We’ve spent one weird and wonderful week in the biggest, busiest mega-city in the world. Rather than give a detailed blow-by-blow account of how we spent every minute of every day, we thought we’d change it up a bit and summarise ten of our favourite (or most interesting) Tokyo experiences.

1. Commuter hell: the Tokyo rush hour challenge

It was about one o’clock in the morning when our plane touched down at Tokyo’s Haneda airport. This wasn’t a great time to arrive, as public transport shuts down at midnight in Tokyo. We chose to attempt to sleep in the airport rather than pay for an expensive taxi, which had an interesting unexpected consequence: we got up in the morning, and hit rush hour on Tokyo’s transport network.

Rush hour in Tokyo is a bit like rush hour in London, only there are a lot more people involved. Tokyo is the most populated city in the world, and every day about 40 million people travel on the rail network. The Japanese even have a term for the daily rush hour challenge: “tsukin jigoku”, which means “commuter hell”. When we changed trains at the city centre, Shane and I stood back for a while just to watch rush hour people traffic. It was like watching schools of fish in the sea. Everyone knew where they were going; it was as if they were caught up in a stream, and different streams moved in the same direction continuously. It wasn’t overly stressful or frantic, but you had to slot into your place in the stream, which was something Shane and I obviously failed to do as we bumbled around with our big bags trying to decipher the Japanese signs and work out where to go next.

We found our way, and waited on the platform for our train. As it approached, we noticed it looked rather full. “We’ll never get on there with our bags”, said Shane. “Well we don’t have much choice”, I replied. The train was full, but the next train would be full too.  We managed to squeeze on and survived our journey, sandwiched between people like sardines.

 

 

2. Harajuku’s owl cafe

Tokyo is full of animal cafes: places where you can get a drink, have a snack and chill out with a cat, goat or even a hedgehog. While I loved the idea of a hedgehog cafe, I also thought it might prove a little prickly, and I was quickly captured by a softer alternative – an owl cafe. The owl cafe in Harajuku sounded great. A place where you could sit, have a drink, and stroke an owl at the same time. Owl cafes are even advertised as “healing” places, as stroking an owl can apparently reduce stress.

Sadly, the reality of the owl cafe was a little different. We arrived at our appointed time, were given a drink, and then waited for our allotted 35 minutes of owl time. “Cafe time” and “owl time” had to be separated for hygiene reasons, so it was more like having a quick drink and then heading to a petting zoo than the holistic “owl cafe” experience I had imagined.

Next we read the owl cafe warning card, which included warnings such as “don’t take the smaller owls near the bigger owls, because the bigger owls will eat them” (comforting), and “watch out for owl excrement” (lovely). When it was time, we proceeded outside onto a little balcony area of the cafe, where about 10 owls were sat waiting for us. It then dawned on me that 1) the owls looked sad as they sat chained to their perches and stared out of the window wishing for freedom, 2) owls are nocturnal animals, so keeping them awake during the day for tourists to stroke them probably wasn’t ideal, and 3) the space they lived in was probably too small for them to be happy.

I half heartedly stroked an owl, and then witnessed a very large owl jump (almost hitting me), as if it were trying to escape. That was the end of our time in the owl cafe.

 

 

3. The robot restaurant

Another day, another disappointment. As a robot enthusiast, I couldn’t miss Tokyo’s robot restaurant. Despite the fact it was obviously super-touristy and overpriced, and despite Shane’s protestations that “they won’t be real robots” (I disagreed, it was called the ROBOT restaurant after all!), I just had to visit the robot restaurant.

Sure enough, it wasn’t really a restaurant, and there were no robots. However, there was some very interesting (completely bizarre) entertainment, complete with glow sticks, flashing lights, bright colours, loud music and strange costumes. We might not have seen real robots, but we did see a giant fish, a giant chicken, the full cast of the show singing the YMCA, and much, much more. It wasn’t what I was hoping for, but it was a once-in-a-lifetime (I am never doing it again), out of this world, surreal experience.

