I love a good challenge and that’s why the Mongol Rally kept popping up in my mind.
Have I mentioned I love to travel? (I’m sure someone’s screaming into the screen: “A thousand times”). What I mean is I’m no stranger to planning. As planning goes, I try to make pretty accurate and detailed route and the same goes for the budget. I always try to make as good of an estimate as I can. The only thing written in stone is the length of the trip.
I usually have an Excel sheet (or a cloud equivalent) which contains all the data in a sort of structured manner. There are usually more sheets. One for the route and the length of the trip, one for accommodations and another one for spending. I therefore have a process for planning in place. The Mongol Rally starts near Prague. That’s Czech Republic. The finish line is in Ulan-Ude. Just south of the lake Baikal. In Russia.
How do I even begin?
My mind was screaming: “How do I even begin planning?”. I can’t be serious. I’m thinking about going half way across the globe in a shed of a car without a set plan with only the start and finish points being known to me. Knowing that I can easily set my goals higher than necessary didn’t make me feel any better. Why should I drive straight through Russia if I could go through Iran? Why should I stick to some real roads if I could drive through some desert? I how long would such trip even take?
As a strike of pure luck I found a computer near me, some access to internet (well, duh) and with internet comes Google (I can just hear the eyes rolling from the audience). I quickly found some blogs with some slightly helpful data. They all provide data, but are slightly useless. As I’m not really into plagiarism I’d do things my way. Just a bit.
My vision was as follows… A car for a couple of hundred €. An engine smaller than 1.2l. The car wouldn’t be spacious and wouldn’t be comfortable. Probably. It would be old, and broken a bit. And completely useless off-road.
Route plan: We’d go south and to the east a bit. How long would it be? Long. How long would it take? No idea. Food? Some say you need to love your body. They recommend eating an occasional banana. Just so you don’t drink vodka exclusively. And the accommodations are only limited by budget.
The organizer says the route should be spontaneous. That you need to get lost and the car should brake down. It all sounds jolly good. Until you’d find yourself in a prison or deported for visa running out.
I could see myself going. But who’d be crazy enough to go with me? Who’d have enough money and vacation time. And as I’m not really a fast learner the thinking process took time. A LOT of time. The project seemed huge with an enormous amount of the unknowns. I wasn’t too confident I’d make it work. And who would be my teammate? Who?
Even Mateja got quite unsure with all this information available. Well… Even I was unsure, so who could blame her. The biggest problem was vacation time. I was somewhat confident I’d have no problem where I work. My now ex-co-worker took some unpaid leave when he was traveling. And my employer is in any case very tolerant of such ideas. But one month of unpaid leave is still a lot.
Mateja was quite sceptical she could get enough leave.
Alternative
I therefore started looking into alternatives. I’ve found a Facebook group specifically created for Mongol Rally participants looking for teammates. So… There is a chance! But.. I’d have to survive two months in a small car with a total stranger. Who could really annoy me. Or vice versa.
The trip could be really enjoyable or a hellish nightmare.
My desire for going on an adventure didn’t quiet down. It became even stronger.