For anyone who’s still paying attention, ALL THE PHOTOS are finally up on Flickr!

Click the picture to see them

(more videos coming soon)

We woke up at 6:45, double checked that our bags were packed, drank some cold brew coffee (again using my undies as a filter), and stepped over the pile of clothes and trinkets (jettisoned to save weight) out into the crisp Mongol morning.

A short walk brought us to the Altay bazaar, where characters of all shades of shady convene to barter, haggle, and observe and confuse the business transactions of others. I was reminded of Obi Wan Kenobi negotiating safe passage with Han Solo - “I can give you 2,000 now and 15,000 when we get to Alderan.” The night before we loaded the Justy onto a truck full of goat skins and had arranged to meet the drivers here. The market was mostly empty in the early morning and when it started to rain, we wondered briefly if we’ve been stood up and our car hi-jacked. Just then the driver rolled up.

With literally no common ground between our English and their Mongolian we miraculously managed to be driven to the nearby bus depot. The “buses” were actually Soviet vans slightly larger than a minivan but slightly smaller than a fully qualified van. We were told 30,000 tugrugs by our driver but prices here have a tendency to increase between the original price quoted and the actual payment - we settled the fare at 40,000 each. Josh and I said goodbye to Andrew and Jon and plopped down on one of the buses bench seats.

Read the rest of this entry »

I know you’ve been waiting for them and I’m pleased to announce that I’ve uploaded the first big chunk of photos of the Rally to my Flickr site. I’ve gotten up to Prague so far and I’ll keep uploading more periodically. Enjoy!

It was announced on the Official Mongol Rally site that a movie about the 07 Rally is coming soon. In the meantime, Check out the preview.

I realized we never really officially said it, but we’re all at our respective homes safe and sound.

All of us, that is, except for Andrew who is presently in Hoi An, Vietnam. He has this to say about that…

There is this crazy “kid’s” lantern lighting festival going on. So the streets are crazy busy.
And you can get suits made for pennies.
And there is a foreign exchange school here for swedish folks.

I spent about a week in Hanoi shooting through crowded streets on a scooter and eating dangerous street noodles but in the end, I was thankful to finally be going home. I got on the plane on the night of the 6th and woke up on the morning of the 7th at Incheon Airport in South Korea.

I had an 8 hour layover in Korea and there was no way I was going to spend it hanging out at the Duty Free stores. Read the rest of this entry »

 photo by chillntravel

One of my favourite things to do is seeing a movie at the cinema without knowing anything about it other than the title. Being dropped off after dark in Hanoi on Vietnam Day with all my luggage is like that times ten.

“Why didn’t you tell anyone we were coming?” I asked as Jon banged on the locked door of the guest house.

“Well… um… It’s cool, don’t worry about it,” sputtered Jon. Then he led me through a dark alleyway and around a turn to a busy intersection. After having driven across all of Asia, I have learned to remain relaxed in these sorts of situations so I followed him, calmy taking in the beauty of the crowded architecture.

We approached two men on scooters parked at the corner and Jon gesticulated to them while shouting out various numbers and exchanging looks of feigned disinterest. Apparently, fifteen was the correct number, as in fifteen-thousand Vietnamese Dong, about one dollar.

“You’re going to love this,” he said to me grinning. Realization snuck up on me and smacked the back of my head.

“But… with all our bags?” I protested, but before I knew it, I was handing the driver my small backpack and sleeping bag which he nestled between his legs while I tried to balance myself and my 15kg travel backpack on the back of the scooter.

We shot off into a teeming crowd of children, balloons, scooters, trucks, and merchants as thick as a bowl of noodles. The wind blowing through my hair was a refreshing reminder that I wasn’t wearing a helmet and my hands clamped down on the seat even tighter. I started to envision the shock and pain of smashing into a streetside barbeque vendor at 30km/h. But after a moment of panic, I noticed a look of glazed non-chalant-ness on the faces in the crowd and realized that I was the only thing out of place. The driver knew what he was doing. What I was doing was not necessarily a terrifying deathrace, but rather something incredibly fun and exciting. I started to grin as the bike blew past a stoic family of 5 on a scooter next to us.

