Mongol Rally - from Hyde Park, London to Ulan Baator, Mongolia

Aim: Raise funds for Mercy Corps amongst other Mongolian charities, and anyone else you want to support.

No rules, except engine size must be less than 1L.



Any route. We chose the Southern Route, going through:

UK-France-Belgium-Luxembourg-Germany-CzechRepublic-Slovakia-Serbia-Bulgaria-Turkey-Georgia-Azerbaijan-Turkmenistan-Uzbekistan-Kyrgyzistan-Kazakhstan-Russia-Mongolia

And here is our story:

On Saturay 26th July 2007 the teams left Hyde Park for the annual Mongol Rally. Although we expected a few hiccups along the way, nothing could have prepared us for the totally amazing, grueling and hilarious few weeks which were in store.

Team "Going Walkabout" consisted of UK-living "ex-pat" Australians Jess Black, 25 and Anna Walker, 26. Anna worked as a volunteer vet for SPANA in Morocco and Mali in 2005, and we felt this was a good chance to raise some money for this wonderful NGO.

The car was a 1988 Vauxhall Nova bought unseen of E-bay. We did nothing to the car except for the external decor, including the big SPANA stickers seen by people for over 9000 miles; and for which we became known as the "donkey car". We only took the spare tyre which came with the car - this was in reality an oversight but not until we got to Mongolia, where we ended up having three flats a day.

The rules of the rally were few and far between. In fact, there were no rules, no check points, all we had to do was have a car of less than 1000cc engine size, and raise a heap of money for the rally charities before we went.

Amazingly, and luckily considering our distinct lack of mechanical knowledge, our car ran the most part without incident. A mysterious battery/starter motor/alternator problem which no-one seemed to be able to explain, least of all the Czech mechanic who shrugged and told us "Old car, big problem", caused us a headache until Serbia. Then some friends magically fixed it there, and all our electrics, since we had driven from Prague without indicators, hoping motorists saw our feeble hands out the windows to indicate a change if direction/lane on the highways.

It was in Mongolia that the applicably nicknamed "SuperNova" started to show signs of strain. This was understandable, since the four weeks before had seen it do a 24 hour speed run across the Turkmenistan desert in 50 degree heat due to visa problems, climb through 6000m Kyrgyz mountain passes and navigate over a week of Mongolian goat tracks including a flash-flood in the Gobi Desert. We were told to "wait two days" until we could cross it but persuaded some locals to drag us across it nevertheless.

We finally hit bitumen 400km from the Mongolian capital after a week of following nomadic directions amounting to "head left past that mountain" and thought we were home free. But tragedy struck 200kms from our destination - heartbreaking since we had made it over 15,000km so far! A "squeak" turned out to be our back wheel bearings completely smashed so the tyre was actually spinning around the hub. In other words, our back wheel didn’t turn at all anymore. We were forced to abandon ship in time to make it to the Black Tie ball staged that night, which we had dressed for in elation at 2am the night before after getting the cars across a river after the bridge had washed out. Needless to say I had changed two spare tyres since then in my ball gown and I was determined to wear it to the party.

We were thrilled with our efforts, considering we were one of the few all-girl teams, and we had taken the notoriously difficult "southern route" through the "Stans" and entered Mongolia via the Western Border which only opened to foreigners a year ago and required a lot more than a 1L engine and one spare tyre to complete unscathed. We powered on, reversing up hills where first gear failed, and made loads of friends and had heaps of laughs along the way. There are numerous crazy stories and accounts that could take up a book, but it was an amazing time and has made the world seem a much smaller and friendlier place.

The final figures are still being calculated in terms of what was raised overall, but it is thought to be well in excess of £200,000. All the cars were auctioned off for charity once/if they arrived, many of which did not.

For any more information, and to see photos from the 2007 rally please go to www.mongolrally.com.

Anna Walker

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Novotel Hotel, Ndjamena

While Jeremy was getting embroiled in a civil war, we were actually out east in Farchana. The rain didn’t materialise but we had an interesting experience on Wednesday night – our colleague from UNHCR led us out of our compound into a now starry but ink black African night, and kept going for a couple of hundred yards, way beyond the relative comfort of the lights of the guest house.

Suddenly we heard voices and then laughter, and as our eyes adjusted to the dark, found ourselves outside a small rectangular block house, outside of which were some 20 or so aid workers merrily drinking away at bottles of beer. There were people from Mali, Togo, Cameroon, Benin, Sudan...There we were, in one of the most volatile places on the earth, just an hours drive from Darfur sitting out under the night sky drinking beer and laughing with our new companions. Life in SPANA is never dull.

