Well, we've made it.....We arrived in Ulaan Bataar this morning amidst great scenes of jubilation as  locals swarmed the streets to wave banners and welcome us..  Well, almost .

We've checked into a couple of deluxe suites in a posh hotel and are looking forward to the first wash in over a week followed by several icey cold beers.

The Pajero is still going  strong we are pleased to add.  Albeit with a few scrapes, some new tyres, not a great deal of suspension and some very dodgy screeching noises that seem to go away when we shut the windows and turn the music up...We'll be sad to see it go actually.  Well, a bit when we regain the feeling in our arse cheeks.

Obviously, travelling an average of 12-14 hours a day over non existant roads has left us all a little weary but not a cross word has been said between us....  Hang on, better dash as Toby the Tw%t is moaning again...

 Thanks to all who have sponsored and supported us.  Looking forward to catching up when we get back..  Special thanks also to the Pink ladies for helping to keep us fed, watered and entertained.  "To my left,  one...."

 To summararize Mongolia:

 Women:    No Thanks

 Men:  Friendly

Scenery:  Stunning

Rocks:    A plenty (mostly on the "roads")

Trees:  None

Roads:  Not Applicable 

 Until next year..........  mwah

 T, T & L

Have made it to just outside harhorin. Should be in ulan bataar in next couple of days... Fingers crossed. Roads have been none existant, suspension shot, roof rack fell off a while back and we are ignoring all scraping and screeching noises. Scenery spectacular, first bit of tarmac today, roll on the finish line...

Day 4 in mongolia, all very hungover after toby's birthday celebration camping out by a stunning lake. Toby got some lovely presents and was left feeling a little pink... Onwards on the northern route...

We have made it across to mongolia! Camped last night with some incredible scenery. People so friendly and the off road driving pretty exciting. Off to hunt some yak for dinner. Pink ladies keeping us fed and watered.

So we're finally nearing the end of our time in Russia - apologies for the lack of contact, we're still having phone issues.

 So what have we been up to the last few days.  In all honesty they've been pretty similar - camping in the wilds of Russia avoiding wild boar, deer and mosquitos the likes of which Jurassic Park would be proud.  There have camp fires and beers aplenty with some fairly decent cooking you'll be surprised to hear - but that's mostly from the nurses we've been travelling alongside.  We're up to 5 police stops now, and have got away time without a fine or bribe, although with varying degrees of disgruntlement and frustration on the part of the policeman involved.  In one case, we simply discussed the chances of Pavlyuchenko moving to Chelsea over the summer, and in another Toby and Alex had to sit in a policemans interrogation room, while he pointed at road signs with speed limits on and we pretended to still not know what the problem was....

We met a nice man (the only one we met) who helped us with fitting our spotlights, then insisted we clean the car (while he took toby out back for a "coffee").  We've moved on to slightly more dubious areas though, and after arriving at our hotel/brothel/building site last night some initially friendly locals got arsey when we refused their offer of a drink at 3am (we had to be up at 6), tried to break into the car, and slashed the tyres on the girls car.  So we stayed up till gone 4am keeping watch over the cars, and enjoyed the lovely 2 hours sleep we had before getting up today to replace the affected wheels and head into Mongolia.  In summary:

Women - gorgeous

Men - grumpy

Rocks - none

Trees - lots

Roads - kind of

Mullets - aplenty

Toilets - a big pile of poo in a shed

Language - silly

That's it for now, Mongolia beckons. 

Rubbish nights sleep after camping paranoia with cars and mopeds stopping to look at the camp site on a regular basis... Stopped by police twice, but not knowing any russian and smiling lots got us away without even having to show the documents we queued for 3 hours to get which was little disappointing so we tried running a police car off the road and they didn't even stop us... Boo. Camping just east of Ufa, about 3 km off road. Dragon flies and wasps the size of buses but we've got sharp sticks and it's very secluded.

Moscow. Spent last night with one of toby's friends - a few beers turned into a few more. Tom was designated driver and after only a few hours sleep it was a tough job and he performed admirably, aided by toby and alex sending him positive thoughts while they slept. Toby had a grump on all day, but in fairness the windscreen wipers were far too loud... Currently sat round a camp fire somewhere in russia, just about to grab some sleep. Ta ta

Just a little addendum after the concerned messages - we're having problems with our satellite phone so we're relying on mobiles for contact which need batteries and signal which will both be rare commodities considering where we're going! So please don't worry, we'll do our best to keep you all updated

Despite the missed update last night we are still alive, the inverter in our car broke so we couldn't charge any electrical equipment... Made our way up from Warsaw to Rezekne, in Latvia where we spent the night on the shores of a beautiful lake in a national park with a couple of beers and our first camp fire of the trip. Up early to hit the russian border and despite tom deciding filming the border guards was a good idea and some issues thanks to the DVLA being

First car failure... But turning it off and on again did the trick. Who new pcworld could fix cars? Made it to Warsaw despite sat nav running out in berlin. thanks to our polish guides. Tomorrow we're on our own so this is where things get interesting. Lack of shaving detrimental to integrating with local tribespeople but faces warmer.