Yak to the Future in the Surrey Advertiser!

Our lunacy is now common knowledge to all the (old) folk of Godalming and Surrey. Splashed accross page two of the local rag we are pictured in what will no doubt be a regular, worried looking pose throughout central asia, or on the hard shoulder of the A2 on the way to Dover. For those with bad eyesight, here is what the paper had to say on our forthcoming trip as we don't do our bit for the evironment!

To Mongolia in 'umbrella on wheels'
On 19 July, three young men from Godalming and Haslemere will depart from Hyde Park, to race 10,000 miles from London to Mongolia in a twenty-year-old Citroen 2CV, to raise money for charity.

Mark Coughlan, Joe Turner and Tim Hopkin, will compete against 200 other teams taking part from all over the UK. They will head east passing through countries such as; Iran, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan on their way to Mongolia.

The two charities they aim to raise funds for are the Pashupati Briddhsshram Home for the Elderly, in Kathmandu, Nepal, a government run home for 236 residents in urgent need of resources. The second, the Mercy Corps Mongolia, is an organisation that supports rural communities and herding families through economic, educational and agricultural programmes.

The team is looking for sponsorship in the form of donations from individuals, items from their wish list that they will need for the journey or corporate sponsors. They hope to raise a total of £5,000 for their chosen charities.

Mark, said: “We are all very excited about the trip and passionate about our chosen charities. The money that we raise will make a huge difference to so many lives. We have already received some corporate sponsorship from The Great Big Event Company, Witley, Polaris Consulting Limited, Guildford and ShareNow.com but we need more to hit our target.

If you are interested in sponsoring Mark and his team and would like to find out more, please visit the website at www.yaktothefuture.com.

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

It's been an expensive week....

With four months until I depart on the Mongol Rally, the biggest expense in taking part in the challenge was forked out - A whopping £460.80 for seven visas, all at a heart stopping click of a mouse.

Using a Visa Service company, the following visas are now being processed from a small office somewhere in London:

Iran --> £122.00, 10 days
Turkmenistan --> £39, 5 day transit visa
Uzbekistan --> £70.80, 15 days
Kyrgyzstan --> £59, 1 month
Kazakhstan --> £50, single entry, 1 month
Russia --> £68, single entry, 1 month
Mongolia --> £52, 30 days from point of entry (anytime during a given 90 day period)

** Note, this doesn't include a Turkish visa (bought on the border), unavoidable bribes and taxes!

The annoying part of this massive outlay in dosh is that we will just be driving through many of these countries as fast as possible enroute to Mongolia. As the Mongol Rally is in fact a race, and that we hope to make it to Ulaan Bator for Saturday 16th August, we have had to decide which countries to spend extras days in. Iran, Uzbek and Kyrgyzstan have our votes, and we have scheduled a couple of days off (if all goes well) in these two countries.
In applying for these visas you need to stipulate an "Entry date", so a rough itinerary has been drawn up which looks incredible ambitious.