 

4. Tsukiji Fish market

Tokyo is home to the biggest fish market in the world. It’s a wholesale market so tourists aren’t overly welcome. In fact, we weren’t allowed inside until 10am, and even then our movements were closely watched and we were banned from taking photographs… although I did manage the odd sneaky fish photo. We saw quite a few interesting sights at the fish market, such as packaged “snacks”, including an “eel bone snack” (I don’t think eels have bones, but never mind), a “dried kelp snack”, a tiny-octopus-on-a-stick, and more. We also saw some fish getting chopped up while still alive (there was a lot of wriggling and flapping about), and various other tanks with live fish and squid. It seems the system is that you select your fish while it’s still alive, and then it is chopped up and given to you in a bag!

We would have liked to get to the fish market in time for the tuna auction, which takes place every morning at 3am, but only a limited number of tourists are allowed to watch, and 3am was a little too early for us!

5. Weird museums

So little time, so many weird museums. One of Tokyo’s finest museums has to be the very small but beautifully formed parasite museum, where you can look under a microscope at tiny parasites and learn about how parasites get into your body and what they can do. We learnt about the history of parasites in Japan (eating sushi = parasites for life) and even saw an 8.8m long tape worm!

Another highlight was the Cup Noodles museum in Yokohama. The Cup Noodles museum contains five floors of exhibits about Cup Noodles. In the Cup Noodles museum you can explore a replica of the house where cup noodles were first invented, view noodle-related artwork, make your own cup noodles and (if you are under 10 years old), pretend to be a noodle in the noodle park. While I could barely contain my disappointment about being too old to play in the noodle park, I had a lovely time making my own cup noodles, although I may have chosen some slightly odd flavour combinations. I visited the Cup Noodles museum with my parents, and on the way out asked my Mum whether the whole thing was for real, or whether it was a bit of a joke. “Absolutely for real”, she replied, “it’s like the Japanese version of Cadbury World.”

6. Senso-ji temple

Senso-ji temple is Tokyo’s oldest temple, founded in 645 AD.  It is an Ancient Buddhist temple and is the most widely visited spiritual site in the world. It is located right in the heart of the city, surrounded by imposing gates, touristy shops and is next to a five storey pagoda (the Asakusa shrine).

On our visit to Senso-ji temple we explored the nooks and crannies of the temple grounds, marvelling at the big golden buddha statues. The main shop-lined street leading up to the main building of the temple was hectic, with worshippers and tourists alike jostling to buy their souvenirs and reach the temple, but beyond that it was a calm and quiet place complete with a contemplative garden.  Within the temple itself it was also possible to consult with the oracle (for the small price of 100 yen – about 75p). We’ve seen some fantastic temples already in South Korea, and although this temple wasn’t as aesthetically impressive, it was more original and felt more like a place of spiritual significance than a big tourist attraction.

 

7. Shibuya crossing

Shibuya crossing is a massive pedestrian crossing outside Shibuya station in central Tokyo. Pedestrians can cross in about twelve different directions, and it is a great opportunity to watch a sea of people moving quickly and seamlessly through Tokyo without being caught in the middle of the people-crush. We visited the crossing at about 2pm on a weekday – far from rush hour, but the crossing was still busy. We spent a good hour or two here just people watching from different angles and trying to get a good photo. Check out the link to our instagram page below for a quick video of the crossing in progress:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BZiYFC8A13-/?hl=en&taken-by=shaneandgeorgia

8. Staying at a capsule hotel

On our first night in Tokyo we stayed in a capsule hotel. This is something I’ve always wanted to do (Shane was less keen), but we both enjoyed the experience. In fact, it was probably the nicest place we’ve stayed so far, although that might say more about the standard of our accommodation to date than anything else.

We stayed at Nine Hours North – a trendy, modern capsule hotel in Shinjuku, and one of the few capsule hotels that allows both men and women to stay the night (most capsule hotels are male only). The capsule hotel had a clean, white, minimalist design. Check-in was simple and efficient, and we were given a locker key, a capsule number and a bag with free pyjamas, slippers and towels. There were separate floors for men and women and one bare common room area with charging points, desks and chairs. There were also clean and fairly luxuourious washroom areas for men and women, with excellent toilet and shower facilities. The toilets were particularly exciting, as they had a number of different buttons for different functions, although it wasn’t always easy to work out what was what. In Shane’s words, you needed a degree to use the toilets.

