92! We were completely thrown with suprise by that and filled up. He invited us to stay at his house as night was coming on but we felt we had to keep going. He said it was still 200km to Khorog which was dire for us as we were crawling in 1st or 2nd gear most of the way. We said thanks and pushed on. Luckily, he turned out to be wrong as we pulled up at a police checkpoint at dusk. These police were not happy with us, when they found out we hadn't registered at the OVIR, the young one eagerly jumped in with !Shtraf, Shtraf!" Seeing an opportunity to extort money out of us the two police men muleishly wouldn't accept anything we said. Ryan was taken into the guard house where the young one simply kept shouting Shtraf at him, and he just sat it out. I was in the company of the more superior older policeman outside and went onto a charm offensive. I found out from him that this was the checkpoint before Khorog and we were only 2km away, that the policeman was from Khorog, I got out the UK map to show him where I was from. I showed him the Sworde Stickers and tried to explain about the school, etc, and then finally offered to ring Paul to seeif he would talk to them. When I pulled out my contacts book, the police man took it and started rifling through it, seeing pages and pages of telephone numbers and assuming that they were all for the people we knew in Tajikistan, he read out "Tina" which was next to - newspaper, and then found the business card from the Red Cross in the back and promptly handed it back, said there was no problem, walked into the guardhouse and called off the overzealous younger one. I got to rub this slightly in Ryans face. We rolled into Khorog in darkness and couldn't find figure out where we were on the map, so we couldn't find anywhere to stay, We pulled over and chatted to some Tajik Development Agency people, who kindly rang a guesthouse we were looking for and told us it was full. They were then going to lead us around to find somehwere else. In the meantime Ryan was engaging in a conversation with a family by the car and they invited us to stay in their house. The lady could speak perfect english, she lived with her mother and father and her children. They had a yard where they said we could park the car. We took them up on the offer, went in and as I settled down Ryan went to bring the car in. Unfortunately they were overly hasty in saying they had parking because they were having building works and a huge pile of sand was blocking the gates. We knew we couldn't leave the car on the street, so instead joined them for some Tajik tea with all the family and some bread and jam. They were lovely to us and we left them with our last packet of ginger snaps and some English tea when we left. They gave us directions to a local hotel, we found one before though that was adequate and thankfully stopped for the night on the outskirts of Khorog.

Time: August 27th 2008, 04:13PM
IP: 217.11.177.247

Posted by: Sophie
Hey, just thought I would add and apologise that Ryan and I are not terrible at grammer, we write the blog properly and the website will not allow paragraphs and removes them all! Anyway...a further blog update...we still arn't finished...more will come :) Day 28? Tajikistan The scenery as we entered the valley that took us to the border was the most beautiful we had seen anywhere. It boded well. I finally got the scenic view with a great eagle taking wing close to us. We rumbled up to the border post to find our Polish friends sitting there, they had no luck getting a lift into Tajikistan. As we pulled up we met a Mongolian Rally team exiting. They had a Volvo Estate, with jacked up suspension, sump guard, spots, racing seats, etc, etc. She was an impressive beast. The guys we spoke were nice, told us that they managed Tajikistan ok, though had got stuck in a river crossing not far from the border, had lost a spare wheel to Afghanistan and had struggled with some corrugated tracks. If they had problems, we started looking dubiously at Betty, with her lowered suspension and 6 inches of ground clearance. We waved them goodbye and started the process of passport control, customs and drug control. Passport control consisted of us being taken into a room upstairs in a building, a room next to the guards bedroom, and sitting opposite a friendly enough chap. He asked whether Ryan was my husband and whether I was Ryan’s wife. We both said no. He then took out his English phrasebook and after a pause said succinctly and solemnly ‘It is a great pity.’ We both nodded. We were led out and went to Drug control, this consisted of an uniformed man simply walking over and asking if we were carrying narcotics, guns or drugas?’ We said no and that was that. Customs was upstairs in another building and the chap just copied out our details in pen and paper into his giant ledger. We were pleasantly surprised that it was a stress free border, the Polish people said that watching people, it usually took about an hour and a half, though I suspect that is just for the trucks. We trundled out the border and into no-mans land. This is a huge no mans land – 20km. The road after the border post was dire. As it is no mans land it appears that no country wants to pay to maintain it, Therefore we turned a corner of the valley and we were confronted by a diversion off the road and through a small orange river. I walked across the old road and discovered the middle of it had fallen out. The hole was about 2m wide and fell about 10feet, and it would probably have been quite invisible to a car driver. So we forded the small murky river no problems and then ran into a Swiss cyclist, who was very friendly and rather in awe of Tajikistan and the scenery. He was the first of many cyclists we saw travelling the Pamir Highway and proving themselves to be supremely fit. No mans land took its toll on us. We struggled with the road, it deteriorated further, until perhaps goat track is a most appropriate description. Whilst heaving ourselves over red boulders and struggling over small rocky cliff edge streams, we had to have someone walking in front of the car, clearing away the worst stones so we could still make progress. This unfortunately led to our first breakdown of the day. Betty, as strong and reliable as she is, could not stop herself from overheating as we crawled in first gear from almost the entire way. We stopped and popped the bonnet to see the antifreeze steaming away merrily. We stood around redundantly for a while, no cars went by, the road is completely empty. We started getting an ominous feeling of impending doom, realizing we had only come about 4km and not climber very much, but that the Tajik border post is located at the top of a mountain at over 4000m. We might not even make it into Tajikistan. Luckily, in the car we had some antifreeze, picked up in Kazakhstan when we had our other breakdown. Ryan poured this in, and a couple of minutes later said we had a problem, as all the antifreeze had boiled off. There was still some fluid in the pipes but nothing in the reservoir. Betty was taking a long time to cool down, and we dug out the handbook and realized that we could at east replace the antifreeze for now with water. So, one of our precious 5litre water containers got more or less emptied into Betty. We continued, and over the course of perhaps 2 hours broke down another 2 times. The next time was at around the 3700m ad Ryan sat in the car and miserably said that he was going to die in No mans land, and when his parents where asked where he died, they wouldn’t even be able to say anything. I think he was certainly more stressed than I was, but was also finding the air already thin and was starting to get a headache. We emptied another bottle of water into the reservoir. We thought we may run out. We broke down again, we thought we could see the border post, we tried to keep Betty in 2nd till we got there, it turned out to be a family with 2 little boys who were rather shy but still tried to show off. We lost another bottle of water, and faced a fairly clear zig sagging dirt track up to the top, we knew we had to try and do it all in one go. Ryan took on the challenge and against all odds we summated, with Betty almost redlining again, and us finally hitting 4,200m and giant Marco Polo statue. We rolled down to the guard post, which consisted of two long white cylindrical tanks, in front of it was barbwire and their washing, mostly socks on the fence. We were treated nicely, and they even filled up our empty water bottles with water of some kind. The guard didn’t really seem to know or care what he was doing with the paperwork, as he couldn’t understand Ryan’s visa and went to stamp it anyway, until Ryan spotted that he was going to stamp the one from last year. It became apparent that the guards were hoping we would give two of them a lift to Karakol. Ryan looked at me when he figured that out and asked what I thought, I said fine, as if we broke down they could help us. Little did we realize that was exactly what was about to happen. So we entered Tajikistan, with two border guards, quite young – about mid 20s, settled in our back seat, silently looking out the window. We bumped along over some pot holed roads without too many problems, until we hit the river. This was clearly the river that the Volvo had got stuck in. It was about 25m wide, and was braided, we couldn’t see how deep the braids were, but they were fast flowing. The guards got out and started throwing rocks, to demonstrate that it was indeed too deep at most points. We walked up and down the back and worked out a convoluted route, that involved driving down stream and then upstream to get out, as the bank on the other side was too high at most points. Unfortunately, our very first maneuver into the stream went awry. Coming off the bank and needing to do a very sharp right hand turn, it needed to be lined up perfectly; even then it probably wasn’t possible, as the front wheels of the car would fall into the deep section of the river. Unfortunately, whilst trying to back up to do it again, the car got stuck. She wedged in into the muddy grit bank and started digging herself a hole. The guards asked us if we had a shovel and looked rather disgusted when I said we didn’t. They physically tried to lift her up over the ridge at the back at one point. They then rolled up their trousers and started moving stones around the wheels and digging with their hands in the water. Further attempts to move Betty made the situation worse and we became entrenched and blocked, with the back wheels just dropped off the bank and firmly in the river. Shortly, a Russian jeep turned up, with some people working for a Tajik development agency. These kind folks agreed to tow us out firstly. It took a few attempts. Then one of the chaps in the 4x4 decided that he was better off driving Betty across as she was towed. I was ordered into the 4x4. As we started towing Betty across the river, the chap driving posed whilst I took photos. When we got to the other side, he wanted a photo of him and his wife. They said helping us was no problem at all and he barely accepted our thanks. (Ryan takes over narration). The Russian Jeep that had towed us through the river drove off, leaving us and the border guards to continue the task of easing the car along the shoddy roads. Technically, the Pamir highway is the second highest highway in the world. I would argue this based n the use of the word ‘highway’. Single lane dirt tracks, corrugated gravel which shakes the car to pieces, whole sections washed away by rivers…. The road was built in the 30’s for the Soviets to provide provisions to there troops, and I don’t think it has been renovated since. Where there is tarmac, it has warped badly in the heat and usually has huge car breaking potholes every few meters. Nevertheless, at a top speed rarely breaking 30mph we trundled on. The road was consistently at around 4000 meters, and although we were on altitude drugs, if we tried to do any form of exercise breathing became an issue, and we would quickly be panting for breath. The scenery was pretty spectacular, but very harsh. Traffic on the highway is also light, and we would only pass another vehicle every hour or so. Before too long we approached lake Kara Kol, and the village of the same name. A spooky 4000 meter high lake, very salty with no life. The village was probably the most remote place I have ever been, and must have been a good few hours drive from any other form of civilization. Here the border guards departed, and we took pictures of them posing by the car – one still carrying a hacksaw he had bought with him. We passed the desolate village quickly and arrived at the police checkpoint on the other side. The guards checked our papers and seemed happy to see some foreigners. The asked us what we were up to, and then we posed by the car with them. I swapped hats with the head honcho. After the checkpoint we carried on a little way before stopping to go and investigate the lake. We parked up and waked down through salt flats to the edge of the lake. It was nearly sunset at this point and the lake was quite pretty but unfortunately the air was very hazy. After this we walked slowly back to the car and pondered the task ahead of us, for we were aiming for the town of Murgab which was still a long way away. In between ourselves and Murgab was the impressive Akbaital (White Horse) pass. At an imposing 4600+ meters, it is around equivalent to driving over Mont Blanc. Sadly we had to undertake this in the dark, and the roads were still poor. So we got back in the car and carried on slowly down the road. The road at this point altered between crappy tarmac, and the bone shaking corrugated stuff. Just before the light completely went, we saw a lone soldier with a Kalashnikov wondering by the roadside. We had heard of AWOL soldiers roaming the Pamirs, and this one looked distinctly dodgy. He shouted at us and ran onwards the car. Sophie was driving and decided to stop. The man ran over and asked for cigarettes, at which point Sophie proffered the packet and he decided to take three. We were not going to argue with a lone soldier brandishing an AK-47, so quickly waived him goodbye and carried on. The light faded completely, and after an hour or so we had not seen another car for a while. At this point we saw some headlights further on down the road, which we assumed to be another car. The lights then dissappeard from view. As we drove closer we saw some vehicles ahead of us. As traffic has been so light and people are mostly friendly and interested in us, I decided o wind down he window and give the group of people a waive. As we drove past them we saw that there was a single Lada and two white transit vans, which were parked up end to end. The doors of the transit van were open, and planks of wood laid between them, which people shuffling back and forth. The lights of the vehicles were off, and the men were moving about by torchlight. I gave them a friendly waive, and they looked at me blankly. Only as we drove on past them, did Sophie point out that they were almost certainly opium traffickers, shipping there load down the Pamir highway from Afghanistan. Thankfully, they did not decide to pursue us, and we carried on down the road. Although we did not expect to see opium smugglers in action, we were aware that (and I can’t remember the exact numbers) something like 95% of the worlds opium comes from Afghanistan, and the vast majority of this is trafficked through Tajikistan. We drove along in the dead of night, and before long the road started to climb. This, we surmised, was the Akbaital pass, and Sophie drove us over the top, the roads still fairly poor but good enough that we were not crawling so slow as to overheat the car. We passed the odd Chinese truck as we climbed. My leg was hurting, so I had given up driving, I think this was due to all on the mad braking, cltching and accelerating required during our various shenanigans earlier in the day. We reached the top of the pass, as confirmed by the altimeter on my watch and began to decent the other side. It is a shame that we had to do this in darkness, as I am sure that the view would have been quite amazing. We could at least vaguely see the snow covered peaks by the moonlight. We still had to reach Murgab however, as we wished to descend to as safer height before sleeping (Murgab is the lowest point in the Pamirs at around 3500 meters). After the pass, the road improved slightly, and a couple of hours later we rolled into Murgab at around midnight. We patrolled up and down looking for somewhere to stay but everywhere was closed. I knocked on the door of META (Murgab Ecotourism Association), however nobody answered. Sadly, this meant we were relegated once again to a night in the car. We parked up outside the META building, reclined the seats in the car and went to sleep.

