The Mongol Rally Guys

Besides taking a couple wrong turns we had little problem getting to the Tajikistan border. The greatest thing was actually the border itself–everyone was so friendly! After our not-so-great experiences of the past we never knew what to expect when crossing into another country, but we were pleasantly surprised by this border. Everyone was interested in what we were doing and chatted with us as they expeditiously handled our paperwork. We were into the country within an hour or so.

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It was about a five hour journey from Bukhara to Samarkand, and we passed through many villages on the way. As always, we were stared at by everyone we passed and enjoyed a fair bit of waves and friendly shouts from the locals. We were planning on getting into the city before nightfall so that we could find out way around a bit easier, but that was not to be so. We circled around for a bit trying to find a B&B recommended to us by Charlotte. We couldn’t find it, so I decided to park the car and get out to walk around the city a bit and see what we could find.

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The next morning we all parted ways and struck out for the walled merchant city of Khiva. We drove along the main road looking for an off-shoot heading south towards the city but were unable to find what we were looking for. After asking multiple people we were still not sure where the road was and we decided to just skip it and head on towards Bukhara. This involved a multi-hour drive through a wide Kyzylkum desert that separates eastern and western Uzbekistan. It was quite hot out, and we were thoroughly soaked in sweat and covered in sand by the times we reached the city limits.

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We entered the country and were bombarded by children selling water and ladies in veils offering to exchange money. Everyone was hanging off of our car and assaulting both Collin and I from every side. We were vigilant against would-be thieves and exchanged $100 with one of the ladies for almost 200,000 Uzbekistani som. Because of inflation the highest denomination bill is 1000 som, so we were left with a huge brick of cash to carry around.

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It didn’t take long to reach the Uzbek border the next day. All of us arrived and started the six-part registration process with no problem (other than in the middle of our applications the border guards having taken a two-hour lunch break). We had been there for over five hours and I had just finished the car import paperwork when I saw Collin standing outside of the border zone. I motioned for him to come over to complete the visa-stamping process but he motioned for me to come to him. He had just been rejected entry into Uzbekistan.

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The other teams we had came with were heading across Kazakhstan eastward, so The Alchemists and us decided to team up on the way to the Uzbek border. The road leading out of the city and south towards Beyneu was amazing–newly paved, it was the best road we had seen since Germany. We made short work of the next few hundred kilometers, traveling at around 80MPH the whole way and passing Dossor and Qulsary. We were hoping for these roads to last, but once we got to Opornyy our good times ended. Back to the pot-holed, sand and gravel roads that we had dealt with when entering the country–in worse condition this time. We stopped to fill up our car and checked the oil. The 80MPH driving in the heat had caused us to burn about two pints of oil which we promptly replaced. We had also had enough of our roof rack. It had sat empty for a while, and we could now fit everything inside of the car quite easily, so why have the extra drag on the car? (It also dripped into the car whenever it rained since the straps went through the rubber lining on the doors.) We took it off and gave it to a passing Kazakh family that seemed interested in it. They’ll ut it to good use I’m sure.

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The change we noticed after crossing the Kazakh border (and even at the border itself) was pretty drastic. All of a sudden we had people waving at us, kids saying hello, and an all-around general friendliness that was somewhat lacking prior to that point. It was a nice change. We headed off towards Atyrau, Kazakhstan and stopped at a truck stop on the side of the road for food. As we couldn’t read the menu each of us picked a different number on the menu and hoped for the best. Collin and I got fried eggs, spam, and a bowl of hot grits mixed with meat–not too bad! After we finished eating another team pulled up at the truck top, one from Italy. They were making a documentary on the rally and had left a week later than everyone else and had already come this far. The five teams took off towards the east and were soon left in the dust of the Italian team–they had to keep up their crazy pace I suppose.

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We headed towards Astrakhan, the last major city in Russia before the border. Again, we were routed through the city, this time during rush hour. Outside of the city we ended up going over an interesting floating bridge where we had to pay a toll to cross. We were stopped for the fiftieth time by AK-47 welding border security guards because of our lack of a front license plate. After a brief explanation of how we don’t have front plates in Michigan, they let us go. Note to anyone planning on doing the rally with a US car–make sure you have a front license plate. It’s quite a pain getting stopped all the time.

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Sorry for the lack of new photos guys, but the internet is much too slow to get anything online! Will continue to have postings everyday, and will probably be able to upload new pictures when I get to Almaty, Kazakhstan in a bit more than a week or so.

Thanks for your patience!

Instead of heading in a diagonal line towards Kazakhstan we decided to go south and then over so that we could see Kalmykia, the only Buddhist province in Russia. Situated in the middle of the jut of Russia that contains Volgograd, Kalmykia is a mostly agricultural province with an extremely high Asian-population. As we headed out of Volgograd the change was immediate. All of a sudden the people were Asian and there were plains and livestock everywhere. It was a big change from Volgograd. I’m not sure as to why there is a Buddhist province in Russia, but it’s there!

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