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 🙂
The Mongol Rally is the world’s longest rally. It starts in London and finishes in Ulaan Baatar.
There. That’s all you need to know.
Prior to the launch of the Mongol Rally on July 20th, we got the car to London, gave interviews on the radio, sold t-shirts, gave to charity, were written about, got sponsors, got given a kickass theme-song, cut some videos of the trip and much more we won’t bore you with.
Read the blogposts instead – you get pictures, too.
Day 1
Start of approx. 320 cars from Battersea Park, London. Two cars lose their exhausts at launch, one team member gets his scrotum punctured and loses 2 liters of blood.
Snorre and Lars start to grow beards.
Day 2
We go through the chunnel and to Europe proper. Nothing in particular to report. Oh, one team gets rear-ended in Belgium and their car is totaled. Another team is arrested by Interpol in Germany, for driving around in a stolen car (but it wasn’t really).
Yak in Black makes it through Switzerland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Austria and Germany.
Day 3 and 4
It’s the day of the Czech-out party. A single night of wild abandonment in Klenova Castle in the rolling Bohemian hills of The Czech Republic. Basically barbecueing and beerdrinking is what we’re saying.
Day 5
Rolling hills and sunflower fields. That’s it. And Sniper Alley.
(Read the sodding blogposts, ok?)
Day 6
Leaving Sarajevo, getting pulled over by the police (dunno why), beautiful landscape. We’ve traveled 485 km and have gone through Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro.
Day 7
A hitchhiker from Denmark is picked up by us near the Albanian border. He doesn’t turn out to be a knife-wielding lunatic (he’s from Denmark, what do you want?).
Day 8
Playing beer-pong and going to Greece.
Day 9
Turkey. Insane traffic in Istanbul. Don’t get killed and try not to kill anyone else is today’s motto.
Day 10-16
More Turkey and a lot of Istanbul. Stuff happens. The Turkish Mafia is involved. A buddy of ours is arrested for indecent exposure and has to spend 10 hours in a Turkish prison.
You should really rather read the proper blogpost instead of hanging around here!
Day 17
We’re visiting embassies in Istanbul and endure visa-bullshit. A hit-and-run carwash happens.
Snorre’s and Lars’ beards grow longer.
Day 18
We travel along the Black Sea coast. Flooding, Turkish bagpipes and mountain roads. All this while Lars runs around in a skirt (yeah, yeah, we know it’s a kilt!).
Day 19
OMG! OMG! The view! Those amazing colours! And so high up in the mountains, too. Turkey and Georgia sure are lovely.
Day 20
Our beards are proper now. We are ready to go to the infamous Abano Pass in Telavi, Georgia. Need 4-wheel drive you say?
We scoff at the suggestion!
In Tbilisi, we eat brains! They are delicious.
Day 21
Where we’re getting messed around with at the Georgian/Armenian border and interrupt an Armenian mafia-wedding because we’re hungry!
Really.
We also get pulled over by the police (who we have to bribe) and pitch our tents near a Cosmic Ray Station!
Day 22
We see Mt. Ararat and Noah’s Ark.
Afterwards, we get pulled over by the cops again. More bribery ensues.
Day 23
We enter Iran. Desert, Excitement.
Shit. Nowhere to sleep or pitch our tents.
Day 24-28
Iran. Still. The people are great. The different countries’ embassies not so much. We go to a park in Tehran, the bazaar and see stuff we wouldn’t have believed one week ago.
Never once do we get pulled over. Strange, that.
Day 29
Still here? Alrighty then.
We see the defaced former American Embassy in Tehran, then go to the Caspian Sea and sweat a lot!
Day 30
We go to Masuleh. A thousand year old village hanging on a cliff. Pretty amazing.
Day 31-32
We’re going to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of-
GAZOR KHAN!
Really, we’re going to Alamut – the Castle of the Assassins.
Day 33-36
Mashhad, the holiest city in Iran, beckons.
We check out the famous shrine there, try to be tourists and hopefully don’t offend anyone.
…as you can see, we kind of ran out of ink at this point. Read the blogposts, whydontya.