The next morning there was no breakfast, aside from cake. This flattered to deceive, since it tasted almost exactly as it if had been cooked in an ash tray, and then had cigarette butts thrown in for good measure. We struggled to recall having done anything to offend the chef but came to the conclusion that he was simply an awful cook. Even multiple rounds of teeth cleaning failed to rid us of the taste. On the way back we stopped off at the Ga Ga refugee camp, which Jeremy and I had visited in May. It was almost unrecognisable this time round with all the greenery. It was also day 4 of the monthly food distribution programme so everyone was in a very good mood and happy to have their photos taken. We eventually bumped back into Abeche around 2pm, and some rooms were found for us all at the CORD offices in town and thanks to the wonderful hospitality of Laura Snoxell who runs CORD in Abeche, we had a very convivial evening, relieving her in the process of a crate of beer and some plastic cooking utensils with which we managed to set fire to her kitchen.

Friday morning saw us up predictably early and off to the airport and to our utter dismay, we discovered that our names weren’t on the passenger list. We were travelling on a WFP plane and through some arcane booking system, even though we had tickets that didn’t guarantee us a flight.

We were all set to head back into town when a man in a suit appeared, and began setting up shop behind an utterly ramshackle table in the corner of the airport, which had fallen apart quite spectacularly when I had sat on it ten minutes earlier. This was the check-in desk for Air Tchad, which, we soon discovered, had a regular flight departing for N’Djamena in a couple of hours. Through tears of joy we pooled our scant resources and scraped together enough for 4 tickets. At about 1pm we stepped out of the airport in N’Djamena, boarded a familiarly decrepit Renault 12 taxi and now here we are at the Novotel. The staff are generally rude and sulky, the wi-fi costs £10 an hour, and the pc connection to the internet 15 pounds and hour (how CAN they justify that!), and Jeremy’s bathroom is malfunctioning, but it’s a step closer home.

We’ll post some closing thoughts when we get back, probably on Monday. If anyone has been following this blog over the past ten days please post some comments!

Simon

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Novotel Hotel, Ndjamena (sometimes it's better to travel than arrive, and sometimes not)

We have had some problems connecting to the internet since the last posting, so here is Jeremy’s blog from Thursday to be followed by mine:

Ah, the joys of travel in Africa. Yesterday we flew down south to Goz Beida – where there are not only huge refugee camps, but also thousands and thousands of ‘Internally Displaced Persons’, but because they are actually Chadians – who have been attacked by goodness knows who, they do not qualify for help from most of the major aid agencies. (If all that isn’t confusing enough, there are actually Chadian refugees who’ve fled over the border into Sudan and set up camps in Darfur. Beat that!)

We stayed with Oxfam, who are heavily involved in the refugee camps, providing tents, sanitation, water, - even healthcare. Of course they are heavily funded by the British Government to do all that, but they do do a good job.
However, after we’d visited the refugee camp, we asked to go and see one of the IDP camps – and that was a very different story.

In Kouroukan camp, they have about twelve thousand people, but not much else – oh, except thousands of donkeys. And they looked awful. We did a quick survey, and over fifty per cent were emaciated, yet the women were relying on them to carry food and water back from the ration distribution points. We spent the rest of the evening working out a project to take blood and faecal samples, and then worm the five thousand or so donkeys in the camp.

So, then we come to the interesting travel arrangements for today. After speaking to the local vet, who interestingly, had absolutely no equipment or medicines, we set out to visit a local village – knowing we had to be back at the airstrip for the flight back to Abeche at midday. An hour later, we were still motoring through the bush when I realised we were never going to get to the village in time. It then turned out this village had been chosen just to give someone a lift home. So, I’m afraid he was deposited by the roadside, with tearful farewells, while we turned round and started to race back to Goz Beida.

Then it all started to go a little wrong. Bang! The front wheel fell off.

So we abandoned the vehicle and started to walk back through the bush.

You meet such interesting people on the road – like the pick-up truck full of JEM rebels, with a heavy machine-gun on the cab roof, and rocket grenades strapped to the sides. Perhaps we should have realised something was a bit odd.

We finally got picked up by an Oxfam vehicle, and made it out to the airport a mere ten minutes too late. We talked to the Government troops guarding the air-strip (actually sleeping in the shade under the thorn trees), who said with some glee, that one plane had gone already – but they hadn’t seen one for a few hours. So we thought we’d wait a bit. Then we started to hear garbled messages over the radio that all the flights that afternoon had been cancelled. Merde. We agreed we might as well go back to the camp – and as we drove off we passed another truck-load of soldiers coming in, and waving cheerily at us, ‘Oh, changing the guards. That’s pretty well organised’ I thought.

