Checklists

Before leaving on a 2 month journey towards Mongolia, it’s good to have a list of things that need to be done before you turn your back on your home and head towards the unknown. Here’s an excerpt from mine:

• Visas, Passport, and Letters of Invitation
  Yesterday a courier delivered a huge envelope containing my passport, which contains visas for Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Mongolia, and China. And today I got a PDF with the letter of invitation for Turkmenistan in my inbox. The visa for Azerbaijan we will have to get on the way in Tbilisi (Georgia).

• The Car
  With Volvo as our sponsor, our ambulance will have superpowers and bring us to Mongolia without trouble. We have 7 spare tyres, tools, two repair manuals, and large amounts of duct tape. We also have various required and optional but recommended paperwork such as the Carnet de Passages, the International Motor Insurance Card, registration certificates, and even parking permits.

• Camping Equipment
  It’s quite unlikely that we’ll find hotels everywhere, therefore we also bring a tent, mattresses, sleeping bags, a petrol cooker, a water filter to make drinking water, chairs and a table. Not to forget Fredrik’s awesome 12 V DC coffee machine.

• Vaccinations and Pharmaceuticals
  It seems our route goes through areas infested with all kinds of scary diseases, including malaria, dengue fever, polio, tick-borne encephalitis, and typhoid. Last week, I went to the Travel Clinic at the Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine at Zürich University, and got vaccinations for “everything”. They had to append yet another page to my vaccination certificate. There are no vaccinations for malaria and dengue fever, though. For the former, we have medication to treat it, for the latter we can only hope that the insect repellent is strong enough. We also have a big box containing everything ranging from cough syrup to antibiotics.

• Insurance
  I double checked that my Rega membership is still valid. For a mere 30 CHF per year, this awesome organization will come and fly you out of any remote place in the world should you become sick or injured. We also have a SPOT connect, which has an S.O.S button that will send our cries for help over satellite should we get into trouble.

• Mail, Bills, Plants, and Pets
  I have no pets, and my plants already died during my last trip. This reduces the problem to finding somebody to take care of my mail, scan the bills, and email them to me so I can pay them via internet banking (thanks, Dave!). Getting my mail re-routed for two months turned out to be simple, but also ridiculously expensive. It set me back almost the equivalent of 100 USD.

• Camera
  I got my camera and lenses serviced at Nikon (and, boy, did they have a lot to fix), and I also got myself a MacBook Air to have decent image processing capabilities en route. I rehearsed uploading pictures over crappy internet connections during the last weeks. With little success, but I’m getting better at it every time. You can look forward to lots of great pictures!

• Copies
  I made several photocopies of all important documents (passport, visas, letters of invitation, insurance, etc.). We’re still working on getting Russian translations for the most important documents. I also uploaded scans of all these documents to various places so I could print them should I loose both the original and the photocopy.

• Announce your Leave
  It’s surprising how many people still haven’t noticed what I’m up to. I frequently hear sentences like “You’re leaving for how long? To Mongolia? You mean, all the way?”. There were quite a few ad-hoc goodbye parties (“come on everyone, last chance to drink beer with Rico”). One of the most joyful moments was enabling the e-mail autoreply at work, stating that I’m out-of-office for two months.

There’s obviously a lot more than this, but nothing that couldn’t be sorted out on the way.

Yesterday’s Bureaucratic Emergency

International Motor Insurance Card

Several weeks ago, I ordered an international motor insurance card (absolutely essential for driving through such countries as for example the Russian Federation) from Volvia Insurance, who has the ambulance insured.

Two days ago, I realized that it had been too long without these documents ever appearing. Yesterday, I spent some hours on the phone and found out that something was truly wrong.

Volvia did indeed attempt sending the insurance card already several weeks ago, but for unexplainable reasons it got stuck in their own internal bureaucracy which got utterly confused by the fact that the address I had entered while filling out the form to request the insurance card (which happens to be my legal permanent residence address, properly registered with the Swedish civil registry, etc., etc.) wasn’t the same address that they had recorded in their systems since I lived in Stockholm 5½ years ago.

This made the internal bureaucracy implode, and resulted in them deciding that I must have moved recently (ironic, since I myself have never before lived so long at the one and same address as the past 3½ years I’ve lived where I live now), re-registering me at my brother’s address, which is in Sweden (as opposed to my address, which is in Switzerland).

