A new note from Seth: as part of the new site I am going to start moving some of the old posts from the Mongol Rally over, they will be post dated but will live on the front page for a few days. I figured I would start with this wandering, in hopes that it may spur the promised "rest of the story".

Note from Seth: We have been hearing rumors for quite some time that Pat was working on the mother of all posts recounting his adventures at the Kazakhstan and Russian border. I think more than a few people had given up hope. Then out of nowhere comes the first installment. That's right, the first, I have been promised the next installment by the new year. I must say Pat did a heck of job on this post and I, for one, thoroughly enjoyed reading it. If you wish to get a little background and our perspective first, I would suggest reading the following posts, A Change of the Guard from Kiev and Its Going To Get A lot Worse Before It Gets Worse from the border. I fully recommend a cozy chair and a big cup of coffee before starting in. Enjoy and thanks Pat for the post. Seth

Things have been a bit hectic since I've been home, and thus getting my post up about the "border incident" has been harder than actually navigating my way across Kazakhstan. However, I've finally forced myself to post after having to recite the story about 1 kajillion times. I told Seth I would have this up 2 weeks ago, and when he questioned me again a week later I told him, "You can't rush perfection" (Which is just a more poetic way of saying "I'm being lazy"). Then of course I had to take a few days off to mourn the death of my hero Mr. Steve Irwin (Included is a pic of me in Khaki in honor of the Croc Hunter {note from Seth: I have yet to receive the alleged photo}). Anyway, I finally sat down and after checking my e-mail 247 times I wrote the whole damn story down, so enjoy...

Before I delve into it, I just want to say thanks to everyone who showed their concern and offered their assistance, sorry if I freaked anybody out too much.

Adventure #1
I suppose this all started with an e-mail I received before boarding my plane to Moscow. Seth wrote me saying that our rendezvous in Saratov Russia was not going to happen as planned, as they had been delayed with, what else, border issues. He asked that I try to find my way to Kiev, Ukraine after landing in Moscow. I was a bit pessimistic about my chances of finding a flight to meet them, especially since the airport in Moscow and most of the people working there were designed in conjunction with one-another to "suck really bad." I stuck out like the proverbial injured stubby digit, and attracted the attention of an undergrad from Texas A&M who was in Moscow on his abroad semester. He seemed relieved to talk to someone from the U.S., and as he spoke fluent Russian it worked out for me quite nice as well. He directed me to a woman who could help me get a ticket, and after really pissing her off by asking questions in English, she directed me to another woman who seemed to have taken some heavy sedatives a few minutes prior to me arriving at her ticket window. Fortunately the Russian Sloth spoke a bit of English, and eventually I purchased a ticket to Kiev, which conveniently departed about ten minutes after I bought the ticket. In a bit of a panic, I let it be clear to Slothy that she had better get me on the plane or I would be a much larger annoyance to her than I had already been. She led me through some lines, pushed me through some gates, I may have even taken a ride on that trippy boat from Willy Wonka's chocolate factory... I dunno, it was kinda a blur, all I know is that I got on the plane just as they were closing the door (I was lucky, the plane had been delayed because they had to reattach the wing and the glue took longer to dry than they had anticipated). In the end, I had spent about 1 hour in Moscow, and in no time I was in Kiev meeting up with Seth and Dom who seemed a bit surprised to see me so soon, or at all for that matter. Despite it being complete luck that I had gotten there, I got a little full of myself pretending as if my arrival in Kiev had something to do with my savvy skills at traveling internationally.

My first adventure was over and I thought I had come out no worse for the wear, but after inspecting my passport I realized that the Slothinator had led me through a customs line at one point where they stamped my visa, nullifying one of my entries. This was partly their fault, and I suppose partly mine (though it's taken a while for me to admit that), because if you travel through an international airport you don't necessarily need a visa for that country, and if you spend less than four hours there you definitely don't need a visa. Seth, Dom, Vaughn, and I discussed the potential visa issue; I now needed to get back into Russia two separate times with a visa that may no longer have 2 entries. We decided to wait for the Russian border to ask the guards there if the visa was no longer valid, and since that would not happen for a few days yet we all let the issue fall by the wayside a bit as there were constantly more pressing matters to deal with along the way. Later on at the Russian border, I asked a seemingly helpful, pleasant, English-speaking guard if the visa stamp from the airport (which had an airplane on it) nullified one of my entries. He looked at the times of my entry and exit in the airport, and reported back to me that it was simply a transit stamp and that I would be fine for another entry. Now I don't want to suggest that we were naive enough to fully trust a Russian soldier, but at that time it was exactly what we wanted to hear and it made it a bit easier to rationalize pushing on and deal with any potential problems later. In hindsight this may not have been the best choice, but there was little we could do anyway and with the Kazakhstan desert looming ahead it was easy to again push this problem to the back of our minds.

Border Incident
I'm not sure how long it was from when we left Russia to when we attempted to get back in, but let's just say we're skipping ahead about two weeks. We've just come out of our second trip across the desolate expanses of the Kazakhstan desert, and we're nearing the border of Russia near the city of Barnoule. We decide to camp just before the border such that we can hit it early the next morning, and that night there's a bit of talk about my visa as the reality of the potential problem is suddenly very close. That morning we woke to a bitter cold (at least in relation to the desert) and were eager to get the cars rolling and the heat cranked. In no time we were at the Kazak side of the border, and things started out as smooth as possible (aside from me having to bump start Dom past the gate, which was more embarrassing than anything else... I got stuck in a rut and ended up more-or-less ramming his car a couple times instead of gently nudging it forward). We blew through the car registration process and soon found ourselves in passport control, awaiting our exit stamps from Kazakhstan so that we could go to the Russian side of the border and repeat the whole process.

We figured that if there was going to be a problem with my visa, it would happen here. Seth began with the charm, which both Dom and Vaughn followed up on so that when I stepped up to the window the stampy-guard was all smiles. She glanced at the passport quickly and looked up at me as her face registered the awkward frown I had become accustomed to at border crossings. I was sixteen when my passport photo was taken, and I had a buzz cut, a fat lip, and an odd arrangement of braces that make me look as if I'm missing my front two teeth. She looked quizzically back and forth between me and the photo, chuckled a bit to herself (which had also been a common reaction), then gave me a smile and a stamp while pointing the way to the exit.

No-Man's-Land is the term commonly used for the stretch of land between two border stations, each one varying in length, width, and amenities. This particular stretch happened to fall short on all three of these. The total area may have equaled roughly a football field, in the basic shape of an hourglass, harboring only a single gate in the middle operated by a single Russian guard. Before this gate laid the old passport control building for the Kazaks, and beyond it was the russian's border station. I've drawn a rough sketch below of this unclaimed, lawless territory that later became known as McLaughlistan.

