For those of you lazy bastards who can’t be bothered to read the blogposts, we’ve created a bullet-point version. And yeah, we’re planning a proper book, too 🙂
This is what it took
Here follows a list of things we needed, used or otherwise spent on stuff during the trip from London to Ulaan Baatar.
People we’ve met
This must be the longest blogpost yet. It’s about the people we’ve encountered while driving our Toyota Yaris all the way from London to Ulaan Baatar.
Ulaan Baatar, Mongolia
So, after having driven Yaris Hilton from Battersea Park in London on July the 20th, gone through more than 30 countries on the way, listened to Schnappi, das kleine Krokodil a whole day for charity, driven the world’s second highest international road, having a team member break two ribs, and seen the petrol tank punctured yesterday due to horrible road conditions, Yak in Black finally made it across the finish line in Ulaan Baatar, Mongolia today at 4:08 pm local time 😀
We’ll be posting the rest of the blog and pictures, video and more goodies here shortly, so don’t forget to continue checking in from time to time!
Mongolian update
Here’s an update from Mongolia.
It’s a bit sporadic, since the guys rarely have any cell coverage, but some news manages to trickle through from time to time.
The Rally, day 42-45
The next day, with our GBAO-permits in hand we are ready to drive the world’s second highest international road – the M41 – otherwise known as the Pamir Highway.
Social Media Iran
#Social #Mashhad @SocialNewsCorp is out! http://t.co/zGK5wUwdl1 Stories via @yakinblack
— Social Media Iran™ (@SocialMediaIran) September 1, 2014
The stories from our blog do get noticed out in the world. Nice.
The Rally, day 37-41
Snorre gets up early to go to the Turkmenistan Consulate in Mashhad, so he can be at the front of the queue.
The Rally, day 33-36
It’s Thursday, and we’re off to Mashhad. Or rather, Gorgan. Sounds a bit like a creature from Greek mythology, but Gorgan will only be a waystation on the road to the holiest city in Iran.
The Rally, day 31-32
Alamut Castle is today’s goal. Well, not quite today’s, as we’ll leave Masuleh and have to travel almost 400 km to the Alamut Valley. It will be dark by then, so we’ll spend the night at a nearby village and go to Alamut Castle the next morning.
The Schnappi-incident
It’s the Mongol Rally 2014, and we wanted to get some extra money for charity.
We auctioned off the opportunity for people to decide one song we would have to listen to for a whole day, while driving the rally.
The winner of the auction chose «Schnappi, das kleine Krokodil».
Check this out
Photo Gallery
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Here we are
The Rally, day 30
The 1000 year-old village of Masuleh
We’ve now been on the road for a month!
We get up early and throw ourselves into traffic (figuratively speaking).
Any hopes from last night that today would see an unexplainable drop in temperature and humidity are dashed by the continuing jungle-like heat.
The Rally, day 29
We leave Tehran and the genial Mr. Mousavi of the Firouzeh Hotel to go north – but not before making a scheduled stop in the city.
The Rally, day 24-28
The next day, we meet the famous Mr. Mousavi. It turns out that he really is a wizard, and he starts out by helping us to exchange some Dollars in to Rials. For this he recommends an office that is specialized in these matters, and we get ready to go there.
When the shit hits the fan belt and the exhaust drops off
The 4 Wheelies. Image used with permission from The Adventurists
Things break down on the rally, but mostly it’s all part of the fun. Proper Mongol Rallyers don’t whine, they get down in the dirt and duct-tape that piston in place!
Here follows an unofficial list of some of the things that have happened to some of the teams in the Mongol Rally 2014 so far.
Continue reading “When the shit hits the fan belt and the exhaust drops off” »
The Rally, day 23
Tabriz is the fifth most populous city in Iran (pop. 1.4 mill) after Tehran, Mashhad, Isfahan, and Karaj.
The Rally, day 22
We go through Armenia and pitch our tents on Mt. Aragats.
Continue reading “The Rally, day 22” »
The Rally, day 21
As we say goodbye to Tbilisi and our fellow ralliers the sun is already burning the inside of our eyeballs when we head south towards the Armenian border.
The Rally, day 20
We pass from Turkey through Georgia. A lot of crisps are consumed.
Continue reading “The Rally, day 20” »
The Rally, day 19
The view that unfolds when we crawl out of the tent in the morning is nothing short of spectacular. We have set up camp on top of a 2640 meter high pass with a view into Turkey and across into Georgia.
New radio interview
Snorre was interviewed by Nea Radio as we were camping in Georgia.