Time: August 21st 2008, 06:04PM
IP: 195.69.191.2

Posted by: Ryan & Sophie
Almaty to Tajikistan!! Day 22 Left Almaty typically late, around 10.30 pm and started heading to Kyrgyz border. Got horribly lost and just took the only road we could find to Kyrgyz. Pulled over about a 20km from border, into a field. Nothing special. Day 23. Ryan woke up feeling distinctly dodgy. Headed off to Kyrgyz border, lovely rolling hills already coming in. Border control not too bad, a bit of jostling. Foreign lady approached me and asked whether we know the Church of Vineyard, as she has read the Vineyard sponsor sticker. Slightly baffled. We headed off first to Bishkek,. Stopped outside university and went to stock up on foody things. /Then got directions and headed off to Issey Kol, with high expectations of a paradise camping site and finally some cooking under the stars next to the lake. When we got there it wasn’t really the case. We found a track down to the Lake, which is indeed surrounded by high mountains and rather scenic. We put up the tent, and whilst doing so where approached by some Polish motorcyclists, who asked to camp near us. They we also off to Taj to climb Peak Lenin...obviously. Whilst Ryan set up the stove, I started to get rapidly ominous stomach rumbles, that culminated in a rather undignified situation. Oops. So Whilst I felt distinctly dodgy and crept around feeling appalled and sorry for myself, Ryan was on a mission to cook up something delicious. We had the deck chair set up and were really looking forward to it. Suddenly the sky darkened and we were inundated with a massive infestation of mosquitoes. They went straight for us and the stove. Ryan tried to pick them out of the spaghetti as quickly as he could but they increasingly started piling up. Picking them out of the bolognaise was more tricky as they bended in. The only tactic that was bearable was to cook the food and then run into the tent and eat it, though first we had to pick out the mosquitoes by torch light. Out of the spaghetti alone we had about 20 (and they were huge). So that was another sad escapade of failed camping dreams. Day 24 The next morning brought sunshine and cows munching at the entrance of the tent and kiddies running around. Kyrgyz families were coming to the lake for their picnics and day out. The lake was gorgeous azure color, though sadly not at the shore, and there was some unfortunate cow pat jumping to try and get past the sludge and to clean water. Can’t have it perfect all the time. So I spotted a lone donkey tethered up and started creeping around taking picturesque donkey pictures ,when a Kyrgyz lady came up to me to explain she owned the donkey. We exchanged pleasantries. About 20 minutes later she came back with a bag of slightly manky apples and offered them to us for our lunch as a gift. Ryan and I had been debating the possibilities of getting a tea party going and we were slightly procrastinating. So when the lady offered us the apples it was logical to reply by asked her is she would like some tea. She said yes and went back to her family and Ryan and I got the stove going, the tea bowls out - as donated by the Embassy staff as a gift to us in Kaz, and some biscuits. We hoped that they understood what we had said as we headed over feeling slightly foolish, with our tea pot and cups and biscuits. But they quickly made way for us on their cushions and mats and we exchanged our tea for theirs. Theirs wasnt as bad as i feared it would be, though Ryan heartily disagrees. It was a lovely cultural exchange and we didn’t really understand anything they were saying. The original lady did appear to want a lift with us in the car, at some point in the future for a rather long way, and it was a slightly uncomfortable situation to try and get out of. Finally, as the tea party was wrapping up, one o the ladies kindly suggested that we swap tea bowls - two of theirs for two of ours. It was a nice idea and we did it, though I think we were slightly seen off, as ours are lovely and new and made a whole set and in exchange we have two, definitely slightly used and less attractive swaps. As we were leaving the group, the old man decided he would get the donkey and give me a lift back to our tent, so I didn’t have to walk through a cow pat swamp. I loved my donkey ride and Ryan got a lovely photo of me with the Kyrgyz man with his traditional hat on, etc. We packed up and left Issey Kol, feeling rather proud of ourselves and headed back to Bishkek, hoping for a nice meal. We got there late (as usual) and found an Italian restaurant. Which we got caught out, as I ordered some wine and we got a whole bottle, which cost us an extortionate amount of money. We decided to actually stay the night as we found a dirt cheap hotel with secure parking. It was a slightly odd place though as it had no water, no pillows on the beds and only strong overhead lighting. In the night, Ryan woke up parched, absolutely desperate for a drink and as there was only an empty minibar, went on a wander down to he front desk at 3am. This led to a rather confused encounter with the security guard, who explained through charades that all Ryan could drink was tap water. So Ryan went back upstairs and began the painstaking task of purifying the tap water with iodine. 30 minutes later he managed his drink of warm, iodine tainted Bishkek water. Day 25 Left Bishkek after we stocked up on more water and went to an American bar for lunch. Deja Vu, as the supermarket we recognize as the one we visited last year passing through. There were sadly some child beggars around, one of which was in an ingeniously home made wheelchair, made from bicycle tires and a plastic sun chair. We drove out towards Osh, we hit sunset almost at the top of the first pass. Roads are all good, scenery is stunning as usual for Kyrgyzstan. Horse herds running around and yurts dotted around the place. We came off the mountain and choose to camp on the flat plain next to it, elevation 2,200m, which we figured would be good acclimatization for the Pamirs. The night was lovely as we drove off road and away from the traffic, with absolutely nothing but beautiful mountains around us and waving grass. There were a fair number of stars around. Day 26 I awoke and left the tent so take in the lovely scenery. As i hung around, whilst Ryan dozed I watched a couple of people pushing a car across the horizon. After about 2 hours they had managed to go about a fifth of the visible road in my perspective. Seeing their completely lack of general progress and not figuring out how or where they expected to go, as they were heading into nothingness, Ryan and I decided we would ask if they needed a tow. So we packed up and hit the road. The family, as it was a family, with a little boy, were fairly happily eating their watermelon lunch on the side of the road. It turns out they did want a tow, but didn’t have a rope, and also wanted to go 95km, which included our second 3000+m mountain pass. We unpacked the boot, searching for our completely inadequate tow rope (that had broken 3 times before, and hooked up the cars. Against all odds, we towed them at a steady 30mph to and up to the top of the mountains , where they helped themselves to our rope and rolled down. Ryan and I took lots of photos at the top and made our leisurely way down, only to find them at the bottom waiting for us again. The family offered us money, which we declined, they then called me over, and bought out their little boy who was hiding behind a car door, he presented me with his purple singing elephant cuddly toy, which horrified more than anything. After rejecting that also, they then thrust a watermelon at me, which I accepted and they stuck in the boot. We then towed them on to their final destination where they thankfully decided to give us our rope back and many thank you‘s. Betty again proved her worth as she fairly easily managed the towing of another estate car up a mountain. The drive from here, Ryan and I were glad to be free, as the scenery was phenomenal. We swam in the reservoir, where some local lads were convinced we were Americans, and no matters what we said they just kept shouting ‘Amerericana’ at us and giggling. Sadly, the usual litter was clogging round the lake and horrifically sized giant wasp/hornets were zooming everywhere. We did however manage a lovely swim. Onwards, and the drive took us through a stunning gorge with a perfect, clear, impossibly blue river running through it. It took us back to our paradise camping spot of the year before, one of our happiest memories. So we clambered around, went swimming at dusk in the river again, and regretfully headed back to the car. We drove past an Uzbek border post on the side of the road, and the landscape was generally becoming flat. We pulled over at a rural restaurant and had some really delicious shaslyk (bbq chicken kebab). We then shortly pulled over for our night sleep, sadly in the car as we couldn’t see anywhere else. The spot was a bad one, as during he night out little side road turned into the local gentleman’s hang out and drinking spot. General carousing was occurring and numerous interesting randoms were hanging round the back of the car. Even though boiling and knackered we pulled ourselves together to move on and find somewhere else at about 3am. We ended up a lane surrounded by fields and generally has a decent nights, uninterrupted sleep. Day 27 - Ryan takes over narration. We awoke as always when the sun came up and the car got hot and we