Preperation, Preperation, Preperation. Pt1

With a car all sorted out, we just merely needed to get it checked over and serviced by someone who knows what they're doing. And sort a roofrack. And some extra wheels. With better tyres. And some Jerry cans. And a sump guard. And visas. And camping gear. So pretty much sod all really. Should be a doddle. We're practically ready to leave!

Three men and a Perodua. And a baby.

With a car sorted a good seven months before the off, everything is tickety-boo in the TKOEB camp. The festive season is in full flow and everyone is gathering for our traditional Boxing Day football clash with our local rivals. Which with the venue being their ground a couple of miles from our own, gives us the excuse for a big old pub crawl on our way down to the game. A pub at top of the high street is our start point and we sup a couple of pints whilst waiting for the rest of the gang to arrive so the crawl to begin.

Operation: “Get Percy, Drive Percy Home" - Pt 2

Chesterfield with its grey skies, clogged road system and messed up church spires are now behind us and we’re rocketing down the M1 heading southwards once more. Well, when I say ‘rocketing’....

The rain is continuing to fall, just as it had from the moment we departed my cul-de-sac this morning and the little Prodder’s wipers are working tirelessly to keep the windscreen clear. The fact that it’s barely got light all day has also necessitated the use of the headlights, which to be honest have proved disappointing, being about as bright as those little tea lights you can get in bags of a hundred for £2.99 down at Ikea.

Operation: “Get Percy, Drive Percy Home" - Pt 1

Having bagged ourselves the Perodua, Mr Vauxhall naturally comes back to me offering me his Agila for the £500 price that I’d bid in the auction. But on condition it is collected within 72 hours from Telford, some 180 miles away. None of us can make it at such short notice and we’re not really in the mood to bust a gut just to save thirty quid. Besides, we’re already quite taken with our quirky little Malaysian steed that no one has heard of. So much so, we’ve already christened it ‘Percy’.

Wanted: One Sweet Rally Ride

When you enter a car rally, any car rally in fact, the most important item after the team itself is of course, a car. Which we, at this point, didn’t have. So once more, we turn to our good friend and the answerer of all our questions, the internet. And the three of us set about scouring eBay and Auto Trader online to see if we can hunt us down a car that isn’t that good at the task of taking us to Tescos, let alone Ulan Bataar.

This can...er...Khan Only End Badly. Plus 1.

Of course, once you’ve managed to get yourself into an endeavour such as we have, you tend to discuss it a fair bit. Mostly because you need to, after all, driving to Mongolia isn’t quite like your average trip to the shops. 

This also leads to other people finding out about what you intend to do and in the circles we mix in, ie. drunken football ones, this usually means most of the chatter we encounter gleefully revolves about how horribly we’re going to be killed to death.

The ‘Marshall Plan’

Another dull day in the office. In fact, since that stupid Rally has entered my consciousness with it’s promises of silly adventures in countries your average American citizen probably couldn’t spell, let alone find on a map, most days in the office now seem that little bit duller. If that’s at all possible.

Ah. An email from Mr Miller it seems. This had better be something entertaining.

Rum, Raisin and Rotten Roads

Summer, circa 2007. My god it’s boring.

Another day is passing inexorably by in the office and I once more find myself distracted from the amazingly interesting world of fixed income software that funds such frivolities as my mortgage and instead I’m browsing the little known computer based wonder, the World Wide Web for some cerebral stimulation. Mainly as we can’t look at porn here.

Just Us Left Then?

Faces pressed enviously to the glass, we watch through the first floor window of the Tsagaanuur border control offices as the last three remaining Mongol Rally cars are photographed by the customs guy in his nice suit and waved into Mongolia.

Lucky bastards.