Day 8: Hello, Asia (for now)

Miles Driven: 471 miles

Hours in the Car: 9

Borders Crossed: 0

We bid farewell to the city we all agreed upon had the best food of the trip thus far and were on our way to Göreme by 8:30 AM. Mike navigated the menacing downtown Istanbul AM rush hour traffic and we crossed the Bosphorus Bridge. Just like that we were in Asia. As for Europe, we’ll be back soon (Georgia, Azerbaijan).

While on Friday evening we were all excited to get a break from Stevie for a few days, come Monday morning we were glad to see our Skoda knowing that today would be a day of driving instead of logging 10+ miles walking in 85 degree heat. We had a full day of driving through the Pontic Mountains to the city of Göreme, a city in the Cappadocia region of central Turkey known for its chimney rock formations and hot air ballooning. 

About 2 hours from Göreme, we made a brief pit stop at Lake Tuz, a super saline lake and the second largest in all of Turkey. It only runs about 5 feet at its deepest point but stretches on for several miles in all directions. Needing a break from the car, the team waded into the ankle-deep water to enjoy the mirage views against the mountain backdrop in the early-evening sun. It was great stop to break up our drive - not to mention the great exfoliating and skin-drying qualities of the water. 

Lake Tuz

Later in the evening we arrived at our campsite in Göreme which was already chalk full of other rally teams. We grabbed dinner and drinks with some fellow Kiwi and Aussie teams we had met previously before having a beer back at the campsite with the very Rally-friendly campsite host. The owner of the campsite also has mechanics on-hand who will be fitting Skoda with a sump guard tomorrow morning - more protection for Stevie’s vital parts. While Stevie is performing incredibly thus far, we want her in tip-top shape once we cross the Caspian.

It was a driving day without a doubt - fuel fill ups, Dorito bags, podcasts, Spotify playlists, and we even started a Stephen King novel on audiobook. There will be many more 9 hour drive days in our future just like this and many longer too. We are glad we have two nights here in Cappadocia before the next one. - FWY

Day 6 and 7: Turkish Delight

Brace yourself. Long post coming.

Even though I was expecting it and despite the fact that I was wearing ear plugs, I awoke at 5:50 to the haunting cry of the sunrise call to prayer. I was back in Istanbul, the Gateway to the East and the first Islamic majority country we would cross during this trip. I was back in a country that many Americans are hesitant to travel to. It’s neighbors include Syria, Armenia, Iraq, and of course Iran. Needless to say there is a lot of unrest and conflict in the area. That, coupled with the fact that the government doesn’t exactly have the best reputation when it comes to human rights, causes many tourists to look elsewhere when planning their European adventures. The U.S. State department ranks it as a 3 on it’s 1-5 rating of countries, which earns it the highest ranking of any country on our adventure (5 being the North Koreas of the world). Hell I was even tear gassed the last time I was here (wrong place wrong time). But as the chanting ended and I drifted back to sleep, I couldn’t help thinking to myself just how glad I was to be back in this beautiful city.

Istanbul (and Turkey in general) has a rich rich history. The Ancient Greeks, Romans, Byzantiums, and Ottomans have all left their mark on the city, it’s architecture (it has more Roman ruins than even Italy), it’s food, and of course, it’s people. Like any great southern Mediterranean culture, the people are loud, vibrant, and extremely friendly. There is no better place to experience this than the chaotic Grand Bazaar. 

The Grand Bazaar is an absolutely massive covered market in the Golden Horn of Istanbul (think old town). It has over 4,000 shops, selling anything from knock off Gucci products to authentic Iranian Saffron to the famous Turkish rugs. If you can google it, you can probably find it in the Bazaar. It naturally draws tons of visitors every day, making it the most visited attraction in the world. We were just four of the 90 million or so people who visit every year. We wandered through the maze of shops and throngs of people for awhile before searching out some street food. Dan found some place for us to try. Not knowing what we were ordering, we pointed to a random line on the menu and hoped for the best. We lucked out. Turns out it was Kokoreç, a sandwich made of chopped lamb’s intestines and peppers and onions. It had a bit of spice and it tasted incredible. After grabbing a coffee and some underwhelming baklava, Mike found us one hell of a kebab at Donerci Sahin Usta. Highly recommend to any future visitors. We followed the juicy sandwiches with a glass of Ayran. Ayran is a cold, yogurt-based drink mixed with salt. It’s apparently very popular in this region as well as Central Asia. It must be an acquired taste, but I’m glad we tried it.

