There is nothing quite like rally driving in a classic car in the desert.
Figure 1 Driving in the desert. In this case it is slightly easier because the track is reasonably clear!
It imposes three challenges. First, the car is constantly being beaten by bouncing up and down on uneven ground. Gradually this takes a toll. The driver has to choose between maintaining an even pace and putting too much strain on the car, all the time trying to avoid the worst of the potholes. While the navigator has to use intuition to decide which of several trails all going in different directions to choose. Sometimes the intuition is wrong…..
Figure 2 Fuelling the car from jerry cans at the campsite
Figure 3 Cowboys and Indians? On the left is Mike’s incredible tent ‘not a tent but an apartment!’
We started day 4 of the rally in our campsite. Breakfast was perhaps a bit too leisurely and by the time we had completed all our preparations and dismantled the amazing tent we managed to get a small penalty for starting a minute late. In the scheme of things a pretty minor problem and we both laughed it off….
Our cars had been filled from jerry cans at the camp – the organisers brought in a petrol lorry! The system worked pretty well and we got refuelled not long after we arrived.
Before we got going, Mike spent quite a while fixing various issues with the car. The sticking carburettor or whatever is causing the engine not to run properly was inspected and he cleaned the plugs (yet again!), an exhaust manifold had loosened and he tightened the bolts, and he wired up the rear of the exhaust where the mounting had broken. Meanwhile he also helped some of the other crews – by the time we got going he had let tools or equipment to about 5 of the other competitors.
The organisers had set us a tough route today, made tougher by small inconsistencies between the route book (the bible that tells us what to do) and the GPS instructions. Combined with a late start, an impossibly fast schedule, our stopping to help broken down cars and horrendous traffic jams on the way into Ulan Bator, we arrived at our hotel at nearly 10pm.
Figure 4 Enormous statue of Genghis Khan 54 kilometres from Ulan Bator
Driving across the desert makes a strong case for the various infrastructures that are planned in China’s Belt and Road initiative. Indeed, Cebr’s report on the subject https://www.mida.rs/demo/cebr/reports/belt-and-road-initiative-to-boost-world-gdp-by-over-7-trillion-per-annum-by-2040/ says that proportionately Mongolia will benefit more than any other country from the provision of decent infrastructure.
Mongolia is very short of infrastructure. According to Cebr’s latest World Economic League table WELT 2019:
‘Vast reserves of mineral deposits and the foreign direct investment that these attracted were what underpinned Mongolia’s transition from an agriculture based economy to one based on the extraction and export of commodities.
Mongolia’s exports – two thirds of which are destined for China – account for 60% of GDP. Copper ore, gold, coal, oil, iron and zinc ore are among the country’s major exports. Mongolia’s dependence on mineral exports – in particular to China – means that the economy is highly exposed to both commodity price swings and demand from China. Rising commodity prices and a rapidly expanding Chinese economy hungry for commodities fuelled rapid GDP growth for Mongolia after the turn of the millennium.’
The problem is that the minerals require transport to reach their users. And good transport links are one of the many things that Mongolia lacks.
Today’s route was as tough on cars as on the participants and we frequently had to stop to help others. Mike is fast emerging as one of the characters of the rally with his intrepid driving and his willingness to help out others in distress. It’s great but of course he gets rather more requests for help than he can easily handle. One team today thought they had run out of fuel and Mike got a mouthful of petrol as he syphoned some from our tank. Only to find that the team had actually got an ignition problem!
We passed an enormous monument to Genghis Khan. The not very politically correct custom in his day was that if you conquered a country its women became your possessions. As a result it is estimated that 6% of today’s world’s population have Genghis Khan’s genes!
Ulan Bator contains the bulk of Mongolia’s otherwise sparse population. The mineral money has created some wealth and hence traffic jams, enhanced by a fairly lackadaisical approach to roadworks. The last thing we wanted arriving after dark was to get stuck in one of them. But we did. And with the GDP and the route book giving different directions we had to rely on a GPS system that is really designed for sailors. It’s brilliant in the desert but less so in urban areas where it tells you where you want to go but not how. We drove round our destinations in concentric circles, fortunately but not inevitably with diminishing radii. Eventually got there in what seemed the middle of the night. Fortunately dinner was open till midnight….