This is their report:

Get Up & Gobi Mongolia Expedition

Motivation for the trip/How it started (Tom) –

Way back in April of 2007, I was spending some time in Nepal, volunteering with a local charity, when I met Dan Wright; a Brit who lived and worked in Kathmandu as a guide, and general adventurist. It was his need for a support team and vehicle, for the August of 2008, that planted the seed that finally grew into our adventure.

Although ultimately, the expedition we were to support fell through, leaving a support team, with no one to support (we only found out once in the Gobi), the expedition still turned out to be one of the most amazing and worthwhile ventures undertaken by any of us.

Below you will find a brief glimpse of what we experienced; documented are a few of the thoughts, feelings and experience’s that we felt would help and inspire others to attempt and achieve similar feats.

Route & Border Crossings (Tom) -

As our objective was to get to Mongolia as cheaply and as fast as possible, we decided to take a direct route through Russia, shadowing the trans-Siberian railway. However, from extensive research in the internet, and due to slight paranoia from numerous horror stories, we found out that the best border crossing into Russia, for ease and speed, was through Finland. Given this, we decided that we would drive up through Scandinavia, visiting a close family friend in Sweden on route.

Once we arrived at the border, only a few hours from Helsinki, we had to purchase Russian car insurance. This proved to be an easy task, as it was sold in a service station right before the crossing. Leaving the EU was not difficult, with just passport and very light customs checks. The Russian side was a little different however. In total, we spent around 5 hours waiting, filling out various forms, which seemed to confirm the various reputations of Russian bureaucracy; one pertinent example occurred whilst a border guard was filling out one such form and asked for my house number. With no number and only a house name the official was visible shaken, and took some 20 minutes before he decided that it was ok not to fill that particular box.

Again, custom checks were minimal - we felt however, that this was due to the long wait we had experienced and a desire by the border guards to get the queue moving. Staying calm, and being as helpful as possible with the border guards also helped and is a winning strategy for minimising potential hassles.

We did experience some hostility from a few Russian’s at the border, however again we felt that this was due to the long waiting times involved; we never experienced this sort of behaviour again, and in all the Russians can be considered helpful, and once introduced, extremely hospitable.

On our way through Russia, we met a few Mongol and Charity Rally Teams, who informed us that Rally vehicles were not getting through the northern Mongolian border, our planned entry point for Mongolia. Although already Irkutsk, we found out that the problems at the northern border were continuing, but that the western border was trouble free and letting vehicles through with very little hassle. In response we embarked on a 92 hour thrash back to the western border. To say the least, this experience was a little painful, and in total we did end up stopping during two of the nights, but only for an hour or two.

Once at the border, progress was slow on the Russian side, involving numerous forms, available from different offices. One point that should be mentioned however are the border opening times; the Russian border was only open for 6 hours a day, with a two hour lunch break in the middle; this coupled with the 20km trip across no-man’s land and the fact that the Mongolian border shut an hour earlier than the Russian, means that spending a night in-between the borders is a definite possibility, experienced by some of the people we met.

The Mongolian border was a lot easier and we were even wished a good trip and waved off with a smile. It should be mentioned however that a scam exists once you leave the border crossing, where you are flagged down and told that you must purchase compulsory car insurance. When we entered Mongolia, this was not the case, and luckily we were accompanied with a team that had passed through the year before and been stung.

Ease of Obtaining Visas (Jess) -

After unsuccessfully attempting to obtain Russian Business visas independently, to give us the opportunity of having two months to drive through Russia, we decided to purchase them through overseasbusinesstravel.co.uk.

The first problem we had was that you don’t just need an invite from a Russian business, with all the relevant paper work, you also need to be invited by the Russian Ministry itself; although it does not say this on any sites we visited. Running out of time we decided to spend the money on getting a company to organise the business visas.

We thought it was all sorted and on the day I went to the Russian embassy in London, 3 days before we left, I finally arrived at the counter after waiting 3 hours in queues. The stern lady said the invite did not match up with the cities we were going to be driving through and the information about the car was not included in the invite, even though I specifically asked overseasbusinesstravel if this was necessary - they assured me this was not the case.