Only this really WAS changing the guard – they were actually rebel troops seizing the airfield. So, panic stations back in Goz Beida, but we heard the errant planes were actually going to another airstrip about forty miles away through thick bush, and if we could make that by two-ish we might still get on a plane.

So a veiled and turbaned youngster, who obviously felt he was talented enough for Formula One, then drove us at breakneck speed along rutted tracks, missing trees by a hairsbreadth. Some church missionary people in the back started praying, which I’ve never felt is a good sign, or very confidence building.

But somehow we made it – and apart from the little problem of not being on the passenger manifest, we climbed gratefully into the little twin-engined DH Otter, and headed back to Abeche.

As I said, what fun it is travelling in Chad.

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UNHCR Compound, Farchana - The Rocky Road to Darfur

We are told we have to be up by 6.30am. This invokes instantaneous scepticism based on numerous previous occasions when we absolutely definitely postively indubitably HAVE to be up by such and such a time, after which we spend an inordinate amount of time waiting somewhere else for something or someone, moaning about how we could have had another hour in bed or a second cup of coffee.

This morning was one of those mornings.

Today the four of us split up into two groups – Jeremy had headed down to the relative greenery of the regions surrounding the Goz Beida refugee camps, and I’ll try and post his blog from there later this week. The other half (including me) bounced along the Trans-Chadian superhighway towards Sudan/Darfur. This is the same road Jeremy and I travelled in May, one a lighting visit to the refugee camp at Ga Ga. On that journey our progress was slowed by a lengthy convoy of the Sudanese Rebel Army (JEM) coming in the opposite direction. This invoked a certain amount of nerves on the part of our UN colleagues, who respectfully (as is the policy) pulled over until they went past (which given there were 60 odd vehicles took some time) but Jeremy, on the other hand, was in his element “Look at the Mortars on that one…now THAT anti-aircraft gun could do a lot of damage.”

Today there were no incidents, although we had to negotiate large pot holes and still-running water in the wadis. After two hours we arrive at Farchana. The UNHCR guest Houses (small purpose built African style huts called rondavels) are full, so we amble over to the neighbouring World Food Programme compound where they have space – we dump our bags and head out to meet some of the local villagers. This is something we have been trying to do now for some time, as getting their perspective on the refugees is extremely important. They tell us how difficult it is now that they are both competing for resources. How little veterinary care they have access to and how much they would value it if somehow we could put together a plan to provide it. Sitting under a shady tree with them beside a dry wadi they tell us, strangers just half an hour ago, how much they appreciate our seeking them out and bothering to ask about their lives. Their lives were undoubtedly hard before the refugees arrived and now they have got that much harder. The plan we draw up will address their concerns as well.

Barely an hour later we’re in the Farchana camp itself. Perhaps it's because WFP are today on Day 3 of the October food distribution programme, there is a palpable good humour about the place. Unbelievably, a man comes up to me and starts talking in very good English. He was a farmer in Darfur, who took English classes at night school. The pride he has in this is clearly evident and I regret not having more time to talk to him, but we are being pressed by a growing throng to take their pictures, and then to meet the village elders or Sheiks, so I regretfully shake his hand and say goodbye. And good luck.

Like everyone else, the Sheiks are eager to find out about SPANA and one of the younger ones, a tall, handsome Darfuri refugee has even better English than the farmer. Like the villagers, the Sheiks tell us just how important their livestock are to them, and just how hard it is to find food for these precious animals when they are competing with villagers for limited natural resources like grazing and water. And like the villagers they take the trouble, in a measured and powerful way, to thank us sincerely for bothering to come and ask them about their world and the difficulties they are facing. Despite all the horrors they have been through, and we can only guess at some of those, there’s absolutely no cynicism from them. It’s quite a humbling experience.

And so now we are back in the compound and we are in for an interesting evening. It's been quite humid all afternoon, and around 4pm we noticed some very dark clouds making their way from the East. Every now and then the wind gets up, and blows a dervish-like dust-devil through the compound, which sets the metal doors off crashing like cymbals and throwing clouds of sand into our faces. A downpour tonight is expected, but that could set the rivers off again, and we must have crossed 30 or more of them on our journey. Water is what everyone wants here, but tonight, just for once, I’ll be hoping the rain stays away. If I post a blog tomorrow, it will probably mean that we’ve been stranded!

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UNHCR Compound, Farchana

Slight gap in our blog here - It's an oddity of the UNHCR that they have excellent wi-fi facilities in all their regional offices, but not at UNHCR HQ in Abeche. So I'm playing catch up here:
We are now in Farchana, about 2 hours drive due east of Abeche and close up against the border with Darfur. It's Wednesday evening, and our group is now in two parts, with half going "down south" to Goz Beida (Jeremy will update on this later in the week) and I'm with the other half down in Farchana. Today's blog will be posted separately, but here is yesterday's.....