The capsules themselves were comfortable and more spacious than expected. There were over 50 capsules in each room, but my little pod was surprisingly quiet and felt very private once I pulled down the blind separating me from the outside world. I also had a light and charging point in my capsule. Both Shane and I enjoyed an excellent night’s sleep inside.

Compared to hole-in-the-ground toilets and tent camping on the Mongol Rally, staying in a capsule hotel was pure luxury. Unfortunately, although capsule hotels market themselves as “budget” accommodation, it didn’t come cheap. At £40 per night for two capsules in the heart of Shinjuku, the price wasn’t bad by Tokyo standards, but it was pretty expensive to us. After our one night of relative luxury, we checked out of our capsules and went back to roughing it at a seriously budget guest house down the road for half the price.

9. Meeting Asimo the robot

After the robot-restaurant-fail, my next attempt to visit Tokyo’s robots took place at the Emerging Science and Innovation Museum. The museum was packed with interesting exhibits about new technology, from using the human body itself as an electronic communication device to 3D printing in every home. We went to see a replica of the international space station, read about how Japan is trying to use technology to improve levels of physical activity using different types of music technology and saw the museum’s star attraction: Asimo.

Shane and I had both seen Asimo on TV, so seeing him in real life was a little bit like meeting a celebrity. Asimo is a humanoid robot, so he has a human shape with arms, legs and a face, and moves and talks a bit like a human. We watched Asimo walk, talk, kick a football and sing a song complete with Japanese sign language. It was very impressive, and went some way towards making up for the disappointment of not seeing robots at the robot restaurant.

10. Disneyland and Disneysea

What could be better than visiting the happiest place on earth? Visiting the happiest place on earth with Shane, my parents and my brother, of course!

Mum, Dad and Tom flew out to meet us in Tokyo for a few days of Disney fun 🙂 Unlike the recent Disney park additions of Shanghai and, to a lesser extent, Hong Kong, Tokyo Disneyland has been around for 35 years. It contains all the Disney atmosphere and the classic rides, but is incredibly efficient, friendly and full of people who know how to dress in Disneyland.

While Tokyo Disneyland was very similar to the California/Florida/Hong Kong/Paris parks we know and love, Disneysea was an entirely new theme park with some incredible theming and new and exciting rides. One minute we were in Ariel’s mermaid lagoon, the next we were in a gondola in Venice. In Tokyo’s Disneysea we even spotted our old friend Lewis Hamilton, proving that when he’s not racing around, even Lewis can’t resist a bit of Disney time 🙂 No visit to Tokyo can be complete without a magical day out at Disney!

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It’s been a strange and surprising week in Tokyo, and Mum, Dad and Tom are loving it just as much as we are. We will all be travelling together for the next two weeks, and thanks to them Shane and I are having a two-week break from dodgy hostels and airport sleeping. Tomorrow we are all leaving Tokyo on a cruise ship to see some more of Japan and some more of South Korea before we end up in Shanghai and have to go our separate ways again. Sayonara Tokyo!

Having completed the Mongol Rally with no breakdowns, no catastrophic arguments, no serious illnesses or crazy stories (well… maybe a few crazy stories… #whereismichael), Shane and I have been thinking about whether the Mongol Rally can still legitimately claim to be the greatest adventure on the planet. Are technological developments, improvements in road conditions and the general homogenization of the world eroding the possibility of having a true adventure?

Before we set off on the Mongol Rally, Shane and I watched endless youtube videos of Mongol Rally teams dragging their cars through rivers, drinking vodka with police officers and getting trapped in no man’s land for a week and inventing their own country. Shane and I weren’t looking for anything terrible to happen to us – we didn’t want to break down, get lost, or bribe any corrupt officials – but we expected that those things would happen to us anyway. We thought the Mongol Rally would be the ultimate test: of our car, of our relationship, and of ourselves. We prepared our wills in preparation for the worst.