Walking out of the embassy, without the visa felt awful, with all the time and money we had already spent. So I was left with 45 minutes to get a new invites for the 4 of us before the embassy was shut for any same day applications. I found a company that supplied Russian invites opposite the embassy, managed to contact the company who would not issue me with new business invites without me paying again, and I couldn’t get business invites because it takes one day to process the application. So I ended up back in the queue with my tourist visa in hand and two hours to kill before I could collect the visas.

Since arriving back in the country I have been in contact with overseasbusinesstravel.co.uk and the company refuses to give me a refund because there is no record of me asking if I needed to include the car and all cities we were going to pass through - this is because they conveniently do not record their phone calls - which ended up with us £85 out of pocket and with only 1 month to get from Vyborg at the Finish border to the northern border of Mongolia; but, we had the visas!

The Mongolian visas, on the other hand, were a breeze to get. We obtained them from the Mongolian Embassy in Irkutsk, handing them in the morning and picked them up in the afternoon. We did want to sort out the Mongolian visas in the UK but with the time spent in obtaining Russian visas, we had no choice but to get them in Russia. Lessons learned for organising the visas are:
Don’t trust what you see on government web sites.
If you have the money purchase visas from a business (but record all the correspondence by email).

Choice of Vehicle (Tom) -

Being the only team member with any off-road or 4x4 experience, the job of selecting and purchasing the vehicle fell to me. Having had a Defender 90 as my first car, I knew all the advantages and disadvantages of the vehicles; although I consider myself to be somewhat of a Land Rover ‘nut’, after a lot of consideration, mainly on cost, reliability and the availability of parts, the difficult decision of looking at other types of 4x4’s was taken.

The other obvious choice, offering value for money, ruggedness/reliability, and a more global parts network was the legendry Toyota Hilux, even if it did have slightly compromised off-roading ability, mainly due to the lack of a Diff Lock. After test driving one or two, and maintaining a keen eye on the Autotrader website, I was able to find a gem – a 1994 Hilux Surf SSRX 3.0TD. This version offered better security and more comfort, as well as the ample power of a 3.0l Toyota diesel engine.

For £1,200 we were able to acquire a vehjicle with just less than 100,000 miles on the clock, fully services, with new head gasket, cam belt and 4 new tyres – all for just £400 each. It was also an automatic, which I felt was an advantage after destroying a clutch and gear box off-roading with a manual in my youth. It also took some pressure off the other two drivers who had minimal off-road driving experience.

During the expedition the car performed well. The first revelation was the fact that a 60l tank would take us nearly 1000km on motorways, which seemed like good fuel economy for a large and heavily loaded 4x4. It also provided all the comfort needed to be able to maintain a daily 8 hours of driving for weeks on end.

Although, we did get stuck on three occasions, once needing a toe from a friendly Russian, and once needing the expertise of a Mongolian nomad to extract us from a bog, the car performed well off-road. The only modifications we made were to replace the adjustable shock absorbers the car was fitted with, with ES9000 gas shock absorbers. These performed well, taking several big hits without trouble.

We also decided to replace the rear springs, as the vehicle was suffering from ‘saggy bum’ syndrome, even before we loader her up with all our equipment. These modifications only cost around £250, and given that the car had no suspension problems after a month of very poor Russian roads, and then two months on Mongolian dirt roads, seemed like a good decision.

We only encountered two serious mechanical issue during the trip, the first being a leaky radiator. We had it soldered on 5 occasions, however, these repairs never held for more than a week or so, and in the end we gave up and just refilled the radiator every hour or so and added a tea spoon of pepper every day.

The second issue was a battery that discharged one night, for no known reason. Luckily, the night it discharged we were only 5km from a settlement, rather than 200km away, as we had been on numerous occasions, meaning after a short walk and locating some helpful Mongolians we were back on our way.

When problems were encountered however, the Mongolian bush mechanics were familiar with the vehicle, and were always able to find parts that fit, further vindicating the decision to use a Toyota.

