…And there will be a next time. The Mongol Rally has been such a life changing experience for myself and everyone on Team Mystic Moose.
Pulling together scattered notes from the rally, scribbles in my journal, and post-rally thoughts, I wanted to compile a list of things that I would do different next time and things that I’m kicking myself for not doing this time.
Take More Pictures of People and Food
Do Daily Video Updates, and More Social Media Posts
The nature of the rally didn’t leave much time for making social media posts from the road, or if the time was there, the motivation wasn’t. A few times we experimented with taking a few minute video of whatever situation we were in at the time, and looking back, I really think a simple video update everyday would go a long way to getting some content online every day, getting a good update in just a few minutes, and capturing the mood of whatever situation we were in at the time. It wasn’t until we got back that we got some feedback on the handful of videos we did take, that those were some of the most enjoyed updates by friends and family following at home
Bring some good boots (and do some hikes)
As I walked through the airport towards the plane that would take me away to the rally, I realized the one thing I had forgotten was my favorite pair of Chippewa boots I had planned to bring, and would be stuck with a pair of cheap sandals until I could find something more substantial somewhere along the way. I ended up with a cheap pair of trainers that somehow lasted the rally but didn’t do any favors for my feet along the way. I ended up tossing the sandals about a week in since they started to smell weird and more weird smelling stuff wasn’t going to help the conditions inside a car with five people stuck inside for 8+ hours a day. Before the rally I had it in my mind to do a bunch of hikes along the way. Our pace and circumstances in the end didn’t leave us too much time for hiking though, so it’s a bit of a moot point whether I brought boots anyway. At least some good, comfortable shoes might have been good for walking around towns.
Locking Roof Box
Using the roof to store gear and bags is a necessity on the rally, and by about the second day of having five people’s worth of gear pulled in and out and strapped and unstrapped from the roof we were sick of it. Every morning and evening, every time we stopped for any length of time where stuff could get snagged by a passerby, every time we hit substantial rain, it was a ten to twenty minute process to tetris roof stuff into the car and strap it all down again. Some teams with better foresight brought lockable roof boxes, some nice, some made of plywood, drywall screws, and cheap latches. Even just throwing a cheap box together out of scrap and a handful of hardware would have saved us a fair amount of stress and time. We didn’t end up with anything stolen from our roof rack, but being able to know all our junk is locked up and out of the rain would have given us peace of mind,
Whiteboard and Markers
At some point along the rally I decided to dedicate a page or three a page in my notebook dedicated to pictograph drawings of commonly needed things (fuel, water, toilets, etc.) that I could point to if asking directions of someone on the street.
It got a few chuckles from teammates until it came in very handy in a few situations, especially with no cell data to be able to look up the right word for something. Russian will get you far in post-soviet countries but sometimes you’ll find places where you’ll unexpectedly find a lack of Russian or English speakers. Astana, Kazakhstan was one such place, where despite being geographically close to Russia, the Google translator app fell short. Having a small (about letter/A4 paper sized) whiteboard could be useful for drawn diagrams and directions, words you can’t quite understand, or whatever. Travelling in a caravan of rally cars, it would be useful for signaling other cars know you need a pit stop:
Hammocks
Something we thought about before the rally but pulled out of our bags at the last minute before flying out to save weight and space. I definitely got jealous of a few teams that were able to get comfortable naps in waiting at borders and getting off the ground when camping.
Bring More Cash
One thing that concerned us in planning for the rally was carrying a ton of cash around, or having it stashed in the car somewhere where a slightly shy of scrupulous border guard searching the car might come across it and decide that it would be better in their hands than in ours. One thing that caught us off guard was the German and central European preference for cash over the use of cards. I also expected my bank to pay attention to the SEVERAL PHONE CALLS AND LETTER I sent to them informing them that I would be out of the country so they don’t have to cut off access to my atm card. In the end we made in work in Europe albeit with some heavy atm fees.
Where having a ton of cash on had would have really saved us would be after Turkey and Georgia, where the use of western cards and atms become a lot more scarce or non existent.
Carry a Book to Have People Sign
Team The Truman Road, a delightful pair of Italians who we were stuck at the Mongolian border, carried with them a black book that they used to gather signatures, doodles, and messages from other teams and people they met along the way. It was a lot of fun to collect signatures on our car, and the excitement of taking a sharpie to a car more than likely got us out of some otherwise potentially tense situations, but it was a huge bummer to loose all the signatures and connections we had with people with the car when we left. Being able to bring those all home in a cool book would be a much cooler piece of memorabilia than some photos of the car at the end.
Funky Horn
We got very jealous of the teams who fitted funky horns to their cars in the spirit of the rally. This one is pretty straightforward I guess.
Trinkets
We had thought about bringing small things to give away to people we met along the way, but scrapped the idea in favor of space and cost. And running short on time.
Josh did manage to bring along some sunglasses he had arranged through his Subaru ambassador program, and he was able to distribute them along the rally, They certainly proved useful as spares when we (mostly me) lost or broke a bunch of sunglasses along the way. Team Say No To Slippers had a great idea of distributing friendship bracelets as gifts; I think I might steal this idea next time I do the rally. Another idea we had before the start of the rally was to bring cheap pocket calculators and art supplies, as these items may be harder to come by in some countries. At least later along the rally, the proximity to China meant that a lot of inexpensive school and art supplies disseminate throughout at least some of the areas, but it’s something to think about.