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Day 3 - The lone journey begins

Following on from yesterday's blog….

We got up quite early still; the thin veil of tent provides little protection from a morning Czech sun. As soon as it ascends above the rolling hills around Klenovy Castle, you have little choice but to obey and arise. We probably needed more sleep, but the rally is already doing strange things to our body clocks - no longer do we follow nature's chosen design, of sleeping at night and working all day. Instead, we go for the bi-daily sleep, the second of which follows our shift driving.

One saving grace though, was the now empty day we had out in front of us after our driving through the night to reach our campsite. On emerging from our coffin shaped/sized tents like ugly butterflies, we noticed that a number of teams had arrived at the Czech Out campsite whilst we slept; a good 50 or 60 teams were now our field mates, and most shared the same sun slavery as us; 9am and every team were up.

The novelty of the tents though, has well and truly worn off. At first, they were awesome. Then, they were cute. Eventually, they were quaint, but now they're just a pain in the ass! If you haven't done so already, click the Videos link in the menu and watch us set one up. They are tiny. So tiny, you have no hope of sitting up inside one, and we have about half a foot of space at each end when lying down (literally). Trying to get dressed before you get up is a near impossibility - the only hope you have is if you undressed in such a way, the clothes were ready to slip back in. We've decided we're going to get into a few countries today and aim to buy some much more generic tents - James & Will both agreed to sacrifice goods they're carrying to make room.

Camping in general though, isn't too bad. We've done it for 4 straight nights now (and many more to come); we're all in bad moods in the morning so not much is said, but we go about the morning routines easily enough. However, we think that with this being the 5th day we've not seen a bed, or had a proper shower, we deserve to treat ourselves - tonight, we live like kings. (Well, actually, live like very normal people with such unimaginable luxuries as running water and pillows). Czech Out party facilities consisted of 2 portaloos (for 400 odd teams and numerous team mates - think comparable to Glastonbury by the end of the party) and fresh water in two parked water bowsers - both of which found themselves very empty by 9am this morning.

One thing we forgot to mention, or rather didn't want to mention, is the rally phone broke. A good, sturdy Nokia built to survive a direct nuclear hit just stopped working, and no amounts of taps or drops helped it. This phone of course is our direct link to the developed world - we adore the texts that we've been receiving (if you haven't heard about it - click the Send us a Text Message link at the top of the page. Type in a message and press send. And voila, you can send us a text message that comes through, free, to our rally phone!). 
But, fear not; our empty day was set aside for a few little tasks, the phone probably being the most important of which. We left the campsite at mid morning, and headed the 15 minutes into Klatovy, a small town probably comparable to Penzance in size. As we approached the town, we pulled into a small retail park which housed a Tesco megastore. By a stroke of good luck, it's neighbours were Elektronics World and Takko Fashion. The first provided us with a brand new, working rally phone! I have no idea how much it cost, as the Czech's still haven't fully embraced the Euro (most  chagrined shop assistants do take them, but insist on giving you any change in Crowns), and I hadn't looked up the exchange rate. The phone cost me about a thousand crowns. I'm hoping this equates to a tenner, rather than me having to mortgage my little house.

Communicating for basic things on this rally has been relatively straight forward. Lots of being nice and happy, despite most Eastern Europeans looking like they want to kill you (our Eastern European friends aside, of course!). Pointing and describing also works well - but how on earth do you  find out whether a particular phone model I was interested in is dual band, and is unlocked for any sim card? You could point and shout until you were red in the face, and i'd doubt you'd be able to get that particular point across. Luckily though, Will's phone (a £15 bargain) had a very very basic internet on it. A quick visit to a text version of Google Translate, and before you knew it, I had in my hands the Czech way of asking"Hello. We can't speak Czech. But can you tell me if this phone is dual band AND unlocked for any sim card? We would also like a car charger. Thanks."Initially a very puzzled look from the retail chap, but once he read, he understood.

Great success.

The other mission for the day was for James & Will to find their fancy dress costumes, the theme of the Czech Out party being 'Jules Verne'. Mackey had already purchased his Captain Nemo costume; and us two had no idea what to do. We were thinking of a generic style gentleman from that era, using modern day clothing. Our luck continued, as we managed to find every piece of it from 3 places. Have a look at the photos to fully appreciate the effort we went to. Rather disturbingly, the whole outfit (including suit jacket, shirt, cravat, hat and pipe) cost much less than £20 - which did make it easier when we realised that nearly all of it would have to remain in the Czech Republic due to Pete the Saxo being full to bursting point. 

