Ireland to Mongolia

Only a small post to say we entered Russia safely. So far we’ve seen areas of lots of huge, huge farmland. On our first night four car loads of us camped behind a gathering of trees on one of these huge farms. Cooked up a storm of friend potatoes and had some Russian beer.

Now we are in Barnaul in Russia. We’re both still getting sporadic doses of the sprints. We are setting off tomorrow all going well to make it into the Altai mountains on the Russian side to see the total eclipse in more fitting surroundings than a smelly city.

So far Russians are nice but a bit scary. We hope to be in Mongolia on the 4th August if not earlier.

RUSSIA UPDATE!

Since we last posted here we got the full solar eclipse outside Barnaul. It was really surreal. We watched it with a family of Russians who gave us their floppy disk to look at the eclipse through. There was a random American man cycling through Russia and Central Asia who stopped for it too. The cows were mooing and the birds were confused and legged it en masse.

We then spent 3 fabulous days camping in the Altai Mountains near the border with Mongolia. The scenery was spectacular, camping spots everywhere by rivers, forests, mountains, lakes! All the nice stuff we didnt have in Turkmenistan [hee hee Turkeymenistan is getting a bashing again!]

Had a surprisingly nice time in Russia. Many people in other countries along the way had warned us away from it but yet again it luckily wasnt true!

We breezed through the border officials as we exited Uzbekistan but were asked for our first bribe by a Kazakhstan official…ahhh how cute. NO!! was our response. We got through without giving a cent but lost a coloured glittery pen to an official who was in charge of opening the gate to leave us into Kazakhstan. Damn it they were for the Mongolian children!! Meanie pants.

We spent our first night in Shymkent on the hardest bed in the world. We then drove on the next day with Kealan and Claudine in our little convoy and camped in the evening on grassland at the edge of a village. During the evening we were visited by practically the whole village. They laughed at the lads’ tent and said they would be very cold in it. Larry showed them some photos on his camera one with him in his tent in Ireland camping. Kazakh people may now think all Irish people live in tents. Sorry guys.

We were given a present of a giant water melon by local children and shown family photos. We also got a visit by the police to check up on us. Then another car came by to laugh at the notion of staying in a tent.

We had a lovely sleep and were visited again in the morning by some friendly men and were given locally made balls of cheese that were very salty and unfortunately inedible.

We left for Almaty a big city in the south east of Kazakhstan. We stayed one night as the hotels were very expensive – $140 for one night with no air conditioning! Tsk. Had a good night out on the town as we met up with two ex-pats who filled us in on a thing or two about the country…very interesting…

We left Almaty the next day and spent it camping at a lake further up the country. Think Ireland is dirty…the place was nearly a rubbish dump it was that bad. We were kept awake all night by silly young Kazakhs and left the next morning in a grumpy mood.

Another night of camping with the mosquitos and we stayed our last night in Semey in Northern Kazakhstan. It was the site of numerous nuclear bomb test in the Soviet era and supposedly a whole city nearby was wiped out with 2 million killed. Its never been mentioned and was covered up by the Soviet government of the time. It was a very poor city.

Next day we left Kazakhstan which we liked – friendly and not so friendly people, nice countryside. We never got to use some Borat quotes as apparently they actually really do dislike any mention of it. Boo. On to Russia!

After being made wait outdoors for 3 hours in the intense heat by the Turkmenistan border officials we eventually, thankfully, mercifully made it out with our sanity and into Uzbekistan where we had to go through their border procedures.

All the borders we’ve passed through followed the same routine. First checkpoint where you’d be approached by guys selling the next country’s currency, and a passport check. Next point machina passport check. Next point endless realms of red tape and big stamps. Next point machina search by officals where they look at your fancy camera and route around your belongings. Next point buy insurance or pay for some document that you need. Then its a ‘welcome to our country’ and away we go.

As regards the Uzbekistan border, we’d heard a lot of things about the police and how they were fond of the ole bribe or two but we had no problem at the border, in fact the men were quite handsome.

We exchanged some dollars with the black market money changing guys on the Uzbek side. They wouldnt touch the Turkmenistan manat and we’ve found this to be the case everywhere we’ve tried to change it so far. We dont blame them. Larry did the money changing business with them and used an impressive PJ Gallagher whistling action to interpret what he wanted. They laughed. PJ could do well over here.

We were elated to be out of Turkmenistan and celebrated with a big bottle of cold coca cola and fanta by the roadside.

On to the old town of Bukhara for us. Throughout central Asia there are numerous police checks where there’s little huts and barriers where you’re either signalled to pull in or continue. They’ve also discovered speed cameras and the police hide out in every nook and cranny of the roads to catch you. We were stopped by a couple of Uzbek police but we managed to have a laugh with them and we didnt have to pay out any bribes throughout our time in the country. Apparently it was a hell of a lot worse a couple of years ago where foreign tourists were stopped often and had to give money to corrupt officials.

There seemed to be more history and culture on show in Uzbekistan than Turkmenistan. In Bukhara we stayed in a lovely B&B set around a courtyard and decorated in the Uzbek style with a fridge and lots of colouredy walls and Islamic decor [will get pictures up on flickr soon...dire descriptions].