Soon enough we passed through the middle-gate and were in passport control on the Russian side. Again, I went last so that maybe we could lull them into an oversight of any possible errors with my visa, though at this point we all seemed relatively confident I would get through. With my luck I got this tall blonde russian stampy-guard who seemed to belong in a Bond flick. A real ice queen, no smiles or chit-chat (not that we would be able to say much to one another anyway) and she looked as if she could kick my ass in about 2 seconds. She looked over the passport, the papers, and began typing away as if everything was normal, but just as she reached for the magical stamp she stopped short. With a puzzled look she showed me my passport, pointing to the visa and then to the two stamps already present. I looked as if I had no idea what she was talking about, inspected it a moment, and as if I suddenly realized what she meant I simply smiled and nodded my head. I handed it back to her assuring that it was okay, as if it were up to me somehow. Seth, Vaughn, and Dom were watching from behind me, and later we all agreed that after I gave it back to her there was a moment where it seemed as if she had bought it. Unfortunately she decided to consult her superior on the matter, and by doing so set in motion a chain of events that would lead to the creation of a new country, a human smuggling, drinking crappy vodka, and ultimately a journey that was almost as ridiculous as it was unbelievable.

What happened after the initial rejection is a bit hazy for me, and I'm sure each of us remember it a bit differently... however the basic notion that we might be royally screwed was shared by all. For a few hours I went back and forth with the guards, trying in vain to plead my story and finally trying to simply get someone to listen to me. I tried being angry, sad, confident, dejected, irate/crazy, depressed, angry again, apologetic for being so angry, angry again that this did not work, and desperately pitiful. I tried with my sunglasses on, sunglasses off, hat on, hat off, hat sideways, in a jacket, in a t-shirt, in my boxers, drunk, with a southern accent, and every combination of these possible. Okay, all I'm trying to say is that short of accosting a guard we tried everything and in the end they sent me packing, literally. The guys were asked to please move on with the cars, and I was asked to please go back towards the Kazak side of No-Man's Land. I gathered a few things from the car: camping stove, pasta, water, pringles, some clothes, sleeping bag, $240 dollars, and a few other basics. We all sorta looked at each other not really knowing what to say, because the only plan was that they would make some calls to the embassy and I would sit tight. It was a weird feeling for me and certainly for the guys. I didn't really know what was going to happen to me, and I think that because of this I was actually pretty indifferent about the whole situation. That is to say I surely was a wee bit concerned but this paled in comparison to what the guys were feeling, as my position was an easier one to be in than theirs. I could see in their faces the reality of leaving me behind was making them quite uncomfortable. On top of that, I knew they were also nervous at the prospect of having to call home to my cousin Carrie and tell her they lost me. Let's just say that if anyone could figure out how to reach through a phone and strangle someone at the other end, it would be Carrie (Carrie is great and very nice, but don't mess with her family). As we parted ways I gave them a smile and assured them I was going to be alright... obviously this was a complete lie.

I was escorted to the middle gate where the Russians left me as I crossed over toward the Kazak side. I walked with a purpose, as if I knew where I was going, so as not to give the impression to anyone watching me that I had no idea what the hell I was going to do (not that I had too many options). I scoped out an old abandoned building which I later found to be the old Kazak border station. I slipped into the main entrance but soon found the second set of doors to be locked. Stashing my bags there, I ran around the side of the building and found a side entrance. This connected to two rooms, one with a large metal door and a window overlooking the roadway between the two stations. The room was about 8 ft. by 10 ft. and there was a large metal latch on the door's inside. I pulled my gear inside, set up my sleeping bag, and pieced together a small stool out of some scrap bricks and a plank I found outside. The metal door locked with a large metal latch from the inside, giving me a safe place to retreat to. The window provided a lookout towards the traffic of people and cars going between the borders. The room was perfect for giving me a safe place to sleep and protect me from the elements, and I put a note in the window with the Bad Colonies logo on it that could be identified from outside if the guys came looking for me. Happy with my progress I sat down and ate my pringles, thinking of what next to do.

Unfortunately my room did not have HBO or a decent WiFi connection, so after half a can of pringles I decided I couldn't just sit around and wait. The Kazaks still did not know what had happened with me at the Russian side, so I thought I'd see what I could find out from them. Their station was well lit and heated which were welcoming amenities as it started to get dark, cold, and windy. I walked into the station and immediately drew the stares of three or four border guards. Their body language told me they knew something was up without me saying a word, and a few minutes later I was greeted by a young guard who spoke some broken English. We hashed out the details of my problem quickly, and the younger female guard who had originally stamped me through was brought over to be included. Eventually I realized that the error here was on her part, and they were not hesitant to let her know. Apparently before letting me through the border she has to make sure my Russian visa is valid. If it is not then they don't allow me to leave the country until I secure a valid visa. Now I felt bad for her because she was getting in trouble, when little did they know that I had laid on the old charm such that she would be so overwhelmed with my presence she would stamp away and let me through (Apparently the female Russian guards are immune to my charm). Other possibilities are that it was simply an oversight on her part, but I'm sure we can all agree that is probably the least likely of the two possibilities, more of a conspiracy theory than anything else. Whatever the reason, this leads us the the crux of this seemingly insignificant little hiccup in my visas- MAGICAL VISA STAMPS!!!

A semi-logical and rationale person may not see this problem as insurmountable. Obviously they made a mistake by letting me in, and seeing as they had recognized their mistake it would be a simple task to negate my entry stamp to allow me back into Kazakhstan to obtain the necessary documentation. Maybe they might even help me to seek out said documentation, seeing as I was in such an unusual predicament...

***PAUSE FOR LONG DEEP SIGH***
...so, as it turns out, these things aren't all that simple. You might be asking, as I did, why can't they just negate the stamp? They are the ones who issued it, they know who I was and where I went, they know they made a mistake, why not simply correct it so that we could all be happy? Well, I was never given a good answer to this question, but after observing their behavior and reactions to such a request led me to only one conclusion... these stamps have some sort of magical power. Voiding a stamp must upset some sort of stampy-god who looks over the borders, and I'm guessing his wrath is not to be reckoned with. These stamps actually hold more authority than the officials who dole them out. Even the mere suggestion of changing my visa brought about a stern and poignant retort in the negative, with no amount of discussion as to why. At this point I was able to fully realize the depth of the shit I had stepped into.

Coming soon... The conclusion of Border Incident along with Adventure #2
(P.S.- "soon" is a relative term {note from Seth: don't hold your breath})

It has been an entire month since I made my triumphant return from Ulan Batar and I just barely went through the miniature mountain of video. I was creatively drawn after the website retweak and was less than optimistic about the quality of the footage we pulled. Its tough, when you are caught in the moment the last thing you want to do is stick a camera in someone's face. For a large portion of the trip, the cameras kicked around in the dust, grime, and trash at our feet in the Fiestavus. Its a miracle they survived, let alone captured a significant quantity of tape. Three days ago, I finally felt up to sifting through the 15 hours of Mongol Rally. I found a trail of evidence reminding me just how out there and unique the trip was. I pulled 6 minutes from the mini mountain into the below video. The meat of it is made up of 3-4 second clips loosely hobbled together in no particuliar order. Most of you are American, so this style will work well with your TV inspired attention spans. Its a quick representation of the rally in my mind, complete with an adequate amount of disorder. All the tapes are getting shipped to Harbinger Productions tomorrow so this will be it for new vids for awhile.

The video is set to "I will be home soon" by Sven Curth. This song, beyond all others, became the theme song for the Fiestavus. We chose to listen to it at the worst of times and the best. If you have not already, please check out Sven's CD me and JIM....

