Exodus

It is commonly thought that Exodus was written by Moses, way out in the Middle East, around the 5th century BC. This edition, however, is being written by Alex in a rather chillier climate, though fortunately graced by the 20th century (AD) invention of central heating.

The decision of which route to take had been a hot topic of conversation recently, to go through Iran or not to go through Iran, to breach the Chinese borders or to skirt round the edge of Uzbekistan, were all weighing on the minds of the fine young explorers. Facing the inconvenient truth that they weren't able to part the Caspian Sea to reach the promised lands (of Mongolia), they either had to go north through Russia or south through a rather more unstable territory. The prospect of travelling through countries like Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan was met with about as much trepidation as experienced by the Jews being told to march straight out of Egypt. The idea just seemed preposterous.

Some were feeling more pessimistic than others, cyber cries rang out across facebook of "But we might get killed", "We're just asking for trouble" and "They don't accept cashcards in Tehran". But unfortunately these protests fell on deaf ears of the other explorers, so it was decided to consult a higher deity, the British Government.

The Home Office website contained a whole host of information relating to the potential countries they could travel through, including ten very important rules, commandments if you please, about what to do and what not to do when travelling to these troubled territories. I shan't bore you with all the details of what looked like fairly simple rules, but the main one made it clear that "thou shalt not go within 100km of the Iran/Afghan border".

It was thus decided henceforth that the quartet should heed the warnings given to them, fully in the knowledge that if they strayed from these rules they would be at the mercy of President Ahmadinejad (Satan). So, safe in the knowledge ground rules had been established it was finally time to put pen to papyrus and get their route sorted once and for all as they had to start applying for visas, without which, safe passage could not be granted.

Hasta la vista,

GKD

Genesis

In the beginning, God created four, maybe five, fine individuals to partake in the most adventurous car rallies of them all, the Mongol Rally.

The group went by the names of Alex "Buzz" Corp, Shane "Shane" Gill, "Gorgeous" George Pugh and Alex "Gorilla" Tominey.

In the first of the 10 months they had to prepare for the race, the group bought an ambulance from ebay and then rested.

In the second of the 10 months they had to prepare for the race, they also rested, but found this funny video on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NijwK99OO04.

In the remaining 8 months they have to prepare for the race they pledged to get their arses into gear and begin tarting up their ambulance and start raising much needed pieces of gold which they can trade to buy sound systems, break pads and an instruction manual on how to fix an eight-year old ambulance.

On deciding on a route to take, their opinions differed widely. Some wanting to go the reverse way round, some through wartorn regions, some on a ridiculous detour through scandinavia and africa, and some through the fine wine regions of southern europe, where we would endeavour not to pick the forbidden fruit in the vineyard of Mr. Pinot Grigio.

One thing uniting the brave quartet as they embark on this epic journey was the steely determination to make it out to Ulaan Bataar, overcoming the many obstacles just like Noah overcame the floods...

Glad tidings,

GKD