were surrounded by children. Soph gave them some sweets before we left and presented a little boy down the lane with a packet of Haribo and got a smile and a thank you as a reward, though generally they were too timid to speak to us. I was suffering from sleep deprivation and Soph took over the driving through Fergana Valley area, still very pretty (so I am told), and we passed a wedding party on the roads. Before long we arrived into Osh, and blindly found our way to somewhere near the center where we stopped to stock up for the Pamrs ahead of us. We also grabbed some lunch at a nearby cafe where I had frankfurter, which I ate gladly despite the fact that Sophie thought it amusing to try and convince me that it was part of a horse. We spoke to a couple sitting next to us in order to get some directions to Sary Tash. The man said that the road ahead was very bad, and that we should not take it. I thought that as we have relieved information of dubious accuracy in the past, and since Kyrgyz roads are generally good that it would not b too bad, and our speed would not drop to less than 30MPH. Sophie thought otherwise, and we made a bet which involved me taking her to the best restaurant in Dushanbe if I was wrong. I was wrong. The road was crap. We stopped for a petrol break just before departing, and filled the tank and one jerry can with what turned out to be the last batch of good fuel (92 Octane) we would find. The road from Osh to Sary Tash is under construction, and whilst they are working on it, it is 95% bad and 5% good. Bad involved corrugated gravel, large potholes, rocks and general mountain track madness. We carried on nevertheless, and the landscape became amazingly stunning. As we passed small, nomadic Kyrgyz villages backed with green pastures and snow capped peaks we came across an old Kyrgyz man with rheumy eyes and dragging a white sack. He had a long grey beard, traditional Kyrgyz hat and boots and an ill fitting suit. He jumped in the car and sat amongst the increasingly big pile of junk accumulating on the rear seats and we drove him down the valley to another village. We also gave him a drumstick lolly to pass the time. He ate it solemnly. Not long afterwards as the sun was setting as we were approaching a large mountain pass we acquired a puncture. We stopped next to some Kyrgyz yurts and began to unpack the back of the car to get at the spare tire and jack. As I did this, loads of kids began to appear and mill around the car looking at all of the interesting items we had. Sophie took lots of pictures and gave them all sweets while I tried to undo the bolds on the wheel. Sadly, as I am not the heaviest person at the best of times, let alone after three weeks on the road, I did not have enough weight behind me to shift the bolts, even whilst jumping up and down on the wrench. An older lad on a horse appeared after a while, maybe 17 or 18 and although not really interested the children spoke to him and he came over and started jumping on the wrench, after he managed to undo the first bolt, he kept going and changed the tire on the car whilst holding his horse. A couple of setbacks included the jack slipping as there was no obvious jacking point, but before long our spare tire was on the car and the punctures one stashed back under the boot. During the slipping of the jack I was crouched next to the lad looking under the car. His horse came over and stood over me, drooling on my head. Around this time it decided to relieve itself. Whilst it is unfair to say that it pissed on my head, it is slightly unnerving sitting under a horse taking a pee. We said our thanks and gave him some tea before heading up the pass just as the sun had gone down. We climbed over with no major problems, although the roads were still poor. Shortly after the pass we arrived in the town of Sary Tash, the last post in Kyrgyzstan before the Tajik border. It is at around 3200 meters, which is very high and we had started taking altitude sickness drugs to help us acclimatize. The downside of this is that we have to go to the bathroom many times a day, fizzy drinks taste of steel and we got pins and needles in our fingertips and toes. Oh, and combined with the anti-malaria drugs, vitamin tabs and other assorted pills we had some very funks dreams. We pulled over in Sary Tash to ask where a place to stay may be at a cafe. They directed us to the back of the building and presented Sophie with a room full of English speaking Polish backpackers. They said we could join them as long as we partook in some Vodka drinking. We took them up on this offer and made some new friends, chatting to them before sleeping on some rugs in a room behind the cafe. They left before us next morning to try and find a lift to the border (we did not have enough room in our car to take them all). Sophie went to get some rock-hard bread with the girl who’s house we had stayed in. She had a long chat about family, jobs, education etc. After this we tied to track down some petrol for the car. We asked a Kyrgyz man at the side of the road, and he took us through the town to another mans house, who apparently had some fuel. This turned out to be in a rusty barrel in a shed behind his house. The barrel was covered in some miscellaneous animal fur. Him and his sun started to extract some fuel from the barrel by inserting a hose and sucking the fuel out into our two remaining empty jerry came The fuel was apparently 80 octane (so not good quality) and also had a strange color, so we planned to keep it in the cans for emergency use only. After this we hit the road to the boarder. After a slight false start, nearly taking the wrong path we rumbled down the still poor road to the Tajik border. More to follow....

Time: August 16th 2008, 07:53PM
IP: 195.69.191.2

Posted by: Sophie
Ok, so we have finished the Rally...yay us! Unfortunately Ryan and I have been so knackered we havent got round so writing our massive blog carrying on from the last one. It is coming shortly, hopefully! No only that, but the adventures we had since the last one have been numerous so we do at least have something to write :) Tonight we are in Dushanbe, in a nice hotel, with a power shower and air conditioning. for the last couple of days we have been staying at Sworde, and it is great to be there. The rally this year, when we finished actually felt like a real achivement, really because we found the roads and general conditions in Tajikistan a lot harder, even with our research, than we expected. Sworde have now got themselves two working cars and are trying to decide which one to keep and which one to raise runs with. Both of them have their advantages, but well done and thanks to Team Verona for remarkably being able to deliver their car in one piece! Since being at Sworde, the heat is scorching and not really aiding our recovery, hence the night in the hotel in Dushambe. We are also trying to work out where we are going from here. First stop is most likely Tashkent, but the embassy opens on Monday and we will need to come back for that when we have a LOI sorted. It is likely to take at least a week, probably two. Tashkent then offers us some pretty good transport links to head further east. We are toying with rather a lot of ideas at the mo. In the interim, we shall write the blog and there is to be a tea party at Sworde with the kids and we look forward to taking part int that. I'm probably going to be getting involved in cateloging the library and Ryan in English Conversation classes. Tonight, Ryan was supposed to take me out to the best restaurant in town, because he lost a bet earlier on and that was the deal. However, this evening has been rather more farcifical (if that is a word). We emerged this evening from the hotel looking to go to a nice restaurant the British Ambassador recommended to us earlier. Although late, we asked the manager if the restaurant would still be open for food and he said yes and rung us taxi. He arranged a set price and gave the chap directions. The taxi man then got lost and seemed to think that we would know where we were going. After driving like a lunatic and shouting a lot, he finally found it, and it was shut up for the night. He then took us to an alternative place, he suggested and I had heard about. Dropped us off and the price had leaped from 15soms to 45, in the space of about 3 minutes, with the excuse was that as there were no signs he got lost and then took us to the new place. Basically,we got completely ripped off. He left us his number to call him to take us home, clearly hoping to rip us off again. We got into the restaurant only to be told they wern't serving and were now closed. We managed to at least order a drink - Ryan finally got his chilled beer and i got a decent glass of wine - the first since we left home. We asked that we drink outside and then they call us a taxi. Whilst we waited at the bar for our change, the surly barman came back with it and told us our taxi was outside. So we had no time to actually drink our precious drinks. We had to leave them on the bench outside. Sucks. At least the we didnt get ripped off on the way back, but tonight we are in the hotel room, with very rumbling tummys feeling thwarted and i'm slightly in awe as to how rude just about everyone we spoke to tonight was. Bit of a let down as we were looking forward to it so much! The plus side, if we can get up is that the hotel does do an American breakfast and that sounds like heaven to me. Lets hope things go slightly more to plan tomorrow.

