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I had been looking forward to visiting Samarkand since the beginning of the rally. I had read a lot about it as a teenager, my anticipation had built for weeks and I had convinced Nick and Bob and Olov that it was something not to be missed. It didn’t take us long to drive there – [...] We arrived in Bukhara late and found the hotel that I had called along the way from the border just before all the restaurants in the old centre shut. ‘Liaby House’ was a great little hotel, just off the main square and man-made pond of the same name. It was a fusion of a new [...] The next morning we came down to breakfast and found another 6 teams catching up. One of them told us that there had been a casualty on the Mongol rally and that one of their friends had tried to reach them during the night to confirm whether they were OK. They said that although they didn’t [...] Driving down the mountain into the valley and towards Ashgabat, we could immediately tell that we were in a different country. The hills were lush and covered in green and gold shimmering grasses and the road was new, wide, clean and perfect to drive. At the border we had been given some of the ground rules [...] The Turkish-Iranian border crossing promissed to be quite intense from the outset. Although we had discussed months ago to leave Nick’s US passport at home, with the excitement of the new job, the last minute preparations for the start of the rally and my moving out of my flat, this had somehow slipped by the [...] We woke up with the sun at 5.30am and started quickly packung up our camp. The cow dung fire was still smoldering as we loaded up the cars. In preparation for crossing the Iranian border, I tried to hide my Infidel status. After much discussion, it was decided that the best place for my American [...] On our last day in Turkey, we decided to get as close to the Iranian border as possible in order to avoid the crowds the of next day and cross it as early and smoothly as possible. I got up with the sun at about 5, washed at the little well at the top of our field, [...] Did we mention that traffic is atrocious in Istanbul? After a scenic drive along the coast of the Bosporus from Kilyos to Istanbul, we spent nearly an hour to get onto the bridge crossing over to the Turkish mainland. With hordes of jam-packed cars and trucks herding us to the toll gate, we had no choice [...] Polly’s suspension was riding very low, so on our first night in Sofia we went searching for pet stores. Pet stores?! Wanting to beef up her suspension, we were looking for those rubber cong balls rottweilers chew on. We bought a couple of sizes and Nick proceeded to dismantle the rear suspension. Placing a 4 inch [...] Friday saw us having a very busy day – we had to pack up all of the clothes and supplies that we were planning on taking with us on the rally, which we had stored at Maria’s place; handing over her flat and keys to the guy doing inventory; driving to Otford to pack up [...] |
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