! Fiesta Mongolia !

Hullo Everyone

2006-08-17T05:18:00.000+01:00

Right then, this is the crappest blog in the world, and I apologise. We have been in places where crapping over a filthy pit is a luxury, where you are rich if you have a cow AND a goat, and where gold teeth are a sign of wealth, so high speed wireless internet access has been a problem.
But now, we have made it to Russia, Novosibirsk, actually, and feel like we're back in the west.....
Had a shower, a good meal, a nice porcelain-based poo and a bed last night for the first time in three days, so feel (almost) human again.
The car is holding up well, we give her a tickle in the morning to cheer her up, and she's drinking quite a lot of water, but apart from overheating in 50 degrees centigrade heat going up 1 in 3 mountains in central Kyrgyzstan, we have had few problems. Which is amazing.
The generosity of strangers is incredible, too, as are the women in every place we've been. Mind you, spending so much time in a car with another bloke makes the odd sheep look strangely alluring, heh heh heh.
Today we are heading for Irtutsk, when everyone has stopped looking at tits on the internet. We are hoping to be in Ulan Baator next Tuesday, God willing, inshallah, all things being equal, and if our mates' mini holds out long enough.
Love to all and thanks for reading.
Got my phone and video camera nicked, so apologies if any of you have tried to text. Mind you, haven't had a phone signal since Turkey anyway!

The final push

2006-07-13T12:39:00.000+01:00

With all the best made plans in the world, the rally is now just over a week away, and we haven't even managed to get the car through its MOT test yet. Nothing major wrong with it, just a few tweak and things like new windscreen wipers...and,oh,the test bloke informed me that he thinks the chassis is bent. Hmmm. Perhaps those pot holes will sort it out again.
I'm going to be in this Friday's issue of The Friday Thing (www.thefridayproject.co.uk/tft)which is both exciting and a bit worrying...who knows what the interviewer picked up on as I wibbled relentlessly for about two hours in the pub?
I've stuck some Send A Cow stickers on the Fiesta bonnet, and gave it a bit of a half-arsed wash, but basically just spread the dirt around a bit. Hoping to get some mechanics to look at it today....and Pete managed to sort out the roof rack, which should look quite sexy even though it's actually wider than the vehicle.
Richard Bond is now joining us for the European leg. Brave man. The extra pair of hands and his ability to talk the hind legs off a thing with many, many hind legs will come in useful.
We have also offered a lift through the 'stans to a camera-wielding geezer called Liam, who plans to hitch the journey, picking up with rally teams where and when he can.
Visas are a stress, Pete is getting his sorted, mine are in the lap of the gods, I think my passport is in the Turkmenistan embassy today, who knows where tomorrow?
Richard gave up and that's why he's just doing the Euro-tour.
More soon, as we get closer......

Fiesta Diary, Week One - November 2005

2006-01-26T17:46:00.000Z

Sometimes normal people have to do abnormal things just to stay sane. Sometimes you have to do something with fierce conviction, just for the heck of it. Sometimes, you’ve just got to go…to Mongolia in a 27-year-old Ford Fiesta.

A quick surf on Ebay, a giggle at how crap the car looked, and we found ourselves driving 100 miles down to the South coast, on what proved to be one of the coldest days this year – if not ever - to buy a little 950cc 1979 Mark 1 Fiesta.

The bloke who sold it laughed a lot when we told him we planned to take it 8,000 miles. A bit too much, really, almost as if he was nervous to be the catalyst of our bizarre adventure. When he’d finished laughing, he explained that the new prize motor had a new exhaust, battery and a few hoses. Bonus. This might almost be too good for the crap car police who run the rally. The dull white body work only had a few rust spots, and Pete was keen to drive our new found adventure companion, as yet unnamed.

With a non-working petrol gauge, first stop was the local petrol station. The little car took on board a full tank full, and we set off on the 100 mile journey back up to West London.

A little worried, I pulled over in my car after ten minutes to call Pete and check if the shopping trolley was running ok. As I dialled the number, I looked up, and there it trundled by, Pete looking a bit tense at the wheel. In fact, after this, I never saw them again, and they beat me home by a fair amount of time.

Things bode well for the Mongo trip. We just hope the car survives the cold winter without collapsing at the roadside or rusting to oblivion.

Fiesta Diary, Week Two

2006-01-26T13:45:00.000Z

Our Fiasco is now sitting outside the house, rusting nicely, and with an out-of-date-but-soon-to-be-renewed tax disc.

Pete has been on an e-bay buying frenzy, lumpy packages are arriving almost daily containing the likes of clutch cables, handbrake cables and a still-in-its-cellophane Haynes Manual.

All bargains, and all kept careful in their packaging so that we mechanical fools know what the hell they are when we break down in the dark, in the middle of Brokenfordistania.

The worst purchase was the Haynes manual, which I tried to bid for, got over excited, bid way too much, realised there were loads available, managed to wheedle out of the purchase, then advised Pete to buy one because I was too bewildered by the experience. I think we ended up paying the princely sum of 3 quid for it.

I drove the car, at last, during daylight hours. I managed to fit in, but the seatbelt didn’t seem to like me much. I have to duck to see out of the rear-view mirror, and kept accidentally squirting windscreen wash from the foot-activated squidger, which lies next to the clutch, conveniently in the spot where I would normally rest my foot.

The window winder pushes into my leg, something that will become mightily annoying after a few thousand miles. It may get accidentally badgered off.

I got in touch with a potential sponsor, Innocent, to test the water, and received a t-shirt, the promise of a crate of fruit juices to raffle, and a lot of e-mail niceness. Great company. This bodes well for the 20k we are hoping to raise.….