Donerci Sahin Usta, since 1969, slinging some of the best kebabs in a shop no larger than a closet.

Kebab and some sour, salty yogurt milk.

The Sultan Squad

After the bazaar, we checked out the Basilica Cistern, a massive 6th century underground cistern used to store fresh water for the city. Unfortunately, it was being renovated so we could only see a portion. Fortunately though, it gave us a great opportunity to take a photo dressed as Sultans. Please ignore the fact that none of us look Turkish.

Later that day and a couple of much better baklavas later, we decided to try a Turkish bath. We didn’t know what to expect. We just knew they were famous and probably stemmed from the ancient Roman baths. It’s basically the Turkish spa, if spas were a bit more violent. The bath we went to was beautiful. Clean. Relaxing. After a welcoming tea and a quick change into our towels, we were taken into the Hamam where our bathers were awaiting us. 

While a secular country, Turkey is still vastly an Islamic culture, albeit more akin to the average Chriester (as our guide mentioned later in the weekend). The typical Turkish bath is not co-ed. Men and women have different bathing times. The same goes for our bathers. 

Four, older Turkish men in towels directed us into the Hamam where we were told to sit. All of a sudden, one took some sort of pan, dunked it in water than threw it on me. He proceeded to do the same to each of us a couple of time. We were then led to a hot stone in the middle of the circular room to lay down for what must have been 15 minutes or so. Felt similar to a steam room, just much less humid. They then led us each to a separate station where they proceeded to dump alternating hot and cool water on us. This was followed by a massage that can only be described as abusive. After the bathers finished bending our bodies into inhuman positions with their quick jerky motions, they proceeded to exfoliate our dead skin by scrubbing it with what may have been sandpaper. The bathers then dumped mountains of soap bubbles o us and proceeded to wash us down. Finally, after a few more rinses and quick jerky body bends, we left cleaner than we probably have ever been in our lives. Getting the opportunity to experience such an important part of the Turkish culture was definitely worth it. I couldn’t recommend trying a Turkish bath more.

The night ended with the team trying a fantastic restaurant specializing in Ottoman cuisine (complete with flaming kebabs cooked table side in a clay jar). We met a few teams for a couple of beers on some rooftop and then called it an early night. We had arranged a private tour for Sunday and needed to be out the door by 9:30.

Our guide, Ümit Özipek, met us early in the morning to take us on our day long tour. He was fantastic. We took the Tunel (world’s second oldest subway) to the Golden Horn (old town of Istanbul) to begin our tour at the Hippodrome. Ümit expertly walked us through site after site, explaining how each culture (Greek, Roman, Ottoman) had left their mark on the city. In the interest of brevity, I’ll skip the detail on each, but we saw the Blue Mosque, the Topkapi Palace (palace of the Sultans of the Ottoman Empire), the Pudding Shop (restaurant where the Hippies used to meet before starting their journey across Asia), the magnificent Hagia Sophia, an authentic Turkish rug shop where we got to watch the famous rugs being made and learn how to spot a fake, and finally the Spice Bazaar where we tried various teas, Turkish delights, candies, and spices. The sites were impressive and memorable.

Our guide was very knowledgeable, and it was interesting to hear his passion for each culture present throughout Istanbul’s rich history. The last couple of years have been rough on Turkey’s tourism. The unrest in the area coupled with the political climate in the country has caused tourism numbers to plummet, which is a shame given the beauty of the place. The city itself is no more dangerous than any other big city. I hope the tourism recovers.

