Welcome back to the CrossCountry Rebels..

It was this time last year that we were gearing up to drive an old ambulance from England to Mongolia for a laugh. Actually for charity and we managed to raise £5,000. The royal 'we' I talk about is: myself Eliza, Jo, Gussy, Todd, Charlie and Roland. (Three boys and three girls if you were confused) The archive to the right is where to click if you want to start the journey chronologically. There are quite a few treats along the way and some real characters but I thought I'd start by extending a welcome we received from someone called Babylov:










The adventure started with fish and chips at Dover and ended with tinned tuna in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. The route spanned half way across the globe and with every border we crossed Dora, our ambulance, seemed more determined to stop using a part of her engine. Her motive: just to make things more interesting...I like to think. In Greece I broke the front axle by driving straight onto a beach. Subsequently our maximum speed limit was 45 mph for the next two months. (The garage in Greece told us that we either pay £1000 for a repair or if we drove at 45mph we would just about reach Russia) We took the risk and made it all the way! In Turkey the battery blew up. Uzbekistan the side door fell off. In Kazakhstan two wheels punctured and one rolled smoothly away. Turkmenistan we lost the back door. The back suspension soon came through the floor and broke in Russia. FINALLY in Mongolia the brakes and lights stopped working. But we didn't give up and got towed dust streaming through the many holes in Dora 24 hours to the finish line by two separate cars. The first one's engine burnt out because of the sheer weight of towing us and the second managed to succeed!

One story that deserves a place on the blog is from our ten days driving through Iran. To paint a picture of the climate and reception we got as Westerners I will use this example: all officials when inspecting our passports (which was twice a day because we were constantly pulled over) asked us to repeat 'America is evil.' In a few sentences Iran was: the hottest place in the world and we had no air conditioning. The girls weren't allowed to drive and wore full hijab. We found amazing salt plains and the landscape would veer between mountains, to sand dunes and to city built into the rock face. It was also we were rescued by the kindest man in the world: Danial Danesh.

From left to right: Jo, Gussy and me. In our hijabs.

Picture this: six students from England. We were moneyless because we had to pay a 'fine' for driving a diesel vehicle of £300 and that was all our collective money for the Iran leg of the journey. Iranian banks don't take Western debit cards so we have £50 for the rest of the drive to buy food, water and fuel.

We had managed to drive two days to Tehran and spend half our bugdet on suspect ful prices.The radiators blew as we were driving on the motorway outside Tehran. There was smoke billowing out of our engine and we thought it was from the engine so ran from Dora clutching the gas cooker. After fleeing from her into three lanes of motorway traffic we realised, well the boys did, that it was the radiator and our quick escape was actually rather embarrassing. Waiting with our hazards on we sat. None of us had any idea what we were waiting for AA don't extend their service to Iran. But low and behold a swanky looking Jeep pulled up.

Out came a God... (The below picture is from left to right: Jo, Me, Danial, his flatmate Azad, Todd and Charlie)

This deity was dressed is aviators, a tight shirt unbuttoned half way and chinos despite the heat. (Which clearly meant he existed in an air conditioned world of offices and villas..we assumed) Danial called his equivalent of the AA, had Dora patched up and offered us a place to stay. As we trundled up through Tehran the makeshift housing turned to walled gardens. We meet his family and went to supper with them. We went round Tehran with him and listened to how he 'was in oil' but wanted to be an interior designer. Daniel also leant us some money and packed us on our way. We advised us to stay in the ambulance at all times, especially the girls. When we went out in public with him he asked us to wear extra scarves over our heads, wear socks to cover the tiniest flash of ankle and long sleeved jumpers despite the heat. However regardless of this precaution we attracted the wrong sort of attention.



The second evening we stayed with Daniel we were on our way to meet his family for supper. Having headed to our ambulance to put on some more layers of clothing. Police sirens sounded and a police motorbike pulled up to us. Two officers jumped off. They were really angry shouting and shaking their fists at us. Daniel stepped in and took them behind the ambulance and away from us. He last explained that two neighbours from the apparently looking down on where the ambulance was parked had called the police. They had reported us as behaving 'indecently.' (when myself and the girls were putting on more layers the boys had been in the ambulance with us and despite not taking any clothes off we were facing charges) Daniel managed to calm them down with whatever persuasion it took and reverse the six month jail sentence we were looking at.




After supper that evening we drove 30 hours straight to get out of Iran and two months later the British Embassy issued a statement saying they have no jurisdiction in Iran and the embassy was stormed. In a sense it was the last time any British residents could have travelled through. Iran is the most beautiful country to drive through just not with a British passport. 

Jo trying out some alternative travel options when our brakes finally failed in the middle of the Mongolian desert.