TDT returns at 10 am filled with blind hope and a determination to get the taxi out of the graveyard. We bypassed the fuel injectors with a wire and got the car going upon the advice of a taxi mechanic in London, but the alternator wasn’t fixed. We asked the mechanic’s son why it took [...]

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At 10am, after a pretty good omlette breakfast at an Altai restaurant, we arrive at the garage which we discover is a graveyard for Mongol Rally cars. There are 8 of them.

 A Mongolian who works at Air Mongolia during the week,  but moonlights on Saturdays as a mechanic,  says our alternator which charges the battery [...]

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August 22 and TDT faces a major challenge, driving 260 miles across some of the worst roads in Mongolia from Khovd to Altai.  We depart at 0930 with Max at the wheel. Rocks were bouncing off the undercarriage, the sump guard, an aluminum shield to protect our oil sump, gearbox and engine, is scraping the [...]

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Our task for today was to make it the 160 miles to the next "major" town, a distance that would normally take us under three hours on decent roads.The journey ended up taking 8 hours, at an average speed of 20 mph! The roads were unbelievably bad,  sometimes we had to go less 5 mph [...]

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Our last precious minutes in Taxistan were spent getting the much coveted Mankini shots for our sponsors, with great success. Reluctantly we struck camp and took down the stars and stripes and the union jack from the flagpole and joined the queue. The guard who had initially refused our requests for a doctor on the [...]

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This is James Walker, coming to you from Barnaul in Western Siberia, where I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of TDT sometime around 0600 Sunday.
When I last talked to Max, yesterday afternoon, they were well except for some sun burn. There is virtually no shade.
At this Saturday hour, 6pm here, 4pm in London ? and [...]

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BULLETIN:
The fledgling State of Taxistan was created today due to a clerical error.
On the 12th of August, Team Desertaxi members were denied entry to Russia until Saturday.. They were also denied re-entry to Kazakhstan.
Two of the team members, James Walker and Edward Monckton,  had Ruissian entry visas dated August 14th and 17th, respectively and were [...]

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Yes, we’d been warned the roads in Northern Kazakhstan were bad but nothing could have prepared us. Pot holes were more like meteorite craters and impossible to avoid without going off into the fields. With a sleep deprived Jimmy at the wheel, running only on a boiled egg,  we headed for Semey, our final stop [...]

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Monday, August 12th.
We had arrived Sunday afternoon and after exploring less expensive hotels settled on the Kazhol, which was just fine. It was a good to chalk off another border but sad to be there as we lost Charles who had to return to London, as planned, to pursue academics.
 We had planned to stay a [...]

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It seemed like an ordinary border crossing  when the Iranian Customs official holding our Carnet de Passage, that lists all our vehicle numbers, came out to inspect our Taxi. After all we were not worried, we had  crossed twenty two borders without a problem. We opened the bonnet, he knelt down and said "The chassis [...]

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We are in Esfahan overlooking the famous bridge. Up North to the Caspian via Tehran tomorrow. Will stay in Chalous.  On the way here got stopped by three policemen fascinated by our steed who found us short of water…needless to say Iranian hospitality kicked in.

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TA 1194L 45 Driving south to Esfahan. Just got 40 litres of petrol for 35p

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After 14 hours of sleep we set about some shameless tourism in Istanbul. This entailed returning to the Hagia Sofia more appropriately dressed to go inside. The rest was very much needed after the rigours of the previous 2000 miles. Little did we know what was in store for us east of Istanbul…
Before leaving Europe [...]

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We are waiting at the Iranian border with the sun rising above Mt. Ararat. Sharing tea with seven Iranians

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Max was caught speeding. A quick cup of earl grey brewed in the back helped negotiate a charitable discount on the fine.

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In the back of a police car. Stopped for speeding. Over a cup of earl grey we have negotiated a charity discount.

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Team Desertaxi have left the EU and are already feeling alot better. Now traversing the billiard table of northern Serbia.

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A navigational error led to a brief sojourn in Slovakia. Back on track we are now in Budapest looking for a Turkish bath to deal with th …

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Stopping in Salzburg for lunch. 2 broken door hinges, 1 broken indicator, 1 broken electric window. 795 miles.

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