Team Hi Jet Set
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Thursday, August 24, 2006
Left Mongolia, arrived Kazachstan...our trips gone backwards
OK so quick update since the last posts: Arrived in UB all safe and somewhat sound....got the presidential suite at the best place in town, partied it up with the rowdy mongol rally crowd (yes, 100 guys, beer, vodka, and mongolian wreslters don't mix well). Said a sad goodbye to hatsu and split up at 5am for chris to fly with air yak to beijing, LH to Frankfurt, Northwest to detroit and the greyhound bus to SFO (might be lying about the last bit, but as we haven't heard from him it's entirely possible).As for Anthony and I...well 6 days of the trans siberian did deliver a senile russian babuska who kept us up all night long with her best rendition of "I am possessed and need an exorcism". For those who know me I didn't sleep much as a result. Aside from the drunk russians who tried to crash into our train compartment (somewhat successfully given the kazach who slept under Anthony's bed last night). It was definitely an experience.
Now in Almaty. A very beautiful city. We'll have to see what it's like so I'll let chris fill in some details on mongolia and his trip home before I get some more time online.
Greetings,
Tom and Anthony
Thursday, August 17, 2006
Onwards to Mongolia
After our surprise dinner experience in Itkutsk, we decided to make like salmon and head to the water. 100km of some very tough hills (12% grade in parts) and hatsu held up like a champion, no clutch slippage a steady 60km/hr. Lake baikal turns out to be simply gorgeous, a 1200 km lake with the banks flanked by impressive mountain ranges still thankfully unlogged. Our attempts to camp along the river were less than successful, involving our finding the Russian equivalent of a resort catering to whistlin' dixie types and eminem's trashy relatives. Turns out our instincts to leave are spot on, as a woman who speaks excellent English tries to make us a "second offering", letting us know that we could have a room with hot water, if we liked. When we waver, she lets us know that the "accident" that happened with the German tourists was a one time thing, and won't happen again. Besides they have a good fence. Goodbye, is all we can say in return.Find ourselves a nice litle gastinitsu and have ourselves a dinner of pot noodles and wine that can only kindly be compared with manischevitz. Next day it's off to the mongolian border. Just about 120km off of lake baikal the scenery changes, with valleys opening up, and trees thinning out. As we've noticed it's the rainy season so everything is a tropical green, and the scenery rivals that of the best of wyoming. Definitely cowboy country, a la Russe. We decide to camp out just short of the border, and manage to find a great spot about 2 clicks away from a Russian military base. Is the campsite a training ground, guess we'll find out. No suck luck. Instead we have great night out and a good nights rest. But not Anthony, who spends the night counting sheep, chasing mosquitos, and praying for some shut eye. Good thing we've gotten up at 6:30 to get to the border early.
Novosibirsk to Nowheresiberia
Had ourselves a couple of long days heading into the wild of Siberia. On the good news we have yet to be eaten by bear, savaged by mosquito's but have had the longest stretch of bumpy unpaved roads yet. On the down side Anthony had to don the blue hat (UN) to mediate between one of the inevitable buss brother melding. Basic plot of the battle: You're wrong, I'm right, way, way way. In the end Anthony showed excellent Kofi Annan skills, and has brokered the peace. We have taken to calling him Our little pigeon as a thank you.First night out of novosibirsk we managed to have a tourista experience, which involves paying western prices for a room furnished and finished by colorblind carpenters with no arms. We did happen to be brought to a floor with velvet curtains, a stunning coat check girl, and a bar right off the elevator. Hmmmm....hotel room...velvet....liquor...beautiful women....russia..... Only one thought passed through my mind and it wasn't that we were on the religious themed floor. Not to worry, only the hotel casino. two hours later, we were able to walk away from the blackjack tables up a couple of hundred roubles thank to Tom's ability to walk away when we smelled money. Might have been an ugly night otherwise.
Managed to pound back miles till we hit the junction of the BAM, the northern trans-siberian line, finished in 1991 at a cost of 25 bln USD, done entirely because the original line was considered too close to china. Bad timing, i'd say. Tawauash (name lost in a blur of cyrillic) distinugished itslef solely by its absolutely miserable feel, an apocalyptic rain, and a stern warning from our babushka at the hotel not to go out to the bar by making faces and pretending she was being punched in the face. Turns out she wasn't so far off, as Tom saw a clearly drunken man walking into a shop holding nothing but a giant kitchen knife. Perhaps he was only looking for cheese. More from Anthony to follow
Sunday, August 13, 2006
Irkutsk - but what would you like to eat?
To our collective surprise we have managed to make it to Irkutsk... 9000km and 7 time zones away, the last town for 3000km in Siberia and our last staging post in Russia before the push for Mongolia. Hatsu - we love you!I think Chris is going to do a parallel update so I'll just cover yesterday which was in many ways an unusual day...
Its the wet season over here and the rain hasnt let up for days. This has made driving conditions a little trickier and the "roads" very messy. Over the last few days we have had several patches of the m53 to Irkutsk which were just mud and potholes. This morning was a new low. We've figured out that roadsigns with kms and lots of russian writing on them imply bad roads ahead for a few kilometres - first thing this am we passed one that said 1438km to 1560km.... a potential 122km of hell. It was an off-road experience on road with no tarmac, mudslides, craters etc! It took us 40 minutes to do 11 km at one stage and speed averaged mid-twenties. Brutal! In one morning I took more brain damage from bouncy roads than Muhammed Ali took in 10 years in the ring :)
Thankfully, the afternoon was better and after 14 hours on the road without stopping or eating we got to Irkutsk last night. It was 11pm and we had some difficulty getting a hotel.. the first one was too expensive, the third one was full and the fourth one eventually let us in. The second one had rooms too actually... the babushkas blew kisses at Tom, walked into furniture, looked through us, slurred words and in short were completely out of their heads on vodka - its the first time I have ever failed to check into a hotel simply because the staff were physically and mentally unable to do it!
After checking in to our hotel we went on the hunt for food ... after midnight so we weren't hopeful but were starving. We went back to the third hotel which was a big one to see if their restaurant was still open. They directed us into their basement which was a bar/restaurant with a series of booths around a central floor ... with a pole in it. I cant even begin to explain how surreal it is to go from bouncing around a road for 14 hours to trying to decide whether you want to watch the other things bouncing in front of you or stuff your mouth with the food you have been screaming for all day. A fork in the nose proves you cant do both.
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Sent to outer Siberia
Team Hijetset and Hatsu have arrived safely in Novobirsk. We have two editions of the Russian Lonely Planet book (who says we are not prepared!) and one warned us to avoid this city while the other suggested to visit it ... we are still making our minds up but initial observations indicate a ridiculously high amount of good-looking women wearing little while wandering the streets.The main reason for stopping here is so that Tom and I can start planning our trip home. Tijs and Jesse had a rough time trying to figure out how to manage this and ended up having to skip Kazakhstan altogether and take the train back to Moscow from Ekaterinburg. With some work we think we can get a swift 25 hour train from Ulan Bator to Irkutsk on the 19th/20th of August and then a 73 hour train from Irkutsk to Almaty on the 21st-23rd... fun! This is however highly dependent on getting to Ulan Bator in the first place and getting there in time to catch the train back out.
With that in mind and with a fresh new driver (Chris) on board we have been doing some serious milage in Hatsu. 1500km in the last 2 days and hopefully a decent amount today too. We are deep in Siberia now and the countryside is very flat ... some of it would be sleep inducing in its similarity were it not for the roads which have been bouncing us about fairly heavily. Chris reckons he has sea-legs from the roads and Hatsu because it is constantly rocking or jarring from side to side and front to back (usually simulateously!).
We have also introduced a new "Play of the Day" for insane driving by the locals ... yesterday's winner was a truck passing out another truck by pulling out directly into incoming traffic... rather than pull back in again the truck stayed centre of the opposite lane forcing the oncoming traffic to serve off the road onto the sand shoulder and swerve back round it onto the road again. 2nd place went to a car that zipped past us at an insane speed in front of a truck, ended up being pulled out of the marsh 20km down the road and then passed us out again an hour later (some people never learn).
Other than eating tarmac it has been fairly uneventful. Tom and I have been trying to get Chris Russified so we have been staying in truly stark trucking motels. Last night's accommodation and dinner came to around 30 euros for all of us - food was good, the beds were boards! We will all need intensive pysiotheraphy on our backs after this trip. No complaints though - we passed a prison out here 2 days ago and grim would not even come close to describing it.
Ok, need food. We have all suffered from stomach issues and from our microbes going on strike due to harsh working conditions but today everyone seems hungry and able to eat so looking forward to that hugely.
A.