Thanks to this, we suddenly got much cheaper insurance, even including a homeowner discount on the grounds of my brother being a homeowner. (Being an honest man, I pointed out that I didn’t deserve this discount, but got the answer that it wasn’t decided by where I actually live but to where they send the documents …)

They also think that they eventually sent the requested insurance card to my brother’s address as well, so I called my brother to ask whether he had gotten an unexpected letter from my insurance company.

He had just opened such a letter fifteen minutes earlier! Joy! To speed things up, he immediately put the letter in his scanner and e-mailed me a copy. End of joy. This was no international motor insurance card, but just a normal letter of insurance (which I don’t need, and already have anyway).

Making yet another call to the insurance company, I eventually came to talk with a woman who came up with the marvellous idea of creating a new insurance card, again, and then mailing it directly to my actual address in Switzerland.

Despite the fact that such a letter won’t necessarily arrive in time, this was probably the best idea I’ve heard all day!

Today an envelope arrived in my mailbox, with my brother’s handwriting on it. Guess what it contained? The international motor insurance card! It had been delivered to him sometime last week, and having no idea what it was he had just forwarded it to me. So when we spoke yesterday, he had no idea that this envelope was still travelling through Europe but actually contained the documents I was now waiting for the insurance company to send to him and that the letter he had received on that same day just was paper noise.

All well that ends well. One problem less to solve before departure.

The Adventurists Department of Passing on Unusual Government Complications

About a week ago me and the chaps received a telegram from The Adventurists Department of Passing on Unusual Government Complications.

They had the pleasure of informing us of a small bureaucratic mishap. You see, originally we had decided to go from Azerbaijan, across the Caspian sea and then through Turkmenistan. Despite knowing that Turkmenistan is one of least friendly destinations in all of central Asia, a region noted in many a travelogue as an ideal holiday destination.

We were aware of this, but after procuring our trusted HMS Dreadnought and stacking up on pith helmets, it was decided that no obstacle was too large. That was of course before we were introduced to Azerbaijani–Turkmenistan border relations. To diagnose them as chilly is about the same as referring to the cold war as a bit of ruckus. To put it in other terms, they don’t appear to be on speaking terms. This it seems, also extends to their rules and regulations for crossing their respective borders.

Originally, we were told that the best we could get was a welcome, now please get the f!%#-out visa, otherwise known as a 5-day transit pass to lay people. This was to be given at the border, when we entered Turkmenbashi (yes, the previous president named one of the largest towns in Turkmenistan after himself — it’s that kind of country). Now, however, we have been informed by our good chums over at the Department of Passing on Unusual Government Complications, that Azerbaijan have changed their immigration laws. You now need a valid visa before you are allowed to get on the ferry to Turkmenbashi. Well, thank you very much. But as Churchill was so fond of saying, KBO. Unfazed by this minor setback, we have been informed of a number of possible solutions, one of them involves driving through Iran. (So for the first time in a few decades Iran might be part of a solution, who would have thought …) Another possible solution is the Turkmenistan embassy in Baku, noted for their service mindedness and for being open on Mondays and Fridays only. This is going to be great!

This sort of problem is exactly the reason why we decided on the Mongol Rally and if you are too worried about getting stuck for days on end in no-mans land or some random prison in Central Asia, don’t come, this is not the race for you, maybe you should consider a beach holiday in Spain?

Ahh, the joys of Central Asia. :)

Progress!

A few minutes ago, I got a text message telling me that my Mongolian visa got issued. This means I have my Uzbek, Tajik, Kyrgyz, and Mongolian visa, as well as Turkmen and Russian invites. I still need to get my visa for Azerbaijan and China, and, depending on how our plans in China turn out, for Kazakhstan and Russia.

I also got approval for two months of unpaid leave (a while ago, actually).

The last weeks were filled with rather unspectacular activities. We spent our time filling in visa forms, negotiating, and researching. We experienced a few setbacks: as we registered our ambulance with the organizers, we realized that by the rules, it is too old. And, after sending pictures as proof of it's good condition, the organizers asserted that it's not only too old, but also too rusty. We still think it's the best ambulance we can get, and even though we found another one that is in accordance with the rules, we believe our ambulance is superior and we will try very hard to make it work. Because none of us has the necessary skills, we set out to find a trustworthy mechanic. This mechanic needs to have the right adventurous attitude and the willingness to solve unusual problems. Finding this mechanic turned out to be more difficult than anticipated, but after some rather disheartening conversations ("I don't think we can do that"), we found Franz Lötscher from http://www.loetscher-ott.ch. He also thinks we're insane, but he will help us with our ambulance.