A bit of alcohol shopping was also in order; unfortunately I was disturbed to find that even a Tesco Megastore doesn't stock Guinness. But, this meant we had to choose something else, and to choose something local. Our final results were a case of Budvar, a case of Gambrinus (Czech beer), and a bottle of a spirit called Stock. The Budvar was lovely, the Gambrinus remains unopened in the car, and the Stock was quite possibly the worst thing we've ever drunk. I think, after a shot each at our camp, ourselves and our comrades will never drink it again. Even Mackey, who's reputation has probably proceeded him even this far, needed to wash it down with some Budvar.

We've been camping with the Mongol Mongrels - a team comprising of Ed and Emma driving a Peugeot 206. The Islanders love these guys - great company and just generally awesome people. We all got changed into our costumes by 7pm, and by 7.15pm, it's as if we'd been thrown through the metaphysical barrier and landed firmly within one of Jules's novels. Two generic Victorian type gentlemen, Captain Nemo, A blue giant squid and some weed. Superb.

We all wandered up to the impressive Klenovy Castle, a short traipse from our campsite. As we approached the gates, we did notice a few people that had dressed up at the gates, and we were all glad we'd made the effort to join in, and wouldn't be the odd ones out.How wrong we were.Despite it being a Jules Verne theme party, the effort put in by many other rallyers was pathetic! Probably 25% or so made an attempt; the rest dressing as they would on a visit to the local pub. A little disappointed, but then again, we'd dressed up and lots of people liked us for it. But it would have just been fine if the 25% of those good people were dressed in the style that was put before them. 

There were the Super Mario brothers, a box of McDonalds fries, Finding Nemos, and a LOT of naked and/or cross-dressing blokes. There is a team in particular that just love to get naked. Any excuse, and they streak around the camp amongst hundreds of cars. It's a bit hot? I'll strip and run! I dropped my drink on myself? I'll strip and run! What's that, the grass is green? I'll strip and run! Another guy wore nothing but the Buff he was given at the launch event (think head band/scarf, stretched around his waist). There's some very interesting pictures of Mackey talking in depth to the previous described chap, completely unaware that his testicles hung out for all to see. Fear not my friends, myself and Will took the photo before warning Mackey that he had two balls glaring at him. 

A BBQ was provided for hundreds and hundreds of attendees, as well as free gin; rather disappointed that i'm not a fan of gin and would have to resort to buying pints at the bar, my mood was elevated somewhat when I discovered they were a single, beautiful Great British pound a pint. Several makeshift bars were temporarily added to the ancient structure we now danced in; they'd added a cinema room showing Jules Verne classics, a shisha room (where we spent quite a while meeting lots of other teams), a Russian disco dancing room (where we spent quite a while making fools of ourselves, but seemed to fit in remarkably well) and live music from a very peculiar line up. All in all, it was an amazing night.

We spent most of the night with Ed & Emma - dancing, drinking and talking the night away. Will and I finished up about 2am. Our bodies still craved sleep, but deep down knew that another night in tents would never satisfy the need properly. Mackey, however, said he was staying behind. I think he fell into his tent at about 4.30am. Despite the party finishing at 4am, many rallyers continued to drink, party and play very loud music until 8am. Much to the annoyance of a few hundred other teams, but you've got to secretly congratulate the effort needed to party till 8am.

I think the Mongol Rally shows camaraderie at it's finest; the atmosphere was incredible, you could literally stop anyone and say hi, and you'd start a long conversation with them - although usually it starts with a pre-scripted list of questions - Your name? Which team? Which car? Which route? Any problems? By the 50th person i'd talk to, I did start to make a couple of things up. "Any problems you ask? Well yes, we did lose a wheel flying down the Autobahn at 130mph, but not to worry - we had a spare."

The three of us are entering the seasoned campers group; we haven't had a shower for 5 days, but are impressively managing this. The car does not smell like Tresco's dump on a bad day. The use of a small bottle of water, wet wipes, a bit of shower gel and deodorant are keeping us surprisingly well kept. But so far, it's tiring. Very very tiring, to spend 5 hours concentrating like mad to ensure you don't subconsciously drift over to the left side of the road, and to handle the roundabouts (which is just bizarre to do), and then to spend another 8 or 9 either navigating or catching up with a 30 minute power nap (or indeed, writing this blog). 

This is, of course, just the beginning. These are the first few days, with the nicest roads and conditions we'll find on the entire trip. WIthin a week, we'll be begging and praying we had more of the days like these. But, it's a challenge after all. For those that claimed it was just a long holiday, or casual road trip to rival a mainland jaunt, I do challenge you to enter the 2011 Mongol Rally…..