Time: August 15th 2008, 07:32PM
IP: 195.140.128.5

Posted by: Ryan
Well I have more to write than I should do as our last blog appears not to have uploaded properly. Do'h. So I shall start from the morning we awoke in the car in Kokansu. We were woken up by Timur and Alens younger brother sometime around 8am after a few hours sleep in the car in the middle of the city. They quickly ordered us a taxi and arranged for us to be towed to a garage. Unfortunatley, as the car had no ignition at all it had no power steering or brakes - and so whilst Sophie rode in the taxi I was left trying to steer the car behind the taxi and stamp on the breaks at every junction. Matters were made worse as the road to the garage was closed, and so we had to take a detour around the city. The tow rope snapped three times, each time the taxi man stopped and tied it back together again and when we eventually pulled up to the garage it was pretty much in shreads (we still need to buy a new one). Timur and Alens brother (we have sadly lost his name) paid for the taxi and then set about explaining to the mechanics what was wrong. They all crowded round and set to work. The problem was diagnosed as a broken wire, which had then blown a fuse. This was replaced, the car given a brief checkover and it started first time. The cost came to a mere 30 pounds, knocked down to around 25 as that was all the cash we had on us. Despite my efforts to find out exactly what wire had gone, I was told simply 'don't worry, this garage mechanics are very good and fast, it won't happen again'. And so, with the car back in running order and generally checked over, we picked up Timur and Alens brother and drove back to the square in which we spent the night. Timur showed us to a cafe for some food. We said our goodbyes and they went to work and school whilst we settled down to a round of pizzas. Then with the car in full working order we hit the road again, aiming for Astana. Sophie drove us along good roads, albeit heavily undergoing roadworks. In fact the whol;e distance between the cities was heavily being developed. We did manage to pull over at a lake shortly after Astana for a dip and an afternoon siesta. We also got chatting to some friendly but slightly too naked Kazakhs who were asking what we were up to. Pushing on, we arrived in Astana in the late afternoon, and somehow managed to miss the city completely as we drove through some crazy dusty roadworks complete with random concrete pillars in the road (lots of bridge building going on too). We went back for another attempt and managed to get into the city and park up at the Radisson. Obviously that was about five times over our budget, but Sophie did make good use of the toilet - which is probably going to be the pinnicle of bathrooms for the trip. After several false starts and ending up back where we started, we found a place from the Lonely Planet which was a nice hotel/restaurant decked out in slightly cheesy Russian village theme. It was fantastic, we had a fridge to cool drinks, the biggest bed I have ever slept in and a shower. We even had a treadmill tucked in the corner of the bedroom and glass cabinets, etc...it was the height of homely luxury and we promptly deceded it was well worth it, we deserved it and we would stay another night. We grabbed some food and then enjoyed our first shower in a week, followed by our first bed in the same length of time. The next day we pretty much spent in bed. After a week of sleeping in the car curled around the steering wheel and gearstick it was much needed. We did manage to track down an internet cafe to write the last blog and grab some food at an 'English' pub before retiring back to bed, the heat soaking up what energy we had left. So that takes me to last Wednesday, where we were invited by the British embassy to visit an orphanage in Astana. We were met at our hotel by a swanky landrover on diplomatic plates, and met our very kind host Olga. We followed the landy through Astana and arrived around 11 at the orphanage. We had a great time, meeting members of the British embassy, we joined in with the kids playing games and doing puzzles, despite the obvious language barrier it worked well. We then settled down with all of the kids for a round of English tea and biscuits, mixed with traditial Kazakh sweets and breads. We chatted to Olga, the staff and the kids, who were all facinating before showing them the car and taking photographs. We were very kindly presented with a traditional Kazakh tea set, to go alongside the British one we are carrying. And which is obviously more helpful for us now considering that the one we bought from home is now very chipped after falling out the boot, at speed, in the Ukraine. We gave the kids a few small things from the charity boxes we are carrying, some balls and a kite. The kids in the orphanage came from a range of backgrounds, including street children and families with alcohol problems. The backgrounds of the children and circumstances were all different, though it was interesting for us to find out that these children will not be adopted and this is their real home until they grow up. It is a sobering thought to witness what these children have. It was lovely for us to see that, regardless of their age, most of them, even the teenages really were still kids and behaved like kids, they were all very sweet and kind to each other and regardless of their age they all joined in the games and were having fun. We don't know what is going to happen with the rally in future, but if it runs sucessfully we will endeavour to see if we can help them out. Not sure what form that takes but what we have found is that when it comes to having items that will keep them busy, they have very little and probably about half the children where saying that the things they like to do the most were puzzles, playing football and climbing. It would be nice if we could find a way to encourage others passing by to channel things over, but its all just an idea lacking substance at the moment. After saying our goodbyes we were escorted back to our Hotel, and more sleep was had before we eventually packed up around 10:00pm. The owner of the hotel had made us a traditional Russian meal in takeaway form, and we went out into the town and ate it by some magnificent coulourful fountains. We eventually left the city at something like midnight. As always, this was a mission in itself, and we ended up following a shopworker who had finished his shift in a car that, in England, would not even made it to the MOT test centre (it had no back window for starters). He took us through some unlit areas of the city, and just as we were wondering quite where we were going, we came out on the brightly lit motorway bound for Almaty. Sophie took over the driving post Astana and drove until the wee hours, at which point we stopped in a truck stop by a cafe for the night. We were woken up at around 8am with the sun turning the car into a greenhouse. By 8am it was over 30 degrees outside and by 9 into the 40's, with the heat not letting up until 7 or 8 in the evening. Our drive to Almaty was mostly through scrub desert, and the heat was intense. I'm going to go on a little rant about it now, as 'how do you cope?' is a question that I have been asked a lot. According to the car thermometer, the maximum temperature reached has been a whopping 52 celcius. We have no air conditioning, and so the tactic is to wind down the windows and be blasted by hot air - which helps cool us down but dehydrates us quicker. We keep water in flasks to keep it cool, otherwise it gets very hot. If we want to make a cup of tea, we can just leave a bottle of water on the dashboard for 10 minutes. Layered up with factor 50 suncream, sun hats and the trusty buffs we have just about coped - although the heat has got to us and sapped our energy. Anyway, after awaking in the truck stop and deciding it was too scabby to eat at we hit the road again. it was mostly good, and we were aiming for lake Balkhash - a large lake in the middle of Kazakhstan. We arrived in good time and stopped for a dip at a nice scenic spot (actually at the town of Balkash). It was quite beautiful (apart from a little too much litter) and we felt refreshed, carrying on down the road. We thought it was a great beginning and things could only get better. We had a plan that when we dried off we would simply pull over and walk into the lake with all our clothes on again...and that would get us through the high temperatures nicely. Unfortunatley, we were thwarted. This was to be our best experiance of Lake Balkhash, and from there it was all downhill. Driving periodically down little tracks (which was usually tricky driving) headed for the lakeside looking for a nice camping spot for the evening, each time we were met with larger and larger piles of litter. It was quite unbelievable how the Kazakhs had managed to ruin the watersedge of an Absolutely massive lake. and in some places you could barely sit down on the shore without sitting on a smashed beer bottle or some such. This finally culminated in our last attempt of the evening. We took a pretty obscure turn hopeing for something a bit less likely to be visited and hoping to be able to camp there as well. We turned off the main road headed for a village. This turned out to be a shanty town, surrounded by several years of village waste and burnt out Ladas. Undeterred, we carried on through looking for our beauty spot by the late. We crossed two railway lines and just as the sun was setting found a still littered but not so bad piece of lake. It was weedy, and we are not too keen on leeches. Nevertheless, being persistant we waded into the water for a wash, only to find that mosquitos were swarming and were determined to have us for dinner. Running back to the car and jumping in, in the darkness, fully clothed and soaking wet, trapped in the car by the worst bugs, we decided to cut our losses and head back to the road, just as some Kazakhs (seemingly undeterred by the litter and bugs) turned up. Things continued going downhill however, as our path to the river during the daylight had involved a graveyard, dirt tracks and following a JCB. Trying to backtrack at night was a nightmare, and we duely got lost in some roadworks, somehow managing to get ourselves onto a track parrallel to the one we wanted, but about 4 meters lower. Some slightly ambitious but ultimatley sucessful manouvers eventually got us back on track (the main problem with our car is the bugger-all ground clearence). On the main road it was late, and we went for a truck stop. Again. Although after this shenanigans we did hysterically laugh for anout half an hour...because there wasn't anything else that could be done. All our romantic notions of swimming and sleeping by a lake and relaxing finally were literally blown out the water...and we had been living for that notion all day. Sophie was exhausted, and we had not eaten all day. I managed a bowl of lachman (tasty asian noddle soup) but Soph felt too ill to have any and only managed a noodle. Parking up in the truck stop we had a choice, and not a pleasant one. We could close the car windows, thus keeping out the bugs but heating the car to extreme temperatures as soon as the sun starts to appear at 5am or so. Alternativly we could open the windows, keep the car cooler for longer but let the mozzies in. We decided to take the latter option and coated ourselvs in layers of deet. The car did indeed stay cool enough for us to get some ok sleep, however despite the deet we got attacked by the bugs. Injuries including swollen elbows each, backside, chin, thigh, ankle, hand etc etc, and we are still itching to date. We have at least been on the anti-malarials for a week now. We awoke with our various bites and hit the road once more for Almaty (south east Kaz). The road was mostly ok but with parts of heavy duty off road desert driving due to random roadworks/road closures. The car made it through with a few scrapes, including one part where we had to get out and build ourself a piece of road because the car could not take the dirt track we were on. After these shenanigans, we were back on tarmac. The tarmac had however been so worn by passing trucks that there were huge grooves in the road which our car had to straddle. Failing this the car would slip into the grooves and bottom out, grinding assorted bits of underside against the road. Having said that the car is still running ok - although we are picking up a series of possibly heat-related electrical gremlins. These inlude: Loss of central locking. The interior lights no longer work, but turning them on instead turns on the warning noise you get with the main lights on and the doors open. The analogue fuel guage has never worked, and the digital one started randomly telling us we had no fuel left despite a full tank (although due to the loss in Russia of our fuel filler cap, we have been losing some to evaporation). The stereo turns itself off when you open the doors, and is also affected by the light switch. Minor problems, most of which have been ok since we have been out of the extreme heat. Late afternoon on Friday we found a nice river to go for a dip in, wasting another half hour cooling down before hitting Almaty in good time. We found a hotel out of the Lonely Planet (after dodging some crazy driving by the locals). Just as we were busy looking for a place to park our car, Sophie spotted someone she knew on the street and went over to say hello. I was a bit bemused as to who this person was, and why he looked so much like Sir Alen Sugars advisor from The Apprentice. Anyway, turns out he was - as Sophie realised after a while that that is why she recognised him. Nick turned out to be a nice chap, he is doing the Mongol Rally solo in a Renault 4 - fair play to him. We gave him some advice on the roads to come, and also met some Austrailian bikers on the same street (dotted with various rally cars - although none quite as filthy as ours). Nick is doing a twice weekly blog for the telegraph, which we should hopefully be in soon (including photo perhaps :)). We took some pictures and went to grab some food, sort the car and book into the hotel. That all done and dusted, we settled down to another much needed shower and bed for the night. And that brings me to yesterday! A day off for us, as we were so exhausted by the heat from the previous days driving, and as the temperature in Almaty is still in the 40s we did not venture out of the hotel until 4pm. We went to the local cafe and ran into Nick again. We had a late lunch with him chatting about Kazkah roads and the Apprentice etc etc. Following this we wonderd to the main street and back, and wound up drinking in a cafe until the early hours of the morning with some mountaineers, fresh back from a glacier in Kyrgzstan and who gave us some useful info as to the altitude aspects of our trip. And so today, we have had some food, checked out of the hotel and found an internet cafe. We are headed for Kyrgzstan and lake Issy-Kul this evening, although we don't know if we will make it and if the border will be open. Internet may be scarce from here on in as we go through the most beautiful parts of the trip - the Kyrgz lakes and the legendary 'Roof of the World', Pamir highway. I hope you are all well!