We ended our last night in Istanbul trying two additional kebab styles, each just awesome. The street food in the city is just superb. We tried some hookah and had a few beers and called it a night. -FWY

Inside the Hagia Sofia

A mosque at sunset

Day 4 and 5: The Black Sea and Driving to Istanbul

Miles Driven: 551

Hours in Car: 11

Borders Crossed: 2

Thursday morning we quickly checked out the Romanian parliament building - the largest building in the world second to the Pentagon. Spoiler alert, it’s huge. We then started our 3 hour drive to Vama Veche - a Romanian beach village on the shores of the Black Sea. 

Vama Veche first came to fame as a destination for rebellious Romanians during Ceauşescu’s dictatorship. It was once known as the “Woodstock of the Romanian Rivera” during the 1970s counter culture movement. Now it’s one of Romania’s top party destination and the site of the Adventurist’s officially sponsored Mongol Rally beach party. Once we arrived in Vama Veche, it’s plain to see why many historical residents are dissatisfied with how Vama Veche has transpired over the past 20 years. Gone are the open beach spaces and quiet boardwalks along the beach. Now the beaches are crammed with cabanas and patio chairs and the boardwalk is filled with bars that party each night till the sun comes up. 

Three pasty boys and Joe

We got to Vama Veche around 3, made camp, and immediately headed to the beach with our bucket of beers we were gifted with upon arrival at the campground. We had a quick swim in the warm water, chatted with a Kiwi team we had previously met in Bucharest, and even played a game of spikeball with a set two Americans brought with them (much to the shock and awe to our Romanian fellow beach dwellers). As the sun set, the night gravitated back to the campsite’s main lawn where there was a DJ playing music. As more ralliers arrived at the campsite throughout the night, things escalated into a raucous campsite party that eventually migrated to one of the beachside clubs. 

Sending it from Sozapol

Friday’s sunrise came early and so did the hangovers. Credit to the entire team however for holding true to our objective of leaving Vama Veche by 7:30 AM. Only a kilometer down the road was Bulgaria and we were on our day long road trip to Istanbul. To spice up our drive, we chose to stop in Sozapol - an old port town in Bulgaria. While it’s known for having wonderful beaches and a nice old town, we really stopped there because Mike had learned that Sozapol had some cliffs that were good for jumping off into the Black Sea. The short detour only added 2 hours to our trip, but hurling oneself off 45 foot cliffs was a nice refresher to break up the monotony of a 9 hour drive. 

We made it to the Turkish border and much to our surprise passed customs in 45 minutes. We had budgeted 4 hours for this border crossing in planning our day so 45 minutes was incredible. From there, we had relatively smooth sailing to Istanbul except for when we entered the downtown part of the city. It was chaos. We are staying in Galata Tower and arriving around 8 PM on a Friday didn’t help our cause. After spending 40 minutes aimlessly trying to find parking and nearly driving down Istanbul’s equivalent of Times Square, we finally parked our car. Exhausted from the drive and the previous night’s activities, we had the first doner we saw before calling it a night. We’ve got two full days in Istanbul and we’re extremely excited we won’t be seeing Stevie until Monday morning. -FWY

Day 3: The Transfăgărășan and Bucharest

Miles Driven: ?? A lot

Time in Car: 5.5 hours

Borders Crossed: 0

Tanner graciously took the wheel this morning at 7 am for the drive from our quaint bohemian campsite to the famous Transfăgărășan mountain road. Considered “maybe the best road in the world” (see Top Gear episode), this mountain pass recklessly spans the second highest mountain range in Romania by way of 90 kms of switch-backs and turn outs. You might think a 64 horsepower subcompact wouldn’t be the best means to tackle such a fabled road and you would be right, but passing by bikers and shepherd’s with their flocks of sheep confirms it’s not the worst either. 

Atop the pass

What the Transfăgărășan lacks in guardrails and run away ramps, it makes up for in views of the many crags and valleys of the Carpathian Mountains. At the peak of the mountain, the team took in uninterrupted views of the Mountain pass and the hair-pin turns we nervously maneuvered to get there. While the air was brisk and cold, we were glad we left early as we encountered hardly any traffic and tourists on the way up and down the mountain.

