NEWS
London to Mongolia Sponsored Car Rally - summer 2006
Friends of the Belarussian Children's Hospice (UK) would like to thank James Sellars and Elizabeth Dixon for the donation they made following their exciting sponsored car drive from London to Mongolia. The proceeds were divided between our charity, the Friends of the Belarussian Children's Hospice (UK) and Christine Noble Children's Foundation in Mongolia. Below is James' and Lizzie's letter recounting the event.
Dear Sponsors,
The purpose of this letter is to attempt to give all of you who kindly helped and sponsored us both a glimpse into the amazing adventure we both had.
I sit here writing this letter, some three weeks after we both reached Ullaan Baatar and thereby finished the Mongol Rally. I apologise for the lack of contact both now and during the Rally, with two different excuses. The first being that many of the countries we visited sometimes struggled to use a telephone, let alone have the knowledge of the Internet! The Second, being that about two days after we landed back in the UK we both flew straight out to France, Lyon and Montpellier respectively, to start our year abroad in a French University.
Well ever since we left Hyde Park on 22 nd July we have not had a day that has passed without intrigue, excitement or a challenge! This is greatly reflected by the fact that it took us around four hours to leave London, our merry convoy of four cars, did not enjoy the glorified start we expected, driving round in circles through the pouring rain as half of London was closed due to a protest march!
In all, we traversed nineteen countries - England, France, Belgium, Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgystan, Kazakhstan, Russia and finally Mongolia. Some countries we spent only a matter of hours as we speed through, desperately trying to get some miles under our belt, in others we had some fantastic if at times alarming experiences.
...In Georgia, after crossing over the border late, we set up camp and quickly fell into a deep sleep in preparation for a long drive the following day. However, at two a.m. we were woken to agitated shouts and the flashing of torches. We leapt out of the tent to be confronted by two fearsome policemen waving the guns at us and motioning that we should leave NOW! The fear of sudden death was quickly calmed after the policeman called his 'friend' in Germany , who informed us that the policeman did not wish to execute us! Instead they merely wanted to inform us that if we continued to camp there we would be shot (hence the guns) by the various bandits roaming the Georgian countryside and kindly escorted us to a secure, guarded compound!...
...It had taken us over three months to secure a visa for Turkmenistan and we arrived at the border on the last day of this visa at 6.10pm . The guard quickly informed us that the border closed at 6 pm . On asking if there was anything he could do, the guard replied in broken English that "there was nothing he could do and we would have PROBLEM tomorrow". We spent a restless night just outside the border, after having to drive straight through a police check point ( Turkmenistan has them at least every 50km), to avoid our documents being checked. The next day we arrived at the border, a little worse for wear as some local Turkmen's had insisted the best remedy for our problem was vodka... Anyway after much arguing, confusion and general bureaucratic nonsense we were told we would be deported or fined $150, or both. The language barrier never allowed us to ascertain the actual translation! All our pleas for clemency fell on fallow ground, as we were essentially left stranded at the border for much of the day. Then around four o'clock, the chief of immigration proudly handed back our passports, paid for us to have lunch, told us he had issued with brand new visas free of charge and we weren't even been deported! One suspects our pleas for clemency had reached the President himself...
...In Mongolia when we were a mere 150 km from Ullaan Baatar, the finish line, we hit disaster. The roads in Mongolia were neither signed nor marked, thus you either had to follow your own intuition or be lucky enough to follow someone. We were lucky enough to find a car we could follow all the way to UB. However, the only catch being that the driver drunk vodka like water and insisted we drive at 60 mph. That would be 60 mph down a sand track, with regular potholes large enough to sink the titanic in. All went remarkably well until we hit a massive mound of sand... the car spun and spun, and at one point we were inches from flipping the car. Thankfully we eventually came to a halt, with our wonderfully concerned guide already several miles in the distance. The only damage was thankfully a lot of dust and three flat tyres. The only problem being that we were to coin a phrase "in the middle of nowhere" and only had two spare tyres! Fortunately after several of hours of rather panicked waiting a car eventually drove past us, the driver thrust us and several wheels into the back of his car. He then drove half an hour up a hill, fixed the flat tyres and then fed us the most splendid Mongolian meal. All of this was completely free, which is a fine example of the fine hospitality we received all the way along our trip...
Before I finish, on behalf of ourselves, the Christina Noble Children's Foundation and the Belarussian Children's Hospice I'd like to thank you all for your generosity. Without this Generosity we simply would not have been able to get the Mongol Rally off the ground. Furthermore, beyond us both having an amazing time, all your money went to some seriously good charities. The Belarussian Children's Hospice still remains the only hospice of its kind in Belarus . It does vital work for orphans and victims of Chernobyl and with its planned extension going ahead should continue to do this for many years. In Mongolia we saw the Christina Noble children's Foundation (CNCF) at work in UB, Mongolia . One of the many street children's of UB spent much of his time milling around the Mongol Rally finish line, after a quick call to CNCF, he was picked up later that day. This boy, nicknamed "Franko", will now receive an education, healthcare and support he would otherwise never have dreamed of receiving. In all we raised well over £3,000 for two superb charities, charities where £3,000 can go huge way.
Thank you all once again. We hope that you are all well and enjoyed the heatwave of this summer.
All our thanks,
Jim and Lizzie