Over all, I can only recommend the vehicle, as it was excellent value for money, was comfortable and took one hell of a beating with relatively few problems.

Problems with the Local’s (Jess) –

Apart from a few people who we already knew, there was little contact with locals through Europe and European Russia. Our first insight into real Russian life, and my favourite, was at a "campsite" just outside of Nizhniy Novgorod. We had just started eating and a figure lurked into view clutching a blue plastic bag. He came over and accompanied with beer and cigarettes (always an ice breaker,) we all tried our best to have a conversation with our broken Russian, his broken English and a rather unhelpful English/Russian dictionary. After about half an hour he ushered us down the path, strewn with puddles, to his dacha village (dacha: a rural house most Russians own and spend a lot of time in, always including a lush vegetable patch and banya - Russian sauna.)

His friends were amazing, typically Russian, and so were overly hospitable and in a rush to get themselves and everyone around them sloshed; this time on homemade vodka. I’m sure that that stuff could have made us blind! 6 hours later we staggered back unsuccessfully missing the puddles with the Russian and his precious plastic bag.

My experience of Russians are that they can be quite closed to foreigners but on a 1 to 1 basis they are one of the most hospitable nations in the world, completely mad, and strive to live there lives in any way they seem fit - nothing will stop a Russian.

Entering Mongolia proved to be a stark difference to our cold and quite hostile welcome across the Russian border a month earlier. The Mongolians are amazing people; on the steep always friendly, giving and very inquisitive, usually resulting in them finding our stash of vodka and trotting of on their beloved horse with gleeful grins and del’s blowing in the constant wind, (Del: traditional Mongolian dress worn by both genders, almost akin to a large dressing gown with elongated arms, beautiful intercut patterns similar to traditional Chinese dress) and full of bits and pieces from our car that we had given them.

I’d like to add that vodka is sacred in Mongolia, and is also seen to cleanse the body, by way of empting it. So although Russians are known for their love and ability to drink vodka, Mongolians are certainly the biggest and most enthusiastic vodka drinkers that we encountered. The only trouble we had with Mongolians was in Erdenet - north east of UB; driving down the main strip we got stopped twice in quick succession (5 minutes apart), the second resulting in the police officer refusing to return Tom's passport.

We found the policeman to be aggressive and forceful, and only after a lot of heated discussions did he returned the passport realising he was not going to get a bribe out of us. We had heard horror stories of corrupt policemen in Russia, and although we had been pulled over many times, once with a warning shot from AK47, we were never asked to provide bribes once all the relevant paper had been scrutinised. Not wanting to reflect badly on the general population of Mongolia, but we fund the Mongolian police to be rude, intimidating and almost always after a bribe (it is worth noting that on one occasion, lacking the energy to spend an hour arguing with the police, we paid a bribe totally all of £2); such qualities seem to be limited to the few Mongolian’s who hold a little official power.

Availability of Food/Supplies (Jess) –

Through Europe we mainly ate out, but once into Russia, our staple diet of pasta, borsch and dumplings began. Through Russia and Mongolia, we camped around 90% of the time, only stopping in cities out of necessity to take the car into a mechanic or to stock up on supplies. Food was easily available and cheap, especially as we were sharing the cost between four. The Russians love there borsch, as I do to, and is generally a mixture of boiled cabbage, beat route, carrots, onions and an unidentified meat, served with a hearty dollop of crème fresh; interestingly in the east of Russia they use crème fresh but in the west they use mayonnaise because the climate is not suitable for keeping dairy products.

Russian dumplings proved a team favourite; small dough dumplings filled with beef or pork, sold frozen and boiled up on the camp stove in approx. 20 minutes - warning though, beware of the fish dumplings, we all had a nasty shock one night near Yekaterinburg thinking we would be dining on our beloved dumplings to find out they were filled with mashed up fish - not appetising at all!

Throughout Russia we could generally pick up everything needed form one store, but once we got into the Mongolia the search for fresh vegetables, cheese and water became more of a challenge. Unfortunately, and in contrast to our experience, Mongolian cuisine has a lot of horror stories associated with it.