After Bukhara we went to Samarkand which is well known in central Asia for its beautiful old mosques and medressas [Islamic colleges] which are centuries old. And indeed they were lovely [pictures to follow when we find computers with USB ports!]

Lots of French and other tourists here in Uzbekistan surprisingly! This meant the food and service was better throughout the country. More meat on sticks.

After a dose of the trots which seems to have left its dirty hand on everyone on the rally so far, we left Samarkand and Uzbekistan and on to Kazakhstan….We liked Uzbekistan…did we mention that we didnt like Turkmenistan??

We have lots of other names for Turkmenistan at the moment and none of them are flattering. We just crossed the border today into Uzbekistan and out of Turkmenistan and oh my God how glad are we.

It was one big disappointment. In Iran we were spoiled with such lovely friendly people, in Turkmenistan we were either laughed at or treated with disdain. They really dont care about tourists and only care about charging them 5 times the normal price.

The capital Ashgabad is like a wonderland-twilight zone. It has about 10 golden statues of Turkmenbasy their previous president that I counted over the city and countless rows of marble faced buildings. Yet when we left the capital to drive across the roads in the country they were in the worst condition I’ve ever seen. But along the way drivers are treated to quotes from his book, Ruhnama.

We spent about 3 hours getting out of the country today and would never go back again or advise anyone to go. We can send you pictures…

Wow what an amazing country. We’d been told great things about the people in Iran but nothing prepared us for how kind, welcoming and helpful the people were.

The border crossing into Iran from Turkey was eventful…Larry had to declare that he had one fine bottle of champagne for ’special celebration’ in Mongolia. This did not wash with the Iranian border official [alcohol is banned in Iran] who frogmarched Larry through the customs area to the toilet (making sure everyone knew that he was a bold boy). He had to pop it in the ’skiloo’ in front of the officials but the bottle prematurely popped and made the officials jump back in shock at the ‘explosion’! But they said all was ok after the bottle was dumped down the toilet.

We had cars beeping and people waving at us everywhere we went. A couple of people pulled up and stopped their cars just to say, ‘Welcome to Iran’. And the other guys with us even had their petrol paid for them by an Iranian family after they had not enough rials to pay. On that note the price of diesel was ridiculously low throughout the country with the average 50 litre fill up costing about a dollar! We love Iran

I had to wear a head scarf and cover up so was in turn roasting for the whole Iran experience but it was worth it! Would love to go back and visit other cities in Iran in the future. And would recommend everyone to go!

At the moment we’re in Bukhara, Uzbekistan and finally we’ve gotten on the internet. Here’s a couple of posts on the different countries so far….

Turkey first – we stopped in Istanbul for a half day off and met up with other ralliers for dinner. We had a bit of trouble getting to where we wanted (lack of signposts and drivers were mental) so we thought it would be better to abandon the cars in an underground carpark for the day.

Istanbul was fabulous! Spent a lovely evening listening to the mosques calling out for prayer and taking in the sights and sounds of the old part of the city.

The rest of Turkey was just as good as our experience in Istanbul. People were friendly, chatty and helpful. The roads were good but deteriorated a bit towards the Eastern part of the country towards Iran.

The diesel price was crazy high and we spent a lot of money getting across the big country that is Turkey.

We had two police escorts in turkey, one to our hotel and the other out of the maze of roads in Istanbul.

So turns out there’s a lot of driving involved in this driving overland to Mongolia lark so we’ve only got a day off today and we’re in Istanbul, on day six.

We left for London last Friday the 4th July by taking the ferry from Rosslare. The ferry was at 9 and we left Clonmel at 6.30am. We had not slept. All Thursday night was spent packing the van, packing our bags and sorting stuff. I had one hour doze which was riddled with thoughts of what the hell are we doing, can I back out now and stay in bed?

Said our see yas to the family bright in the morning and kept ourselves awake by drinking from a bottle of coke and I told Larry a story to keep him awake as we drove down to the ferry.

We made it at a tight squeeze and Kealan and Claudine from Cork who are Team Cork to Mongolia joined us on the ferry. We were away. With a little snooze in a Stena Lines ferry we arrived in Fishguard. On to London for the launch on Saturday where we met other particpants in the rally and the lovely Lorna came along for a gawk at us.

We set off in a convoy in traffic congested London for the channel tunnel to France.

In France we stayed in a cheap hotel in Dunkirk on Saturday night.

Sunday we drove from there to Wurzburg in Germany where we camped for cheapo euros. Monday we drove from there to Graz in Austria [south east] where we camped for less cheapo euros. Some poo coloured slugs were remarkable here.

Tuesday we drove from there to Paracin in Serbia. Nice spot more about that in later posts.

Wednesday is Larry’s birthday. We drive from Serbia through Bulgaria into Turkey. We stay in a town near the border. We are escorted to our hotel by the police.

Today, Thursday the 10th we are in Istanbul. We are heading out now for some beers with other people on the rally that is why this is rushed. Shall write more when have the time But Istanbul is great so far.

More later!!