Day 41: purgatory

The Russia-Mongolia border. Customs. 'You don't sound too wound up about the whole thing, so that's good.' Andy, one of the rally organisers, is on the phone, referring to our reaction at being held by customs until we pay $,2000 tax to bring the car into the country.

Indeed, we are quite mellow now, because Andy and the Adventurists were straight on the case to sort it out. Go team. But 20 minutes ago I had them being buried neck-deep in the Gobi desert, giant marmots gnawing raw meat from their twisted faces, as I poked at their eyes with our lucky wolf's claw.

'Loving the blog,' says Andy.



The day started bright enough. We wake up with the rising sun, to discover that the Russian border, our home for the night, is in the middle of yet more beautiful hills, with more snow-capped mountains in the distance. Birds of prey are circling above our heads. We eat super-noodles and drink coffee, propelled by the caffeine into a laughable game of hacky-sack. There's an ace toilet. All is good.



Soon a load of Russians and Mongolians show up to queue for the border too. We've foolishly left a car's length between us and the one in front, and watch incredulous as a bloke performs a protracted 15-point turn to wedge his 4x4 into the tiny space. Utterly pointless. Foreigners, eh.

It soon opens and we're through in a couple of hours. It's relatively painless, and we're just excited to be getting on to Mongolia. We drive out into what seems like no-man's land - things turn barren immediately, and we drive 20km seeing only the occasional truck. Where's the entry border? We pass a final checkpoint signalling the end of Russia, whereupon we get an immediate taste of our new home - the road goes from being a smooth strip of tarmac one side of the gate, to a shitty bumpy car-pummelling dirt track on the other.

This bumps along for 7km, before we pull up to the entry border. We're queuing behind a few Russian trucks. 'Welcome to Mongolia!' says a cheery soldier. Very mellow. He takes me to sort out some car documents. 'Change money?' That doesn't normally happen. As usual we've no idea what the exchange rate's supposed to be, so I take his offer of 1,000 tugrug to $1.

Inside a shed there's a bloke watching TV on a black-and-white set so shit he'd get more entertainment out of watching a microwave. 'One dollar,' he says. What for? 'Vehicle decontamination.' This involves driving through a small pool of filthy stagnant water - which seems more like vehicle recontamination. Steve asks whether they offer a full valet service. By now it's not the outside of this car that's carrying the virulent disease.

I give him a dollar. He tells me to drive round the decontamination tank. I like his style. I wonder how much I owe him for not giving me a cheeky hand-job. 'Change money?' This is weird. We'll need more than $100-worth, so I take his offer of 1,100 tugrug to $1.



Our passports are stamped immediately. 'Welcome to Mongolia' says the girl behind the desk. This could be the easiest border crossing ever. It's all pretty mellow: there's a few kids hanging around the office, one of whom seems to be the handler for the sniffer dog. It's a new approach to 'bring your spawn to the office' day.

We do our vehicle document bit, and get asked to sit down on a row of plastic seats by the wall. So we do. We wait. And we wait. And we wait. A little man in a suit beckons us into his office. 'Change money?' We've got plenty of money now, so we turn down his offer of 1,200 tugrug to $1.

We wait. And then they close for lunch.

It's all fairly mellow round here, so we decide to wander out of the compound to get some grub. The guard at the gate asks us where we're going. To the kafe. Ok. Brilliant.

The town isn't so much a town as a settlement. Nothing but a handful of concrete bungalows dotted about, with the odd white wall covered in spray-painted words like 'shop' and 'kafe'. A guy shows us into a building. It's basically someone's kitchen, full of women and raw meat. If only sex were on sale too it'd be ideal. It actually looks like someone's house. The weirdest thing is that the girl from the passport desk is in here, sitting at the table next to her mum.

They show us to the other room, which is full of beds and a table. There's no choice or anything, they just bring us bowls of dumplings. An old woman comes over and asks if we want chi. Yes please. Then she goes over to a bucket full of milk and asks if we want it. We don't want it. She ladels it into the chi. Oh. 'Mama,' she says.