And then there is China. Driving through China is complicated (we expected that). We have a few offers from Chinese agencies to get the required permits, but right now we're stuck waiting for the other pieces of the puzzle to fall into place: we need to know our exact route including dates, and provide proof of hotel bookings and return flights. Right now, we still don't know whether we will be able to use the Altai border crossing, and we're still negotiating trying to avoid fixed dates.

How do you make time?

This is my first blog post so please have mercy and indulgence me.

When you decide to something out of the ordinary, questions will arise. Some of these questions are fun to answer, like: “What route will you be taking?” Or something more rhetorical: “Have you considered professional counselling?” But a lot of people have asked the question: How do you have time to do this?

And I understand why they might ask. The team is well aware of that most people will never drive an ambulance through Central Asia just for “fun” (and for charity). And how do you make time for such an expedition? It’s simple, you surround yourself with people who want to do something spectacular and you make time. (Well, not really, but that sounded really nice.) 

There are hundred of things you need to have figured out before you embark on this trip. One of them are visas, an other is the car, web page, blogging, permits, letters of invitations and finding a safari suit with matching hat. These things take time. But the most important thing, is to make a plan, ideally with a timetable and stick to it. A couple of hours each week spent on research or preparing for the trip will in the end add up. We spend hours in front of computers, instead of just randomly searching the web, we are using this great tool to further the expedition. The expedition becomes a hobby, that takes time away from other things, but it’s a question of priorities. And yes, 6 weeks locked in a car with two other gentlemen of ill repute sounds like a long time (and it is). However, instead of spending my holiday doing nothing, I thought I might do something. This something is an adventure of a lifetime and might make the people back home more interested in a part of the world that seems forgotten and we might just raise some money for charity. 

How do get the time; we make time!

Just make up your mind and sign up. :)

http://www.mongolia.to/donate

Rabies

In the final months of 1998, my brother and I spent a lot of time at the vaccination clinic at Lund University Hospital in preparation for our first journey to Southeast Asia. A source of amusement at the clinic was the list of available vaccinations, in which the vaccination against rabies stood out by being the by far most expensive treatment available.

When we finally had gotten all the vaccinations the doctor thought we needed for the journey, we had spent so much time talking about the rabies vaccine, which the expensiveness of the treatment and the imagery of rabid dogs by now had made utterly irresistible to us, that we just had to get it no matter the cost. But the poor doctor talked us out of the idea, explaining that it would be a waste of money because the vaccine only increased the resistance to rabies but didn't provide any immunity and that the effect of it only would last a limited time and not for life, so unless we planned any encounters with rabid dogs in the foreseeable future the treatment would be useless. We went to Southeast Asia without having taken rabies vaccine, and to this day we haven't met any rabid dogs, but the memory of that exotic treatment still lingers.

Today I visited the Travel Clinic at the Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine at Zürich University, the preeminent place to go in this city before travelling to any exotic locations, to talk about our route through Central Asia and what vaccinations I should take before and what medicines I should bring along. Normally, these days I've been travelling so much that I'm most often already vaccinated against whatever evil a new country has to offer, but for the six weeks through Central Asia I was in for a treat: The methodical Swiss doctor ended up writing a list of vaccinations so long that it filled all available space, including the margins, of the form, both with vaccines I should take again and vaccines I've never had before. And it included rabies!

Apparently there is a vaccine, Rabipur, that gives increased resistance to rabies, for life, and according to the Novartis web site it was introduced already in 1984. So either they were a bit behind and didn't have this thirteen years ago in Lund, or more likely the doctor there saw the chance to bend the truth a little to talk two young male students out of wasting the resources of the public health care on playing macho. I can't say I really blame him ...

But apart from this trip down memory lane, they today gave me shots against polio, hepatitis B and tick-borne encephalitis as well, together with a schedule of when and what they'll give me in the next few months. (There was apparently a lot of stuff that shouldn't be administered the same week as rabies ...) It seems I'll be a regular customer there.