I am heading off to Italy on Saturday for a quick trip and will report back on the journey. Remember Hank III on Oct. 6th in Boston, we'll see you there. - ciao ciao Seth

Check out all the currently uploaded videos from the rally here

Losing the Seat was a tough blow to take. I felt really bad that after surviving the hand clutch for so many miles, a relatively silly electrical issue landed her in the woods (NOTE - it is a fact that all electrical issues are silly). By this point in the trip, I was really wrapped up in getting both cars to UB and probably spent longer than I should have trying to revive the Seat (another NOTE - it is a fact the the Seat would have made it had Dominic and Vaughn not picked up all the tools before she was running).

It was nearing 9 pm on Aug. 20th when the three remaining BCMC members piled in to the one remaining car. We assumed the border closed at 8 pm, giving us under 23 hours to cover the 700 or so miles. We could not afford a single mishap and would have to push the poor Fiestavus as hard as she could handle. All of us were working on very few hours of sleep since leaving the Kaza border, very safe, very rally.

I took the first driving shift, secretly hoping that the roads would get better soon. Unfortunately, I ended up with a continuous trail of broken dirt roads and I can attest that swerving through potholes while dozing off is not fun. Of course at this point we had no choice but to carry on and I did my best to keep the pace up without destroying to blue beast. Finally in the early hours of the morning, I threw in the towel after sleep driving for more time than I would like to readily admit. Dominic took the reins and the roads became paved if not better. It wasn't all positive for Dominic as the dirt roads were replaced by a thick engulfing fog. We pressed on as I drifted off to sleep in a tight ball in the tightness of the backseat. Over the next few hours, I awoke occasionally to the same fog and the same muttering of frustration from the driver. Dom had his fill and retired to the backseat as the fog broke and the sun rose near Irkutsk. I moved into navigator position and Vaughn took the Captain's seat.

We negotiated our way around Irkutsk and quickly started our first mountain climb of the journey. The road was a beautiful trek through the Siberian woods with tight corners and smooth pavement. I suspect it would be a blast to drive in a car that was not falling apart, undersized, and filled with three stinky ralliers and stuff for three stinky ralliers. I could feel the car groan on the uphills and moan as the momentum wanted to carry her straight through the corners. Alas ole Fiestavus descended down the mountain pass and the beauty of Lake Baikal in the wee hours of the morning over took us.

Lake Baikal in the morning, try to find where the lake ends and the clouds begin.
About 300 km from the border, we stopped for gas and a driver switch feeling pretty confident that we were in the clear. After 8000 miles, why were we so naive I will never know. As I returned from a nature break, I saw Vaughn peering under the car and heard him say take a look at this. The smell hit me first then I saw the rapidly growing puddle of precious petrol forming below the car. Dominic and I went to work trying to diagnose and remedy the source of our spill. At some point, a man in a suit wandered over and started lending advice. He disappeared for awhile, returning with some rubber, screws, and a bit of metal plate. Then he pointed out a nice pit to drive the car over for easier access. Once in place we had a good view of the 1 inch crack that had formed in the tank. I took the finger in the dyke position and Dominic worked with the suited Russian to find a fix. A bit of caution, when gasoline reaches your armpit it really burns, a really really deep burn. Finally the guy in the suit had enough of our feeble attempts and jumped in the pit. He packed the crack with soap, put the rubber over it, the metal over that, and screwed the whole assembly into the tank. The leak stopped, we thank him profusely, and departed.

After only being stopped by the cops once and an otherwise uneventful trip, we pulled up to the border at 5:15 pm on the day our Russian visas expired. There was a chaotic sprawl extending from the gates, a mix of log trucks, Ladas, and folks of foot. No one seemed be going anywhere, other than the mobs of people trying to negotiate a ride across the border in the Fiestavus. Vaughn went to the border to try to expedite our transfer across and I continued to fight off the lurkers from forcefully getting into the car. Soon Vaughn returned with instructions to go to the front, keep the windows up, and not talk to anyone. We inched the car to the front as the border guard yelled at the other vehicles to move back. The Fiesta actually bumped off a few cars, but no one seemed to care. We crossed through the gate at 5:45 pm, the last car to leave Russia. We had made it out with 15 minutes to spare as the border closed at 6 pm. We later found out that most teams waited between 12 and 20 hours to cross, Vaughn's negotiating saved us from Russian prison.

While waiting in line for passport control, we noticed a white Fiesta a couple of cars ahead of us. On further inspection, we realized not only was it a rally car but also the very same rallier that we purchased the Fiesta from back in England. Unreal. The lads in the Fiesta had been at the border all day, got bored and drank a bottle of vodka. Needless to say, they were happy to see us.


We made it through the border in fairly decent time, easily attributable to the fact it was end of shift. After a call to Jen, we were off to Ulan Bataar. While zipping down relatively decent roads, we walloped a pothole caving in the rear driver side suspension. Not to long thereafter, Vaughn started complaining that the brakes were going soft. A quick inspection revealed that the fluid reservoir had cracked and would no longer hold fluid or pressure. This essentially equaled no brakes. We opted to stay in Darkhaan and finished the trip the following day.

I was more than happy to take the final driving duties of the trip. At this point, we were braking utilizing the hand brake. Of course after the disappearing wheel incident the Fiesta was down to just one drum brake. You should know that one drum brake operated by hand is a poor method of stopping a vehicle loaded with three stinky ralliers and the stuff of three stinky ralliers.

The Mongolian countryside was absolutely amazing and really made me regret the decision to travel through Siberia instead of across Mongolia.

A remote Ger with solar power and a satellite dish.

The Fiestavus in the Mongolian countryside, at this point she leaked gas like mad, had no brakes, no suspension in the right rear, and a wheel that could fall off at any moment. Just the way to finish the rally.

We reached UB in timely fashion and played in traffic. In true Asian form, the traffic was utter chaos with plenty of horns being utilized. I subscribe to the crappiest vehicle has the right of way. Luckily in most cases, the Fiesta won this distinction with little troubles. Handy since quick stops were impossible at this point. Finally we located Dave's, parked the Fiesta, and ended the longest road trip of my life. Reflections of the rally to come soon... Seth

So there we were bombing across Siberia. I could be a little off, but I think we had about 36 hours to drive 1000k to get out of the country. Doesn't sound like much, but consider that our daily average was only around 300k. I'd been in high spirits since being told by the Benz mechanic, "You are like Russian." Though they would never dream of driving a car with a hand clutch they were obviously quite impressed with our handiwork.

Somewhere along the way the roads went to crap, which really shouldn't be much of a surprise by now. 50 mile stretches of dirt roads with massive potholes everywhere became more frequent. It had rained the night before and many potholes were partially filled with water. During one of our leg stretching stops Seth commented that he'd considered driving into a pothole(yes, an entire car will fit in one) just to get some mud on the Fiesta. I chuckled as I'd had the same thought earlier. Later in the day I exercised a little poor judgement and swerved to splash up a little Siberian mud. We were going a little to fast and it was deeper than I'd thought. Our cargo flew all over the place; a cacophany of pots, pans, and jerry cans. Vaughn didn't know I'd done it on purpose andwas visibly irritated. We came out the other side with the Seat sputtering. We made it a few more yards and came to a halt. The Fiesta pulled up behind after following us through the mud. I tried to start the Seat and she just wouldn't go. After a few moments the engine did catch and I revved it right up for maybe 5 seconds and it died as soon as I took my foot off the gas. Clearly something was amiss and it was time to get out the tools.