The late night
Two quick seconds before the connection time runs out. Anthony's writing about the past couple of days, but that does leave out the epic evening we had in ekatarinenburg (SP?).Had a nice dinner of sushi (with surprisingly fresh fish 2000kms from the ocean)...and the vodka sluice opened. It pretty much didn't stop till 8am. Departed the restaurant for a bar we'd been recommeneded: arrived somewhere around 1. Not sure exactly what we got up to in there but the time was flying by thanks to Boris's favourite house tunes. At some point we got Tijs on the DJ set: too bad his skills are so old-school that he couldn't take up the resident's offer to spin tunes for everyone in the place. Tijs ONLY works with Vinyl.
At some point it became clear that if we were going to give chris a proper arrival we'd have to grab a taxi to the airport (at 5:30am). I think the taxi driver was more inebriated than we were however which was reassuring given the amount of police at the airport.
CHRIS ARRIVED. Looking surprisingly chipper given the 36 hour flying to get there. He needed some catching up so after introducing him to Hatsu we went straight back to the club. A couple of vodka shots later and Chris was right up there with us. At least with most of us: anthony and Jesse were otherwise engaged. Feel free to ask them about it.
So in short. Ekat definitely lived up to its rep. Great town to have a rowdy night out in.
Sunday was a pretty muted afair both because we were a bit worse for wear, as well as because we knew that we'd be splitting up the group on Monday. I assume Tijs and Jesse will update us all on their trip back home....
Having fun out here.
T
Saturday, August 05, 2006
Ekatarinenburg
OK so no yaks, not even close.True to our name we're in hijet style civilization. True, we could have camped on the outskirts of town. But given a combination of Anthony's paranoia about radioactive contamination (check out a google search on chelyabinsk), Jesse's somewhat weakened stomach and Tijs's desire for a down comforter...we eneded up at one of the nicer places in town (again). Yeah, It's Tom writing and I'm being dragged into all of this comfort by force.
We left Moscow a couple of days ago and have made excellent progress. First stop some crazy roadside motel where Anthony and I practiced our excellent russian. No surprise we weren't given a discount. Did wander down the side of the highway to a karaoke bar to have dinner. Our russian ordering technique of buying four things at random off the menu and seeing what's edible before ordering more of the same resulted in a total success: sharkoe. Some kind of stew (I definitely don't know what kind...but if it was sheeps testicles it didn't do any harm). After two toxic balticas we crashed out.
Next day nice drive to Kazan. A little bit of a shakedown by the russian police. One for "speeding". We all had a bit of a laugh when the guy claimed that we were driving 110km/hr. He even showed us the radar gun. Given our top speed is max 85...this was pretty rich. The next was at the tartar border crossing. Police claimed Tijs and Jesse couldn't drive the car as they weren't registered. The police guy knew it was bs, I knew it was bs, he knew I knew it was bs...so we had a nice conversation until the guy with the AK47 told us we were holding up traffic. Left having made a new friend with the police- russian style. So all of us have lost our russian police virginity. With Anthony it happened at 6am on the streets of moscow after a few too many...Tijs and Jesse seem to be happy that it happened in a car. Read into that however you want.
Arrived in Kazan early evening. What a great city. Aside from the fact that we stayed out till 6 am again, the town itself is beautiful. Made a bet with Tijs that I would DEFINITELY be up at 9:30 packed and in the car. Won that one...or at least we called it a draw: he was a bit late but managed to drive the entire way to UFA (550kms) while the rest of us were passed out in the back. Ran into some other rally guys: aspiritus and two other teams. Really funny...especially the flying pig on one of their cars.
UFA was pretty cool...again the city beat expectations with nice shops, restaurants and tree lined streets. Some guys/girls were very enthusiastic about our car...ended up helping us a bunch as we couldn't find a hotel. It did cost as much as the guy made in a month ($100) which made us feel pretty extravagent...and that was for a seriously russian room and a "get out of here at 6:30am wake up call" but at the time we were hung over, tired and desparate for sleep. Big thanks to our friends from Ufa and Samara.
We were planning on spending last night in cheylabinsk but after reading the warinings about the 1950s radioactive explosions, we decided to roll up the windows, put on all our clothes to stop the gamma rays and boggie on through the Urals. 650kms in one day...not to bad on the old hijet. btw: that still calculates to 2 liters of oil and a couple of clutch slippages, but our chariot is holding up pretty well.
Chris is flying in just in time for the mid-journey inspection. We've done 5500kms so feeling pretty chuffed. But it's another 4500kms or so along crap roads to make it to UB. Not sure yet about the route we'll take: Siberia or northern mongolia. We definitely want to make it now, so the temptation to stick with russian pavement is pretty high. It is true Russian pavement is a bitter tease: one minute it's perfect tarmac the next there is a truck hiding at the bottom of a pothole. This aside from the russian style overtaking which pretty much involves driving into oncomming traffic with your eyes closed. But we all assume it's better than mongolia or kazachstan.
We'll see what happens. In the meantime Jesse and Tijs are trying to figure out how to get home and Chris should arrive tomorrow am (if LH lets him on the plane). Monday the drive continues with the loss of our two best drivers but with the addition of one mechanic. At this point that's probably a needed exchange! It'll be too bad to leave those guys behind after the experiences of the past couple of weeks, but I'm pretty sure we'll think up some new stupid adventure to keep the group together.
First through we need to see if this town really is as crazy as everyone says it is.
T
Monday, July 31, 2006
Prague to Moscow
Finally internet access!!!The Prague garage visit of Tom and Tijs resulted in a basic oil change. The required work would take at least ten days so we decided -in the spirit of the rally- not to do anything but wait for the car to break down on our way to Mongolia. Our stringent oil regime -meaning a liter of oil every 200 km- seems to be pleasing Hatsu and if Hatsu is happy we are happy! During our first leg after Prague we had a easy drive to Poland, no hassle at the border (long live the EU!) and the roads were decent (good to be using some roads we paid for...). Hatsu did make some weird new noise. We concluded that must have been the result of the strange chemical substance we bought in Poland and added to the fuel.
Poland
In Poland we decided to use our tents for the first time and looked for a nice camping spot. The only suitable soil we could find was a farmers field in the middle of some woods. Luckily the guy spoke German and he gave us permission to camp anywhere on his land. He also told us it was OK for us to shoot any wild boars we encountered... This resulted in a rather stressful night for the Jet Setters, as the only animal sounds we're used to are the serene sounds of a sissling steak in the pan... (Although Anthony claims he is the Irish Steve Irwin) Anyway, we survived it and on we went to Lithouania. When setting up the tents, preparing dinner, and in fact during the past days the team members are showing their true selves. For some reason sometimes Tom seems to be thinking that we're all on his boat, hence he's acting like der Kapitän Buss. Nothing can be done without the approval, instructions or involment of der Kapitän. A lot of usefull tips and tricks and hey there's nothing wrong with some comittment (except when Tijs is grumpy).
Lithuania
Easy border crossing and impressive landscapes, good infrastructure and friendly people. New country, new weird sound. This time the suspension was making some bizarre sounds, but hey maybe Hatsu was trying to tell us to take it a little easier... So we did. When looking for a camping site we followed a sign that vaguely resembled a tent. We found a beautiful lake with some crap cabins around them, a couple of drunk Lithuanians playing the same boonga boonga tune non stop and a big sign with a phone number on it. Thanks to our phrasebook we managed to bargain the price for a cabin down with 2 euros to a 30 euro tourist rip off rate. We spent the night in a mice infected cabin at the lake. We had a cool night, burning down a tree and rowing on the lake at 1 am to count the falling stars and provide the musquitos with a late night snack...
Estonia
Estonia clearly has less money than Lithuania. We were slowly being prepared for the real crap roads, as sitting in the back of the car equals sitting on a bull that has a lobster hanging on its testicles. Hatsu starts the get some Camel features in the back roof area... (Why did we not bring helmets???)
We found a 'nice' camping spot close to the Russian border in the middle of nowhere. After we setup camp we realised that the middle of nowhere must be somewhere as we either heard some local maffiosi capping some business associates or some hunters killing whatever had a fur or feathers. Given our growing beards this was distressing der Kapitän to the extend he wanted to hunk the horn every 15 mins making sure we not to be mistaken for animals... The Van Santen brothers decided the car needed a higher level of security in this notorious high crime forrest, hence sleeping IN the car would be a good idea.... NOT. For some reason Jesse managed to fold himself into a position on the bench and fall asleep, but Tijs could not fall asleep. If Tijs can't sleep, Jesse is not allowed to sleep...
