This is the personal blog of London photographer, backpacker, traveller Mark Coughlan. The intention of the blog is communicate updates from my personal website and on my photography projects and travels both in the UK and worldwide. When backpacking the obscure places on earth, this blog will be continually updated with images and thoughts from the road. [Read more about me]

Sunday 18 May 2008

Has anyone got a Nissan Micra for sale?

Will we make it? Well judging by yesterdays disasters we're not too sure. After only 30 miles into the journey home I was parked up on the hard shoulder just short of Swindon awaiting the RAC rescue van to arrive. Heading to Mongolia we expect a fair few punctures en-route. Especially in the pot holed roads of Kazakhstan, but not on the bloody M4 motorway!

Anyway that was the least of the problem. After the RAC chappy had repaired the puncture(and telling me how his Dad pulled a lap dancer the night before while his Mum was on holiday. It must be a Swindon Yokel thing) the car then wouldn't start up, with the battery dead. Out come the jump leads and eventually I was off. However with the battery as good as knackered, the windscreen wipers stopped working, which didn't help in the rain, then the indicators weren't working, and finally to top it off I had to drive the last hour getting flashed by every oncoming car as the lights didn't work!The good news is that on the motorway the car got up to a whopping 65mph, and in doing so over taking (with no indicators) two horse boxes!

The day itself was good fun. On arriving at the dealership the owner was nowhere to be seen. Instead we had two workers fresh off the bus from Poland. A little driving through the Somerset countryside feeling like we were going to tip over on every corner and driving up any hill was in 1st gear making an almighty racket.Parking up at the abandoned University car park to take some photos as you are now seeing, a car pulls up with a lady and her family. "That is the Mongolian flag" she said with surprise, "I'm from Mongolia!". I kid you not, how bloody bizarre was that. Having been to Mongolia myself in 2005, we talked about where I had been and she even knew the people (guide, hotel owner in UB) that I met in Ulaan Bator. Very spooky!

If anyone wants to buy a Citroen 2CV, please get in touch ASAP!!

More: Yak to the Future website

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