This is where the Seat died - note the unfortunate lack of fresh mud despite my efforts

Fiddling around for a little bit the engine reeked of gasoline we reasoned that we just weren't getting spark anymore. A German couple in an old Lada SUV pulled up and cametothe same conclusion. So off came the distributor cap and clearly the contacts were shot. Fried even. We tried fitting the Lada distributor on to little avail. This really should've made us think of other possibilities, but we were exhausted and under the gun. The Germans told us that the next garage was 70k up the road and recommended we tow it there. We shook hands, they hopped in their car, and we went back under the hood.

Our main plan of attack, precious hours slipping away, was to rebuild the contacts out of any bits of metal we could bend and glue together. With the fork from my mess kit I created a new contact and got the engine to catch a few times. Strangely though, exhaust gases came puffing out of the carb. Maybe that means something, maybe not. We probably should have started to look elsewhere, but to hear the engine fire a few times with my fork doing the work really was something. We really thought we could get it going. I started to make the fork fix permanent with epoxy, and Seth wandered off to mother nature's call.

With nothing to do but wait for the epoxy to dry I began to pack up the tools and things. I've been a field engineer for 5 years now, and I know that's bad mojo. Never pack up before a machine's running. Seth (former field engineer) came out of the woods, saw the area tidied up and immediately asked, "Why isn't it running yet?" I put the part it in and gave it a crank. Nothing. Guess I may have jinxed it after all.

We'd been several hours now on the side of the road. Shadows were quickly growing longer now. We three huddled for a discussion of what to do. Vaughn reasoned we could tinker until 8 pm and just make it to the border by 4pm the next day. But clearly there was other work to be done in the event we'd have to leave the car. Seth got back under the hood while Vaughn and I readied the car for ditching.

Mongol Rally stickers, Bad Colonies references, telephone numbers of ralliers, embassies and other friends, the photo of my grandmother that has fascinated people the whole trip through, anything that mentioned a website or a name, all of it was removed. Fear not faithful supporters, you're identities are safe with us. No one will ever find you.

Off to the cemetary

8 o'clock arrived, the only sound from the Seat's engine was of a dying battery from ceasless cranking. She never fired again. The Fiesta started towing. A couple of miles up the road we found an off shoot that was shielded from view by trees and large mounds of dirt. We pushed the Seat to her final position. I popped of the VIN plate and utterly destroyed the chassis number with a rubber mallet and a prybar. The engine number would've required partial disassembly to mutilate and we hadn't the time. Oh well, it was Siberia, and a fairly unpopulated part of it at that. Vaughn pulled the license plates and Seth set up a scarecrow of sorts to deter any lookie-loos using the Chair-in-a-bag and some of Patrick's dirty left behind clothes. We posed for a quick photo, piled into the Fiesta, and motored off in desparate need of smooth roads and no vehicular hassles of any kind. Fat chance of that.

Seat Marbella 8.20.2006 R.I.P.
Guess I'll be celebrating two anniversaries on that day from here on out

Best of luck to anyone who lays claim to the Seat. She'll be a tricky beast to drive. It took Vaughn and I 1,500 miles to work out the feel of the clutch and the communication necessary to drive in any traffic situation. In the end it's disappointing to have put so much effort into keeping that car on the road only to leave it behind. With more time or on a different route, the Seat may have made it all the way. Then again, a one liter car isn't supposed to be able to make it. Which was the whole point of the rally in the first place. We've had opportunity to savor both the bitter and the sweet.

The drive across Siberia may be the only time I've ever made a decision based purely on time and money...and threat of imprisonment. I think we chose the riskiest of the options at hand after parting with Patrick. The urgent look on the Russian border guard's face when we rolled up behind a line of traffic 45 minutes before closing time confirms it. But that's another story.

dominic

None of us were feeling very good about the situation, we had no official confirmation on Patrick's location and were staring down a deadline with serious repercussions. Our Russian visas expired on Aug 21st and the US Consolate had stated in no uncertain terms that we should be out of the country. Jail was the likely option. It was 2 in the afternoon on Aug. 18th when we finally decided we could not wait any longer.

We had 76 hours to leave Russia and three choices;

1. Drive through Siberia and enter Mongolia through the Northern border.
2. Enter the Western border of Mongolia.
3. Fly home from Barnaul, Russia.

It was decided that the Western border would be too difficult with the Seat's hand clutch and there was a significant chance that a car would be lost along with the $3500 deposit. Flying home was never really an option and chances of getting a flight on time were questionable. That left driving through Siberia, 76 hours to go 3000 km. In order to be successful, we needed to drive long days and have minimal problems. Luckily we were driving highly dependable one liter cars that had withstood 2 weeks of constant abuse in Kazakhstan. I, for one, was worried.

We rolled away from the border, missing one driver and all feeling the sadness that comes with leaving one of your team. I had the reins of the Fiesta, Dominic had the driving portion of the Seat while Vaughn was holding down the clutch duties. We no longer could switch off driving duties when the hours grew long. About two hours into the journey, we got word from Anne at the embassy that Patrick was in Kazakhstan getting a train to Astana and then a flight out. We were all relieved and now could concentrate on getting out of Russia.

Dusk in Western Siberia

We had made good time and were well into the Trans Siberian highway by 2:30 am. As I descended a hill, I felt a bit of a twitch from the back end of the Fiesta followed by some strange noises. And then while traveling at 60 MPH, the wheel fell off of our trip literally. The back end dropped and the car was engulfed in a flurry of sparks. I fought the strong pull that comes from metal to tarmac contact, keeping the car on the road and out of the surrounding marsh. Finally the car came to a rest on the side of the road while I tried to flash down the Seat. I stepped out of the car shaken and sure the Fiesta's rally days were through. The left rear tire had pulled off with the hub and was now resting on the brake drum and the strut support. We started searching for the tire. It was around 40 F and I was in flip flops. We fianlly decided to get some sleep and continue the search in the morning. I fell asleep in my hobbled Fiesta, knowing the prospects were slim.

My slumber was broken by the dull thud of a tire landing on the hood of the car. Upon inspection, we knew it was not something that we could fix ourselves. The bearings were shot and the drum was badly damaged. Dominic and Vaughn headed off to the next town for a mechanic and I stayed to prep the car for ditching. Given the time constraints that we were under, it was agreed that we would move on if a mechanic was not found by 11 am.

Fiestavus post disappearing wheel incident

What was left after the hub and wheel disappeared, notice the wear on the lower part of the drum where the car skidded from 60 mph to 0

I stripped the incriminating stickers, cleaned out the car, and prepared my gear for departure. I was about ready to knock the vin plates off when the cavalry came over the hill, the Seat and a very impressive looking tow truck.

Before I knew it the car was aboard the truck and I was crammed in cab with three mechanics. The level of English and the nature of the conversation led me to believe that these were not our typical mechanics. My suspicions were confirmed when we pulled into a Mercedes Benz dealership. As the Fiesta rolled into the shop amongst a host of high priced cars, I actually started to believe that the Fiesta would drive again. It was also obvious that they fully understood our time constraints. The lead guy proceeded with destructive disassembly while the rest of the crew gathered and continuously let us know how crazy we were. Shortly, Vaughn was off to the shop to pick up parts.

