In Olgii, Mongolia!

Now in Olgii, Mongolia!

Bit of an update - we finally crossed the border yesterday into Mongolia - and wow what a place.

We arrived at the border on Friday at around 1pm, with a massive queue of Mongol Ralliers ahead of us, some had been waiting since 6am - not a good sign. Eventually, the border opened at 2pm for an hour - letting only 10 cars through - not including us. That was it for the whole day - so in the spirit of the rally we had an impromptu drinking session in the biggest get together of Mongol ralliers since their party in Prague. 9.30am the next day the Russians suddenly decided to do their jobs and starting letting people through. An hour of bureaurocracy later we were through - only to get to the Mongolia border where they refused to let us in - great. This was particularly annoying as the Russians pushed to the front as always and got trhrough just by flashing cash...

Anyway, we eventually got through and headed as a convoy to Uglii, needless to say we got to a village and asked for directions and they let us up the mountainside - the sight of seeing such crap cars on such difficult steep terrain was brilliant. Only 2 breakdowns and 1 puncture between 5 cars in less than one hour of entering the country - ha!

 When we arrived in Uglii we almost got a heroes welcome - the kids and passers by greated us with cheerful waves and happy smiles. Now after a great night in a Ger (the Blue wolf Ger camp) we think that we'll be taking the Southern route through Mongolia. Quite a few teams are going the middle route, but it doesn't sound like our cup of tea really - we're not sure if the car has enough ground clearance, we're not sure on the availability of diesel and we don't want to trash the car. We'll see.

 Anyway, for now the adventure continues.