Russia
5 AM in the morning all of a sudden seemed a perfect time to be packing up and head for the Russian border. This ended up being an extremely good decision, because despite the fact we where there at 7AM and number 5 in the queue, it took us 5 hours, and 10 Russian forms (just in Russian, so for all we know we could have donated all our belongings to Putin now) to get through the border. We also discovered a new disturbing sound which was traced back to the rear axis. This time we were really worried as this could the end of our beloved Hatsu. It turned out to be the start of a hellish day, with roads that had more put holes than the upper legs of a fat 90 year old Babushka. We managed to achieve an average speed of 50 KM/H...ending up driving 450 KM into Russia. We found ourselfs a cosy truckers motel including a brand new disco sauna. Tijs and Jesse didn't notice this new Russian invention at all but der Kapitän and Parslow only fell asleep after 5 AM when they kindly enquired if the Polka tunes could be turned down a little bit.
Despite his lack of mechanical skills Tijs decided to take off one of the rear wheels to give it a thourough inspection the next morning. When he could loosen the knots with his bare hands it became apparent that the source of the disturbing sound wasn't the axil but just a wobbly wheel ready to seperate itself from Hatsu on the highway.
Moscow
Again a new sound. We either have a hole in the exhaust or the fuel we pomped at that dodgy gas station contains lead...
After all our adventures the Jet Setters were in desperate need for some luxury. We booked ourselves a room in the Sheraton Palace. So far we're having a good time. Tom and Anthony are close to death after having clubbed till 6am. Anthony can't stop talking about how great the night was, and how he was dancing like an animal... J and T have missed something good (they bailed at 2 AM), just seeing the Parslow move on some cheezy Moscow tunes is worth a million...
Tom and Anthony asked reception at 6 AM for a 8 AM wake up call, so they could go to the Mongolian embassy to sort out Tom's visa. They're still there. We (J&T) are going to look for a garage and a hard needed laundrette.
Last but not least, it's unlikely that we would have made it so far without the invaluable help from our 5th team member: Chris! Chris has been helping us with avoiding bears & wolves, booking hotels, giving weather updates, looking up technical car data, providing mental support and so much more. Only a week before we can close him into our arms...
Next blog will hopefully be from Kazakhstan!
To be continued...
J&T
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Meanwhile in Amsterdam
While the boys toil away in the field of Poland, worrying about bear and wild boar, Pasha Axel keeps cool in the hot summer sun.
Monday, July 24, 2006
The Prague “Czech“point
We got into Prague last night and met up with the rest of the teams for a few drinks. My sisters boyfriend, Francois, lives here and he joined us as well... which he probably now regrets as we have asked him to help us source a garage given his Czech language skills!After drinks we wandered around a little but went back to the hotel pretty soon as we got completely fed-up with being asked did we want to go to a strip-club by a dodgy guy every second step... at one stage we stopped for a group chat and were instantly swarmed on by around 7 different guys trying to convince us to come to their stripcubs. 2 thoughts on this come to mind ... 1 they are ruining Prague like this and it is no surprise the locals have abandoned the centre to the tourists and 2 using dodgy guys to convince you there are beautiful women inside seems a bad approach lol. Tijs believes that he could do a bit of sales training and make them much more successful. Tijs and I were here last year so not too surprised but got the impression the other two were a bit shocked by how tacky this was and often we got approached.
Everyone slept like a log last night ... we only had around 3 beers each but were all so tired that it made us feel and act like drunken fools. Today is a rest day from driving as we try to fix some of the problems with the van and recover a little. Francois has been very helpful in sourcing us a garage where we might get someone to look at the valves and the clutch...it would seem they dont speak anything other than czech though which is at least a good test of what is like to try and communicate without any language so Tom and Tijs have a fun challenge.
Meanwhile Jesse and I are trying to find a manual for the Hijet online somewhere ... we have searched everywhere but this looks impossible. Back-up plan is to at least pick up a general engine manual in an english bookstore somewhere in Prague which is our next task. Writing this on a Czech keyboard has been our biggest challenge haha
Onwards and upwards...
London - Prague 31 hrs non-stop
Saturday 22 July LondonAfter waiting in Hyde Park for 5 hours checking out other cars (around 200 cars) and do some last minute pimping on Hatsu we left for our first check point, Prague the capital of Czech Republic at 3 in the afternoon. Hatsu had already its first challenge to cope with the extreme heat in the city of London and it took us more than 2 hours to get out London and went straight to Dover to get our ferry to Boulogne Sur Mer, France.
Of course our ferry was delayed an hour and we already had a late ferry so we ended up getting in France not before midnight (about 6 hours behind every other team and we are one of the slowest vehicles anyway). But then our adventure really started. Tijs drove the first bit and did it Tijs style, getting everything out of the car and adding the comment that Hatsu could do even more. While Anthony and Tom were taking a nap in the back Tijs and Jesse drove through the night aware of the epic adventure they were facing. Jesse already noticed the lack of gas in the car but Tijs was confident that we easily could make for another 50 miles. But then he started to get nervous also because on French B roads in the middle in the night........ there aren't many gas stations open. But after some minutes of having visions of us running out of gas already before Lille we found a gas station (with only 2 liters of fuel left in the tank) and our adventure could go on.
With a full tank we were heading for Lille (short cut, Tom's and Jesse's idea should have never done it!) and of course we get lost on some C D and even E roads so that took us at least another hour so at the time we were actually on a highway it was already 4 am.
Gas wise we were doing perfectly! Engine was running fine, suspension was holding, only the lack of air in the tyres wasn't really nice but after changing the pressure from 1.5 bar to 3.0 (rear tires) we were doing fine! No wonder the van looked like a low-rider!
I don't want to bore you with all the things we've been doing during the 31 hours in Hatsu driving to Prague so I made a short summary of highlights during our first day(s).
-Lack of oil (Hatsu is an oil addict, wondered how it got through MOT (APK))
-Running out of gas, see above (afterwards we agreed to always fill up tank when the meter strucks quarter full sign)
- Getting lost in outskirts of Lille, see above(Tijs had a short cut through some picturesque villages around Lille)
- Clutch plates slipping which we probably need to do something about
- oh and then drove for another 24 hours to Prague
I'm still really tired of the long trip and a couple of beers yesterday night (little Mongol party with all the teams) and Anthony and I have to look for an car repair manual to fix the clutch and other stuff so I have to end this blog. Hope we still have the option to keep you up to date the coming days when we are heading for Moscow through Poland, Lithuania and Latvia.
Cheers!
Team Hi Jet Set
Saturday, July 22, 2006
And they're off....
D-Day has arrived … well technically at least as it is 2am and we are grabbing some shut-eye before registration in the park later this morning. It has been a crazy few days since the Dutch-based crew (Jesse and Tom) arrived. Plenty of fun has been had by all in converting our street to an open air garage … street theatre in London’s west end! We’ve done loads in the last two days including re-wiring the car to install halogen lights and a radio, converting Hatsu into some sort of Frankenstein with bolts coming out at all angles to support rear seat-belts/seats, compensating for the loss of our radiator grille by combining gold bathroom ventilation plates into a damn cool (if I say so myself) new bling grille, spray-painting / stickering and acknowledging all our sponsors (you can still give on our donate page), doing lots of last-minute impulse shopping and generally enjoying winding each other up a bit. In the true tradition of the Mongol Rally we are scraping our way to the start line. We can also tell Chris is chomping at the bit in the US as well as he has sent us some maps to get us far enough to pick him up.Hatsu is half-packed with the rest to go in the morning… any stuff we couldn’t fit has been left outside the van in the hope that someone nicks it overnight though I’m not optimistic. Hatsu has been getting a fair bit of attention from passer-bys though most of the advice / comments have been of the “you will never make it type”. The final comment went to Antonio a passerby who gave us a spontaneous contribution towards the journey … whahey, beer money at last :)
We have also spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to get pre-registered. It has to be said that the main Mongol Rally website has been ropey so Tijs and I have spent hours pointlessly re-entering data over and over again. Perserverance eventually triumphed over site bugs but left us all in need of cold beers and champagne which Emma and Jackie duly provided (thanks ladies!).
Time for bed and dreams of taking on the Mongol horsemen in some goat polo… he shoots, he scores, he snores…goodnight!
Some, err, fly-by-night photography
When Yaks Attack … a blindingly simple solution
A grille even George Foreman would be proud of.
Take one old tyre, spray it gold, brand new. Bling is in!
A few words from our sponsors… especially our Gold Sponsor Gasunie (sadly not in this shot!)
As Thierry Henry would never say “Va(n) Va(n) Voom!”
Thursday, July 20, 2006
The Hague - London Wednesday July 19th 8 AM
D-Day minus 48 AM wake up. No rush, no big deal, just have to drop some keys off and off we go. Sun was shining (supposely the hottest day of the year) an excellent test of the hi-jet's high temperature skills.