There were a few tough times. Spending the night in the car at a truck stop outside of Istanbul and waking up to someone trying to get inside was the most stressful moment of the Rally for me. Trying to board the unreliable Baku-Turkmenbashi ferry, completing the lengthy immigration process in Turkmenistan, finding money and petrol in Uzbekistan and driving on some pretty rough roads in a tiny inappropriate car also feature on our list of difficult moments, but these were all challenges we were expecting, and to some extent we were prepared for them.

There can be no doubt that the Mongol Rally is getting easier year-on-year. The rapid advancement of technology is making it easier than ever to circumnavigate the globe in a tiny inappropriate vehicle. For a start, the Internet is brimming with tips and suggestions from previous teams who have completed the Rally. There is also a very useful website – www.caravanistan.com – featuring very helpful, up to date information about travelling around Central Asia. Wondering whether the Turkmenistan-Uzbekistan border is open 24/7? Looking for a realistic guide on driving times through the Pamir Highway? You check that in the blink of an eye on Caravanistan.

You can also use the Internet to connect with your fellow Ralliers. This year there has been a very well used Facebook group and Whatsapp group for the Mongol Rally. These groups have allowed us to co-ordinate meeting up with other teams and share updates on the road. From these groups we found out important information, such as:

1. You need to buy vignettes in for Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, or you will probably be fined (we bought the vignettes)
2. The most obvious and direct border between Uzbekistan and Tajikistan was closed (we went to a different border)
3. There was a speed trap between Almaty and Semey in Kazakhstan, which resulted in a number of teams being fined large amounts of money (we were very vigilant and obeyed the speed limit at all times)
4. When taking the Southern route in Mongolia, the map tells you to turn right around 30km after the town of Altai but you should not turn right (we didn’t turn right)
5. Where the recommended and not-recommended mechanics were in every town and city (not that we ever needed a mechanic)

With wifi available in practically every hostel we stayed in (not to mention numerous cafes, restaurants and shopping centres), it was always easy to communicate with our fellow Ralliers and to organise to meet people on the road. A high proportion of teams also invested in sim cards in every country, so they were rarely without data and an Internet connection. As the availability of wifi, 3G and 4G increases, this is only going to make finding information and communicating with other Ralliers easier and easier as time goes on.

Technology is also improving our ability to navigate. We knew our sat nav wouldn’t work once we left Europe, so brought paper maps and a compass. We also downloaded an app called maps.me, which worked in a similar way to google maps but didn’t require an Internet connection. We rarely used the paper maps except to look at an overview of our route in Mongolia. We used maps.me constantly (in fact, we are still using it).

As a navigation device, maps.me isn’t perfect. It can’t always tell which direction you are travelling in, which made for some interesting twists and turns when we first started to use it. However, it does provide a very, very detailed map. The names of hostels, restaurants and tourist spots were often stored in the map, making it really easy to find where we needed to go, even if it wasn’t the best navigation device in the world. As time goes on, and technology like this will continue to improve, navigating will become a breeze and getting lost will be a thing of the past.

It’s not only the rise of information and communication technology that is changing the face of the Mongol Rally. While there are still plenty of potholes to hit, edges to fall off and sand to get stuck in, there is no doubt that the quality of roads across the world are improving. In Mongolia, a new road is being built right across the Southern route. Much of that road remained inaccessible to us (although the stretches where it did exist were perfect), but in a few years’ time, it seems likely that driving across Mongolia won’t be that different from driving across Europe (at least from a road quality perspective).

Added to this is the constant improvement in car technology. This year, a Nissan Leaf completed the Mongol Rally (although they didn’t go through Mongolia, which is cheating a bit). Today’s new cars will be tomorrow’s old cars, and they’ll be better than today’s old cars. They will probably drive themselves to Mongolia.

Road improvements and car improvements are signs of a wider wave of development across the world. Mongolia itself is developing at a rapid pace, as are countries in Central Asia. While today it is still difficult to find petrol in Uzbekistan, and still possible to turn up at a random stranger and ask to stay the night with a woman and her two daughters in the middle of Mongolia, it is possible to find a KFC in pretty much every city from Bishkek onwards.