True to his word, Jon managed to find us a luxurious, albiet expensive ($12.50 per person), hotel just around the corner from his favourite bar, Le Pub, where we were greeted warmly by the pub’s owner Matt. Within an hour we had eaten a hot meal and found a place to rent motorbikes. Jon gave me the nickel tour around the city on the back of a scooter before we settled in for the night.

Now I’m sitting in my fancy hotel room writing this update and avoiding a sudden and heavy rainstorm. Soon I will go explore, spend my first million dong, and slurp noodles. Wish me luck!

So I have yet to indulge in the joys of an animal’s, ahem, special appendage. Nonetheless, the last several days have featured a full-on cavalcade of oddball eats. Have you ever eaten the pointy bill on a chicken’s head? Sweet babies, now I have.

And I probably won’t again.

I won’t bore you with a grocery list of goodness, but know this: I have found nirvana. It is riding a bike around Beijing while eating a bag of fresh-steamed dumplings. If I’m forced to choose how my life will end, this may be selection: Popping the last steaming, pork-licious dumpling into my mouth as a bun turns me into road pizza.

Anyhoo, tomorrow I head back to America. Today Mims flies to Vietnam. So does Jon. Andrew remains in Beijing until the ninth, then takes the train to Vietnam. It’s sad, but know what’s astounding? I have one more day to cruise around this fair, polluted town on my broken-down $20 bike, filling my belly to Buddha-like proportions. Dumplings, I’m coming for you.

P.S. This’ll be just about my last post on this here beautiful Web thingie. If you want to continue to read any of my words, I post most of my articles and so on over at: My So-Called Strife.  Also, we’ll likely be posting a packet of photos here on the site upon the return. So check back sporadically for supreme excitement.

Holy rollers!

Andrew and I are in Beijing, baby, and I believe I’ve found my nirvana. If I return with a belly the size of a bowling ball, know that it will be worth it. I’ve eaten so many pot stickers that I’ve even begin to forget the hell that was our journey here.

Our train ride was uneventful, dropping us off in the dusty town of Erlian. But from there, we hopped aboard a sleeper bus. What does this mean? Reclining seats? Oh, hells no. A sleeper bus is filled with beds, stacked two high. You spend yor entire journey reclining, with a blanket over your body. This may not be a problem at night, but we climbed onto the bus at 3 p.m.

“Nightie night, Josh,” Andrew said as he entered his narrow compartment.

I spent the trek sleeping, waking long enough to watch King Kong dubbed into Mandarin. Jack Black, man, he’s not the same with a Chinese accent.

Our bus was supposed to deposit us in Beijing at 6 a.m. However, due to the driver’s swiftness, we arrived at 2:30 a.m. In the middle of nowhere. Utilizing our skills, we caught a taxi to town, then stumbled into a hostel at 4 a.m. Huzzah!

We met up with my cousin Maya in the morning, then spent the day eating and walking, walking and eating. Most street snacks are one yuan: about $.14. Babies, I’ve eaten just about every scallion-bread iteration and kebab available.

“But have you gone to the penis restaurant yet?” my cousin asks.

No. But there is still time. I never thought I’d write this line, but I am nearly to ready to chomp down on animal penis. It will make me strong, like bull! Or sick, like stupid man!

Oh, we knew this little day would arrive sooner or later. Today is when Team Dinosaur fractures into two distinct halves.

At 8pm tonight, Andrew and I will be taking a train, then a bus to Beijing, where we will ride bikes and eat the hell out of dumplings. Oh, sweet Jesus, have I been waiting my entire life to eat dumplings in Mother China. Food poisoning be damned, I’m going to buy my own set of chopsticks and munch from stall to stall to stall. It’s like my Rocky moment, though instead of climbing stairs and punching cold beef I’ve been wandering the Byzantine blocks of New York’s Chinatowns, haggling with wizened men and women for the crispiest, freshest pot stickers around.

Anyhoo. Now that I’m properly salivating, I must tell you that tomorrow Mims and Jon will also be flying to Beijing, before heading south to the land of cheap tailoring and pho soup: Vietnam, baby.

It’s a monumental day, a sad one at that, but we’ve had a good little run. In any event, Mims and I will still be updating the site until we return to America, whereupon we’ll promptly be thrown in jail for trying to drive a car off-road across Central Park before riding on the curbs of the Lower East Side.

Wish us safe travels again! I have a bottle of Mongolia vodka and two icy beers that’ll be promising sweet, adventurous times tonight.