First surprise: no drivers license for Jesse. It was actually IN his wallet, but just the one he decided NOT to take. So no big deal, no stress, Jesse just gave his cousin Pieter a (wake up) call so he could fetch the just dropped off keys and go get his drivers license and bring it to Jesse's dads place for super fast air freight to London. Given the speed we were driving, it would propably beat us anyway.
Second surprise: 300 kilometers, no problems, no big deal, a quick rest stop before the ferry and a dilegent oil check........ZERO oil! So, no big deal, no stress, Tom just buys oil to fill the gasoline engine.....but because of Jesse's super high developed hawk like eyes he catches the mistake just in time. Tom didn't buy ordinairy engine oil but diesel engine oil! So our second almost fatal mistake was solved pretty easily.
The ferry to Dover was easy, no big deal, the ride to London SUCKED donkey tits (Tom's contribution). Normally it would take like 25 minutes. But it took us more than 2 hours to get to Notting Hill were fortunately Anthony was waiting with two big cold pints of beer, hurray for Parslow!
Tijs and Anthony had arranged a mini party in the pub across the street. A bunch of friends showed up including Tijs' girlfriend Emma, Daniel, Becs, Imogen, Kate and Wynne for beers, abuse and lots of "useful travel advice"... bring bamboo shoots for breathing during sandstorms etc!
I'll end with an advice from the Hi Jet Set Team:
''Think like Yak, act like a Yak and you'll smell like one as well
Greetings from London!!!
Monday, July 17, 2006
An even more random update
OK. so it's 12:50am on Tuesday morning. Just had a nice meal with Chris' girlfriend in London tohethwer with Anthony and some of Nicole's friends. (PS Chris could not be there given the usual 10 American holidays, and his plans to join us for part of our trip early August....) Anyway just reviewing things with Anthony and concluding again that this will very likely be the craziest and one of the most memorable things in our lifes... So many things to be done, so few will be achieved in the remaining 3 days...We decide it's in spirit of the project!
We'll make it............
Somehow.............
Or not.........?
Thursday, June 22, 2006
A smiling face is half the meal (Latvian proverb)
We're on the road to nowhere!I have been looking at routes again today - this time from Poland to Russia. We have decided to go via the Baltics rather than across Belarus - this is longer but still in the EU so reduces bureaucracy, visas and border crossings. A large area of Latvia is covered by forests, and (in a nice contrast to the Gobi Desert in Mongolia!) the country has over 12,000 small rivers and 3,000 lakes. Most of the country is low-lying and although there are some hills in the east it initially didn't seem to be anything that Hatsu (our chariot) will be overly intimidated by.
However, choice of route and roads will be important as ever so I got in touch with Inese, a Latvian friend of mine in Riga, to get some advice.
After some discussion the best route would appear to be up the from Kaunas (in Lithuania) to Daugavils (Latvia), then along the M12 via Ludza & Zilupe before hitting the M9 and the border crossing into Russia leading towards Velikiye Luki.
Two potentially useful additional travel facts came out of this conversation
1) Estonia apparently has the best roads in the Baltics and 2) the route into Russia via Latvia has more terrible pot-holed roads...bad news as we thought the EU would generally be okay. Extra cushion order to Ikea I think! The other disappointment here though is that we won't actually get to go to Riga at all unless we take a detour ... will have to consult with the rest of the team and see what they think.
Half a meal
Inese displaying her charms. Apparently, Latvia spent a fortune on the beautiful but cheesy promotional tourism video they created for the 2003 Eurovision Song Contest in Riga.
I think they probably could have saved themselves a fortune by just using a few more photos of her! Hmm, probably just as well we are not visiting Riga now as I suspect she will now be mad at me :)
Latvians like botany
Sadly, I learn from Inese that we are also going to miss one of the biggest parties of the year too. This is the mid-summer festival of Ligo or Jāņi - a celebration of the summer solstice and the feast day of St. John the Baptist. It is supposed to be a Christian festival but that is a bit tenuous. Ligo takes place every year on the night between June 23rd and 24th, the shortest night of the year. It is customary for people to go to the countryside for Ligo, traditionally wreaths of leaves and flowers are worn on the head. If a man is named Jānis (John) the wreath will be made of oak leaves. In the early evening of the 23rd, fires are lit around which people will chat, sing and dance until the early hours of the following day. It is considered lucky to jump over these fires. Cheese flavoured with caraway and a drink made from birch sap are traditional fare at Ligo firesides.
Throughout the night it is allegedly not unusual to see young couples slip quietly off into the woods in search of a non-existent "fern flower"- these liaisons are not considered unseemly nor are they generally remarked upon the next day. When questioned on this last point Inese just laughed. Further questioning led to the joking comment that the bushes are indeed full (though sadly no-one has found the fern yet). Once again, I think the Latvian Tourist Board missed out on a selling point :)
They also like ice... (I gave him a 6 for artistic merit)
The 2006 Football World Cup is on at present in Germany. Sadly, the Latvians are not there but they did host the 2006 Ice-Hockey World Championship earlier this year. If people think there is too much diving in football just check out the dramatic reaction / attempted double-axle of this Czech player in the Czech vs Latvia game. The Latvians managed a credible 1:1 draw with the eventual silver medallists but went on to get smacked 11-0 by Canada and finished 10th overall.
Lastly, they also (see Kazakhstan blog) can't drive
Hopefully, our insurance company doesn't read this... Hmm, actually, did anyone even sort out insurance yet!
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
A quick introduction to Kazakhstan ... and our friend Borat!
Spurred on (and yet again feeling under prepared) by re-watching Episode 3 of the epic motorbike trip Long Way Round I thought I'd post a quick blog on Kahzakstan.
The 9th biggest country in the world and an area which is equivalent in size to Western Europe is likely to pose us a few challenges. The people are reputed to be friendly and welcoming but it is a long and difficult trek to get across it. Kazakhstan is a bilingual country: the Kazakh language, spoken by 64.4% of the population, has the status of the "state" language, while Russian is declared the "official" language, and is used routinely in business...not that it matters much as currently we can't speak either of them. Education is universal and mandatory through the secondary level, and the literacy rate is 98.8% so we are hoping that a combination of intellects on both sides will get us through.
The roads in Kahzakstan are very mixed... about 1/6th of the roads are not even paved and many of those that were have long succumbed to massive potholes. In Long Way Round Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman struggle to get through on motorbikes and with a support team so the mind boggles at how Hatsu will cope. The scenery there is likely to be one of the highlights of our trip. Below are the mountains near Almaty.
And the less serious side of things
Lord Almaty! Street camera of driving in Almaty
I should point out that if you kick Hatsu it dents so if someone hits us like this...
Borat from Kazakhstan... the uncomparable Baron Sasha Cohen.
Not surprisingly, the Kazakh Foreign Ministry has been quite upset about this character's representation of their country. Foreign Ministry spokesman Yerzhan Ashykbayev told a news conference "We view Mr. Cohen's behaviour at the (2005) MTV Europe Music Awards as utterly unacceptable, being a concoction of bad taste and ill manners which is completely incompatible with the ethics and civilized behaviour of Kazakhstan's people". In 2005 the government even hired two Western public relations firms to counter Borat's claims, managed to get his website .kz removed (but it found a new home)and ran an advert in The New York Times defending the nation’s democracy, education system and the power and influence enjoyed by women. While it is certainly a bit rough on them, as he just happened to choose Kazakhstan, I suspect however that the best attitude is just to grin and bear it and take it as comedy rather than a deliberate slur. Hence for your viewing pleasure I present:
Borat learning manners ... hopefully we will not commit equally bad errors in our time over there :)
And for those of you with more time on your hands (Barat's guide to England - rowing, hunting, bowling)
Last but not least - The National Anthem
Unfortunately this blog doesnt seem to support Cyrillic characters so I will have to give it to you in English ... apologies to the linguists out there.
My Kazakhstan
Golden sun in heaven,
Golden corn in steppe,
Legend of courage -
It is my land.
In hoary antiquity
Our glory was born,
Proud and strong
Is my Kazakh people
My country, my country,
As your flower I'll grow,
As your song I'll stream, country!
My native land - Kazakhstan!
I've a boundless expanse
And a way, opened in future.
I have an independent,
United people.
Like an ancient friend
Our happy land,
Our happy people
Is welcoming new time.
Now you have the words sing along to "My Kazakhstan"
Hatsu's transformation from ugly duckling to white swan ...but still ugly
Following on the post by Tijs I thought I provide some photographic evidence that Hatsu is coming along nicely.
Hatsu gets stripped down!
Yes, I know it would have been easier if we brought the tape to the van!
Off to the scrapyard to scavenge for parts
Spot the difference Photo A
Spot the difference Photo B
Answer: Nice new tyre on the back. Ah the joy of drilling holes in your van :) Seeing as the engine and the petrol tank are under the front seats we also drilled a fire-extinguisher into the floor beside them and put the first aid kit on the inside of the roof above them. Remember kids, safety first... but dont try this at home!