Mongolians are also fans of borsch and dumplings, however their dumplings are larger, meatier and always full of mutton, which forms over half of a Mongolian’s staple diet; the other half being the array of dairy products they acquire form their livestock, which include yaks milk yoghurt, clotted cream butter, cheese, and their famous salty tea, which I found more creamy than salty. Salty tea might sound disgusting to some, but in Mongolia’s harsh climate you need to keep your salt levels up and the longer you're there, the more you realise this. I even found myself craving the fatty salt blocks they carry around with.

Mongolian food is lovely but limited to boiled mutton, dairy products and more boiled mutton. It was easy to obtain pasta, rice and some tinned goods from towns and cities in Mongolia. Pasta, rice and local produce was always cheap, but tinned vegetables of the sort we are used to i.e. tinned sweet corn, peas and tomatoes, were often quite pricy as they were imported from Europe. The price of these goods get’s increasingly more expensive the further you were from the border. There was always a great distance between towns so you would have to make sure you had more than enough supplies to get us to the next town. As an emergency measures we were able to acquire four British Army ration packs; these did come in handy, and we would advise carrying an equivalent type of emergency supply, including an emergency stove.

When we first arrived in Mongolia the weather was kind, if not a bit hot sometimes, and so an assortment of vegetables could be found easily in the town markets, by the time we were leaving at the end of October the frost had settled and the only vegetables we could get our hands on where potatoes, carrots and garlic if we were lucky.

Mongolia being the wilderness that it is, we'd always keep an eye out for rivers and streams on the map and GPS our way to them to stock up on water; on several occasions, especially with a leaky radiator, water levels got uncomfortably low. Local Mongolian’s were always eager to help and with a bit of improvised sign language we would get directed to a water container or locally know fresh water stream. The water in Mongolia, if sourced with a keen eye, also never needed purifying.

Fuel (Tom).

Fuel was widely available throughout Russia. We required diesel for the vehicle and benzene for our stove, both of which were available at least ever 100km on the main roads. Before entering Mongolia, we were worried that diesel would be hard to find, as we had heard that this was the case in Kazakhstan, and the Lonely Planet guide book said that only petrol was readily available.

This was not the case though, and diesel could be found at every filling station. The price varied quite a lot, increasing with distance from UB. Per litre price in Russia came out at about 30p, and 70-80p per litre in Mongolia. The fuel always seemed of a good quality and we had no problems.

Concluding Thoughts/Good and bad points of the trip (Jess)

The good point were numerous and the bad few. I specifically remember it being amazing, the feeling of not knowing what was around the next corner - seeing something new and beautiful all day, every day, for 3 and a half months. This was especially true in Mongolia. I don’t have any poignant memories of bad points but sometimes you would need to try keeping moral up because of the constant early morning and being on the go, to what sometimes felt 24/7. Right at the end I became quite ill for a couple of days through exhaustion, but taking a step back for 2 days sorted me out straight away.

The places I would defiantly recommend to see if you ever have the chance are:
St Petersburg – take the boat around the city.
Kazan - where western meets eastern Russia.
Siberia – anywhere, it’s all about the landscape.
Lake Baikal – the largest fresh water lake in the world
Mongolia! - I think the only way to see Mongolia is to get in a 4x4 and drive around the whole country.

Cars do not depreciate in Mongolia as they do in the west, so our recommendation would be to go over at the start of summer buy a 4x4 and sell it at the end of summer. Setting out from U.B., with a good topographical map, GPS, English/Mongolia phrase book and the compulsory lonely planet, go over to the east and see the unspoilt grasslands in their full glory. Travel to the Gurven Saikhim national park, via the south with its dormant volcanoes; see the sand dunes of the Gobi and an amazing crystalline cave that was inhabited by early man. Then visit the Gobi before heading to the highlands in the west with its Kazak eagle hunters. Over to the North, into bear country, Lake Kovsgol which is the same geological structure of Lake Baikal and equally stunning (the best way to see the lake is on horseback.) Back to U.B to sell the car and then give yourself some well earned TLC!