We arrived last night after 8500 miles and 27 days. Here’s the story of the final stage:
We left Almaty Thursday afternoon. We drove till nightfall and camped amongst fields of sunflowers with a backdrop of mountains - very picturesque. The next day we found the roads deteriorated again - not as badly as in the west of Kazakhstan, but enough to slow our progress considerably. The rear springs also snapped on the car, leaving it looking like it had been badly maxpowered. Seemed to go alright though! We camped at nightfall again just outside Semey (apparently a former nuclear weapons testing site).
On Saturday we drove to the Russian border. It proved to be the most problematic border so far:
We had to queue for ages to leave Kazakhstan, getting stuck behind a coachload of people in the passport office. Next there was a similar queue for the Russian frontier. Once we reached the control Tom and Olly in the Uno found that their Russian insurance had expired the day before, so were made to buy so more. I had to lend them 200 roubles, then they went through the border. Then we found we were charged 170 roubles for some kind of import tax - and we didn’t have enough money left! The woman refused to take Kazakh tenge or American dollars, so Jim had to go outside and approach people randomly in the hope they would change some money for us. In the end he persuaded an old lady to change some money, and came back with a fistful of 10 rouble notes.
We drove to Rostov and stopped for a meal. This ugly little industrial town proved to have a vibrant centre, full of beautiful people enjoying their Saturday night (no doubt hampered a little by the appearance of four dirty, smelly, beardy westerners in T-shirts and shorts we had slept in). We found a restaurant and after a struggle involving animal noises managed to order the nicest steak pie in the world.
Then we drove late into the night. Jim and I lost the Uno (by agreement, since they were going slowly with their broken shock absorber but not stopping to sleep). We camped about 3am in a field.
We hit the road again about 9 and drove solidly all day. The Siberian roads were very smooth and fast. We caught the Uno boys in the late afternoon, and we all stopped to have dinner at a roadside cafe. Whilst there, two other lads in a Nova pulled up! Jim and I recognised them from Budapest. We swapped stories and then carried on driving, again separating from the others. We drove till 3am, by which time we had covered 764 miles in the day. We set up camp deep in the Siberian forest - a bit scary, but I was too tired to care (good tactic, that) and went straight to sleep.
Monday was another hard day of driving. The roads got really bad at some points, reverting to Road of Death standard. We ploughed on late and managed to cover 470 miles - surprising given the conditions. We pulled down a dark track in the middle of nowhere to camp and found a rally 2CV hiding in the bushes! Very random.
We slept fairly late, then continued eastwards. We went into Irkutsk for lunch (pizza). It was surprising to find an attractive, bustling and European-looking city so deep into Siberia, surrounded by nothing but trees! After getting very lost on the way out, we reached Lake Baikal in the afternoon - it it really beautiful, like an Alpine lake. We rounded its Western tip before following the southern edge. The roads thankfully improved, so we put in some good mileage. We camped for the night around 60 miles from the Mongolian border, with a certain sense of expectation…
Then yesterday we reached the border. Well - A border: we managed to turn up at a disused crossing before being told the right place was just round the corner.
The border was closed for lunch, and even after that the country seemed to be operating some bizarre and incredibly slow one-in-one-out policy. After a wait of hours we made it through the Russian frontier. Then we fought our way through the forms, controls and guards and found ourselves in Mongolia!
With a slight feeling of disbelief we headed south. We covered the 200 miles or so quickly as the road was very smooth, but still managed to have adventures, including Jim getting stopped by the police for not using his indicators at a junction (or something…) $10 solved the problem. We drove on through the gently mountainous landscapes, past hundreds of sheep, goats, cows and horses seemingly roaming free. We also passed gers dotted throughout the countryside - a sight to remind you that you’re not in Europe anymore!
We came into Ulaanbaatar about 9:30 in the evening. It took a while to find a hotel, as they all seemed to be full, really expensive or without parking. Once we did, I enjoyed the nicest shower of my life and slept for a long, long time. Job done!
Today we have visited Dave’s Place - the bar in UB which is the official finish line of the rally. There are a few teams hanging around, all with amazing stories to tell. The cars are attracting a lot of attention and our Lancia sits proudly among them on the edge of the main square! We will sort out our stuff this afternoon before taking the car to a children’s centre to be sold for charity.
Then it’s time to party!
Dave.