Vaughn returned with parts in hand. The lead mechanic moaned and groaned like a proper rally mechanic and in about two hours had the Fiesta lowered and running like a dream. They were adamant that the wheel would only make it another 1000 km. We had close to 2500 to do yet. They were so worried they made us promise to email them from UB. When asked how much, they refused to take any money. Instead Vaughn gave them the shirt off his back literally.

The Benz mechanics with Dom and I. Lead mechanic holding up the shirt. Notice how red I am from weeks in the desert.

It difficult to describe what these complete strangers did for us, they saved the Fiestavus from being abandoned and kept us on schedule to make the border. It was one of the most amazing parts of whole trip and I will always remember how great these Russians were. On the side of the Fiesta, earlier in the trip I had written a quote from a former Lakers' player, "Life like basketball, all round." The mechanics at the Benzo dealership have some good karma working for them and it seemed our luck was up. 48 hours to make the border - Seth

''But right now it seems the world's turned upside down, I got to hope that better times will come around, not going to stop and let the hard times drag me down, you know I'll be home soon'' - Sven Curth

For the bulk of the trip, we have utilized the Lily Tomlin quote, ''Its Going To Get A lot Worse Before It Gets Worse'' whenever the times were tough. Sadly, it has proved incredibly accurate in summing up our situation, we just did not know how bad it could get.

We awoke to another miserable day, but it wasn't raining. We all went to work trying to refit the clutch cable. After a few hours, it was brutally evident that our efforts were futile. We set the hand clutch up again with a few modifications to ease use.

The Dukes had left the night prior with our map and phrase book in tow. Luckily we are highly trained rally professionals with an amazing sense of direction. We turned left and started driving. For the first time in quite awhile we made decent time, reaching the Russian border outside of Semey just after dusk. Everyone was well worn so we decided to camp and hit the border first thing in the morning.

The wind blew and the rain fell and I got very little sleep.

Patrick breaking camp on the Russian border

We rose early and were to the border may 730 just in time for a shift change, one hour wait the guard announced. Par for course, we waited. Amazingly, he was relatively accurate in his prediction. We entered the border fiasco in good spirits, joking our way through the Kazakh side. They had already seen quite a number of rally teams and the novelty of the US passports seemed to quicken the pace. We arrived on the Russian side in good time and we were optmistic about reaching Barnaul in good time. Things were going well, Dominic was playing the insurance game, Vaughn was closing out his stamps, and I was admiring the class decor of the Russian customs booth. Unfortunately, the remaining BCMC member was not faring quite as well. Patrick was starting to draw a crowd of border guards, including the obligatory angry female guard. The attention was not completely unexpected. When Patrick flew to Kiev, he utilized one of his entries on his visa. Due to cost and time, we had purchased double entry visas for Russia and Kazakhstan. Basically, this means that when Kazakh stamped Patrick his visa was void and he had already entered Russia twice, voiding that visa as well. Kazakhstan should never have let Patrick out with his visa situation and now he couldn't get into Russia or Kazakhstan leaving him in limbo. We all felt that given the remote location of the border and our ability to dumbfound practically anyone with idiocy that we would be able to weasel across. However the more guards became involved the more bleak the situation became. We took another shot with the female guard utilizing an unheard of number of hand gestures and trying to look as sad as possible. She finally put her hat on and gestured for us to follow. I thought we were in the clear but then she walked straight by our cars and on towards the Kaza border. We quickly realized she was escorting Patrick off of Russian soil. With a bit of pleading, we were able to get some more time and let Patrick grab his gear. We were all a bit shocked and dumbfounded by the situation. Since we did not have an operational cellphone, there was very little that we could do at the border. We made sure Patrick had cash and all the important phone numbers, said our good byes and headed for the next not knowing if we would see Patrick again on this trip.

Luckily it was a short trip to the next city. Dom and I went to sort a phone and Vaughn went to work on the hand clutch. Things change upon crossing the Kz border, the people are less Asian, the towns are a bit more developed, and there are half a thousand cell phone stores. Luckily we chose the one with two young ladies that would bypass all the paperwork and hook two very raggedy looking Americans with a phone. I think we got extra points for wearing winter hats, which everyone seemed to enjoy laughing at. Listen, 50 F feels whole lot colder when you've sweltered away in 100 F in the desert for two weeks.

With phone in hand, we battled through the flock of street children that seemed intent on getting money from the extremely dirty fellows driving a broken Fiesta. They kept touching our feet and blessing themselves, one even hobbled after us for nearly half a mile. Dom was desparately trying to get help from someone at the US Embassy in Moscow to no avail. He got pointed toward the embassy in Kaza and finally reached someone who cared about Patrick's plight. Anne from the Embassy said, "So you don't speak Russian, you don't know where you are going, and your cars barely run, what are you doing?" Dom responds, "We're on the Mongol Rally." "Ahhh, ralliers." was the answer from Anne. She promised to go to work on the situation immediately. We found a sketchy roadhouse within 10 km of the border and I headed to update Patrick on our progress.

Its sort of like a Patrick Swayze movie - The Roadhouse

Not expecting to be able to make face to face contact, I wrote a note for Patrick. To try to get his spirits up I tagged the end with a "PS Russian women are still beautiful." I entered through the main entrance of the border with little hassles, just some random hand gestures and the typical dumbfoundingly idiocy. The anger female border guard found me near instanteously, I handed her the note to deliver to Patrick. She scanned it apparently showing her deft grasp of the written English language. Of course the only part she picked up on was the last line and she repeated, "Russian waaaameeen?" I figured I was in deep enough no reason to hide and read of the line. She turned as red as the Soviet flag and walked away towards Patrick. About a half hour later, I spot Patrick talking on a cell phone with a border guard nearby. It seems Patrick had stumbled upon two young ladies on the rally and had garnered their cell phone for use. He had then made contact with Anne at the US Embassy. Things didn't appear to be as bad as expected for Patrick, the Kazaks were taking good care of him and he was in good spirits. I headed back to the roadhouse feeling much better about the situation.

The girls and two other rally teams ended up at the roadhouse and things got a bit messy. It was late in the night when the drunk Russian Slava challenged me to the old handshake contest, in between bouts of heavily hitting on the girls. I stared him in the eyes and squeezed as hard as possible, luckily he relented stating, "You stronger, we arm wrestle." I quickly negiotated my way out knowing that no good could possibly come of this.

We woke up with hurting heads and the ring of our new cellie. Anne was on the other end with good news that a Russian visa was in the works and we should wait at the border for the official word. We all headed to the border and set up camp just outside the fence where Patrick could occasionally get access. Dom and I worked on the cars tweaking and cleaning while Vaughn refitted the hand clutch to near perfection. The day went on and on with no good news.

In McLaughlistan everything is wonderful, the insurance will cost you though

Finally at the end, Anne stated that the Russians could care less and our only chance was with a Colonel in Barnaul whose phone was busy all day. She also indicated that something had to happen on Friday because nothing would happen over the weekend. To further complicate matters, our Russian visas expired in 4 days and we were starting to push whether or not we could make it out of Russia on time. When asked what the repercussions would be, it was plainly stated that we should get out. We reluctantly left Patrick at 10:30 pm, formulating a plan to drive to Barnaul the following day to get the visa in person.

