John Irving

Mongol Rally - Three Weeks into the Unknown John Irving

It was a gruelling adventure and an epic challenge. On the face of it, all we had to do was get from London to Mongolia. But looking deeper it was going to be a lot less simple than it had first appeared. We had minimal planning, bought a horribly underpowered car that was fit for scrap, had no external support, no prior expedition experience or survival knowledge and decided to do it all in the name of charity. We only allowed ourselves three weeks to complete the adventure. I hadn't even heard of half of the countries we were intending to cross and certainly didn't speak the languages but we'd go for it anyway and see how things turned out. It couldn't be that hard after all. Here's my account of how it happened, what we came across, the scrapes we got into and how we got out of them and a selection of the numerous photos I took on the 9,592 miles to Mongolia. Some experiences defied belief, some were mildly terrifying but there are none that I will ever forget.