If you've read this far... please give over your pocket money, alimony cheque or next mortgage payment to our charities on the donate page :)
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Random Update
Today is June 13 and I felt like updating the two random web crawlers that actually read this blog on what’s happened over the past weeks. Tom and Anthony have picked up the car in Germany! In order to test destiny they decided to drive it to Amsterdam without insurance and without license plates. Luckily both German and Dutch police were too busy writing parking tickets and did not pay attention to our beloved automobile which we have officially named ‘Hatsu’. Once arrived in Amsterdam Tom and Jesse have been ‘inspecting’ Hatsu and made some (un)necessary adjustments. Tom’s car modification skills definitely became apparent when he drilled four random holes in the back of the car so he could mount a spare wheel over both the lock and the handle of the door…. Ah well, I am sure it will improve the internal airflow and aerodynamics of Hatsu. After Tom buggered off to Spain to work on his sun bathing and sailing skills we found out that the papers he gave to Jesse were not the car registration papers. This caused some distress, but fortunately they were sent to his Amsterdam address. Jesse has been further enhancing the car together with his local garage. Inspired by his all time favorite rapper Xzibit, he also decided to pimp Hatsu with some chrome rims and sports exhausts… I’m pretty sure this means that we are more likely to be stopped by corrupt police and end up paying them off with more booze and cigarettes…
Last Monday we have sent the official begging letters to Daihatsu, BP, Shell, Red Bull, Michelin, Unilever, Novartis, City of London, Rabobank, and Philips. All these companies claim they are caring for more than their shareholders and management bonuses. Time will tell… In the mean time we did receive our initial sponsorship money from friends and family! Check out the just giving site to discover who our supporting friends and caring world citizens are.
Last week I was in Lisbon for a work event. During one of the evenings I ended up chatting to Peter -a CIO of a large credit card company- and he totally liked the concept and committed to sponsor us on the spot. We need more Peter’s!!!
Today we received an email from the organizers that may be the solution to our sponsorship problems. Apparently there are some production companies interested in filming the rally. They are considering featuring some teams in their documentary and are trying to find out how entertaining the individual teams are… We may have found the coverage we need to raise some serious doe…
To be continued.
Ts
Friday, May 26, 2006
A list of spare parts
Here's the list of things we are likely to need from reading the forumsand going through my mental rolodex:
Replacement Parts:
1) Distributor Cap + Rotor
2) A couple of extra spark plug wires
3) Extra hoses and hose clamps for the cooling system - better to buy
new ones (not expensive at all)
8) 1 set brake pads (probably $40)
16) Spare water pump
17) spare thermostat
18) a spare fuel filter to help clean the junk out of the fuel
24) a spark plug or four pre-gapped along with a wire brush for cleaning
fouled plugs.
25) spare oil and oil filter
27)extra head gasket
30 Overrated radiator cap (non-venting cap preferable)
31) Engine V-belt
32) Clutch fluid (if open system)
26) spare oil pan plug (they disappear far too easily when working on a
car)
12) Spare air filter (or a K&N style cleanable air filter)
28) a couple of extra headlamp/taillight bulbs
19) A spare fuel line
16) If carbourated (1 carb. Rebuild kit)
17) Differential Oil/Fluid for the 4x4 system
Important to have accessories:
15) Several spare bolts of assorted sizes (particularly for the
suspension)
4) 2 extra tires/wheels to tie on the roof
7) 1 tow rope (for when we get hopelessly stuck in mud
9) 2 jerry cans for fuel
13) Axle grease
21) Booster cables for when we need a jump
19) Extra electrical wire and connectors in case we lose electrics
20) A whole bunch of spare fuses
23) Extra brake fluid
24) A tarp for repairs so that parts don't get dirty/lost in the dust
25) extra worm gear clamps
List of quick-fix repair stuff:
33) Radial tire repair kit
1) Loads of Duct Tape
5) J-B Weld Cold Welding compound: http://jbweld.net/products/jbweld.php
5) Perm-o-seal radiator stopleak
6) 4 tubes of tire-seal for reinflating busted tires
22) Exhaust repair kit (basically bandage and support wire that can
handle excess heat) purchasable at any automotive store
23) Zip ties
24) bearing grease
25) Carb and choke cleaner
26) fuel additive
On the list of "maybe good to have, but sort of expensive and probably
not worth it if they cost over 40, but we should know where to order
them from:
10) alternator
11) starter motor
14) Spare wheel bearing or two
15) Fuel pump
16) CV Joint and Boots
17) Shock absorber
18) Ignition coil (magneto0
Also, For our health, I had two important Ideas:
A book called "where there is no doctor, a village health care handbook
http://www.hesperian.org/404.php#WTND
A good water filter with replacement filter cartridges: Katydin is the
best.
We should also think about fitting a steel plate under the engine
compartment (a ding guard) to keep the oil pan from getting knocked off
in the middle of the bumpiness.
Whew.
-Christian
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
We Have Press Release
Check it out: a real live press release:Introducing Team (Daihatsu) Hi Jet Set One
London To Mongolia in a 997cc 4X4 Van
Dear friends, members of the press, immigration officials. We would like to introduce you to our hard charging rally team for the 2006 Mongol Rally. Our basic premise is as follows: take men with as little experience as possible in the art of rallying, fixing cars, and navigating back roads. Add in a car desperately unqualified to handle 6000 miles of driving. Obtain visas for as many countries ending in -stan as possible. Drive from London to Mongolia while living in Low-Rent-Decadence™.
In short, welcome to our adventure. This July and August, we are bringing Western decadence to the desert. We are going to be the pashtouns of central Asia and promise to take you along in our 1988 Daihatsu Hi Jet as we barrel in velour splendor from London to Mongolia . To be direct, we would like you to help promote our journey. At the very least, we invite you to follow along with our planning, our bickering, and our inevitable misfortunes as two sets of brothers and other makers of mischief hit the road.
If you blog, please blog about us. If you podcast, please talk about us. If your words appear in print, please put pen to paper for us. If you are a friend being harassed for money, please give, and give generously.
If you are interested in having us write about our failures and triumphs (more of the former, we assume) for your publication we would be thrilled to do so. For writing samples, please contact christianrbuss@yahoo.com. We promise to have our Strunk and White at our left side and our stash of Kyrgyz fermented mare’s milk at our right.
The Plan
London to Mongolia in a 1L Daihatsu Hi Jet. That's the basic premise. The implementation, a little more complicated. Come take a look at where we're planning on going. Click Here
The Charity
No one likes being a beggar, but we are looking to raise money for charity on this trip. We've found a charity that sounds ridiculous, but does some fantastic things. It's called "send a cow" and their purpose is to provide livestock to poor farmers in order to allow them to become self-reliant. Not only does the group provide the livestock, they also provide training and advice on how to keep stocks flourishing. Click Here
The Vehicle
The Daihatsu Hi Jet was described by Xhibit on Pimp My Ride as “a toaster on donuts,” but we’ve decided that this is to be our trusty (we hope) steed. Take a look at what a truly horrible car this really is. A horse might actually get us there faster. Click Here
The Team
While we are all boy scouts, round the world travelers, and generally not always foolish, on this trip we are taking a total lack of preparation as our guideline. We still have our motto: "don't get dead," but everything else is up to fate. Click Here
The Website
Once again, inexperience is our guide. But we’ve got heart, and that heart has led to our (admittedly ugly) website: www.teamlandyacht.com. Please come and take a look. Included on the website is everything that we have planned (very little), what we plan to see (very much), and some general tips for trips. Of course, being that we always want to put a smile on, we’ve come up with some unique features for our site:
1) News From The Stans: Daily news updates on politics, kidnapping, economics, and mayhem from the -stans
2) Pimp My Rider™: Given our acceptance of the garbage nature of our vehicle, we’ve decided to pimp the riders, not the rides. Think mild-mannered Dutch businessman turned Mongolian Yak Herder
3) Survival Tip of the Day: A collection of articles, updated as we find out more about how to delay death and carnage, with help from the Emergency Medicine Journal. Haven’t you always wanted to know more about Proximal Tibiofibular Dislocation?
4) Chasing Borat: We’ve got a crack team in London searching out Borat (of Ali G fame) for advice on how best to travel through his homeland ( Kazakhstan ). So far we’ve only been successful in finding him on the television, but please follow in our celebri-stalking adventures.
The Blog
Of course, don’t forget the Official Blog of Team Hi Jet Set, lead diplomats of the Hi Jet Set Lifestyle. Click Here
Contact Us
Our lead contact in the United States is Christian Buss. He’s reachable at any time at christianrbuss@yahoo.com and via telephone at 510-384-3135.