I arrived back at the border early the next morning while Dom and Vaughn sorted cash and more minutes for the phone. The Russian border guard hustled right over to me and stated coldly, "Patrick gone, you leave now." I couldn't get much more out of him, but did decipher that Patrick was in Kaza. I moved my rig a bit away from the border and waited for the others. When they arrived, Dom got Anne on the phone and she talked directly to the guards. The news was not positive, one said Patrick was in Kaza, one said he was in Russia, and no didn't said a thing. We decided we were waiting on the border until we knew exactly where Patrick was.

The Dukes graciously offered to give Andy and James a lift to Mongolia. With an happier air about the convoy, we motored on making good time through-out the day. We were fairly optimistic about our chances.

Fiestavus enjoying some down time in Central Kaz, all rejoice in her glory

Then with near perfect dramatic timing, the Seat went down with a broken clutch cable. Amazingly, it broke directly in front of a garage and predictably 4-5 Kazakhs were soon huddled over the car smoking and wildly suggesting ideas that none of us could understand. Unfortunately, what we needed was a new clutch cable and that was 120 km away.

After trying unsuccessfully to fit up an accelerator cable, I started looking at something a bit extreme, a passenger operated hand clutch. These cars are right hand drive but have an engine designed for left hand drive cars. As such the clutch is located on the left side on the engine, making a perfectly straight pull for the passenger. We found a near perfectly placed penetration to the interior to run the cable through. We used a piece of rebar, that Patrick had picked up a week earlier, for the lever.

Vaughn was designated ''Clutch Boy'' and the Seat was ready for its first go. To the amazement and enjoyment of all, the car lurched forward and off into the distance after only a couple of tries.

We drove until we reached Karragandy. A hasty campsite was located on the outskirts of town. We ate a feast of Kaza pasta gumbo and quickly drifted off to sleep beneath a sea stars.

I awoke in the morning to a bitter chill and a distinct lack of sunshine. For the first time in weeks, the sky was clouded over and the temperature was hovering in the high 50s. After spending two weeks in daily temperatures exceeding 100F, this cold snap was brutal for all of us.

We drove into town and located a garage. The mechanics were less than helpful but did point us towards the town bazaar where a clutch cable could be purchased. A few hours later, Dominic returned with two VW Golf clutch cables in hand. Another couple hours of fitting and testing and we were ready to roll. The clutch was stiff and had a much different feel but it worked.

Dominic doing the clutch cable fiasco dance

The Dukes had to be in Russia as soon as possible and were blazing a fairly fast trail. Our cars were taking a beating as a result. After one stop, we walloped a massive rock and snapped an exhaust support. Patrick and I quickly rigged the exhaust back in place but it rattled with vigor as we drove.

It started raining and grew mercilessly dark. It was then, in the worst weather of the trip in the dark of night, that the Seat's clutch went again. The actual clutch pedal was bending under the necessary foot pressure. We gave the Seat a tow to the nearest garage.

We were down, dirty, and sick of working on cars. The Dukes were eager to push on and it became evident that the convoy was on its last legs. In the driving rain, we said our final good byes and parted ways, the end of a good long partnership.

For the first time in three weeks, the bad colonies' cars were on their own. We settled the cars in along side a big truck. Dominic declared that he was drinking beer and not thinking about cars, all I could do was wholeheartedly agree.

There was a really dodgy looking concrete cafe next to the gas station that looked rather warm. We walked in and had a seat by a bunch of truck drivers drinking vodka. It felt incredible to be out of the cold and the rain, however frightening the reality of the situation was. We feasted on anything we could negiotate with hand signals. At a bit past midnight we settled into the cars for the evening.

After a solid couple days of R&R in Bishkek, the cars and crew were recharged and ready for another trip through Kazakhstan. On the way out of town, we hit the main bazaar which is aptly named. It is basically a whole lot of shipping containers filled with just about everything, from stereos to apples to funny looking elf slippers. Patrick and I purchased the latter. The border was only 10 or 20 miles away and in that time the first signs of a stomach bug began to propagate. Both James and I were hit at the same time and were forced into the worst imaginable position, using a gas station ''bathroom''. This is beyond bad and you are lucky enough that I will tell you all about it. Every time we stop, we eagerly search the premise in hopes of finding a Western style bathroom. Instead, we typically find the infamous ''hole in the ground''. This fine facility is generally contained in a shack with a tin roof and no windows. This means that you can't see a damn thing and its hot as hell, all complimenting the worst stench you could ever imagine. Its the ultimate insult to injury, first the food makes you sick, then the toilet elevates it.

We made it to the border and settled in for the anticipated fiasco on the Kazakh side. We quickly obtained stampy stampy (their own words) from the Krazystan guard and pulled forward to the Kazakh side. The guards were flying random hand gestures like they were in a Puffy video. After some further pointing and mumbling, it was deicphered that we were being sent to the exit door. We wander in and find the obligatory angry female border guard ushering us to the front of an enormous and agitated line of locals. In what may be a world record time, we zipped out of the border and forward to Almaty. Two emergency stomach flu stops later and we were thoroughly lost in Almaty in search of the Fiat dealership. Andy and James drove off and returned an hour or so later unsuccessful. We left Almaty, slowly, very slowly. Rush hour traffic in the Stans is painful at best. Luckily we have a car that doesn't idle, luckily Patrick had to deal with it. The mountains around Almaty are spectacular, absolutely massive. Just like Bishkek, there was still a touch of snow atop the peaks. I would love to snowboard here.

We played the gas gauge game shortly outside of Almaty, with three of four cars on E for a half hour or more. Finally a dodgy gas station was located and those without raging stomach issues negiotated a decent exchange rate. With light fading quickly, we deftly located a fantastic camp site in the middle of the Steppe.

In the morning, all were feeling better and quite confident that progress would be made. We were performing our morning car checks, when Andy declared he may have bigger issues. There were water droplets on the oil pan dipstick indicating a possible head gasket issue. No one, especially Andy was all that excited about a mid desert head gasket change. Unfortunately, upon attempting to start the Fiat it became obvious that something was definitely wrong. Amid looks of despair, the tools came out of the cars and the work began. Andy worked away as we played a little wiffle ball. Things were progressing well until he ran into the rocker cover bolts. Apparently, the Italians do things differently, this is when the state of shock sets in. Not one single allen wrench between all of our cars would fit the bolts, forcing Andy to remove with smaller wrench thus rounding the heads. A couple rounded completely so we beveled the heads with a file and hammered a socket over the top. Hey its the desert and its by any means necessary. Andy was able to negiotate the rest of the disassembly without any real issues.

With the new head gasket in place, it was time to rebuild. I went to work rotating the tires on the Fiesta to minimize the uneven wear propagating from the front left tire. Soon the murmur of new problems started making its way across the camp. Andy had snapped a head bolt while applying normal pressure. No words were spoke other than, ''Well all we can do is keep going.'' The assembly continued. Upon the first fire, things looked pretty bleak, the car sounded the same as before the minor operation. The inevitable discussions started about how Andy and James were going to make it home. Before anything hasty was done we decided to throw everything at it possible. After some new sparks and rearranging of random wires, the Fiat sputtered to life. We all rejoiced and hit the road. Things were looking up for the convoy.

