The Mongol Rally is Under Way

Here is the latest from Justin Wheeler, on the Mongol rally. Justin is traveling overland from London to Mongolia in a clapped out Citroen 2CV along with 40 others, to raise money for charity. To show your support for visit Justin's Website, where you can make a contribution to either Send a Cow, or Save the Children.

Justin and his team welcome comments and send out a newsletter keeping interested parties updated about their progress. This update just came in from Justin:

So we finally made it.

Been a fun journey from Budapest.

We got down to the Serbian border in good time. We then spent about 3 hours getting out of Hungary into Serbia where they tried to charge us 110 euros to cross the border. Eventually we told them to naff off and did a runner for Romania.

I have to say that I then slept for most of the night whilst Henry drove us down to the Bulgarian border. What little I saw of Romania I really liked. It has to be said that driving an old 2CV makes us lots of friends although I am slightly disappointed that so many people laugh at the poor old girl!

We were told that there would be an hour long wait whilst they changed the personnel. We couldnt really understand why until we had paid the tax and realised we had to take a ferry. Some hours later we crossed into Bulgaria. I was advised to leave 5 euro bakshish in my passport but having spent my last Euros on car repairs I didnt have any leftç Fortunately we made it through that checkpoint and then at the Customs point the guard said: Heres the deal you pay me 12 dollars and we dont search the car. I managed to get him down to my last 10 dollars so all was well.

Bulgaria seemed desperately poor and having spent far too little time in capital cities I was desperate to spend time in Sofia. I was slightly taken aback when getting more Euros I asked the cashier what was nice to see in Sofia and she looked totally nonplussed because there wasnt anything! No web cafes there anywhere either! Asked for the speciality of the region in a restaurant and was especially inspired by the vodka soaked flaming mushroom!

There was severe flooding and we had a rather nasty scare when the car died going through a huge puddle and stopped not to be restarted fort love or money. It turned out that we had flooded the points.
Fortunately another car had the same problem and it turned out the driver was a dab hand at car repairs and soon got us going using the tyre inflater to blow out the excess moisture. Unfortunately he put back the coil incorrectly which caused us minor problems until Istanbul where I realised what had happened and fixed it.

Other than that not much more to report. Am hoping to spend the afternoon sight seeing for the first time on the trip and then will be leaving for Georgia early tomorrow morning. Sadly alone as there was a cock up with the Azerbaijan visa for my co-pilot for the next stage.

Now off for a long overdue shower!!

Feel free to check our blogs for other updates at www.mongoliaorbust.com or to call me on +423 663 014916