Time: August 3rd 2008, 01:55PM
IP: 92.46.24.200

Posted by: Sophie
Sunday 27th July. It has been an eventful day, finally a bit of adventure! Though shall start with yesterday. After a long drive we pulled over to sleep in a woody track, where I thoughly managed to convince myself that there was something in the bushes and didn't want to get out the car for ages. We slept badly as usual and hit the road again, aiming for Chelyabinsk. Ryan managed to get pulled over by the cops for doing some illegal overtaking and had to sit in their car wilst the policman drew diagrams and threataned to take his licence. I forgot to mention that the same thing happened to me the day before. We got away with no fine anyway. We drove through the proper Urals - real big Siberian forested hills, and when there was a view around the trucks it was quite nice. We stopped for lunch and got the worst one yet.... truelly unedible. Met some German truckers who helped with the road info. Arrived Chelyabinsk in the evening and managed to get completely lost. Upon entering the city we were so distressed with the days poor food and non existant toilets, we were actually looking for a McDonalds. We found one quickly. Overall we were not fan of the city, upon entry there was a minor car crash (car hit tram - doh!) and the first thing anyone did to us was swear out of a car window. When we wern't aquaplaning on very poorly drained roads, we found, (when lost) what appeared to be the (most) industrial side of town, complete with dilapidated nuclear powerplant (?) and real grimness. To top it off a bus went through a massive puddle which threw water through the window and caught me in the face.... nice. I'm even more toxic now. We made it out of the city and slept in a cafes car park. This morning we had breakfast at the cafe - picking blindly off the men. We got two things, which consisted of a bowl of oil with vegetables in and a plate of some unidentifiable fish in fairly nasty sauce. We hit the Kazakh border early afternoon. They were clearly not used to seeing rally teams but were nice to us. It was still confusing and took us 3.5 hours to get through. The border guards tend to be barking orders to everyone and surley until we turn up speaking English to them and asking for them to fill out our forms for us. Generally they just tend to find what we are doing ludicrous and it provides them with something to laugh about, and they get to practice their English. Kazakhstan greeted us with a beautiful sunset and we pushed on to a city called Kokansu in the hope of a hotel and a shower. On the road to there, Ryan pulled over for a bathroom break, almost immediately a bug flew through the window prompting me to get out of the car and realise that the car was attracting a swarm of mosquitos, wasps, green bugs and giant fly things. When I opened my door to escape they started flying in. Ryan was almost as distressed as I was .... not knowing what half of them were. So I took the rather pathetic cop out of walking away from the car and down the road - as I found the bugs didn't follow me, and ryan drove the car with all of the doors open trying to blow them out before I got in. Unfortunately that plan did not work as the infestation was so bad. So, instead the deet came out and Ryan shut the doors and went on an extermination mission and then drove down the road to pick me up. When I got in the car I almost suffocated! Yet the bugs were so big they would not die and so Ryan drove on whilst I Deeted anything that moved and we tried to breath. When we got to Kokansu, we drove around for a while and got directions from friendly people.It has been a pleasent change from some distinctly moody Siberians lately. Anyway, we found a hotel and pulled up to investigate. There was no one in reception and generally it did not seem too hopefull at all. We got back in the car to find another hotel and the car engine started then stopped. Never to be turned on again. Big problems! So that takes us to tonight. We stood around for a while under the street lighting, trying to figure out what was wrong with it and fielding some enquiries from friendly kazakhs. then these two guys who pulled up in a shiney BMW came over and started assisting us in working out what was wrong. They turned out to be complete legends and helped us immensely. So THANKYOU to Bogapov Alen and Ibragimov Timur. It was diagnosed that the car had a problem with the ignition and we really can not go anywhere. To make it worse, the windows would not close and were completely down. The ignition problem couldnt be fixed due to the anti-theft lock (to prevent hotwiring) so instead they got their battery out of the BMW and hotwired our windows. That involved me with my fingers on bitten off wires placed on the battery terminalls whilst they tried out the different combinations and sparks flew. I was told it was safe and grimly held on! They got our windows up and are sending their younger brothers tomorrow morning to help us. We don't really know what the plan is, but luckily we don't need to be in Astana until Wednesday. We are going to need to get the car to a garage it seems. Finally, after saying goodbye to our new friends, Ryan and I went in search of food and a bathroom. As there was nothing open at midnight we blagged our way into a hotel to use their facilities (which turned out to be appalling) and then went back to the square by the car to eat cake and drink beer. A taxi man approached us and tried to communicate that it was likely that someone would steal our spare wheels on the roof... he could not make himself understood until he did a great impression of a thief which got Ryan and a number of other taxi driver laughing. We told them we would be sleeping in the car so hopefully no probs. Like last year, we have chosen the most public place in a city to break down in, so we expect a few nosey people to be looking in at us during the night whilst we sleep. The car has mozzies in and I am not feeling too great this evening but I think that we are both too tired to really care.

