If you’ve ever shared a room with a sibling, cousin, freshman roommate, freshman roommate and his/her girl/boyfriend, or even a significant other, you know that two people sharing a room can be a tight fit. Add two more people to the mix and shrink the size by about a factor of 10, throw in tents, sleeping bags, food, petrol, stinky clothes/people, and enough cash to ‘pay’ border control, and you’ve got our friends at Abandon the Cube, Mike and Lauren, and their journey from Europe to Mongolia in a 1-liter engine car to help car-less Mongolian children. It’s also just called the Mongol Rally. Ok and maybe it’s not really for children without cars, but it’s for a pretty damn good cause. We spoke with ATC in June before they set off on their journey, and now they’re back and, surprisingly, alive to tell us the answers to the most important questions.
Ween: Did you win?
Abandon the Cube: I wish! Sadly, our little Citroen Saxo didn’t even make it to Ulaan Bataar (UB). It died about ten feet from the tarmac, which would have been smooth sailing to UB. Ironic, really. I’d like to think we’re all winners, at least that’s what my first grade teacher told me.
W: How did you choose which carless Mongolian child got your car?
ATC: Unfortunately, we didn’t get to choose. The cars are rounded up and sold at auction in UB. Even cars that didn’t make it (like ours) still get picked up from all over Mongolia and trucked to UB for the auction. The money from selling the cars goes to charity, meanwhile cars are hard to come by in Mongolia (need to be imported and Mongolia is landlocked) so their parts, even if the cars were kaput, were highly valuable.
W: When your horn wasn’t working to signal you were changing lanes, what did you do?
ATC: Changed anyway! Come on, a little tiny car crammed full of stuff and covered in stickers?—people got out of our way. In fact, that was the only universal thing we noticed crossing those countries—a look of genuine fear in the eyes of other drivers as we came sputtering by (usually on the wrong side of the road).
W: When negotiating with corrupt border officials, did the walk-away method work best?
ATC: Ha! I wish, but what worked best was actually having me (Lauren) talk to them. One benefit of sexism is chivalry. The border guards at most borders were extremely polite and kind to me, even offering me their seats or turning on the air-con for me. When we did run into problems, well, my name wasn’t on the car registration so I kept sitting in the air conditioned rooms in the inspector’s chair while Bill, our teammate who legally owned the car, did the dirty work. We couldn’t ever walk away, but at one point we did try to bribe an official with a stray puppy we recently found. Didn’t work.
W: What did you take away from the trip and did the customs officials let you keep it?
ATC: We didn’t buy anything really. In fact, once our convoy started having car trouble, we all started dumping everything we didn’t need. We were literally giving stuff away towards the end. Expensive stuff like our tent, roof rack and tons of ramen noodles. The only thing any customs official took was a Romanian beer we had in the back window “for inspection.” The thing was, with so little space in that 1.1 liter car, and so much equipment, there wasn’t space for anything personal, and once the car started acting up we realized everything we wanted to keep we’d have to backpack out if we left the car at one of the drop off points. So, we kept everything to a minimum. That in itself made border crossings easier.
W: On a scale of 1 to Jet Blue Flight Attendant Steven Slater, how much did you want to jump ship sometimes?
ATC: I never did. Even when things weren’t going our way (flashback to the multi-day standoff at the Mongolian border holding area) we were still in awe of where we were and aware of how lucky we were to be on such an adventure. We did have a fatality on the rally in another team, and several serious car accidents and injuries along the way, all of which made me think about how short life is. In reality, the experiences we have are all that we get to keep, so doing crazy things like the Mongol Rally make you feel like you are using your time wisely….. well, not wisely, but in an interesting way at least.
W: In order of ascending order of importance for survival, please list your suggestions for anyone wanting to take a similar obscenely long road trip.
ATC: Buy high-quality gear or none at all! Don’t try to survive on Ramen noodles. Always use a team money pot for team purchases. Probably best if you insure yourself. Don’t buy a British car to drive in Europe and Asia. Bring a camera and multiple batteries/memory cards. For god’s sake bring a car charging fan! It’s hot in those deserts!
W: Where are you now?
ATC: We finished the rally and settled in Beijing, China for a while.
W: What plans do you have for your next adventure?
ATC: We do have something big in the works, but we’re not releasing the information yet! Our parent’s aren’t done worrying about the last adventure yet.
So lesson of the day: Always bring women to sexist countries. And Steven Slater would probably not do well on a road trip. For more information on ATC’s journey through the desert visit their website www.abandonthecube.com. We’ll be sure to keep you guys posted on what new adventure ATC has planned next.
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Thanks Ween! Always a joy chatting with you and the uncensored crew at SHLAOWAI!