Stevie and team atop the pass

Coasting down the southern side of the road the dense pine forest gives way to massive soviet hydro electric dam and eventually the small city Cuerta De Argeş. After covering 2000 meters of elevation via 7% grades and 180° bends the Skoda gracefully shifted into 4th gear for the first time all day en route to Bucharest.

Reservoir opposite the Transfargasan

Bucharest, while it may be known by most as a city that “sounds a lot like Budapest” or as the capital of Romania for trivia buffs, was quite a pleasant surprise to the entire group. Getting into Bucharest around lunchtime after navigating the insane downtown, seemingly lawless streets, we quickly walked around the old town and public gardens. Quickly, we realized that our aimless milling about town didn’t really give us any context to the city or it’s history. We knew next to nothing about the Romanian capital, so we decided it may be worth our while to take a free walking tour throughout the city. The three hour tour proved to be one of the highlights of the rally thus far. 

The city of Bucharest is one of constant rebuild, both politically and physically. From it’s colonization by the Latins during the height of the Roman Empire to Vlad the Impaler fending off invasions of the Turks to the independence from the Ottoman Empire to finally the bloody liberation from rule of the Communists, Bucharest has been pushed and pulled by the ruling party of the era. It’s visible in the city’s architecture, culture, and personality of the people. Little did we know about the recent and bloody end of the Communist era only 30 years ago. Our tour guide shared personal stories of the hardship she and her family endured  during the revolution days which made the tour particularly memorable. Today, the city itself is still rebuilding but since the recent elections in 2013, the city seems destined for great things. That along with it’s great food, cheap prices, and nice people make Bucharest a great destination many Westerner tourists may not consider visiting. 

Tomorrow, we head to the coast of the Black Sea for a beach party. Until then - FWY

Bucharest square

Day 2: Romania

Miles Driven: 318 miles

Hours in the car: 6

Borders crossed: 1

Today we drove across the vast Hungarian Steppe and into the Romanian mountains. Dan, the latecomer to the group, had his first experience driving Stevie and despite a quick little stall while trying to leave to the border crossing, did a fairly good job for his first time. The addition of a fourth driver allows the rest of us more time to relax and enjoy the fields of sunflowers and wildflowers, naps, or just try and ignore the fact that we haven’t showered since Sunday morning. The Romanian border was the first true border crossing we’ve had. It took us only about 20 minutes to get through with no issues.

The remainder of the day was pretty uneventful which will keep this blog post short. We enjoyed the nice scenery of driving through small Romanian villages with our route culminating on a camp site just north of the Carpathian Mountains. While it rained on and off since our arrival, we enjoyed a nice meal cooked by Joe, Euchre, and catching up with some other rally teams that have trickled in throughout the evening. Tomorrow, we’re completing the Transfăgărășan - a scenic highway through the mountains. The weather is looking to be nice, so we’re hoping for nice views and some hikes along the way. Our day tomorrow will hopefully end in Bucharest and a nice shower. -FWY

Campsite with other ralliers.

Day -1 and Day 1: Junktown and we are off (for real this time)

Miles Driven: 432 miles

Hours in Car: 7

Borders Crossed: 2

Junktown - where to begin. Joe ate live worms and Mike ate a live grasshopper. That’s a start. We’ll try to describe the rest of the anarchy below. 

About 40 minutes west of Prague, you’ll find Junktown. It’s difficult to describe. It’s like a campground but also a fairground except it’s from the set of Mad Max. Junktown is a large complex littered with post-apocalyptic dwellings, nuclear fallout signage and statues, as well as other worldly “tribesmen” who wander the site. It goes without saying, but it was the most bizarre place I’ve ever been to in my life. 

