Wacky races to Mongolia

What do you have planned for your summer holidays? Jetting off to a warmer climes? Relaxing on a beach with a cocktail?

How about a six-week driving holiday with a difference?

Henry May, 27, Alexa Kasim, 29, Jonathan Mclellan, 26, and Jamie Gibson, 26, all from Aberdeen, are setting off tomorrow on a journey that will take them across a third of the world – in a Fiat Doblo van.

The group, aka The Adventure Collectors, are taking part in the Mongol Rally. Set up in 2004, it takes place in the form of a car rally starting principally at the Goodwood Circuit and ending in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

Although originally involving just six cars, today nearly 300 teams start from the UK and various other locations throughout Europe.

The rally is often described as the greatest adventure in the world, primarily due to the sheer length of the journey (often more than 10,000 miles) and wacky rules (vehicle engines must be below 1.2litres).

Medical student Henry was the person who first became aware of the rally.

“Late last year I saw a video about the rally, and I tried to think of three stupid people who would be up for it,” he said.

“Jonathon, Jamie and Alexa were the first people who came to mind. I didn’t expect them to take it seriously, but I got a text message back from them saying ‘booked’ and it was all go.”

Having signed up, the Adventure Collectors set about finding a suitable vehicle for the 10,000-mile trip. 

While a Range Rover, Mitsubishi L200 or a Toyota Hilux may seem like the most sensible option for a trip that will go through desert heat as well as Siberian climates, the team decided to go for a blue Fiat Doblo. 

Why?

“I’m sure that’ll be a question we ask ourselves when we break down in Uzbekistan for the fourth time,” said Henry, laughing.

“There’s no back up or support of any kind, no set route and no guarantee you will make it to the finish line. 

It’s not a race, there’s no prize for finishing first and the teams who don’t quite make it usually have the best stories.

“There are not actually many cars that can hold four people and all of their stuff comfortably and do it all with a 1.2-litre engine. It was between a Doblo and a Renault Kangoo, and the Doblo was available.

“We picked it up in Glasgow in January, and I believe the previous owner died of old age. Hopefully it’s not an omen.

“The organisers want you to do the trip in the most unsuitable vehicle you can find. At the same time we don’t want to break down in Belgium, and have to go home before we’ve even really started. It has happened to other teams, which is really disappointing when you’ve spent six months planing the trip.

“Dobby’s not too bad, she’s got through her MoT, and has some spanking new tyres, so we’re quite confident she’ll make it.

“That’s about all we’ve done preparation wise. The organisers frown on you putting too much effort into getting the car ready, the novelty is getting the car there in one piece. We’re going through deep rivers, but we aren’t taking specialist car snorkels or anything, we’re just packing a lot of hope.

“Much of our route is off-road and our car is little more powerful than a lawnmower so it should be an unforgettable journey.”

None of the group has done any long-distance driving, so the trip is no doubt a little daunting. Of course the easiest route from Europe is to drive up into Russia, along the border line, and then dip into Mongolia.

But the Adventure Collectors don’t do anything the straightforward way.

“We have decided to go the hard way. You can’t really go any further in six weeks, it would be difficult to fit more miles in,” said Henry.

The team will cover 20 countries. Starting in Prague, they will plunge south through Slovakia and Hungary to the beautiful Transylvania region in north-west Romania, and on to Bulgaria to Istanbul, closing the European leg of the adventure.

They’ll then thunder south-east across the length of Turkey to the Iraq border. After the novelty of visiting Iraq’s premier amusement park at Rawandiz, they’ll head to the Iranian border, before driving north-east toward Central Asia and the Turkmenistan border.

From here, they’ll continue north to the Uzbekistan border, on to Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Siberia, before heading south-east toward the Mongolian border.

So they have the car, and the route set, but Henry admits that the closer they get to setting off, the more complicated things have become.

“We need eight visas. We’d budgeted £600, but they’ve come in at about £1,200,” he said.

“After the Iraq/Iran border we need a visa for Iran. That was difficult because we kicked their embassy out of the UK recently, so we had to get our agents to go and get them for us. We need one for all the “stans”, and then Russia and Mongolia.

“In the last week we’ve decided to divvy the countries up between us and go away and find out a little bit about each of them. But each time we do it comes up with news about militants, and wars; it turns out a lot of these countries don’t like each other very much.

“There are landmines, and borders getting closed at short notice because of countries falling out with each other, so there’s a lot of politics to take into consideration.

“You can’t keep track of it all, you just have to hope for the best when you get there. Every time we Google it, it makes us not want to go. The foreign office have a lot of concerns about different parts of the trip too, but never mind.

“To be honest, we’re all quite naive to it all, which is probably the best way to approach it.”

Ignoring all of the potential political issues, Henry has already picked out potential highlights of the trip.

“The Transalpina highway through the Carpathian Mountains in Romania is meant to be stunning so I’m really looking forward to that,” he said.

“There’s somewhere in Turkmenistan called the Gates of Hell. It’s not as bad as it sounds; in 1971, some geologists found a pocket of gas and set fire to it, thinking it would burn off in two or three days. It’s still burning today, it’s just a big flaming pit. So we’re going to camp there one night.

“The Tunnel of Death at Anzob in Tajikistan is meant to be out of this world. It’s a three-mile hole through the mountains, with no light, a river running through it, and it’s full of diesel fumes. It sounds like it lives up to its name.”

So how is Henry feeling about roughing it in the Doblo?

“Our plan is to sleep in the car and camp where we can. We haven’t fully thought it through to be honest when it comes to the super hot, and super cold, but there might be times when we have to sleep in accommodation,” he said.

“I’ve bought a sleeping back that is fine for temperatures to -1C, which is good because I’ll be able to use it when I get back to Aberdeen.”

Thanks to support from Taqa Bratani, the Doblo is now wrapped with its own special design, and should Dobby make it all the way to Mongolia, that won’t be the end of the road for it.

“The rally organisers take the car off you at the end and it goes into an auction where the money raised goes to charities in Ulaanbaatar,” he said.

The Adventure Collectors are raising money for Children’s Hospice Association Scotland (Chas), and the Lotus Children’s Centre. You can follow their adventure at www.adventure collectors.com

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