The Rally, day 18
We wake up at what we thought was a field with a treeline, but turns out is an industrial-sized dump with a few bushes on the side of it. Oh well, we had 5 hours of sleep at least.
Continue reading “The Rally, day 18” »
The Rally, day 17
We journey through Turkey, stay awhile in Istanbul and continue along the Black Sea coast towards Georgia.
Continue reading “The Rally, day 17” »
The Rally, day 10-16
The original plan was to stay in Istanbul for one (1) night, and then move on. But as we got wrapped up in more and more red tape during the long and tedious process of sorting out our visas, we realized that we couldn’t get all of them before the Rally start in London.
Interlude in Istanbul
At the moment we are stuck in Istanbul, doing the visa-dance with a couple of consulates. In the meantime, we visited Yerebatan Sarnıcı and got kidnapped and pressed into service as runway models for Sultans of Swing Clothing Inc.
The Rally, day 09
We set off early and hit the motorway out of Thessaloniki, Greece. The traffic isn’t bad at all.
The Rally, day 08
We travel through Montenegro, Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia and Greece, to the border of Turkey.
Team BS&B (Blood, Sweat and Beers) have an ambitious plan to get up at 7am to get an early start on the long way towards Istanbul. So at the crack of 11am, our mini convoy is on the move.
The Rally, day 07
Photo: Doganaj, Kosovo.
So far, Montenegro has been the highlight of the trip and it’s a bit sad to leave.
The Rally, day 06
In the morning we leave Sarajevo behind, heading east into the mountains. We soon find ourselves in Republica Srpska, the Serbian part of Bosnia. After a quiet and uneventful hour, we suddenly get pulled over by the police!
The Rally, day 05
We travel through Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia.
We set off through the sunflower fields of Southern Hungary, heading towards former Yugoslavia. The Croatian border is the first crossing where we had to bring out the passports, but it only takes a couple of minutes to get through.
The Rally, day 03-04
Day 1 of the Mongol Rally. Germany, Switzerland and the czech-out party.
Tuesday, 22 July 2014 at 17:00 – Wednesday, 23 July 2014 at 06:00 (CEST)
49° 19′ 52.81″ N 13° 13′ 20.95″ E, Czech Republic
It’s the day of the Czech-out party, yippeeee.
The Rally, day 01 – and they’re off!
Photo: The Adventurists.
After a terriffic party the night before, everywhere I look faces are tired and kind of scrunched up, but happy. It’s the day of the start of The Mongol Rally 2014, in Battersea Park at 8am.
Well, presumably not everyone’s happy!
More images in the gallery
A lot of things happen during the Mongol Rally.
Check out our gallery, Facebook-, Twitter– and Instagram-account to keep up with the madness.
In the image above you see Team Running Salted Fish trying to fix their smashed back window with gaffa tape we donated.
Chaos managed
Check out the writeup of the start of the 2014 Mongol Rally, by The Adventurists.
Or as Mr Tom, Adventurist Chief of Chiefs says it:
I was rather pleased to see the rally back to it’s former shitty car glory. Nothing I like more than watching the teams faces as they stutter over the start ramp and lose an exhaust pipe before they even start.
At the starting line
One minute before start.
Team YIB gets out of Battersea Park as car no. 2. Seems ideal, so as to get to the chunnel early – if it weren’t for the fact that I got lost somewhere in Westminster.
Trip to London, day 03-05
From Oslo to London, where the Mongol Rally starts in Battersea Park.
Remember to check out our Gallery page for more images
Another hot day in the Norwegian capital starts off with a few phone calls to see how things are progressing. Toyota say they will have the car ready at the end of the day, although they still don’t know what the problem is.
Yak in Black theme song
Listen to the Yak in Black theme song, by Fuzzbox Voodoo. A bearhug goes to Stein, Berit and John Eirik for doing this 😀 The melody might sound familiar (here come the takedown-notices), but the lyrics are uniqe.
Photo by Berit L. P. Hanssen.
Thanks for all the fish
I de siste hekiske ukene har vi fått hjelp fra både sponsorer og venner som har gjort sitt beste for at denne turen kan gjennomføres og bilen bli reiseklar.
Interview in Fjell-Ljom
The article in the print edition of Fjell-Ljom was published today on page 16. I have inserted a copy of the page a bit further down, just in case (Norwegian only).
Article by Trine Lysholm Hagan for Fjell-Ljom.
In the news yet again
Check out the link further down. It’s an article published on the homepage of the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK): Go to NRK (Norwegian only)
Track us
Want to know where we are at any given time?