Time: July 29th 2008, 04:13PM
IP: 89.218.90.166

Posted by: Sophie
Friday 25th july? 13th day on the road. So still typing from the road. 4th or 5th day...I'm losing track and still with no shower. Still feeling quite clean after the swim yesterday. We are making in-roads into Russia. Having had a look at the map we've realised that we need to really push to get to Astana by monday. Hmm.. Anyway, we are nearing the 500 mile mark so far today and still going, we might even make it to Ufa tonight. Most importantly we can now say that we are in the Urals and have crossed into ASIA! Yesterday, typically after writing the blog it all got interesting, not in a good way. We got hideously lost in another city with no signs, road logic and drivers that had clearly lost the plot. I can't remember the name of the city but it was where Yuri Gargarin lived and the uni is named after him there. The place was a mad house. The was no single incident as bad as the previous roundabout but it appeared that drivers were generally suicidal and after half an hour of complete stress I packed it in and ryan, equipped with a fresh set of directions from some enthusiastic hotel staff continued. His drive was relatively unscathed we only saw 2 crashes and a dead cow in the road. My bit was generally hideous - I drove through what I thought was a puddle in the middle if the road but that turned out to be an open manhole. Everything flew well off the dash and we could only bear to hope we hadn't destroyed a wheel. We passed 2 recent accidents and saw plenty of near misses. The worst was getting caught up in impatient traffic that was determined to run a red light at a busy crossroads. Cars had forced their way well over the lines and were sitting ducks in cross traffic. I managed to get across luckily just when I got pushed out because there was a tram coming alongside so nothing would bother trying to cross and hit me sideways. All in all not much fun. After that we got back out on the correct road and that was pleasantly quite deserted, i could tootle along at 50mph and not feel harrassed. Camping spots disappeared though as corn fields or anything else distinguishable vanished. We had got into the marshy areas alongside the volga it seemed. With a lack of opions for sleeping we had to settle for the same as the trucks and got fully earplugged up and eye masked. We were both really tired and other than some rather odd dreams from my side got a rather good nights sleep before the sun woke us up at 7am. Today has been mostly uneventful. We managed to get lost again - in the big city before samara. We were on a main road and then it just stopped. It had a chain and a no exit sign and that was it, so we figured we would go into the city get directions and try to find a cashpoint. Instead we found a cash point and a supermarket and got to have a choice in what to have for lunch. Ryan went for the cucumber flavored cheese with salarmi. Personally I like cheese that tastes like cheese - not with pictures of cucumbers, ham, garlic or milk. Anyway, we had to drive round the city trying to find the right road which took us about an hour. Back on the motorway and we are being suffocated by fumes. Same as most days but its just annoyingly non-stop. The Russians don't have such a bad attitude as the Ukrainians when it comes to chucking litter everywhere, but their trucks are chucking out the biggest amount of dirt; great black plumes shoot out the side of them and into our faces. The road has also been nasty in places, we have hit the underside of Betty as least twice today with random spontaneous road lumps. A lot of the time the road has been worn into tracks by the hgvs and we just try to place the car in them and let her drive herself. If you catch them wrongly it can completely throw the car out the lane, regardless of if you're trying to hold it straight. We stopped for dinner in a bit of a pit. Ryan was adventurous and picked something random on the menu. He was disappointed to find himself presented with scrawny, smelly, boney unidentifiable fish; and I got some rather tasty plov. Typical russian fare of rice and chunks of lamb. It set us back about 3 pounds. So considering i'm providing the low down on what we've eaten for every meal, I guess you can see not too much has happened. The cold is better and I have no idea where we will sleep tonight but it is great to be in the legendary Urals, even if they do just seem like we are driving up and down big hills. Ryan would like to add to this that we are indeed having tremendous fun... I just read it out to him and he said it sounds a bit depressing.

Time: July 25th 2008, 08:57PM
IP: 149.254.200.224

Posted by: Sophie
24th Thursday 12th day on the road. Today has been fairly uneventful, but I should start with yesterday. Our last night was spent sleeping in the infestedcar/field. We woke up as usual because the car was an oven in the morning, we then found out we had no water and very little money and neither of us had a great nights sleep. We both are started to get hideously dirty. Our fingernails are black and we have been driving in heats most of the day 35+ degrees. Yesterday, when I woke up I was completely knackered and ryan felt fine driving. We just aimed for russia. We pulled over to buy some water and food with our last remaining money. Unfortunately the lady in the road side shop didn't really have any thing much recognisable as brunch - so we bought an egg. It wasn't for eating...not really. Ryan and I have both been boiling in the heat and we both also have a burning ambition to one day fry an egg on the bonnet of a car. We thought todaymight be the day. We pulled over later on the side of the road for the egg experiment nothing much more can be said than it failed. It dribbled all over our bonnet whilst we stood there with wild hopes and a camcorder. A trick for another day still. Sadly that was our last 40p we blew on the egg so we wouldn't be eating anything but mints till Russia. After the egg experiment we looked up to find a GB car had pulled over in front of us and some guys came out to say hello. Turns out to be some young men on the Mongolian Rally in a funky lada. And it really is a small world cos one of them turned out to a childhood friend of Ryans. We asked them if they would like a cuppa and we all sat down and had some rather refreshing Ringtons tea. Its been our first impromtu tea party success. Its taken a while - discounting embassies. I think we are learning that getting to get people or the right scenario to get locals to have a cup of tea with us, just isn't as easy as it sounds. As ryan mentioned in a previous blog, if you ask someone if they want a drink they ssume you're going to whip out a bottle of vodka. I'd like to think that when the pace of life gets slower we will find it easier. So we were with the other guys still the border. We got through but they had a visa prob and have to go back to the ukraine for 3 days. Border was hassle free other than one young guard trying to sneakily ask for a bribe. Once in to russia we could use our money and get us a meal. Turned out with our lack of communication to the waitress in the road side café to be a 3 course monster. It at least set us up for the rest of the day. The drive on was pretty standard, it was a hot sunny day driving through a lot of fields. Ryan ended up doing a cracking drive to just before Volgograd. Which takes us to today. We slept last night in another field, further accumulating dirt. We have been dreaming of showers. It was a good camping spot, the russian fields are massive and so there was an impressive cool breeze and we wernt hounded by bugs. This morning we were woken by large numbers of tractors. We hit the road again with the aim of the day to find a suitable part of the giant Volga river to have a wash in. We found it around lunchtime. Pulled over for lunch at the same place. We have communication issues when it comes to food...or anything. So we tend to take the LP guide in with us. All we managed today was to point to eggs and be understood. Low and behold the chap came out with 5 fried eggs EACH! We joined the locals for a swim in the hopefully not too toxic Volga...it did smell quite a lot...but we smelt more so it had to be done. Then suddenly the weather broke and I saw lightening and there was strong winds and heavy rain that started pelting us in the river...it was an uncanny but great moment. We were just about to drive away from there thoughly refreshed, when some dudes rolled up in a black range rover and started waving slices of water melon at us. So we stopped and accepted the hospitality. Turns out the 3 men were from Baku, Az. We couldn't understand anything else. So we are on the road again. Ryan is driving and today has seen both of us handling the rather cooky roads. They like to throw nasty suprises and the drivers are bad enough. The road unfortunately is one lane and infested with trucks and fast drivers, which leaves little option but to be dodging round trucks all day in busy traffic, whilst dodging traffic. its coming on for sunset and we are covering good miles, the scenery is nice though not too boggling. Hope all is well at home and thanks for the nice messages in the forum.. We've both been hit by minor ccolds and although ryans has gone i'm hoping mine will go after a decent night sleep.

Time: July 24th 2008, 04:53PM
IP: 149.254.200.224

Posted by: Sophie
Day 11 - Somewhere in a field in Eastern Ukraine. This evening has been the first one that we have stopped whilst still light. We thought it would be nice to use the stove and see a bit of the sunset. We pulled off the main road into a corn field and it was indeed a lovely sunset. Unfortunely we have been driven inside the car because of a swarm of voratious mosquitoes, our evening has taken on the enjoyable new sport of mosquito luring..and squashing with a map of Russia. So far we've got 12. Which is almost as many as my bites. Ryan woke up this morning...in another random Ukrainian field, feeling 'minging.' So today I've been the driver. Its all gone fairly well. We did take an unfortunate trip for a while into the chaos of Chakiv...which was...eventful. In this one city we saw 3 interesting things: Ryan saw a teenager waving a gun around...and looking, or trying to look, cool. It was in a shopping centre parking lot. An as usual demented driver, in front of us, chose to run a red light and subsquently ran over a mans foot. You might think that warrents an apology, but all the man managed was to boot the car before it disappeared. I didn't see it - I was trying to drive and getting rather stressed. We came across the roundabout from hell. It might normally be ok. But it was rush hour, there had been a car accident - which happened to close off the lane opposite...where we wanted to go & there was an ambulance. Because of the complete lack of patience from ukranian drivers half the traffic had decide to go the wrong way round the roundabout. It was utter chaos and gridlocked. So I followed another van that looked like it was fighting its way round to the other side, only to get there and find that side of the roundabout completely blocked by the accident. So the van started climbing the kerb and I ended up actually going completely off road and driving over a pavement, in the process smacking the bumper and the exhaust. Finally when we were starting to get a calmer road we pulled into a garage to inspect the damage. Betty weathered it beautifully. But then we wanted to fill up. You have to pay in advance here and we chose too much. So we got out the jerry can from the boot to put in the excess. It had a tiny bit of petrol in from last week...2 litres. But when I opened it - it shot open, with a bang, ryan saw a spark and we came scarily close to blowing everyone up. We have duly learnt our lesson. There isn't much to add to that. Though I will say that the ukrainian speed limit doesn't actually exist. The practical law of the road really means that its a free for all and the only cars not breaking the 'limit' are the really old ladas that. can't get above 50mph. Blacked out 4x4s are the norm and the go at a happy lunatic pace. The best car we saw was in Kiev and was a Porche Cayenne (two to a penny there) - this was pimped up and had red alloys. I'm not jealous...far too tacky ;)

