when i was writing the earlier entry about automobile adventures, i completely forgot about this one. i forgot because i lost touch with it for a while and so i have been reacquainting myself with the blog which is really funny. the premise of the journey is really quite simple and begins as so many good things do - in a pub. apparently the three boys involved in this journey were wondering out loud whether people ate ice cream in mongolia. there are lots of ways to find that out but the way that promised to be the most fun appears to have been to actually go there and find out for sure.
now i am fairly certain that it’s not a simple matter to undertake such a quest and they might at first glance appear to be more than a little crazy but they joined the annual mongol rally which is a race from london, england to mongolia. there are two hundred teams allowed in the race and by sheer good luck they got a place in the next rally.
here are the rules for the mongol rally: you have to design your own route. you have to make it there in about four weeks. you have to drive a vehicle of one-litre or less. on my ride to school and home every day i’m passed by motorcycles with bigger motors than that.
it’s ridiculous. it’s fantastic!
so here’s the scene: three guys, ten thousand miles of freezing mountains and scorching deserts - temperatures potentially hitting 50°C and going as low as -25°C. 20 countries in 30 days driving about one third of the way round the earth in an ice cream van! sleeping arrangements - well you’ve gotta figure there’s a freezer on board the van right. then there’s the space question - where do you sleep in an ice cream van? okay, so you’ve done the math and figured out that one could sleep in the drivers part, one could sleep on the floor. where’s the third guy sleep? oh man, let’s go!!
so, amazingly and generously, an ice cream company in yorkshire - the swales yorkshire ice cream company gave them a van. oh and i should mention that all the rally participants are raising money for mercy corps to fund projects in mongolia that support rural communities so it’s a good thing as well as good fun.
the home page for this adventure is here: http://www.icecreamadventure.co.uk/
the blog for this adventure is here: http://www.icecreamadventure.co.uk/blog.php
some great pics of the adventure can be found here on the bbc website:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/7015923.stm
it’s an amazing adventure story and i love the way they describe how they fixed the many many problems they had along way as well as the incidents that cropped up seemingly endlessly.
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