Visas

So we now have the document to apply for our visas, all 37 pages of it, with visa fees weighing in at a hefty £400 each. Slightly more than we're hoping to spend on the car. Some particularly interesting warnings. "DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES LEAVE YOUR CAR IN TURKMENISTAN. EVEN IF YOU HAVE TO PUSH IT OUT.". The £78 it'll cost to spend 8 hours crossing Azerbaijan is a wee bit galling but we'll live.

High Praise for the Micra

In the What Car? Used Car of the Year - best supermini upto £3000 category they had the following to say about the Nissan Micra

"The only question here was what would be the runner-up, because at this price, nothing can touch the Micra. The Nissan’s reliability is beyond question: phrases such as ‘bulletproof’ and ‘just keeps on going’ rang around the room as our judges ran through the Micra’s talents. On top of that, it’s fun to drive and cheap to run. You can expect well over 40mpg from this 1.0-litre engine, and it has enough poke to mean there’s no point buying the bigger, more expensive 1.3."

They didn't speculate on its ability to tackle mountain ranges, sinking ferries and deserts but 'Bulletproof' well we'll see.

Only now got to compare it to the What Ice Cream Van? award winner in the sub 1 litre category.

Mrs Cooper

Who would have thought that my mum would be our biggest supporter. She swiftly told the whole street about the event and I reckon it's only a matter of days before the whole town's involved too.

I was greatly impressed by the urgent voicemail on Saturday night when she reported an opportunity to pick up a nice little 2CV with only 62,000 miles on the clock, "...it doesn't exactly fit in with your team name, but it's got far more style".

Thanks to Oliver

Thanks to Oli for securing us a spot in the Mongol Rally. I do, however, feel slightly perturbed at having to follow up my drunken banter with actions.

So, what next?

1. Route planning. Really tricky if you listen to the Foreign Office travel advice jargon about kidnapping and death. If not, then surely it's just a case of picking up an atlas and joining the dots?
   
2. Buying a car. Oli's mentioned this already and it should be easy once we've chosen between Micra and Ice Cream Van. Though with Oli's growing determination for the latter we may be fighting this one out in the scissors, paper, stone arena.
   
3. Securing sponsorship. May be slightly harder, but by offering some unmissible advertising opportunities and selling off Oli's vital organs we should be able to raise our cash. Any takers?

Now all we have to do is buy a car

After missing out on a place on Friday sitting up till 12 last night bore fruit as Team Micra secured a place in the melee that is the Mongol Rally.

Having initially happened upon a Micra as the conveyance of choice I'm now starting to think that an Ice Cream Van may be more appropriate. Presenting as it is does the possibility of supplementing our petrol money along the way and also allowing us to regale passing herdsman with mobile jingles. We may struggle with the 1 litre limit but we can but try. Ebay it is then.

Oh dear!

100,000 hits in 5 minutes and no place for the under prepareds representing the Micra contingent. All we can do now is wait and fight, otherwise it'll probably have to be Tenerife for our holidays.

The adventure begins

So here we are woefully unprepared for a voyage through Central Asia but keen as the proverbial mustard.

Our attempts to secure a place on the rally on Wednesday were thwarted by an underpowered server (rather than an underpowered hatchback - more of that later I'm sure) so tonight at seven will see us hunkered down and fighting it off the rally hordes aiming to get a place on this years rally.