About 30 minutes down the road, Andy and James had to stop for some radiator water. Nothing too alarming as this had become a common practice. As the day wore on and the stops became more frequent, we started to suspect the worst. One last engine rebuild was decided upon and a semi suitable campsite was located. Shortly into disassembly, we ran into a insurmountable obstacle. The allen bolts on the backside of the rocker cover were going nowhere. The towel was thrown in.

The car scavenging ceremony was performed in the morning as the remaining cars vied for differing goods. Andy and James decided to push on until the car completely died. We were leading the pack down the dirt track and managed to take the one possible wrong turn, only Andy and James were dumb enough to follow. It was upon the turnaround that the Fiat gasped its last breath. Andy and James grabbed their essentials and started the long walk to the road.

We rolled into Bishkek in the evening and found the center of town easily enough. In search of the checkpoint bar, a place called Stariy Edgar's, we headed for Paniflov Square. Fiesta in the lead we blew right by a "Do Not Enter" sign. I blindly followed. No cars and many pedestrians, we were pulled over in short order.

Patrick and I handed over our Int'l Driving Permits (best $10 any of us ever spent) to the officer and started playing the game. Our abilities to dumbfound authorities with idiocy were ever increasing. Everytime the policeman tried to explain our infraction we kind of stared blankly, pointed to a piece of paper with an address on it, and asked directions. Eventually we wore him down. Free to go, licenses in hand, no bribes paid.

The location of the bar still a mystery we parked the cars and continued on foot. Vaughn and I would mind the cars while Seth and Patrick went out in search. After maybe half an hour I got restless and took a walk. Within minutes I spotted the General Lee driving down the same closed road we had and ran out to stop them. Barry and Charlie went in search of the Xanadu Casino, one of the places their sponsor, Casino Life Magazine, had asked them to look in on.

Tigglywinks was taking an awfully long time returning. Bored again I asked the doorman of a nearby bar if he'd heard of Edgar's. Surprisingly, he gave me perfect directions. Just a short walk away, cleverly hidden in the park…and underground. Tricky Mongol Rally.

The Dukes had even better success. The casino offered to feed us all and let us park the cars in the lot over night. Without hesitation we accepted and assumed we could get directions to a hotel from there. One beer in and having barely ordered food there appear on the table 3 room keys. "Sorry, only King Deluxes available, so I hope that's alright." The Hyatt Regency adjoins the casino. Three $320 per night rooms on the house. And you should've seen the palatial bathrooms. A sight for sore, road wearied traveller's eyes. Really can't say thanks enough.

All agreed we should probably tidy up and drop a little cash at the casino. It's only fair. After food and showers I don't think a single person made it downstairs. Sorry about that.

The next morning we checked out and planned to take a drive up into the mountains while waiting for the Fiat boys to show up. Besides, the cars had piqued the curiosity of staff and guests for long enough. As we were packing up a woman came rushing out of the Hyatt asking if we were Mongol Ralliers. Turns out she was from the States, her husband was working in Kyrgyzstan, and she'd heard about the rally on NPR and has been following it's progress since. She knew the routes all led through Bishkek and was hoping she'd run across some teams. Then she found out we were Americans. We'd have been fools not to take them up on their offer for dinner and drinks. We settled into the Hotel Dostuk a few blocks away and headed out to meet our new friend. Let's call her Ava (Gardner).

Ava has a taste for vodka martinis and claims that the Metro is the only bar in that part of the world where you can get a decent martini. The wait staff has been under her tutelage on the subject for quite some time. Round after round arrive and we're all sharing stories. She wants to know all about the rally and lets on that she's trying to convince her husband, Frank (Sinatra), to enter with her next year. Any comments we can make to sway his decision that way would be much appreciated. At some point the martinis stopped coming and Coronas started appearing on the table. Corona with lemon as limes just don't exist in Kyrgyzstan.

Frank showed up and we were given a tour of the back half of the bar. It used to be an old children's theatre; a cavernous room with a large dusty chandelier hanging in the middle. Last Halloween Ava used the room to host Bishkek's first haunted house. To hear her tell stories of it I'm sure everyone had a good time.

We part ways with Frank and Ava for the night with plans to meet them the next day. They'd invited us to stay a night at their home. They leave us with their driver who will take us out and about for the rest of the night. The driver would stick with us and make sure everyone got home safely. Apparently there had been muggings recently.

The next day some of the crew was looking a little worse for the wear. But we all made it to the Hyatt eventually. Late afternoon the convoy fully reunited when James, Andy, and the Fiat rolled into town. The driver led us out to the house minus Vaughn and the Seat. We'd left him in the Hyatt lobby to wait for Ava earlier in the day looking quite ashen. When we came back he was gone. Reportedly off to stay in some other American's nearby apartment to recuperate. No note, phone number, or even a name. But it's Bishkek afterall. The city had been treating us well so far, so it must be looking out for Vaughn now too.

We dropped the cars at the house and piled into the driver's big black Audi and made for the mountains. Half an hour outside of town we pull over in this mountain valley. A collection of small buildings with a river rushing right down the middle. I see Frank come walking over. It's a restaurant/resort called the 12 Chimneys where we'd be having dinner. Everything is outdoors. Each table has its own fireplace capable of emitting so many Btu Charlie (of the Dukes) had to shield himself with his jacket to avoid being singed through the whole meal.

With bellies full of shashlik we headed back down to Frank and Ava's. Behold Vaughn was there sleeping on the living room floor. Tomorrow there would be breakfast. The driver would take the Dukes to a garage in the morning to repair their suspension. The rest of us could just relax until it was time to leave.

Car repairs always take longer than expected. 2pm rolled around and the Dukes were off to the Auto-Bazaar once again for more parts. It was becoming clear that we may not be leaving as soon as we'd thought. Ava is a sharp, generous and outgoing woman. Before we knew it we were accepting her offer to stay another night. The General returned with a new look. Lada suspension springs fitted all round raised the car up off the ground an extra couple of inches. It looked suited for any abuse. Most headed off for the Hyatt pool. Seth and I headed to Edgar's in search of ralliers. We broke out the Kvas, stopped by Edgar's and found not a single rallier.

Over another meal of shashlik at an out of the way cafe Frank taught us a few words in Russian that really shouldn't be spoken. Apparently "hooey" does not mean the same in English as it does in Russian. It pricked the ears of other restaurant patrons and they started giving us sidelong glances.

Ava decided to join us for our last night on the town. We headed to the Butterfly bar that had been so helpful our first night. It was early yet and the place was mostly empty. Red Bull helped to combat that tired-full food coma feeling. There was a pool table upstairs and I challenged Seth to a game. I think we finally got back to Frank and Ava's around 5 in the morning. Breakfast would be at 8 and we would all head out to the main bazaar on the outskirts of town to have a look around. From there we would be on our way...back to Kazakhstan, bound for Almaty.

It's nearly impossible to convey the impression Bishkek left. Coming out of the Kazakh desert to find mountains, greenery, a city seemingly filled with friendly people may have skewed the impression somewhat. But does that matter? We've met some incredibly generous, open-hearted people along the way. Frank and Ava definitely stand out among the more memorable ones.

You may already know that Pocketmail has crapped out after acquiring enough dust and sand in the transmission speaker, so posts have been delayed and we have unwillingly left you in deficit of rally info. My task today is to update you of our progress from Aralsk to Bishkek. Let me first tell you of my experiences in Aralsk.