The advancement of new technology, improvements in road and car quality and a the general homogenization of the world is gradually making the Mongol Rally less of a crazy adventure and more of an interesting road-trip. In some respects, this is no bad thing – seeing the world is easier, more accessible and safer than ever. There are more opportunities for more people to travel and experience a different side of life. The downside is that the ‘different side of life’ we travel to experience might not exist for that much longer.

In five, ten or twenty years’ time it will be even easier to travel the world. We will all have self-driving cars with built-in navigation systems and translation devices at the ready. Information on where to go, how to get there and what to do will be readily available without the need to search for wifi or read a guidebook. It will be easy, and it will be comfortable. The nearest McDonald’s will never be that far away. But if every country looks the same – has the same roads, the same food, the same interest in Taylor Swift – you have to wonder what you will be travelling for, exactly.

There are still plenty of adventures to be had, and plenty of exploring to be done. The proliferation of technology and homogenization of culture of the Western world is yet to reach every corner of the globe. At the same time, comparing our experience watching other teams attempt the Mongol Rally several years ago on youtube with our real life experience today, I am very grateful that Shane and I are able to take time out now to see the world, rather than waiting any longer. In some ways we’ve had the best of both worlds – we’ve had an adventure, but we’ve also had technology to help us get through it in one piece.

The adventure isn’t dead yet. There are still mountains to climb, oceans to explore and a vast universe out there to discover. But the nature of adventure travel is changing, and as it becomes easier, simpler and safer every day, there are fewer and fewer reasons not to go and see the world.

If you want to have a big adventure, now is the time to get out there and do it.

 

So you’re wondering what to do with your next summer holiday. You love cars, and driving, and you’re looking for a crazy adventure. The next thing you know you’ve signed up to take part in the Mongol Rally – the greatest motoring adventure of all time – and now you’re wondering what you’ve let yourself in for.

Having managed to complete the Mongol Rally without a single breakdown (marriage related or car related), Shane and I would like to share our top tips for a successful Mongol Rally:

 

1. Choose your teammates carefully

The more people in your team, the cheaper it will be. You can share the cost of the entry fee, the deposit, the fuel and all car related costs. The downside of having a big team is that the car will be squashier and heavier – you can’t bring as much with you and the car will likely weigh more, putting more stress on the suspension and potentially causing more breakdowns and issues.

It’s not just the number of people in your team you have to consider… it’s also their personalities. Shane is the perfect Mongol Rally teammate. He is very good at driving (this is very important), he is always completely calm (even in the most stressful situations), he has infinite patience and he has a sense of humor. Plus he’s pretty cute too. These are all important characteristics to look out for when selecting your ideal teammates. Avoid the opposite at all costs.

I am happy to admit that I am not as calm, patient or even quite as good at driving as Shane (but not many people can fulfill this criteria as well as he does). I am, however, good at planning. Although this isn’t a trip that can be overplanned (there are too many unknowns, such as if and when the ferry will arrive, if and when the car will break down and if and when the roads will be so terrible that you can only manage 20 kilometers per hour), some planning is still very important to make sure you get the right visas for the right dates and end up in the right places at (roughly) the right times. Plenty of teams had to rush through Mongolia or miss it out completely because they hadn’t planned how they would spend their time, while other teams had to split up (with some members purchasing expensive flights to avoid countries because they didn’t have the right visas or the right dates).

You will be trapped in a confined space with your team mates for pretty much 24 hours a day for somewhere between six and eight weeks. Choosing who to spend that time with is the most important Rally related decision you will make. Don’t do this trip with people you find annoying, people you don’t know, or people you wouldn’t or couldn’t live with. Don’t do this trip with an ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend.

 

2. Make sure you know your car

Take your own car if you can. We have driven Martha for years so we know what works, and what doesn’t work. We know which noises are just “her funny ways” and which noises mean trouble. We know that she is a good car.

Most people don’t drive rubbish one litre cars from 1996. They really should, but that is another story. If you haven’t got a car that fills the Adventurist’s criteria (small and rubbish), then at least make sure you give your car a proper check before you buy it, and drive it for as long as you can before you leave the U.K. or Europe so that you can get to know it.