Time: July 22nd 2008, 09:22PM
IP: 149.254.192.204

Posted by: Ryan
Kiev - Part 2 of 2: So we arrived in Kolomya with no idea where to stay. We picked a place out of the trusty Lonely Planet and parked up next to a bar to ask for directions. A very kind man on a scooter offered to help and we followed him back to his house where we met his very bemused wife and a couple of dogs. The very kind couple tried to call a taxi to take us to the B&B we were after, but sadly this did not work. We tried to communicate with a mixture of Russian, German and Spanish and eventually the man one again manned his scooter and drive us through town until we found the place we were looking for. We crashed out at the 'on the corner' B&B, which was (as the Lonely Planet rightly said) amazing. I was very beaten by our long day, during which I had only eaten a couple of slices of bread. I fell asleep with my toothpaste and toothbrush in hand. In the morning we awoke for a nice breakfast of blini (mini pancake type things) and had a chat with the owner Vasily. Interestingly, he said that the new prime minister who had come into power last December (the Margaret Thatcher of Ukraine) had cracked right down on corruption, and so explaining why we had had such a good run. Also, he is trained as a Ukrainian lawyer - and said if any police pulled us over they were not allowed to give 'on the spot' fines, and said we should put them on the phone to him if we had any problems! Having a Ukrainian lawyer on side is always helpful. We said our goodbyes and hit the road once more, pointing in the direction of Kiev. Our drive was pretty uneventful, speeding along b-roads through the afternoon enjoying the sunshine and running away from a storm. We tried our hand at dispensing tea to passing Ukrainians - however they declined, I think they thought from my charades that I was offering to get the whole family drunk... Night fell and we stopped for dinner at a roadside cafe before proceeding to find somewhere to camp. We pulled off the main road down a track, only to find a very odd semi-deserted military barracks (or something to that effect) with only the guard house and a few cars showing signs of life. Deciding that this was not a friendly place we turned around and hit the road again. A little while later we pulled into a huge field full of combines and pitched the tent by the edge. Ian slept in the car whilst myself and Sophie had our first nights camping, which is always slightly unnerving but we were tired enough to crash out pretty quickly. We awoke in the sticky heat and noise from passing tractors and combines, although nobody seemed to mind our presence and we packed up and headed for Kiev. The run was pretty smooth, although driving in Kiev itself was an experience, with mafioso looking blacked out 4x4s driving like madmen and skipping red lights. We also negotiated some road works that turned the street into a kind of slalom, and I am still trying to get my head around the system where the green man indicates that you can cross the road but the cars keep coming anyway. We inevitably got lost, and ended up getting directions from a drunk man, who donated us his old map. We found a hotel with secure parking, and dropped Ian off at a hostel as he is leaving us here. After finally parking up the car and checking in we headed to a 24 hour rolling stones themed cafe, as you do. Food such as 'Brown Sugar' and 'Jumping Jack Flash' were enjoyed and then we hit the hay. Yesterday was Sunday and a day off. We had a lie in and I went exploring whilst Sophie nursed a slightly ill stomach. In the evening we all went for the obligatory Chicken Kiev in Kiev. And that brings me to today, we have done more exploring and visited the British embassy for afternoon tea with the political first secretary. Now it is late afternoon and we are in an internet cafe. Sadly Ian is leaving us here and heading to St. Petersburg tomorrow, whilst we are hitting the road for east Ukraine and our next push towards Kazakhstan sometime tonight. The car is running superbly and all is well with us. We are amazed at our lack of problems so far, so I guess we can expect them to hit on the next leg! Oh, and check out our Budapest tea party at http://ukinhungary.fco.gov.uk/en/newsroom/?view=News&id=4196260.

Time: July 21st 2008, 04:41PM
IP: 217.12.206.107

Posted by: Ryan
Kiev - Part 1 of 2: Well we have arrived in Kiev, Ukraine. There is much to write about since our last blog, but all is well and we have had no major misshaps! After the last blog we found a hostel in Budapest for a night, as the Hotel we had been staying in was full. The day was spent shopping and doing menial chores, and in the evning we went for a nice wonder to the river island and back, via a bar on the way. We did manage to pick up another fine, this time for not realising we had to get our tickets stamped on the Metro. Me and Ian got stung for 25 quid each. The next morning we packed p the car, grabbed some lunch and hit the road headed East and to the Ukraine. The roads were good and the car ran well, and by early evening we arrived at the Ukrainian border. We had heard many horror stories with regards to the Ukraine on last years Mongol Rally - long times at the border, bribes, police stoppages etc, however our border crossing was over in a very efficient 45 minutes. Having decided that we had some time in hand before we needed to be in kiev, we pointed the car in the direction of the Carpathian mountains and drove on into the evening, the roads deteriorating slightly but still fairly smooth. Eventually we stopped at a roadside cafe for some tea and the obligatory game of charads began, in the end we orderd 'steak' which turned out to be some sort of batterd meat that had no resembelance to beef. We asked the staff if we could sleep in the carpark, and so we set up for another night in the car. Myself and Ian had concocted a plan to enable thee people to sleep in the car comfortably (the last time we slept in the car in Germany was very uncomfortable) this involved folding the rear seats so that Ian could lie flat in the boot, and myself and Sophie winding the front seats back. It didn't work. I grabbed very little shuteye trying to wedge my feet around the gearstick and kicking Sophie awake in the process. The only one who did ok was Ian, which was not much use as he is not a driver! Bleary eyed we awoke in a baking car to find it surrounded by people, only for them to all dissappear five minutes later. We went back into the cafe for some breakfast and made friends with the staff (Ian came away with a collection of Phone numbers!). They were very kind and made us some hot water for our flasks. I also had a very long conversation in Russian with a passing truck driver about the roads to come. He gave us some advice on Kazakhstan, although from what he was saying we are due to hit some rough stuff from Russia onwards. We jumped back in the car and began the drive into the mountains. All was going well, and we cruised along the b-roads admiring the scenery. Then came a crunch followed by the sound of smashing. I looked at Sophie wondering what it was, then Ian informed us the boot was open. We pulled over and I jumped out and ran back down the road. Two lorries had stopped behind us, one friendly one checking that we were ok and another trying to steal the stuff we dropped. Fortunatly they saw me running at them and jumped back in the lorry before they could collect anything. Assessing the damage, we had lost some wine and a few minor bits. Miraculously our china tea set had mostly survided the drop, with only a few battle scars to show for it. We cleaned up the damage, checked the boot and hit the road once more, winding into the mountains. The countryside bore some resembelence to Romainia, although sadly we found everywhere to be very litterd. We also passed loads of police, but were never pulled over which we found odd. We have found out that our car, which came to us via a racing team and to them from Northern Ireland is actually on Czech Republic plates, and we think this has helped our passage as people don't realise that we are from England. We began to climb a small pass and another thump came from the back of the car. I quiried if this was the boot again, at which point Ian informed me that it was one of the spare tires we had strapped to the roof, which had just dissappeared over a cliff into a ravene. Again we pulled over, and myself and Ian climbed down to the river to investigate. After much searcing Ian found the tire wedged in some undergroth halfway down the cliff. We pulled it back up and spent the next hour strapping it to the roof with every piece of material we had spare. Lets just hope we don't have to use one, because I don't think we can get it off now! We carried on through the mountains an into the night, headed for Kolomya on the other side of the Carpathians. At around 11pm we were passing through a shanti-town, in the middle of which was a giant, 5* hotel. We went in to ask for food, the place was deserted of customers and the man told us they were not serving. The hotal was so out of place and very odd that we came to the conclusion it a product of the Mafia. Undeterred we carried on down the road, arriving shortly after in Kolomya. Well there is more to this blog, but for now I have to head to the British Embassy! More to follow....

Time: July 21st 2008, 11:28AM
IP: 217.12.206.107

Posted by: sophie
We are in kiev, arrived today. Driving around trying to find reasonable place to stay. Ukraine an interesting place :) camped last night, rather dirty today but kiev a very expensive place, massively fast drivers and a bit of a nightmare if wanting to turn around. We got directions from a very pleasant drunk man. At the mo typing this in the car whilst parked on side of road in the very centre of kiev. In fact right outside the gates of the Ministery of Coal Industry of Ukraine. The guys are wandering, looking for hotel. We have found ukraine to be quite beautiful, none of this endless sunflowers we have heard so much about. But I thibk its because, realising we had enough time we went south east and through the carpatians. If it isn't small mountains then it has been rolling hills and forests. Theres been a few nasty patches of major fume pollution around and its a shame about the litter. Most interesting we now know why we haven't been stopped by the police - even once. The new lady prime minister is changing rules land cracking down of corruption. Hundreds of people have already gone to prison and it really looks like Ukraine is changing for the better. We have also learnt that a policeman cannot fine us without taking us to a courthouse first - which if he has done anything wrong he gets into trouble. I'm hoping someone can tell me the translation of 'lets go to the courthouse.' though I probably wouldn't get a chance to use it.