Check out the map The Adventurists have created, where all teams show up as a ‘blip’. All you have to do is click the button below and you’ll see if (when) we’re lost (hint: the red dot is us).
Trip to London, day 02
SNERK is a Norwegian word describing the thin membrane that appears on your porridge if you leave it out for too long. It can also be used to describe an unwanted situation – kind of a cross between a shambles and a cock-up.
Today we had some SNERK!
Pimp my ride, part III
On these pictures you see the dashboard opened up to put in a few USB-ports we need for our gadgets. This was done by Audioart in Oslo, where Yaris Hilton got to mingle with a few other nice cars 😉
More cool t-shirts
Visste du at vi har Yak in Black t-skjorter til bare 200 kroner?
Ta kontakt med Lars på tlf. 414 85 050 eller post@mongolrally.no og du kan få en t-skjorte i alle regnbuens farger (det betyr svart, rødt eller blått).
Du er med og støtter Lubutu-prosjektet – 5 landsbyer som trenger din hjelp!
Trip to London, day 01
It is overcast and 17°C when Yaris Hilton leaves Røros, Norway at 10:37 today. The odometer shows 172.765 km and spirits are high!
And so it begins
Photo: Hilde Porsanger for Arbeidets Rett
Snorre was interviewed by one of the local newspapers, Arbeidets Rett.
Check out the article on the paper’s website by following this link (Norwegian).
A song for the road
The Yak-party at Zimla on Friday the 11th was a resounding success!
We had people drop by to watch a film from last years Mongol Rally, listen to music, have a drink and some food, buy t-shirts for our CoolEarth charity, see Lars lose (almost) all of his hair, and gave people the opportunity to choose a song for us to listen to a whole day in the car!
Say ‘hello’ to Schnappi.
Nea Radio
On Friday, Snorre was the summer guest at Nea Radio for his second interview. Here you can listen to the interview (Norwegian).
Yaris Hilton in new clothes
Lo and behold: Yaris Hilton, after the design bureau Form til fjells finished with her. A great big thank you for your fantastic work – and especially to Svein Arne at Form til fjells 🙂
Cool t-shirts!
Vi har to limited edition CoolEarth Adventurists t-skjorter i størrelse M og L som vi trekker ut blant de av dere som donerer på denne siden ->
De heldige vinnerne blir annonsert på Zimla den 11.7. Be there 🙂
Oppdatert 11.7.: Monica H. Langen og John Eirik Nilsen fikk hver sin gør-grønne CoolEarth-Adventurists t-skjorte. Tusen takk for donasjonene 😉
Pimp my ride, part II
Yaris Hilton is almost road-worthy. The only thing missing now is to put it all together again and give her a proper foil-job. Many of the original parts of this 1999 Yaris have been replaced, while some new ones have been added. Check out the pics in the slideshow above to see what we mean.
Cool Earth
CoolEarth is great at saving the environment… not so great at sizing up vikings for complimentary t-shirts!
They’re sending us new ones now, so Snorre and me will be properly dressed.
Oh, and by the way – go visit our CoolEarth page and help save 5 villages in the Kongo.
Our sponsors
The Mongol Rally is more than a road trip or a simple race to the finish line. It is an adventure, and it makes it possible for people to do some good as well! Team Yak in Black wouldn’t be able to do it at all without these sponsors!
Needles and pins
Although Hollywood celebrities and former Playboy bunnies have tried to convince others for years that vaccines are bad for you and cause autism, cancer, bad breath, meteor strikes on your pets and general ugliness, Team Yak in Black is willing to take a leap of faith based only on years of scientific research and to get huge fucking needles stuck into us our shots before the trip.
Yak-party on July 11th
You should really make a note of the date Friday, July 11th.
Write it down in your calendar, will you?
Alrighty, then.
YiB World Domination Tour
Our planned route is long. Very long. And back again.
And although it seems that a couple of destinations have to be dropped (yes, I’m looking at you, Iraq), we’ll still get to see quite a few interesting places.
Check out the list, as it is now.
Sponsorship
We need you!
If we are going to get properly lost on our way to fame and Ulaan Baatar, we need funds. We already have a few sponsors, but this is after all 35 000 kms we are talking about, and we have to take all kinds of stuff with us to be able to go through with it.
Visa-madness, Part II
The fun continues. What follows are examples of questions on some of the Visa-forms we had to fill out:
- «Full name of head.»
- «What is your Grandfather’s name?»
- «If retired, write ‘retried’.»
- «Who will pay for you?»
- «Have you been treated for any serious physical or mental disorder?»
- «Did you or do you have infections (contagious) of diseases harmful for the health surrounding society?»
