Wednesday 31st August
Waking up in Kosh-Agach felt like it
was Christmas morning. Palpable excitement was pouring over the camp as this
was the day we were finally entering Mongolia!
The pinnacle country of the rally was
within our grasp at last. As many previous rally teams had enlightened us, the
rally only really begins once inside Mongolia. Dreams of vast steppes, rugged
mountains and extensive desert lands inhabited by wild horses, yurts and hardy
nomads certainly wetted the appetite. But first we had to negotiate the border,
a hurdle many earlier rally teams had fallen at.
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| Queuing at the border |
During another full strip search of
Marigold on the Russian side we met Team Sugar and Spice, two courageous ladies
in their 50s. An inspiration to us all, they epitomised the adventurous, carefree
nature of the rally and ended up towing another team most of the way to
Mongolia. As they put it, they’re old enough to know better and yet they don’t!
To both of you we doth our caps.
Surprise surprise the final border
crossing before the finish line was becoming another long slog. To help pass
the time the usual Pokémon, Wordbrain and Stick Cricket games were resumed. Not
content with spanking fast in-swing bowler Dale Steyn all over the park, rank
outsiders including Bowmaster, Cliff Diving and Heads Up got their chance to
stimulate and entertain. In hindsight, not all our boredom-defying activities
were entirely appropriate for a border crossing. Shouting “grenade” in a
progressively louder voice as part of Grenade Bogeys was not a wise move once
we saw the size of the guard’s AK-47. Needless to say, it was a short game.
6 hours later we drove through the
rusty gates emblazoned with a large Mongolian flag and we were in at last.
Laughably, barely a centimetre onto Mongolian turf the once pristine tarmac
road abruptly stopped to reveal a rocky dirt track winding off into the
distance. It was at this point that the newest recruits joined the convoy. Zoe
and Matt from Team Honeymoon Roadtrip decided to join Two and a Half
Thunderbirds in a Bathtub to form the impenetrable wide diamond formation.
Driving a Suzuki Wagon-R and playing the Makelele role, Matt and Zoe had left
everything behind to embark on a honeymoon to end all honeymoons barely 2
months after they tied the knot.
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| We were in! |
On the drive towards the nearest town
Ulgii we encountered a small group of Mongolian children who had wandered over
to our car and began ravaging our food supplies. Before I had time to explain
they were stale, a little kid had smothered biscuit crumbs all over his face.
Managing to miss his mouth entirely, he was instead filling out an auburn
moustache using the bubbling snot from his nose as a suitable adhesive. Looking
worryingly like Barry Chuckle, we waved goodbye to our grateful friend and
pressed on towards Ulgii.
When we parked up on the town’s main
high-dirtpath, a man wielding wads of Mongolian currency marched over to us
offering a dollar exchange. All ten of us then proceeded to exchange $100 into
Tugrik much to the man’s delight. Now armed with more than Mongolia’s national
reserve in dollars, the pot-bellied man began to eye up a celebratory lavish
purchase. Thunderbird 4, a bright yellow mobility scooter that sat atop
Thunderbird 2, was now the hot topic of debate. Isaac and the friendly local entered
into an animated tussle to settle on a price for the sentimental piece of kit.
Before long the scooter was descending from the Kenari’s roof ready for a test
flight. The slightly rotund man climbed aboard, fired up the battery and let
out a giggle as he slowly drifted down the street.
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| 50 paaand?! Final offa, take it or leave it geezer |
Amidst all the hullabaloo generated
by Thunderbird 4, further bidders came forward and a somewhat surreal auction
developed. Not bound to just the onlookers at street level, there were even
some telephone bidders throwing their hat in the ring. One man on the phone
kept gesturing with his placard, presumably as a proxy bidder for some Chinese
billionaire. Offers were flying about, $100 here, $50 plus a night with his
daughter there, but they all fell short of the $150 reserve. Reluctant to
budge, the bids eventually fell through, the auction hammer came crashing down
and Thunderbird 4 was hoisted back onto the Kenari’s roof. As we returned to
our cars we re-assured Bathtub Bilbo that no amount of money could possibly
sway us to sell him. Without him we are naked, anonymous, not rally worthy.
Just outside Ulgii we set up camp and
cooked our 31st meal of pasta, tomato sauce and salami. You’d have
thought that after 30 previous attempts we should have perfected the herb
balance, fusilli hydration time and meat maturation conditions, however we
hadn’t. 2 large jars of tomato paste disguised as tomato sauce later and we
were eating a hot salty mess of crap. It wasn’t until our insides were being
torn apart that we realised what we had done. That and the Big Bons the
previous night made us the laughing stock of the camp. We can’t do anything
right.
Posted by: Rich