Out of Office

One of the major disadvantages of having full-time employment, is that one cannot simply disappear from the office for two months ...

Today I got the formal approval for my two months' leave of absence! Mongolia, here I come. We estimate that we'll need around six weeks for the actual journey, then one week for preparations before leaving and then some margin at the end (for unexpected things will happen), so two months away from work it'll be. Special thanks goes to my manager, Vladimir, for supporting this and to Google in general for being a company where the statement "I'd need two months' leave of absence in order to drive an ambulance to Mongolia" gets the response "Of course, we'll keep your desk warm for you when you return". (N.B.! That's a literal quote from Google HR.)

The Route

So we spent the past weekend in Novi Sad, where we between liberal amounts of Serbian food and drink (for which I have to admit having a very sweet spot ... roasted meat, chicken liver wrapped in bacon, ćevapčići, sausages, sauerkraut ... fresh and pickled vegetables ... fresh cheese ... sweet red wine ... lager beer and šljivovica ...) got around to actually make tons of decisions about the adventure that lies ahead of us. Most importantly, the route:

This map sketch is now our general plan, but it has two major question marks.

First, entering into Central Asia by crossing the Caspian Sea with the ferryboat from Baku to Türkmenbaşy (Krasnovodsk) is a classic way to begin a journey through Central Asia. In his Tibetanska Äfventyr (1905), Sven Hedin writes:

Kanske ni föreställer er att det är med en känsla af välbehag man efter en lyckad, men stormig färd över [Kaspiska] hafvet sätter sin fot på Asiens kust, då man går i land vid Krasnovodsk eller »de röda vattnen»? Nej bevars, denna stad är ungefär motsatsen till ett jordiskt paradis. Tänk er en liten håla med hvita envåningshus med platta tak, ett par anspråkslösa kyrkor, en omgärdande ring af sterila söndervittrande berg och gula sanddyner, ej ett träd, ej ett grässtrå, nej icke ens en droppe sött vatten! Sådant hitföres i stora träkar med tågen inifrån landet. Det vore en deportation att behöfva bo i denna bedröfliga ort, som låg där och stektes i glödande solgass.

But while this route might be the obvious choice for anyone who has read too many old adventure books, it has two major disadvantages today: The ferryboat services are said to be both irregular and expensive, and Turkmenistan is said to be one of the countries in the world where getting a transit visa is the most complicated and expensive. Very discouraging. So we'll need to investigate this more deeply before making a final decision. Apart from the classic ferryboat ride across the Caspian, the possibility to visit the Door to Hell gas deposit in Derweze also makes this route very tempting despite its drawbacks.

Second, driving through China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (Uyghuristan) would be a wonderful thing to do for many reasons, not the least that China builds great roads also in the most remote provinces and that a new border crossing between China and Mongolia recently has been opened at Altay. But maybe more importantly for me personally is that when I lived in Shanghai, I soon learned that thousands and thousands of Uyghur also lived there and that the city had a wealth of Uyghur restaurants in which I became a frequent visitor, so I've long wanted to visit Kashgar, Ürümqi and the deserts around.

Here you can see Comrade Piotr, visiting me in Shanghai in 2002, helping the house band in a Uyghur restaurant with the drums while forever regretting that he was too cheap to order the Spicy Camel Feet.

But the Xinjiang route has a major drawback in Chinese bureaucracy, which is world famous for a reason. No foreign driver's licenses are valid in the People's Republic and the paperwork needed to get all necessary permits for a foreign driver to drive a car with foreign license plates through the country promises to be more than challenging. Very discouraging. So we'll need to investigate also this more deeply before making a final decision. Apart from the roads and the Uyghur, the sheer bragging rights of having driven through China also makes this route very tempting despite its drawbacks.

There we are now. We'll keep you updated on how our investigations regarding the route proceed. Stay tuned.

... and so it begins!

Planning weekend in Novi Sad: All three of us together for the first time, visiting Ivan who successfully finished the Mongolian Rally last year with his Team Rockrs.

So we're going to drive a car from Prague in the Czech Republic to Ulan Bator in Mongolia, some 15,000 km through a multitude of not well-known countries. How do you begin planning for such a thing? We found a friend who had already managed to do it, so we went down to Serbia over the weekend to learn everything he has to tell us.

Thomas, Ivan, Fredrik and Rico.