We've made it-sort of...

So we've made it-sort of. The night before last we were in invited to stay in the house of a cafe owner whilst still on the russian side, he was a really nice guy and we've been told he has already put up a framed picture of us. When we arrived at the border we saw two other rally cars that had been abandoned-which was a pretty worrying sight. We were told that as long as our cars were on the list we would get in fine. And then there seemed to be a problem, we had no idea what was going on, and after much confusion including a meeting with a representitive from the wrong rally we were told that we'd have to leave the car and stay in a nearby hotel for the night. At this point the head of the CDPF turns up, he forces us to drink through 2 bottles of vodka and then took us out to a local disco. We were assured that the next day he would recieve a document and that everything would be fine. The next morning we were invited to have breakfast at the family house of another CDPF rep, it was brilliant to be invited into a typical house we were supplied with milk from about 5 different animals, forced to take snuff and supplied with yet more vodka, all before 11oclock. We then got to milk a goat and get beaten at basketball by local teens. After politely turning down the offer of internal organs we headed to the Sukhbaatar customs office where it was established that we were more or less buggered. Long story short mongolian customs aren't letting any cars though the northern border at the moment. by this time the team normalski nomads had arrived at the border too, we had the choice of waiting for something to change or leaving our cars at the border and riding to Ulaanbaatar in the Pink Ladies' Range Rover. So 8 of us piled in and 5 bumpy hours later along with several Vodka stops we made it to the city. We've been told that the charity will definatly recieve the car. It was a shame to not be able to drive the last stint, but we have driven to Mongolia.

So now we have our flights booked, an absolute bargain at $800, flying from UB to Beijing and then onto London Heathrow arriving at 17.15 on the 11th. All we have left to do is ride camels, wrestle with locals and buy some lovely boots.

Hopefully when we get back we'll be able to fill in the missing periods in our blog. See you soon guys.

xx x xx x xx