We found a hotel in which to stay not too long after making our way into town. While the others took care of the administrative details, I watched after the cars. It was then that a small swarm of local children came up to the driver-side door of the Seat and started poking their heads into the car, examining everything they could see and asking for names of things. Once they took a look at everything in the dash, the moved on to the back of the car, spotting our food & water, camping supplies, and loads of dirty clothing. The food held their interest most of all, with one of the girls making a biting motion, perhaps indicating that she wanted something to eat. In sync with what we've been doing most of the way, I pretended not to understand. After some time one of the children saw the legs of the tripod I've been using and asked what it was. Having earlier wrapped up the camera to protect it from the dust storms caused by driving, I removed the shirt and their attention was quickly focused.

I started by making hand gestures indicating that I wanted to take their photos; they seemed to understand and started smiling and nodding. I passed the camera to them at one point, all the time holding on to the neck strap, and they started shooting pictures of each other and a few of me with them. I topped off the roll and rewound the film. My first thought was of how to get some of those pictures back to the children without addresses, names, or even a good idea of how to mail items to Kazakhstan. I decided my best bet would be to mail the pictures to the hotel in which we stayed and night and hope the owner gets the idea. They were wonderful children, even taking turns using the videocamera and laughing as they saw their own image appear on the extendable LCD monitor.

My experience that night was also one I could not have expected to find. After dinner, a few of us went to walk around the town while others returned to work on the cars. We found a monument similar in type to that of the Vietnam War memorial in D.C., in the sense that a wall of names was erected in honor of those who died in WWII. While milling about the steps of the memorial, a teenage girl approached Patrick and they started chatting. A group of friends was with her and the rest of us made our way up to where they were all standing. After a few minutes of basic communication, this girl, Malhabe, asked if we would like to accompany her and her friends to the local disco. James of "See You in a Bar" and I were instantly sold on the idea and we managed to get the rest of our group to go. We picked up a few beers on the way and as we approached the outdoor building that contained the dancing entertainment, we realized something only too obvious: that we were all very much older than the rest of the people there. And when I say people, I should really say teenagers. We managed to attract plenty of attention and even went about the night with a two-man police lookout, both of whom later got piss drunk and made sure that Patrick didn't get jacked while he was using a back alley as a restroom. Aside from dancing in a teenage disco in the middle of Kazakhstan, another strange part of the night was when girls would come up to us and ask us to dance, presumably exclusively. Unlike club dancing which may involve bumping and grinding, this was more of a face-off, with the occasional awkward hand touch that simply made me laugh. At the end of it all, we found out that Malhabe was only 15, leaving us bewildered and amazed about what had just happened. Not to be done too early, we hit another dance spot before the night was over, and in a moment more befitting, I danced with a girl my age who was 6' 4". Talk about humility.


So our night in Aralsk ended, we slept well in a cheap hotel, and we made our way out of the town by 10 a.m. The roads from Aral to Shymkent were much improved over the previous kinds of tarmac we had seen, so we made time like we hadn't made in quite a few days. Another road side camp found the convoy down to three cars, as the "Dukes of Harlow" decided to push on in the night to make some better time (we later learned that tiredness and misaligned headlights kept Charlie from getting more than 50 miles; we caught up with them the next day at a road side stretch of shops where we ate some much needed hot food and the Dukes recieved a bodge-job setup for the General's blown suspension spring). Before the Dukes set off, though, Patrick and Seth made a jaunt into Turkistan to find some beers. When pulled over by the local authorities, both of them determined that at least one Kazakh police dislikes Bush due to his excessive (hand signal of firing a gun) use of war and limited (hand signal of hands flapping talking mouth) use of diplomacy. The gents also figured out that Angelina Jolie is the best ambassador of all, clearly indicated from the police officer by the worldwide sign for vagina (index fingers and thumbs joined with the hands then brought together). It is good to know that despite any language barrier, hand signals of all sorts can get the point across.

Due to a visa foul-up that kept them out of Kyrgyzstan for a few days, James and Andy of "See You in a Bar" split up with us on the way to Bishkek through Shymkent and spent the night at the latter city. We pushed on to Bishkek, accidentally taking a northern route. Despite the small error, the scenery of our trip improved dramatically. Mountains on a scale I haven't seen in a while became evident as the haze between them and us thinned. Snow covered their peaks, a fitting taunt to the heavy heat we entered as we came south. Eventually, we came through the same border through which we will now leave in a few days for our second entery to Kazakhstan. I can proudly say that the Kyrgyzstan border crossing was the most efficient and graceful event we've had in the past week. In fact, no records of our cars entering the country were ever taken, so if we need to ditch one in the next day or two, this would be the place to do it. Unfortunately, the line headed back into Kazakhstan at the same border was quite long, most likely due to the bureacratic hoop-jumping that the Kazakh Republic makes people do.

Interactions with the locals of Bishkek then quickly arose. On our way into the main part of the city, Patrick was being hassled by a cab driver who wished to pass, though with no room to move, Patrick simply couldn't do anything. At the first opportunity, the cab driver passed on the right, yelling and gesturing, again using hand signals that can be clearly understood the world over. Shortly thereafter, we passed through a restricted zone in front of the president's residence and were pulled over by a police officer with an orange wand of authority. In a well-played move, Patrick and Dominic were able to totally bedazzle the officer with a lack of comprehension and language, avoiding the confiscation of driving licenses and escaping the clearly (yet tactfully misunderstood) request for a bribe. We parked and while Patrick and Seth wandered the city with a few locals, Dominic ran into the Dukes while I guarded the cars. An hour later, after Patrick and Seth returned from their mostly misdirected guided tour (and after finding Patrick a date for Wednesday), we accompanied the Dukes to the Hyatt hotel, which contained the Xanadu Casino, a spot which one of their sponsors, Casino Life Magazine, asked them to cover on the trip. Through the generosity of the owner of the establishment, Ms. Jacobs, we were treated to a free meal with drinks and three rooms (though because the standard rooms were sold out, our only options were to sleep in king size beds...it was a really tough night, I promise). Laundry was done, long showers were taken, and we have started the day well with lunch that actually filled our stomachs. We plan to push into the mountains tonight for some camping that should provide us with some wonderful views of the mountains and the surrounding area.

Tomorrow, our plan is to meet up with James and Andy, spend another day in Bishkek, then head back into Kazakhstan for the push to Barnaul. Depending on how driving goes, and how that affects our timing, James and Andy may try to join us through the western border of Mongolia. The Dukes have also been evaluating their time commitments, though they have yet to make a final decision as to when to leave. I'm hoping the convoy can stick together as long as possible. I'm also hoping that we have the time to take the western border, because a drive through southern Russia would be too easy, leaving us only 200 km of tarmac on which to pass through Mongolia on our way to Ulaanbataar. We've got a stretch of time left and we're figuring it out. Hopefully things go well so that we don't end up getting into the difficult decision that may exist between those with lots of time and those without it. It sounds like the time crunched among us are going to push for more time off, but who can tell what the bosses back home will say. Then again, this is the Mongol Rally and there aren't many chances to make it to central Asia in crap cars.

Note: once we're out of Bishkek, we're planning on being out of touch until Barnaul, so don't fear. We'll update there and let you know what kinds of things we're thinking. For now,