With Warmest Regards,
Team Hi Jet Set
PS, our outsourced blog writing team wanted to convey a brief message: We welcome the crew that is madman crazy. We will die, but we will die smiling. If we can find it, these are monkeys who are willing to open up to the power route from London to Mongolia .
Thursday, May 04, 2006
Official Rally Meeting Report
Thanks to my enormous cyber internet skills I finally managed to post this Blog. Hope you’ll enjoy it…Today is Saturday April 29 and there’s an official meeting for the brave boys and girls that signed up for the Mongol Rally. Although the initial invitation indicated the meeting was going to happen in London we ended up taking a train to the picturesque Uxbridge. The organizers of the rally have found a suitable location in the Uxbridge University. Quite ironic, since anybody who is seriously considering to participate in this rally does not have the intellect to get any education that goes beyond Kindergarten.
12:40PM: after the comfortable trip from Paddington we jump on the U3 which takes us via the tourist route to the heart of intellectual Uxbridge: The University. By now it’s 1PM and we’re wandering down the campus wondering where the hell that meeting is. This must be the first test: NO SIGN POSTS… Only the teams that have thought of bringing a navigator -next to their mechanics and fierce less drivers- shall be granted the opportunity to listen to tear jerking stories from the charities and leverage the experiences from past Mongol Rally heroes. No fear, the Don’t Dai Hatsu management (AKA The Hi Jet Set Team -> we’re still in an official dispute about the name…) has decided to send its top driver (ie most irresponsible road maniac) and the team’s navigator (ie the guy without driving license) to the meeting.
1:10PM: after buying some chocolate, –to avoid falling asleep during the presentations- pens and notebooks for the essential and exclusive tips and ideas (yes we are prepared for anything), our eagle eyed navigator guides us to a bunch of strange looking and smelling people that are just standing there… I’m asking myself what the hell we are doing there. Then my eye falls on some Jesus like figure that’s drinking beer and rolling cigarettes… When I move closer I can see: Mo……..ly. The beard hides most of his T-Shirt but I realize we’re getting closer! Before I know it AP shouts to me that he has found the ‘real meeting’ We walk down to a room where we find some 50odd dudes that randomly stand there glazing at an empty stage with a microphone lying on the floor. (They're probably asking themselves the same repetitive question as us: WTF are we doing here?) Then a guy that identifies himself as Tom -one of the organizers- manages to get the microphone to work. He apologizes for the fact that the meeting will be delayed, due to the fact that he got stuck in the tube for 2 hours and one of the other organizers is still stuck in traffic... Stuck in traffic??? All of a sudden we become very nervous… We are disorganized, but these guys are worse… not good, not good at all.
After we have setup the room, we are kindly invited to attend some presentations from the Charities. Good plan, let’s see for what causes we should put our dear lives on the line… The first presentation is from Send a Cow. The man that is giving the presentation has amazing PowerPoint skills. By using various ingenious graphics and tables he explains the advantages of a Cow: Milk, Manure and Money… Amazing! This guy is good. I start feeling better again. We’re crusaders for the good, we’re doing this to send hurdles of Cows to those who need it, so they can swim in Milk, have huge piles of shit and get loads of money from learning the Cows new tricks that will revolutionize the Mongolian Circus industry.
Next presentation: The Christina Noble Foundation. After a rather disturbing video about the lives of street children around the world these people have found themselves another group of crusaders for the good. Unfortunately the video is followed by a 20 minute tear jerking speech which was written for the Sunday Mass of the Uxbridge Baptist Society. It has to be said: it’s quite impressive to see somebody giving a speech and being totally ignorant of the connection she has with the audience. I see some of the lads around us looking nervously at their empty pints and I can hear them think: what’s happening with the Match now. (There was footy on the tele during this meeting) Anyway after 8 A4’s of totally unnecessary emotional BS the woman hasn’t managed to completely put me off this charity so I mark it as ‘one to be considered’.
Next presentation: The Mercy Corps. An oversized Mother Theresa stands up and gives a brief and clear presentation. The charity is focused on sustainable development for those that need to learn to take care of themselves. These guys have my vote! I start feeling even better. The money we raise will be used as a micro lone that will enable Mongolian farmers to develop an agricultural multinational. Together with the cows from Send A… they’ll become the happiest (and richest) farmers in the world.
OK, so I’m on my current high of the day, but it appears that somebody else needs to present as well. ‘Hi I’m Bob from Boston and I work for the Whatever University’ Bob starts showing pictures of his favourite Mongolian pets and tells us how much he likes to camp. Where is this going I ask myself? After having seen all kind of strange looking animals, Bob asks us to give him money so he can sit in his tent in Mongolia to look at these animals and make notes. Don’t think so Bob… We came here to prepare for the trip so Bob must be able to help with survival tips. I wonder whether I should ask him if any of these animals can be eaten, and what the estimated required speed of a Daihatsu Hijet with four male adults is to efficiently kill them without completely tearing them apart. I decide that this may upset Bob and lower my hand before Bob sees it.
It’s 2:30PM by now and 'the organizers' announce that the others are still stuck in traffic… (OMG) They suggest to get more beer and get back together in 30 mins…
I manage to speak to the beard and he gives me some invaluable advise: bring two 20 litre jerry cans and a spare 1 litre can… I note this both in my phone and in the notebook to make sure I don’t forget this, because I got the feeling that this combination may be the key to success (20 + 20 + 1).
By 3PM the really important stuff begins and a sea of knowledge is being transferred. A constant fight between thoughts of ‘it’s good we attend this meeting’ with ‘what the hell did we get ourselves into???” is taking place in our minds…
We had to sign an NDA for this meeting so unfortunately we can’t disclose any further Rally tips (we already gave you the 20+20+1…). However we are planning to keep a detailed log during the trip. It remains a question whether you’ll be able to enjoy it, since during our legendary adventures we won’t have any internet access, mobile phones, or any contact with the civilised world for that matter. I guess the log will only find its way to you if at least one of us survives the trip… (or if someone finds the tapes after 5 years and decides to make a movie out of it)
Ts
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
Some thoughts on fundraising
OK haven't figured the Blog out yet, but have created a report on our meeting attendance. I sent it to Parslow so he can review and make appropriate adjustments. Chris, can you help us getting it on the site?I also did some work on the fund raising. I checked if we need to register as a charity, but I think this is not necessary:
http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/publications/cc21.asp
Appeals for funds
24. Fund-raising is not a charitable object in itself: it is simply an activity which can be undertaken to help achieve a charitable purpose. If a charity wants to raise money to carry out work which is not covered by the existing objects of the charity, it can create a new charity with specific purposes. Please contact us if you have any doubts about whether your proposed fund-raising purposes are authorised by the objects of your charity.
25. There are complex rules about fund-raising and you may need to take professional advice on this. We offer advice in Charities and Fund-raising (CC20). We recommend you read this and consider the following points of good practice.
§ Great care should be taken over the wording of a written appeal when asking for money from the public. We recommend that you make sure the purposes for which the charity intends to use the money are accurately described.
§ The record of a speech or broadcast may be regarded as evidence of the purposes of an appeal. The organisers of that appeal cannot alter the purposes of the appeal to something which is not consistent with the terms under which donors were invited to contribute. We recommend that care be given to the wording of any spoken appeal.
§ If you want to raise money for the general purposes of an existing charity, you must make this clear and avoid any suggestion that the money will be used for a more specific purpose.
§ If an appeal is for a specific purpose, such as paying for or restoring a building, we recommend that it states what will happen to the money if either not enough, or too much, is raised.
So assuming my conclusion is correct we need now really need to get in raising mode. I would like to get to a point where we raise enough money that allows us to fund the trip as well as donate at least 2,500 GBP to the two or three causes we select. (See my report that will be sent later)
Right now these are the concepts we have come up with:
1) Begging. We should be able to get at least 700 GBP by some good ol’ begging. Jesse already managed to get some sort of commitment from the AlliedClans gaming clan. Chris has his employer committed on doubling a certain raised amount and Parslow and I are speaking to Forrester to have the London office give up the Friday drinks and maybe lunch budget.
2) Promoting Stan tourism. I will write letters to the Official Tourism Boards of the several Stans we’re planning to hit. The idea is that we demonstrate how safe the individual countries are for tourists by traveling through them depending solely on the hospitality (not hostility) of the Stan inhabitants. Next to the military escort we should be able to negotiate at least 1 Ruble per kilometer we manage to travel unharmed through the respective countries. We could raise 6000 KM * 1 Ruble 6000 Ruble, which is 125 GBP… OK this may be not such a good idea, but with the help of David Metcalfe’s negotiating tactics we could get this up to 1250 GBP, which should cover 2 Cows.
