Switchme Blog

Hey All,

Thanks for checking out our first Mongol Rally update.

Kick-off is about 4 weeks away and there’s a lot to do! You can’t just get in a car and drive to Mongolia. No, sir. We’ve got to kit out the car first! After all, there’s no use in driving to Mongolia unless you are doing it in style.

There are visas to obtain (6 of the bloody things) – all of which are complicated by the fact that many places like Turkmenistan, and Russia require an invitation. This is our main focus at the moment ‘cause without these visas, we’re not making it past Dover!

There’s our dodgy Alto, for which we need a bunch of repairs, 4 additional tires, extra fuel tanks, a roof racks, spot lights, snorkel, and it hasn’t had an oil change or service for months.
And so the list continues…. so much to do in such little time

However, things are chugging along nicely and we’re quite on track to breaking down somewhere in rural Uzbekistan…you never know you might even catch us on the next Borat episode.

Here’s a little breakdown of the dates, number of the km’s and the target destinations. As you’ll see this is a not-so-straightforward road trip especially in our fully loaded 1000cc granny car.

DATE KMs LOCATION
24/07/10    550 departure day, London to Amsterdam, sleep in Amsterdam
25/07/10    980 Amsterdam to Poland, sleep in Wroclaw
26/07/10    825 Wroclaw to Krakow (visit Auschwitz) the onto Prague
27/07/10    900 Prague via Bratislava, Budapest, to Belgrade Serbia
28/07/10    650 Belgrade to Bucharest Romania
29/07/10    820 Bucharest to Istanbul Turkey via Bulgarian black sea coast
30/07/10    460 Get oil change in Istanbul, Istanbul (sightseeing morning) then to Ankara
31/07/10    900 Ankara to Erzurum
01/08/10    580 enter Iran, Erzurum to Iran border, to Tabriz
02/08/10    650 Tabriz to Tehran
03/08/10    620 Tehran to Golestan national park, camping in Iran?
04/08/10    700 Enter Turkmenistan, Golestan nat park to Ashgabat (Turkmen border) to Mary
05/08/10    640 enter Uzbekistan, Mary to Farab to Samarqand
06/08/10    500 enter Kazakhstan, get oil change!!! Samarqand to Tashkent to Shymkent (border)

07/08/10    800 Kazakhstan with Kyrgyzstan shortcut, Shymkent via Taraz and Bishkek Krygystan, to Almaty

08/08/10 -11/08/10    1800 over 4 days in Kazakhstan, Almaty to Russian border, via Sarkand, via Ayaguz, via Semey to Rubtsovsk Russia
12/08/10 – 13/08/10    1000 over 2 days in Russia – Rubtsovsk to Tsagaanuur Mongolia, via Biysk and aktash
14/08/10 – 17/08/10    1600 over 4 days in Mongolia    Tsagaannuur to Ulaanbaatar, via Ulaangom, Baruunturuun, moron and Bulgan

We hope to have a few pics  of the car up soon (with Switchme stickers added). In the meantime, heres a pic of a team who didn’t quite make it last year.

Stay tuned for more updates.