Time: July 19th 2008, 07:15PM
IP: 149.254.192.204

Posted by: Ryan
So then. Here is the first blog from the road! We are in Budapest, and I am writing this on Sophie's fancy new phone. We are currently in an internet cafe, searching for somewhere to stay tonight. Anyway, I should begin at the beginning. Last Thursday having packed my bags I jumped on a train to Sophies house. During that evening we started stickering up the car and musing over the mammoth task ahead of us. Friday was supposedly a day of tying up loose ends, before heading for London for the evening, however it turned into a very long day shopping, packing the car and doing a photoshoot for our very kind sponsor David hendry Ford, who have helped prepare the car. Eventually we hit the road and arrived at my friend Giles house at around 3am, crashing our for a mere few hours sleep. The next morning we got up early, packed the already full to the brim car with my two friends Ian and Giles (who joined us for the first part of the trip) and hit the road to London. We arrived at Greenwich Park, the start point for the very first Roof of the World Rally at around 10am and found that the the Australians had arrived shortly before us. Michele from team Verona and our good friend Graham also turned up, and we enjoyed a nice cup of tea and traditional English breakfast at the Pavilion tea house. Our passports were delivered to us by the Adventurists at around mid day, complete with all of our visas for our trip. And so it was time to hit the road, we waived goodbye to the others and headed for Dover, arriving in time for our ferry at 3:15pm. The crossing was a smooth one, and a nervous Sophie took the wheel getting off the ferry (due to the car being in the garage since we purchased it, she had only driven it twice up to that point). The drive was smooth, the car running very well we quickly disposed of France and Belgium, heading on into the German night. Plowing on until around 1am, we pulled over into a German service station, complete with the most advanced self-wiping toilets in the world. Four people sleeping in a packed car was never going to be comfortable, the most comfortable sleeping position I found involved a foot wedged under the dash and an arm wrapped around the handbrake. Ian and Giles left the car early to go exploring a random local German village, whilst myself and Sophie used the extra space to grab another hour or two 'sleep'. After a breakfast in the service station consisting of something best described as miscellaneous carbohydrate, we departed for Austria. The border was crossed, and we were aiming for Vienna airport, as Giles had a flight booked out early the next day. The drive through Vienna was fine, and we found the airport without any problems. The combination of me driving and Ian navigating around the airport ended up in us driving out of the exit by accident. Unfortunately for us we then found it impossible to turn around on the Austrian motorways, and thus had to plug on picking increasingly random turns in the road. Eventually we pulled up at a petrol station somewhere outside Vienna, and asked for directions to somewhere to sleep. Heading to the nearest village, we found a pensione which was sadly full. The rather scary Austrain lady did give us directions to another place a few kilometers down the road, and after more getting lost and walking round town we found a nice hotel type place to stop at around midnight. The next morning we had some cheese and bread for breakfast, and headed back to the airport in a more successful journey, dropping Giles off in time for his flight. Big thanks to him for coming for a slightly random first few days on the road! I then drive on through torrential rain and storms to Budapest, Hungary. We parked up at one point to find our hotel on foot, returning to the car five minutes later only to see a rather angry looking parking lady issuing us with a ticket. We smiled and waived as she took pictures of our car with the parking ticket in place. Sadly we think that she may have trouble collecting the money from us, as we are going to be in the Ukraine shortly! Parking the car securely in our hotel, we all had a much needed wash and walked to the British embassy for our afternoon tea party, complete with Ringtons tea and cakes. It went very well, we met the British, Slovenian and Croation ambassadors, members of the red cross, journalists and more in attendance. The ambassador introduced us and I gave a short speech complete with some powerpoint slides, whilst Ian delivered tea and biscuits to the guests and Sophie hobnobbed to the best of her ability. After this we finally had some time to relax, changing into something vaguely smart we had a very enjoyable meal before hitting a random bar for cocktails. A very intellectual evening was had as we met a Professor of Political Science and a PHD student in Anthropology. And so that brings me to today. We are still in Budapest, looking for somewhere to stay and generally doing necessities such as shopping and writing blogs. Tomorrow we head for the Ukraine, bad roads and corruption. Things start getting interesting, so keep reading as we will try to update the blog as often as we can.

Time: July 15th 2008, 03:18PM
IP: 89.132.108.224

Posted by: Clive
Received from Paul: Dear Sophie and Ryan and al wonderful ralliers, Firstly we must appologise for not being able to get from Tajikistan to your rally launch in person today. Sadly, it just was not possible. On behalf of all SWORDE-Teppa and especially our wonderful volunteers and staff here in Kurgan-Tube. Umed and I would like to wish you all a wonderful launch and a great Roof of the World Rally. This is the first Roof of the World Rally, and the brain-child of Sophie and Ryan, who visited us last year as part of the Mongol Rally. Special thanks must go to Sophie and Ryan for their excellent organisation of the rally and assistance from Mongol Rally. The Roof of the World Rally is a very special event, which will help raise much-needed funds for our charitable projects in Tajikistan. Not only that, we hope that we may be able to use one or two of your wonderful vehicles for our projects over here too (even if they are yeti battered). We do not actually have our own vehicle as yet, but vitally need one. Also by bringing materials and equipment to us you can greatly enhance our commnity projects for the benefit of many and also help us cut down of spending scarce funds over here in Tajikistan. This rally really is a life saver for us all. Yo can be sure of that and be sure that you assistance in used correctly, much-needed and greatly appreciated. It is the first, but we very much hope, not the last Roof Rally. We are not a large charity and all funds raised are directly used in the field for projects in Tajikistan. No wastage, no expensive HQs, no expensive expats, we are all volunteers working with and for the benefit of the community. Thus we would like to give our heart-felt thanks to you all for your kind and vital support. We are very sorry that we could not be at your launch in person, but sadly there was no funding available this year to get there. However we can promise you a great finish party here in Kurgan-Tube, Tajikistan. We are confident that your wonderful buggies will get you safely here, after navigating deserts, dust storms, and high Pamir passes, yaks and yetis. A piece of cake, or its that a piece of cake and some afternoon tea too? Please make sure to offer tea free of charge to any yetis you may see (I am reliably informed that they are around in the Pamirs). Failing that you could always add a touch of yak milk to the brew! Have a great experience and look forward to seeing you ALL soon, Safe and fantastic journey to you all, Paul, Umed and team Tajikistan.

Time: July 14th 2008, 02:42PM
IP: 78.100.3.4

Posted by: Sophie
OK, so it is the night before we go. Ryan and I are running round like headless chickens. We wanted to get this blog a bit more developed so we could put up pics and all that jazz...but we will work it out! Life has been so hectic we might just have to figure out some stuff on the road. Today, our huge Ford, christened 'Ugly Betty' has been loaded up (still in the process of). We took the car to buy lots of ties and some oil at Halfords, and then due to our lack of stickers wandered over to OCTOPRINT in Chippenham. We just walked in the door and said we had a problem and they knocked up some amazing stickers for us on the spot. Ugly Betty now doesn't look quite so Ugly, and thanks to them. We then shot off to David Hendry's and the folks there helped us to get the wheels and jerries secured to the roof. They have helped get Ugly Betty ready to roll and done a damn fine job. Finally, just past midnight and Ryan and I are just about ready to hit the road to London....I'm not sure whether it is because I'm travelling with a guy this time or we just have lots of passengers with us - but I've been told i can only have one jumper and 3 pairs of shoes...so...I'm really strggling with the packing. Not least because somehow my bag can't even fit those things in it. Bah.. Anyway, we are meeting the other teams in the morning in Greenwich and in typical 'seat of our pants' style are picking up our passports in the morning before heading to Dover. Thanks for the good will messages. Thank you to everyone who has sponsored us and helped us get this far. Not least a very nice man called Andy (at Save on Tyres in Swindon), who REALLY helped us out this week and because of him we actually managed to get our spares on Friday. Panic Stations! Right - sorry it is such a rushed email - we really have to go. We'll let you know how we get on :) Byeeee...Sophie P.s I really can't believe we are going - we have been planning so frantically it doesn't really seem real yet. It will when we get to the channel.

Time: July 12th 2008, 12:26AM
IP: 86.131.46.252

Posted by: Ryan
One week to go. And slowly but surely, although in trademark last minute style everything is coming together. Our passports should be returned this Friday complete with a full compliment of visas (fingers crossed!), the car is in the final stages of being serviced and we have just about purchased all of our equipment and made our arrangements. In addition, we are to be joined on the first leg of our trip by Ian Richardson and Giles Harrison, two good friends of mine who will be helping during the first unbelievably long leg from London to Budapest. That is 1000 miles in two days, and on arrival at 3pm Monday 14th we are due to host a tea party at the British Embassy! A big thanks should also be extended to our sponsors and the various people who have agreed to help us out. Especially Ringtons for coming through at the last minute and providing us with enough tea and biscuits to sink a ship, and the Tea Appreciation Society for all of the free stuff they are donating to our teams.

Time: July 7th 2008, 02:03PM
IP: 194.176.105.42

Posted by: Ryan
With a little over a month to go until the start of the Roof of the World Rally, preparations are well under way. The teams are sourcing their vehicles for the trip, and in the true spirit of the adventure they are not up to much! Keep an eye on the teams page as it expands over the coming days. For 2008 , if all goes to plan teams will be taking the great English tea house to all extremes - from the Arctic circle to the Karakum desert and everywhere in between! It is set to be a beast. Keep checking back for more updates as we close in on the launch day!

Time: June 3rd 2008, 11:39PM
IP: 81.156.232.207

Posted by: Sophie
NEWS: So, this weekend has seen the Roof of the World Rally teams being invited to 'swap tea for beer' with the British Ambassador in Tajikistan. We are working on hopefully co-ordinating this for the end of Rally celebration. Bringing some smart clothes to clad your dirty sweaty selves at the end would be a great idea. We are currently pegging the end date as being 4 weeks from the launch - which will help in the working out of those time lines, etc. However, this might get changed slightly depending on the Ambassador's availablity. Also, we are thinking that some weekly email updates to our teams would be a good way of keeping folks in the loop - especially as we don't yet have a forum up and running. Therefore, from now on every Friday we shall endevour to send out the news (even if there isn't any).

Time: April 19th 2008, 11:57PM
IP: 86.140.67.110

Posted by: Ryan
We would like to announce that the splendid people at the Tea Appreciation Society are supporting the Roof of the World Rally. Be sure to check out their rather cool website for some top quality merchandise from some true tea fanatics!

Time: April 19th 2008, 08:26PM
IP: 86.140.67.110

Posted by: Ryan
The Roof of the World Rally goes live! And with that it is about time for the first of many blog posts. The first batch of places on the Rally have been filled from an email sent through the Mongol Rally waiting list, however the second batch of places are up for grabs so sign up now, its your last chance to bag a place on this epic adventure! Stay tuned for further news and updates coming soon!

Time: April 11th 2008, 12:14AM
IP: 81.157.23.167