Mongol Rally - Three weeks into the unknown

by J.A. 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.

410 pages, Paperback

First published April 13, 2010

Reviews

[Dave C · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was very interesting as it was obviously self published and wasn't professionally edited, which in any other book, may have turned me off from it. However, the story of the author's adventure made the book overcome any of its faults in the editing department. It was hard to put down as I was always wondering if they were going to be able to get through the next border crossing, if their Suzuki would make it to the next country or if it would all go wrong along the way. The author goes into very deep detail about each day and you can really get a sense of what it would be like to do such a drive. Overall, a fantastic read!

[Stuart · Rating 3 out of 5]

Him and his mate did the mongol rally a few years back, then he wrote a book about it. It was... ok. These sort of books can get a bit dull as a pattern of life on the road appears - here it was mostly "didn't sleep enough, nearly fucked up in front of police, refused to pay bribe". The best of these adventure books tell you something about the person so you understand why they make the decisions they make, in this I never felt like I knew anything about the two people I was reading about. Still, was decent enough

[Ray Daley · Rating 4 out of 5]

quite a long read, took 4 days to finish.

there's a heck of a lot of detail about the journey, the places visited and the people encountered. All I can say is read and enjoy it, I know I did!