We know teams that bought their car off someone on the internet, and it turned out fine. We know other teams that spent a lot of money buying a rubbish car, and then had to spend a lot more money getting that car into a road worthy condition. The Mongol Rally is all about driving a rubbish car, so most people don’t put too much thought into what sort of vehicle they end up with, but if you want to make it around the world without stopping at every single mechanic you see, it makes sense to put some effort into getting to know your car before you set off.

 

3. Never leave a man or woman behind

Stay together as a team. Even if you have a big row, or if Viktorya from the ferry ticket office in Azerbaijan tells the drivers and the passengers they should take separate ferries. They shouldn’t.

Turkmenistan is probably the worst place to get separated from your teammates – you have a maximum of five days to transit across the country, the authorities are watching you at all times and some of the roads are the worst we experienced across the whole of the Rally. Shane and I were nearly split up in Baku as I was told to take the ferry and he was told to wait for the next one. Miraculously another ticket appeared at the last minute and we stayed together, but other teams weren’t as lucky, and it didn’t end well.

You’re all in this together, so stay together.

 

4. Bring lots of US dollars

In some countries (particularly Iran, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan) it is impossible to find an ATM that will accept a foreign card. You need to bring cash, and you need to bring it in US dollars.

Sterling, euro, ruble are all next to useless in some places. You need US dollars. And you might need more of them than you think given the cost of taking a car into Turkmenistan. Just bring plenty of cash.

 

5. Don’t drive at night

Driving at night wasn’t problematic in Europe or Turkey, but once the roads start to deteriorate driving at night becomes a really bad idea. Mainly because you can’t see properly (say goodbye to street lights and road markings) and are likely to hit something that will damage your car (say hello to potholes, wild animals and traffic driving on either side of the road), but also because it’s hard to find somewhere to stay (or safe to camp) when you’re driving around in the dark.

Shane and I drove slowly, and we only drove during the day. Generally we would get up early (around 5 or 6am) to make sure we could cover plenty of ground, and then drive until it got dark. Then we would find somewhere to camp and stop. In places like the Pamir Highway and Mongolia we repeated this pattern every day, and it worked pretty well.

You might get overtaken by other Ralliers going further and faster, but we tended to find they would then manage to damage their car and would end up stopped at the next town getting it fixed. It might seem like you will make more progress if you drive 24 hours a day and go as fast as you can, but you will regret it if you end up killing your car. Take it slow, enjoy the views and look after your car!

 

When we decided to drive Martha to Mongolia, we had some idea of what the adventure would be like. We’d read a few blogs and watched a few youtube videos, so we knew the roads would be challenging and the views would be amazing. What we didn’t really know was how much it would all cost.

Shane and I have travelled before, but we have never tried to budget for temporarily importing our car into a bunch of different countries, and we usually have a much more detailed day-by-day plan so we know how much everything will cost before we go. On the Mongol Rally that seemed impossible – we didn’t know what the road conditions would be like, whether Martha would break down or when the Baku-Turkmenbashi ferry would ever arrive, so we couldn’t book everything in advance or nail down every penny of spending.

Now that we’ve completed the Mongol Rally and have recorded all of the money we spent over the last seven weeks, we wanted to share exactly how much it cost us to help anyone planning an adventure like this in the future.

First – a caveat – every team’s costs will be different. There are significant costs other teams incurred that we didn’t have to pay, such as:

1. Car (we already bought Martha for £500 five years ago)
2. Getting the car ready for the rally (Shane’s family, particularly his Uncle, and some of our sponsors helped with this so it didn’t cost us anything). We also didn’t have to spend anything fixing Martha on the road, because she never broke down!
3. Camping equipment (we already had a tent, sleeping bags, sleeping mats etc. from previous trips and my parents bought us a camping stove and some other bits and pieces as Christmas presents)
4. Air fares (we aren’t flying home and we didn’t have to fly anywhere to start the Rally)
5. Police bribes / speeding fines (apart from some fake costs as the Tajikistan-Kyrgyzstan border, we didn’t spend any money bribing any police officers and didn’t get caught committing any traffic offences. This cannot be said for all other teams).