We arrived around 1 pm with the several other hundred rally cars and set up our camp. It was incredible to see the types of cars that are going to be driving to Mongolia. There were two mad men taking a 30 year old Reliant Robin - a 3 wheeled car that’s known to roll if you take a turn too quickly (the team had actually already rolled their car driving into Prague). If you want a good laugh, check out the top gear episode on the Reliant Robin. There is also a couple heading to Mongolia in an ancient motorcycle with a carriage car. While our car looks the part thanks largely to our obscene amount of stickers on our vehicle, some teams had put tons of effort into modifying their car for the rally - custom sump guards, custom roof bars, one team sawed a Suzuki in half and welded it into a trailer. There were a lot of custom paint jobs - one team had a fully custom pink paint job with Muppets characters. 

While the cars had varying levels of general shittiness, all the ralliers we met were awesome. It was cool to get the entire 2019 rally participants in the same place to have a proper send-off. We met tons of ralliers from all walks of life. While most of the conversation centered about where they were from, what car they had, and what route they were doing, we all shared excitement for venturing into the unknown on Monday morning, a date all 700+ ralliers had been waiting for after months and even years of preparation and planning. Perhaps the most insane team we met was Fiesta Vikings. They were two Norwegian Guys who looked the part of Vikings. They had done the rally twice previously and this year are driving down all the way to Bangkok before returning north to Mongolia. We met teams that were mechanics and we met teams that couldn’t change a tire. We met teams that were still in college, and we met teams that were in their 70s. All walks of life - one goal, Mongolia.

The launch party was as wild as a its setting dictated. Contortionist dancers. A Russian rallier weighing well over 3 bills and several inches over 6 feet was willing to take on any challenger in the wrestling ring. He was only bested when he went 2v1 against other ralliers. There was food from Mongolia (inclusive of frog legs which most of the team tried), edible bugs (which the same three of us tried), cheeseburgers (which even the fourth teammate tried), mud everywhere (courtesy of an afternoon down pour), and tons of cheap cheap beer. It was a great opportunity to start building relationship with the other teams as we will need to rely on each other going forward. 

After a night of rapport building and a quick pre launch ceremony, we were on our way. We exited Junktown in a parade-celebration - a single-file convoy of junkers and a cacophony of horns before passing through the Junktown gates and taking on the unknown of the roads. The Mongol Rally 2019 has officially begun. Today’s route took us through Slovakia and into Hungary, where set up camp just past Budapest. We enjoyed running into the various friendly faces we had met over the past couple of days and passing numerous rally cars (Stevie is certainly faster than many of her peers). Today’s long drive positions us to reach Romania tomorrow, where we will spend a few days doing the Transfăgărășan Highway as well attending a beach party on the Black Sea. Until then - FWY

Day -2: Enter the Dan Man

Miles Driven: 62

Time in Car: 1 hour

Borders Crosses: 0

For the past 10 or so days, our team has been running around Europe without our last teammate, Daniel Morizio. While it has certainly been leisurely Euro-tripping across Belgium, Germany, Austria, and Czech as well as comfortable from the perspective of roominess in our Skoda Stevie, it’s great to finally “start” the rally officially as well as have the entire gang together. Welcome, Dan. 

Dan flew in today from San Francisco, the greatest city on planet earth. We advised him to pack light, which thankfully he did. “Only the essentials” we told Dan and he followed orders well as he walked into our Prague Airbnb with only a backpack of clothes and a cooler of American beer. With one additional full grown adult male and two extra gear bags, we are going to have to go back to the drawing board in packing our trunk, but we’re confident it will work. 

While Dan may be a bit jet lagged, the rest of the crew is eager to hit the town and explore some of Prague’s bars with other ralliers. Hopefully Dan, the self-proclaimed international air travel extraordinaire who’s “literally immune to jet lag”, can join the crew at the bars. 

Oh, also did we mention we hit Prague today? Having written about several other Central European towns with historical importance and beautiful city landscapes, we’ll save you the write up and just share some photos below. In short, Prague is sick - do go there if you’re in Czechia next time. Tomorrow brings perhaps the most anticipated part of the rally, the official start party. It’s hosted at Junktown, a fair grounds crossed with a post apocalyptic fall out zone, check it out on Google to read more about it. Expect a hungover blog post Monday detailing that evening’s debauchery. -FWY

Fleetwood