We eat loads of dumplings, and then go to pay. Comes out at $18. Jesus Christ. These Mongolians know how to screw people. At least people who they know are stuck at customs.

Back at the office, I ask a dodgy-looking bloke what's going on. This is where he drops the bombshell about the $2k tax. We don't share enough common language to discuss it. All I know is it's not true. One girl here speaks a little English. She tells me we have to pay, and to call the rally people. 'Wait in the car please,' she says. There's little in that request to suggest the wait will be another 24 hours.

This is the point at which my mind starts to fill with the image of kidnapping a load of clever young entrepreneurs, burying them up to their necks in sand and unleashing ferocious beasts upon their features. Nice marmot. Then we have a nap, and I wake up feeling a bit better. I recall the logic of the trip - to trust stuff and watch it resolve itself. I look at Pete, the nodding dog, and notice his head is nodding, ever-so-slightly, even though the car isn't moving. I decide to call the Adventurists instead of killing them. I speak to Lamorna, who immediately tells me to ring someone who'll sort everything out. Ideal.

I call and a dude called Aruka says he can sort it. Minutes later Andy's on the phone, reassuring us that they're on the case and that they'll have us through tomorrow morning at the latest. We'd expected it to take a while, so this is all no biggie.



We're not moving, so Steve takes the opportunity to tinker more with the rear suspension, taking the springs out again to repack them, filling them with bits of hardboard. A Mongolian kid shows up and watches intently through the fence. He's ace. His name is Boldbaatr, he lives in the village, and he already has a handshake that can have a grown man whimpering. He becomes Steve's little helper, running to find stones that Steve can use to jack the car up.



Towards the evening we spot an odd-looking vehicle in the distance, just pulling into the compound. It's an ambulance covered in stickers, clearly a Mongol Rally vehicle. It's driven by two Germans, Martin and Paul. They're joined by a couple, Greg and Karmel, who are driving a battered Daihatsu 4x4, which looks like it's been through the ringer.

We give them the lowdown on what's happening, and once they go through the paperwork bit we settle down for an evening in the car compound. This means creating a sesh. Steve and I wander out to grab some vodka from the shop. This gives us such a great taste of Mongolia - stooping through a tiny doorway into the darkness, pushing on a big wooden door and stepping into a large empty room with a bloke surrounded by small piles of groceries at the far end.



We return to find we've been locked out. Which puts us in the unusual position of having to break back into somewhere we've been detained. Being Mongolia, that's easy enough - just hop the fence - then it's on with a sesh. We start a fire, neck vodka, and get to know each other. Greg and Karmel have had a hell of a time - they suffered an almighty blow-out in the heat of Turkmenistan, which flipped their Daihatsu and sent it flying 30-feet off the road. It sounds horrific - Greg had to pull her out all bloodied and, as he says, make sure she was ok before he could start getting photos.

The beautiful upshot is the good that came from it. The accident led to them spending three days with a Turkmen family, Greg off having a laugh with the boys, Karmel expriencing what it's like to be a woman in these countries.

The German guys are classic, and they've had a hell of a rally, taking in everything from dodgy dealings with patchy Ukranian hookers, to meeting the dog-fighting champion of Kazakhstan, and staying with a family in Kyrgystan who slayed a lamb in front of them before feeding them the whole thing, including its balls and, much to our amusement and Paul's continued dismay, the arse-fat.

This rally is brilliant - everyone has had a mad time, and each story is completely different. It allows for myriad different experiences, from the extreme to the beautifully minor. What I hadn't expected was people doing the rally as part of a wider trip - both the Germans and Greg and Karmel are going on afterwards, to China and Oz.



The night winds up with us performing our first live music since Dortmund. Everyone has a good time, depsite the fact we keep forgetting everything, and it all reaches a glorious crescendo with the improvised magic of the Arse-fat Blues.



Then we sleep, outside the car, on the concrete. It's fucking cold. The RAF sleeping bags do us proud, despite the near freezing temperatures. All being well, we'll be out in the morning.