All costs below are in GBP (£), as that’s the currency we started with, and all costs are per team rather than per individual. The more people in your Mongol Rally team, the cheaper the adventure will be!

Mongol Rally entry fee: £475

This is a fee we paid to the Adventurists just to be part of the Mongol Rally. Lots of people have complained that as the Rally is completely unsupported, the Adventurists don’t really do anything and so this money is a waste. However, as well as organise some parties and give away some freebies (which I agree we could do without), the Adventurists did do some useful stuff in helping us get visas for Turkmenistan and making sure we could enter Mongolia without paying a huge (£5000+) deposit for our car. Plus, it’s worth the money to be part of the Rally and go with other teams – you could get seriously stuck on your own.

Vehicle deposit / shipping cost: £500   

Annoying as it is, you can’t leave a UK (or EU, for that matter) car in Mongolia without paying huge import taxes (£10,000+). This applies even if the car is dead, or if you try to sell it. The Adventurists moved the finish line of the Rally from Ulaanbaatar to Ulan Ude in Russia to help make it easier to ship cars back to Europe, and make you pay a deposit of £1,000 to make sure no one does anything illegal with their cars. As we have found another team to drive Martha back, we no longer have to pay for shipping, but we have agreed to split the cost of the deposit 50:50.

Travel insurance: £580

This will cover us for the next 18 months so isn’t strictly a Mongol Rally cost, but it would have been much easier (and cheaper) to get travel insurance if we weren’t driving halfway across the world, with all the risk that carries.

Visas: £945  

A large percentage of this cost went to the Russian government. Visas for Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan were also particularly expensive. For a full breakdown of visa costs, see our post on applying for visas here.

Ferries: £335

Dover to Calais was £75, Baku to Turkmenbashi was £245, plus a £15 charge for using the ramp to get onto the ferry (seriously).

Fuel: £633

Over 15,000km (10,000 miles) Martha used about 1,200 litres of fuel. At U.K. prices this would have cost £1,400. Luckily the price of petrol took a nosedive once we left Europe. In Turkmenistan a litre of petrol cost us about 6 pence!

Food and drink: £575

When we camped we usually cooked our own food. A £30 spend in Sainsbury’s at the beginning of our trip kept us going all through Europe, the Pamir Highway and Mongolia! When we stayed in cities we generally ate out and sampled the local cuisine or the less local cuisine when we got bored of kebabs. This included a couple of more expensive meals in Almaty, Kazakhstan and Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

Accommodation: £680

We planned to wild camp most nights but after an incident with a squirrel on our very first night in Belgium we ended up chickening out a bit at the start and paid for more campsites than planned. We also always looked for accommodation with parking when staying in cities, which means we didn’t always stay in the cheapest places but never had to worry about the car or pay extra for parking.  A significant chunk of this figure went to the Grand Turkmen Hotel in Turkmenistan, where we stayed because we arrived late at night and couldn’t find anywhere else.

Car insurance: £175

This doesn’t include the cost of U.K. car insurance because we had that anyway and it was very minimal to start with. We bought insurance at every border where we thought it was compulsory to do so – this didn’t include Georgia, Uzbekistan or Kyrgyzstan.

Road tax / other tax: £145

Again, we paid charges at borders for road tax, eco tax etc. when we had to. This includes a fake charge we paid in Tajikistan to leave the country.

Vignettes and tolls: £60

At roughly 25p a time, tolls in Mongolia were not expensive. In Europe, however, we spent a significant amount of money buying vignettes (little stickers for your windscreen that you need to drive on certain roads). Most of the vignettes covered us for around 10 days of driving, but we only needed them for a matter of hours until we left the country.

Museums and entry fees: £50

We did plenty of sight seeing, but most of it was free on the road! Where we did have to pay entrance fees, it wasn’t too expensive outside of Europe.