3) Online Betting. We could provide an online betting service which allows people from around the world o bet on different categories such as: Who will die first? How far will they get? When will the car first break down? How much bribe money is required? Etc… We will donate 25% of the bets to charity…
4) SUN Article. AP told me that the Sun has a weekly article on Man with the Van. It’s about some local lowlife and his white van. We may be able to convince them to pay us for a hilarious article…
5) Stupid TV show. This is my favorite one. The idea is quite simple: We get two cameras and we cover the whole trip to Mongolia on video. This will result in enough material that allows any editor to create a 12 * 25 minutes series. It’s something along the lines of The Trip from MTV in NL. I spoke to one of my friends (Onno) who has some contacts with MTV and I had a quick chat with him. He suggested to write several production houses to see if they have any apatite for this. I will draft a letter tomorrow and hopefully we can send letters by the end of this week. This should get us enough cash to fund this insane trip. I’m speaking to Onno later this week, to see what he can do to help. Jilali: I know you bailed, but I believe you also have some contacts that may be useful here. Is there anything you can do to help?
Ok, this is it for now, but will tune in soon again…
T
Sunday, April 30, 2006
Hey folks,
There was a rally meeting yesterday to present the charities etc. Tijs and I went over for a few hours to hear the charities speak etc. I think Tijs is going to do a blog entry on that today or tomorrow. We also need to get a section up on the webpage focused completely on the charities
I hung on for a few hours afterwards trying to pick up some tips from previous tryers and listening to thoughts from the organizers. There were some very funny (and sad) stories from last year. Here is a brain dump of the notes I took roughly organized by topic. Some of them are probably quite obvious but thought it was better to note them just in case. Worth reading them because some stuff we haven’t come across yet. And for those of you not on the team but who have come across this blog...well this is the type of stuff we are dealing with!
1st key lesson.
- ½ the cars died last year and based on the level of inexperience / lack of mechanics etc this year it is expected to be a higher %... just so we set expectations carefully. I met a professional mechanic whose car was serviced and tested for months who only got to Uzbek … roads just ripped the car apart.
Visas
- Visa planner will be out in the next few weeks. We may well be able to get them to help us sort things out as they are probably going to be able to handle many non-British passports (they said no on the site because depending on country of origin and political relationship with visa countries it can be messy).
- Visa planning will be broken into several windows so a couple of time slots we can try with them if we do go through their process.
- Be creative e.g. difficulties with Azerbiijaan last year as only wanted rich tourists so booked into most expensive hotel by credit card, got the visa and then cancelled the booking as it was only a credit card reservation
- Russian embassy in UB is most corrupt in world.. avoid using if you can- Don’t recommend multi-entry visa for Russia as expensive, double is fine …
- Turkmenistan visa is very tricky …. Worst country to deal with and they don’t like the rally or foreigners full stop. Not clear yet if they will issue transit visas and if they do they will be for 3, 5 or 10 days – if you miss the dates tough luck… last year they gave two Australian cyclists a 3 day transit visa to cycle across the country and arrested them when they didn’t make it so (not surprisingly!) so no logic. Can get tourist visa but then have to have guided tours so no good for rally. May also be able to get fixed date visas but that is impossible for the rally too as cant guarantee dates.
- Make sure you register at least once in Russia .. rules are not clear as to whether need to register every 3 days or if stay in place for 3 days. Police will fine you depending on what they think the rule is and they don’t have a clue either. Is important to have one register though so don’t get trouble with exit border police.
Ferry
- Need to book ferry crossing now as price is going up and wont be space soon. I will check with Tom and sort that one out.
Route / Map / Guides etc
- Launching a new route.. via the artic circle and st.petersburg…seriously! they want someone to do it and its not as bad as it sounds!
- Quickest route is Moscow or Kiev
- Distribution of racers (based on hand vote in room): 1/5th Moscow, 1/5th Iran, 3/5th Kiev route
- Hardest piece: everyone probably say different but Kahzakstan is rough. There is a road along the top which ruins cars..hard and potholed. The alternative road further down in through the far north is easier but it is sandy and basically off-road.
- The International Travel Map for Mongolia is rubbish.
- The Lonely Planet guide to Mongolia is rubbish.. don’t buy it. Best book is the Mongolia: The Bradt Guide. They gave out some copies of this and I got one for our team. The author will be at the launch and is keen for people to send updates as there is a new version due.
- Make sure you get maps in Cyrillic and not English or other language as otherwise will be useless. Learn to read and recognize the Cyrillic names. However even that wont help much e.g. in kahzakstan towns have names in kahzak and in Russian and it is 50/50 as to which name will be on your map irrespective of which map you bought!
- Stanford sell a Cyrillic map/atlas which is bearable
- Most maps are plans that government have sold map companies but have never happened e.g. outside one major city (think it was in Turkmenistan) there is a motorway which streams away and if you drive on it it takes you out of the city a few miles and then stops completely in desert :). Towns change names regularly based on new mayors renaming them after their mothers, heroes etc
General
- T-shirts will be coming later as they don’t have the sponsors on them yet – feel free to mock up something yourselves though.
- Party date in UB will be set based on how the field is moving but probably after 4 weeks. Will be a place to meet every night before and after to catch up on gossip etc
- Checkpoints are honour system (except Prague) as we know. There will however be a named bar and time each night where you can meet other teams and catch up on what is happening. Often worth waiting a night to see who else turns up.
- Take photocopies of your V5 as border guards read it upside down, rip it when drunk etc.
Money
- Money changers at the border are often not actually that bad
- In Mongolia get much higher rate for new $100 bills (issued after 1996) and a lower rate for $20 bills. Tip: go to bank, change 5 * 20 for 1*100 and then change it :)
- Generally much more useful to have mix of note sizes
- Newer money i.e. crisp/shiny gets better conversion rates- Did cost a fair amount of money last year … organizers took $400 each in cash and used bank card to take out money all across Europe and in major capitals as well
- Travellers Cheques are completely useless
- Hide money throughout the car and not kept together… except some to be taken by police if they search the car.
- In central asia can choose to take money out from banks in local currency or USD, generally best to opt for USD
Bribes:
- please don’t pay bribes because it makes life impossible for everyone else (especially if you are at the back of the field). They will try lots of intimidation e.g. taking someone out of the car and behind the shed on his own but if you play dumb and speak English loudly can get through. Cigarettes and Vodka are much better as bribes .. sometimes guards are so bored they want to get drunk with you and then when everyone is drunk they let you through (I heard a classic drunk-driving story but it is a bit long to write here)
- Turkmenistan is really bad for police hassle. Get stopped every 20 miles or so by Hitler youth types but no-one got into any real danger or hassle last year.
Mongolia
- Mongolia is very far behind the curve. The first non-Mongolian restaurant opened after independence in 1996. That was the first cash register used in the country.- 2m people in Mongolia of which 1.4 are in capital (UB) which means that the countryside is really empty … if you break down could be a day or more before a car passes. However people are very friendly and will help.
- Mongolians eat everything from an animal… check what you are eating. Mutton is the most common food but as per warning check which piece of the sheep :)
- Mongolia is very easy to get between places because very few roads so as long as you stick to the main one you are generally heading towards UB… though road is a strong word for the surface in many cases
- Weather is very unpredictable in summer – can even be snow-showers! Flash floods are common with swelling rivers so be prepared to drive many km out of your way to find a new crossing point.
- Most people in Mongolia have crazy dogs who are trained to kill or seems like it at least. Worth considering rabies shot though that only delays the symptoms for 24 hours .. however as there are often 3 or 4 days between towns that could be crucial. A nurse in the audience disagreed with this though saying it would not help…
- Generally health wise Mongolia is so dry that it is not a germ haven unlike some of the other countries we pass through
The Hyde Park launch
- Fair amount of press/TV etc being lined up and talking to production companies at present- Organisers have park from 5am, cars get in around 10am, event launch at 12.
- Speeches, music, launch by Mongolian ambassador- Paddocks for drinks for the drivers :)
- Estimate there will be 1km worth of cars
Best/worst etc
- Worst illness last year: Delhi-Belly but seriously bad dose…no one died though :)
- Shortest distance covered: one car broke down at Calais
- Winning object brought last year : A Flymower
There was a rally meeting yesterday to present the charities etc. Tijs and I went over for a few hours to hear the charities speak etc. I think Tijs is going to do a blog entry on that today or tomorrow. We also need to get a section up on the webpage focused completely on the charities
I hung on for a few hours afterwards trying to pick up some tips from previous tryers and listening to thoughts from the organizers. There were some very funny (and sad) stories from last year. Here is a brain dump of the notes I took roughly organized by topic. Some of them are probably quite obvious but thought it was better to note them just in case. Worth reading them because some stuff we haven’t come across yet. And for those of you not on the team but who have come across this blog...well this is the type of stuff we are dealing with!