- «Have you ever been a member of terrorist group, human trafficking, weapons and ammunition, illegal drug trafficking and their precursors?»
- «Are you allowed to return to your country of origin?»
And so on…
Visa-madness
The paperwork is really getting to us.
It’ll be great to finally hit the road and only have to deal with extreme fatigue, exploded tyres, roadkill for breakfast and corrupt officials – and all this even before we leave Norway!
In the news again
Yay! We were recently interviewd by a regional newspaper, so now at least 12 people know what we are up to 😉
Just joking – this is pretty cool. The article was published today on page 9 of the print copy of Adresseavisen. I have inserted a copy of the page a bit further down, just in case. Photo: Geir Tønset
May The 4th Be With You
Here’s Team Yak in Black wishing all our fellow travellers a happy May 4th – and since you probably have heard all the quotes and s*** from Star Wars already, instead here is a link to how it all got started at Time Magazine’s homepage.
In the paper
Last Friday we did a stint for the local radio station, Nea Radio, and one of the local newspapers, Arbeidets Rett. Check out the article on the paper’s website by following this link (Norwegian).
Trying out the equipment
A much-needed test of our navigational equipment prior to the rally. Click on the arrows to change the image. Photos: Andrew John Boothman
Remember to check out our feed on Instagram as well: http://instagram.com/yakinblack
Pimp my ride!
Camel-stopper from a Suzuki Vitara donated and will be properly fitted to our Toyota 🙂
More pimp´n coming your way soon!
Driving for your life
Team Yak in Black had a bit of a spin with their new crap car (Sorry, Yaris Hilton).
This was to try out the car on a frozen lake, in case we ever encounter similar circumstances on our tour during the Mongol Rally this summer. No, really, it was mostly so we could do spins, brake spins and other stuff you’d be absolutely insane to do anywhere else! Shot entirely on Rambergsjøen on March 8th 2014 near Røros, Norway.
Donations
£350,- in donations so far ... come on, people!
You know that we are not doing this for ourselves, right? I mean… a bit for ourselves. After all, we are raising money for the CoolEarth-project, since we REALLY like to breathe. So save the world – help us reach our goal by donating to the world’s largest oxygen-factory today!
Official Trailer of The Mongol Rally DVD
One stand-up comic, no planning, bugger all money, 10,000 miles, no car… Adventurism at its very best!
Every summer hundreds of brave teams thunder over mountain ranges and across open steppe in pursuit of glorious adventure mayhem. Now you can enjoy the epic tale of stand up comic Buddy taking the legendary Rally to a whole new level of stupidity. With no car and no lift arranged, he hitchhikes, crawls, begs and scrapes his way to Mongolia entertaining the teams and locals all the way.
Visit The Adventurists here: www.theadventurists.com/mongol-rally
Every f***ing time. How the f*** is this even possible?
Do you know? ‘Cause I sure as f**** don’t.
Anonymous team member
You’ve probably noticed that we changed team names. We started out as “Men in Yak”. We thought this was quite clever. Then we found out that some enterprising c**ts had thought of the same thing. Like, in 2013! So, we then had to think of something equally clever. Lo and behold: Team Yak in Black was born! Now all we had to do was redo the logo, some graphics and a shitload of text, and voila, as the heathen French like to say 🙂
Yaris Hilton
Our trusted Mongol Rally car has, in a bright moment of beer fog, been given her name: Yaris Hilton. May she bring us safe to our destination and back again! 🙂
Here she is dreaming about hot days in the Karakoram Desert.
I’m sure when all 3 of us are boiling in the 50+ degrees, we long back to a wee bit of Norwegian winter.
Yak in Black – Ice Driving
Team Men in Yak’s Yak in Black’s very first produced video.
The Men in Yak Yak in Black are practising for their 2 1/2 month drive to Mongolia and back again. Shot entirely at Storwartz (Storvola) near Røros, Norway.
New image gallery
We have a whole bunch of images from our photoshoot at Storwartz today.
Click here and check out the ridiculousness
Any fool can use a computer.
Many do.
Unknown
Huzzah! The Yak’s have found a home on the Interwebs, with help from Frontal Media.
Visit us under www.mongolrally.no and follow this space – after all, THIS is where we’ll post embarrassing images and footage from our travels, among other things.
The team needs you
We’ve taken the first step on the long and winding road to Ulaan Baator. The fee is paid, and the application forms are filed for the 11th Mongol Rally, HIIIIHAAAA!!!
Now all there is left to do is to buy a crappy car, get some sponsors, find some team mates and get ready for the start in the UK, on the 19th of July 2014.