 

To keep costs down we recommend travelling in a bigger team. Fuel, road tax and insurance can then be split more than two ways, and getting a triple / 4-bed room usually works out cheaper per-person than a 2-bed in most hostels), camping and cooking your own food as much as you can, driving your car back to Europe instead of paying the shipping cost, and not breaking your car or the law, which will save you in repair costs and fines.

 

Total: £5,150

The complete cost of the Mongol Rally was £5,150 (or £2,575 per person).  It isn’t cheap, but with the average cost of a honeymoon standing at around £4,000 for a week in the sun, it isn’t bad value for a seven-week road trip across two continents, 20 countries and memories to last a lifetime.

Cheap? No. Worth it? Absolutely.

 

After seven weeks, 15,000km, 20 countries, at least one argument per day and no breakdowns whatsoever (not even a flat tyre), today we finally crossed the finish line in Ulan Ude, Russia and completed the Mongol Rally.

The Highlights

It’s been an incredible trip. Over the last 50 days we have:

• Driven over the twisty turny Transfagarasan Highway in Romania
• Survived crazy drivers and pot-hole filled roads in Georgia
• Managed to sail on one of the most unreliable ferry crossings that ever existed from Baku to Turkmenbashi
• Driven through sandy deserts and visited the gates of Hell in Turkmenistan
• Found a way through Uzbekistan with no petrol
• Experienced the fantastic scenery and terrible roads on the Pamir Highway
• Wild camped in empty Kazakhstan
• Raced off-road, stayed in a ger and drank fermented horse milk in Mongolia

 

 

Martha’s Helpers

Martha has made the trip look easy, but we have had a lot of help in the run-up to the Rally. A big thank you to:

1. Shane’s family, especially Shane’s Uncle Reggie, for transforming Martha from a rusty MOT failure to a golden expedition vehicle, with new brakes, tyres, shocks, springs, bespoke roofrack, lights, battery, armour and non-rusty bits.

2. Our sponsors:

• James Walsh Auto Electrical for paint and wipers so we could see where we were going.
• Top Part for a rather large battery so that we could leave the lights on to put up our tent, charge items over night and still be able to start the car in the morning.
• Madden’s car breakers who let Shane’s Dad and I explore their car graveyard and take whatever we needed off old (although not as old as Martha) Nissan Micras. They even stopped their real work and used their serious tools to get us some extra bits.
• Travello for their generous support
• An anonymous motor factor who doesn’t wish to be named but went above and beyond, supplying brakes, suspension and service parts for Martha.

3. All of our friends, family and former colleagues for their charity donations, gifts and moral support both leading up to and during the Rally

4. The other Rally teams we met along the way – especially teams Silicon Rally The Flying Dutchmen and Genghis Kart for sticking with us through the tough times on the Caspian Sea and in Turkmenistan, teams Fiat to Believe It and the Mongol Independent Trading Company for convoying with us through the best parts of Mongolia, and Team Kiwis Crossing for keeping us company for over a week – all the way from Barnual in Russia to the Genghis Khan statue in Ulaanbaatar.

What’s Next

Over the next few days we are staying in Ulan Ude in Russia. Our original plan was to send Martha back to Lithuania or Estonia on the train, where she would be scrapped. As she is still in tip-top shape, it seemed a bit of a waste to send her to be squashed, so instead we have given her to another team who will drive her back to Europe and possibly back to the U.K.

While we are here we will be posting a three-part blog on our lessons learned and top tips for the Mongol Rally. Topics include:

1. How much does it cost to do the Mongol Rally? – a detailed account of our spending over the last seven weeks to show how much you should budget if you too want to drive an old rubbish car to Mongolia!
2. Top tips – what we did right, what we did wrong and what you should do if you want to complete the Mongol Rally in one piece
3. Is the adventure dead? – a look at whether the Mongol Rally has now become too easy with the advancement of technology, roads improving and more people than ever speaking English around the world.

Next we will take the Trans-Siberian railway from Ulan Ude to Vladivostok in East Russia and then the honeymoon continues in South Korea, Japan and around South East Asia! We will continue to post regular blog updates as we go so please do keep following as we carry on our journey around the world.

Thank you for reading so far ☺

Love Shane, Georgia and Martha