1st key lesson.
- ½ the cars died last year and based on the level of inexperience / lack of mechanics etc this year it is expected to be a higher %... just so we set expectations carefully. I met a professional mechanic whose car was serviced and tested for months who only got to Uzbek … roads just ripped the car apart.
Visas
- Visa planner will be out in the next few weeks. We may well be able to get them to help us sort things out as they are probably going to be able to handle many non-British passports (they said no on the site because depending on country of origin and political relationship with visa countries it can be messy).
- Visa planning will be broken into several windows so a couple of time slots we can try with them if we do go through their process.
- Be creative e.g. difficulties with Azerbiijaan last year as only wanted rich tourists so booked into most expensive hotel by credit card, got the visa and then cancelled the booking as it was only a credit card reservation
- Russian embassy in UB is most corrupt in world.. avoid using if you can- Don’t recommend multi-entry visa for Russia as expensive, double is fine …
- Turkmenistan visa is very tricky …. Worst country to deal with and they don’t like the rally or foreigners full stop. Not clear yet if they will issue transit visas and if they do they will be for 3, 5 or 10 days – if you miss the dates tough luck… last year they gave two Australian cyclists a 3 day transit visa to cycle across the country and arrested them when they didn’t make it so (not surprisingly!) so no logic. Can get tourist visa but then have to have guided tours so no good for rally. May also be able to get fixed date visas but that is impossible for the rally too as cant guarantee dates.
- Make sure you register at least once in Russia .. rules are not clear as to whether need to register every 3 days or if stay in place for 3 days. Police will fine you depending on what they think the rule is and they don’t have a clue either. Is important to have one register though so don’t get trouble with exit border police.
Ferry
- Need to book ferry crossing now as price is going up and wont be space soon. I will check with Tom and sort that one out.
Route / Map / Guides etc
- Launching a new route.. via the artic circle and st.petersburg…seriously! they want someone to do it and its not as bad as it sounds!
- Quickest route is Moscow or Kiev
- Distribution of racers (based on hand vote in room): 1/5th Moscow, 1/5th Iran, 3/5th Kiev route
- Hardest piece: everyone probably say different but Kahzakstan is rough. There is a road along the top which ruins cars..hard and potholed. The alternative road further down in through the far north is easier but it is sandy and basically off-road.
- The International Travel Map for Mongolia is rubbish.
- The Lonely Planet guide to Mongolia is rubbish.. don’t buy it. Best book is the Mongolia: The Bradt Guide. They gave out some copies of this and I got one for our team. The author will be at the launch and is keen for people to send updates as there is a new version due.
- Make sure you get maps in Cyrillic and not English or other language as otherwise will be useless. Learn to read and recognize the Cyrillic names. However even that wont help much e.g. in kahzakstan towns have names in kahzak and in Russian and it is 50/50 as to which name will be on your map irrespective of which map you bought!
- Stanford sell a Cyrillic map/atlas which is bearable
- Most maps are plans that government have sold map companies but have never happened e.g. outside one major city (think it was in Turkmenistan) there is a motorway which streams away and if you drive on it it takes you out of the city a few miles and then stops completely in desert :). Towns change names regularly based on new mayors renaming them after their mothers, heroes etc
General
- T-shirts will be coming later as they don’t have the sponsors on them yet – feel free to mock up something yourselves though.
- Party date in UB will be set based on how the field is moving but probably after 4 weeks. Will be a place to meet every night before and after to catch up on gossip etc
- Checkpoints are honour system (except Prague) as we know. There will however be a named bar and time each night where you can meet other teams and catch up on what is happening. Often worth waiting a night to see who else turns up.
- Take photocopies of your V5 as border guards read it upside down, rip it when drunk etc.
Money
- Money changers at the border are often not actually that bad
- In Mongolia get much higher rate for new $100 bills (issued after 1996) and a lower rate for $20 bills. Tip: go to bank, change 5 * 20 for 1*100 and then change it :)
- Generally much more useful to have mix of note sizes
- Newer money i.e. crisp/shiny gets better conversion rates- Did cost a fair amount of money last year … organizers took $400 each in cash and used bank card to take out money all across Europe and in major capitals as well
- Travellers Cheques are completely useless
- Hide money throughout the car and not kept together… except some to be taken by police if they search the car.
- In central asia can choose to take money out from banks in local currency or USD, generally best to opt for USD
Bribes:
- please don’t pay bribes because it makes life impossible for everyone else (especially if you are at the back of the field). They will try lots of intimidation e.g. taking someone out of the car and behind the shed on his own but if you play dumb and speak English loudly can get through. Cigarettes and Vodka are much better as bribes .. sometimes guards are so bored they want to get drunk with you and then when everyone is drunk they let you through (I heard a classic drunk-driving story but it is a bit long to write here)
- Turkmenistan is really bad for police hassle. Get stopped every 20 miles or so by Hitler youth types but no-one got into any real danger or hassle last year.
Mongolia
- Mongolia is very far behind the curve. The first non-Mongolian restaurant opened after independence in 1996. That was the first cash register used in the country.- 2m people in Mongolia of which 1.4 are in capital (UB) which means that the countryside is really empty … if you break down could be a day or more before a car passes. However people are very friendly and will help.
- Mongolians eat everything from an animal… check what you are eating. Mutton is the most common food but as per warning check which piece of the sheep :)
- Mongolia is very easy to get between places because very few roads so as long as you stick to the main one you are generally heading towards UB… though road is a strong word for the surface in many cases
- Weather is very unpredictable in summer – can even be snow-showers! Flash floods are common with swelling rivers so be prepared to drive many km out of your way to find a new crossing point.
- Most people in Mongolia have crazy dogs who are trained to kill or seems like it at least. Worth considering rabies shot though that only delays the symptoms for 24 hours .. however as there are often 3 or 4 days between towns that could be crucial. A nurse in the audience disagreed with this though saying it would not help…
- Generally health wise Mongolia is so dry that it is not a germ haven unlike some of the other countries we pass through
The Hyde Park launch
- Fair amount of press/TV etc being lined up and talking to production companies at present- Organisers have park from 5am, cars get in around 10am, event launch at 12.
- Speeches, music, launch by Mongolian ambassador- Paddocks for drinks for the drivers :)
- Estimate there will be 1km worth of cars
Best/worst etc
- Worst illness last year: Delhi-Belly but seriously bad dose…no one died though :)
- Shortest distance covered: one car broke down at Calais
- Winning object brought last year : A Flymower
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Re: Our Steed
Have faith in the old war-horse. Old Mongolian Proverb says:"A donkey that carries me is worth more than a horse that kicks me"
The fact that we are basing our entire trip on a van we bought off E-bay without seeing it is irrelevant.
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Pictures of Our (hopefully) Trust Steed
Here's a couple picture of our trusty steed:
$1000 on ebay. Life is grand, and so was our car.
Welcome to Team Hi Jet Set San
Welcome to our rally team. London to Mongolia in a 1L Daihatsu Hi Jet. That's the basic premise. The implementation, a little more complicated. Come take a look at where we're planning on going.While we are all boy scouts, round the world travelers and generally not always foolish, on this trip we are taking a total lack of preparation as our guideline. We still have our motto: "don't get dead" but everything else is up to fate.
http://www.teamlandyacht.com/preparation.html
Christian Buss
Research Associate
Susquehanna International Group, LLP
christian.buss@sig.com
415-403-6511
Monday, April 17, 2006
Welcome from Our Chinese Outsourcers: Welcome HiJetSet San
Welcome to HiJet Set San. Most happiness in our welcomings of bright happy futuremaking in driving pleasure. London most auspicious in its departure of sunshine-making funsters on epic discovery journeying. You will now be most grand taking blue route making for highest happiness in the travelling companions to mongolia, land of yak.The Official Blog of Team Hi Jet Set, lead diplomats of the Hi Jet Set Lifestyle. We're bringing western decadence to the desert. We are your Pashtouns of the near east and we promise to take you along in our 1988 Daihatsu Jet Sets as we barrell in velour splendor from London to Mongolia
Links
Previous Posts
- Mongol Rally Pictures Are Up
- Left Mongolia, arrived Kazachstan...our trips gone backwards
- Onwards to Mongolia
- Novosibirsk to Nowheresiberia
- Irkutsk - but what would you like to eat?
- Sent to outer Siberia
- The late night
- Ekatarinenburg
- Prague to Moscow
- Meanwhile in Amsterdam
Archives
- 2006-04-16
- 2006-04-23
- 2006-04-30
- 2006-05-21
- 2006-06-11
- 2006-06-18
- 2006-07-16
- 2006-07-23
- 2006-07-30
- 2006-08-06
- 2006-08-13
- 2006-08-20
- 2006-08-27