On Monday evening we had a de-brief with the head of the UNHCR mission in Iriba – we finished about 7pm, upon which he learned that Medecins Sans Frontiers (MSF) had just lost one of their ambulances, hijacked barely 50 yards from our compound. It's another reminder of just how difficult a job it is for aid agencies to work in environments like this. The UN and its agencies come in for a lot of criticism at times, but I’d defy anyone to have seen the job they do here, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and fail to be impressed by it.

The cockerel woke us all up again this time at 3.30am – We think this was his way of getting revenge on us for singing “I feel like Chicken Tonight” ever time we passed him. His cacophony, at painfully regular intervals, was interspersed by the winner of the “Noisiest Cleaner in the World” contest who decided to drag all the chairs across the dining room floor, drag them back and then, having decided that this was simply too much fun, really went to town dragging the table about as well. This was at around 4.30am.

We were all up and about ready to head back by plane to Abeche at 8am, but got word that the plane was delayed. In true “Spirit of the Blitz” style we broke open the packages of table tennis gear which we had been eyeing curiously for some days lurking beneath the coffee table. I’m not sure that a low coffee table conforms to international table tennis standards, and I’m fairly sure that on the limited number of occasions I have watched the sport on TV, I’ve seen players standing up, not seated in armchairs, but it whiled away the minutes.

Eventually we got the call to move, ride out to the airport and it's goodbye Iriba. And within a few minutes we landed at Guereda, although not before we’ve spotted lots of animals in the landscape below, many drinking at some of the fast-drying patches of water resulting from the rains.

30 minutes later and we are back in Abeche, and re-acquainting ourselves with the novelty of running water at the GTZ guest house. Pictures of the Rhine-Rühr coalfields on my bedroom wall seem a little incongruous but I’m clean for the first time in days and there is a beer in the fridge. All we have to do now is wait for the generator to come on and it might even begin getting cold.

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UNHCR Compound, Iriba

Now about to start our fourth day without running water – which leads to all sorts of interesting ‘economies’, such as shaving in the bottom half of a plastic bottle, and other exciting ‘boy-scout’ remedies – don’t even think about the loos! I suppose, looking on the bright side, at least we should have no problem getting plenty of space on the plane home next Saturday.

And talking of brightness, after a week of relentless African sun, I’m doing a very passable imitation of a conker. During one of tonight’s inevitable power cuts, I was able to sit at the head of the table, glowing quietly like Three-Mile-Island, and allow everyone to finish their delicious meal of chopped mambo leaves and hominy grits with a subdued Ikea-like illumination.

Today we went out to Amnabak, a refugee camp only about thirty miles from the Sudan border. With about seventeen thousand inhabitants, it is one of the poorest we have visited – no wells or permanent water at all – it comes in everyday by water truck. Lots of small animals though, sheep goats, and of course, hundreds and hundreds of donkeys.

Despite the extremely unhelpful military guards, we were eventually able to enter the camp, and gradually people arrived in the community ‘hut’, to hold a meeting to discuss problems and possibilities with their livestock.

We are now quite used to these – they seem to follow the same pattern. There is a front row of ‘the sheiks’, or at least men who think they are important. Then at the back sit a couple of rows of women – all dressed in dazzling coloured veils and robes, and often with babies secreted underneath who emerge squalling from time to time during the meeting.

The men usually start of with same tactics – please give us more water, more food and more (free) veterinary medicines. Then we ask them about diseases, and we get a list of symptoms that is often very hard to pin down. But while this is going on, the women at the back gradually start chipping in, usually with more pertinent suggestions. After all, it’s normally they who actually do the work of looking after the animals on a daily basis. I mean, in a community like this, just who do you think will have to carry the water home from the water-point? They gradually grow in confidence, and even start arguing with the menfolk.

They then took us around the camp – visiting the market, and the shacks and huts they’d managed to build. How on earth do the women manage to have such clean clothes in conditions like that – and with water rationed to just a few litres per head?
As we came back the World Food Programme lorry arrived with the month’s rations.
A huge crowd (of mostly women and children) quickly gathered to receive their dues.
It was sobering to think that this grain had probably been flown across the Atlantic in some super airliner, or container ship, then trucked across the desert in huge road trains – but finally, it’s loaded on the back of some placid old donkey – lowest of low tech, but it works a treat!

Jeremy Hulme

PS - Tomorrow we head back to Abeche, at which point our wonderful wi-fi access is start to end. We'll update the blog as and when we can, but it may not be for a few days!

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