Got a spare three or four weeks and want some real motoring adventure? Then the Mongolian Rally is the event for you. What's needed is a crap old car with less than one litre engine capacity and a strong sense of survival Story by Reuben Bonner Photography by Tom Morgan

Depending on which way you go, the distance from Hyde Park in London to the Mongolian capital of Ulaan Bataar is somewhere in the vicinity of six to eleven thousand miles.

Throw in seven mountain ranges, three deserts, bandits who roam in search of victims and roads ranging from bad to non-existent. All this in a car you swapped for a bag of potato chips makes for not a bad wee holiday one would have thought.

Ladies and gentleman, the Mongol Rally. The challenge: beg, borrow or steal NZ$2,700 to enter - which goes to a Mongolian charity - find a car with an engine with no more than a litre of engine capacity and then travel a quarter of the distance across the planet on a strange, dangerous and wondrous adventure in which there is no prize for first to cross the line and no guarantee you will make it home. Who's in? Or alternatively, I'll do it if someone pays.

Back in 2001 an Englishman by the name of Tom Morgan was living in Brno in the eastern corner of the Czech Republic. He and a friend felt like an adventure so they bought the worst old Fiat 126 they could find and chose the most stupid place they could drive to: Mongolia. With very little preparation - a packet of ten cigars, a hunting knife, no changes of clothes and very few of the right visas - they set off. Two weeks later, stuck on the Iranian border smelling unnaturally awful and missing maps they thought they had, they realised they had failed miserably. In a sense. But still alive, and in love with the foolish premise of the trip, they swore to do it again.

In 2003 Morgan set up a website to create interest and in 2004 the initial Mongol Rally left London. There were six teams. In 2005 there 43. Last year there were almost two hundred. So far the ratio of teams to have made it to the finish line have been about half. Not bad odds.

I spoke to Tom in his London flat. He just returned from another event called the Rickshaw Run. It's the same premise, but scuttling through India, more later. He's positively charged and full of excitement about the 2007 event, which leaves London on July 21st. "We're just kind of trying to recapture the fun that we had on our first trip and raise money for charity at the same time. Basically any car under a litre can enter and the idea is to make it difficult.

"If you took a 4 x 4 it's not really any great challenge is it? So any car which is small and generally considered to be crap is fine," he laughs.

"The majority that enter are British but we get quite a few foreigners. There were six American teams last year. French, Belgians... We had a couple of New Zealanders and Australians... Germans. I can't remember if the Kiwis made it to the end. It's a total laugh mate, you should try and make your way over!"

Teams have gone as far north as the Arctic Circle and as far south as Afghanistan. The website www.mongolrally.com says 'It's an adventure, not a petting zoo so we can in no way guarantee your arrival at the finish line, or your safety.' But more importantly, it's all in the spirit of adventure, and making your way in discovering the world, something we all dream of doing. Is it dangerous though, really?

Well as Tom Morgan puts it, to be honest, you can't really hide from the fact that yes, there is danger. On the Mongol Rally you are away from civilisation in such a big way that you aren't going to get hit by a truck or be a victim to a terrorist attack, but you really are out there, especially in the Mongolian stretch. At times you can be up to 800 kilometres from the nearest town and even a huge distance from the nearest people who may not live in a town. Exposure to the elements is a huge factor on this particular intrepid journey. Depending on the route - where two different ones can be as unalike as fingerprints - the range of temperatures go from minus figures in places like Siberia, up to plus 50 in places like Turkmenistan, which wouldn't take long to kill you; although nobody has died - so far.

Then there are the bandits of Western Kazakhstan, amongst other places. It isn't unheard of for Mongol Rally competitors to have their cars nicked or experience the delights of being robbed at weapon point. So in a word, no, it's not exactly safe, but neither is cutting mushrooms, or walking to school. If it was as safe as you wanted it to be it wouldn't really be an adventure now would it?

Since the Mongol Rally has taken shape as a recognised event, Morgan and his administration team have had some funny moments, and some quite peculiar moments. Being sat across the table from the vice-Prime Minister of Mongolia trying to explain why he should let two hundred slightly dishevelled cars into his country, was one that stuck in Morgan's mind. So was his encounter with last year's unofficial Mongol Rally Champion.

"The prize is a pat on the back mate. We don't really have a winner. I tell a lie, we have a vague winner. This year was an absolute legend called Wayne Barrett who did the rally on a Honda C90 commuter scooter, probably the ugliest thing anyone's ever made. Fundamentally crap and totally unsuitable.

"He did it on his own. He had no changes of clothes, he had no tent, he had no map because he got knocked off his bike in Poland and petrol spilt all over it and instead of drying it like anyone sensible he just threw it away. "I think he crashed about 36 times, it took him five weeks to get there and he nearly punched me when he arrived at the other end.

"He was sleeping rough through Kazakhstan just by the side of his bike, and he also did four nights and days without sleep riding through Siberia because he had no changes of clothes and he didn't have anywhere to stop.

"It was riding with rain in about zero degrees and he just sat there gritting his teeth for four days and nights through the dark and pouring rain until he passed out and crashed and fell asleep where he lay. He won it for just being a complete legend," chuckles Morgan, obviously proud to be acquainted with Mister Barrett.

The film of Barrett at last year's launch shows him nonchalantly hanging over his handle bars with a big gray bag on his back. Upon being asked what was in the bag he looked at it and said "Beer". And that's all there was to it.

But despite the 'mad backpacker' attitude of the Mongol Rally there is another important side to it: the profits. With around 200 entries at a minimum of $2,700 entry a team - you can find as much sponsorship as you want - huge funds are raised for various charities. Last year it was for four different ones in Mongolia and one also in East Africa.

"The money for charity goes straight there. We're quite keen to make sure that there's no kind of blurred boundary between money going to charity and people having fun because I think there's some sort of charity challenge things where you raise the money but you are unsure of how much of that money is going to pay for someone's holiday," says Morgan.

The journey can take as little as twelve days - the boring route as Morgan calls it - but for most people the three to four week mark is realistic and despite entry numbers almost reaching 200 in 2006, the organisers don't want the event to become much bigger.

"I don't want to take any more than 200 cars. There's still only a number of roads that people are likely to take, so if you have too many cars on the road you're constantly bumping into other people and you don't get that sense of being on your own in the wilderness."

Morgan speaks about the rally with a real fondness, obviously quite the adventurer himself he relishes the fact that people from around the globe have flocked to try and find their own experience throughout a reasonably uninhabited part of the world.

He talks of the weird and wonderful people he's met on the way. Namely, the Mongolians who don't seem to find it strange that a bunch of crazies are driving across the world, because they are, as history tells, a nomadic people themselves. "They're all very friendly, those that you do see in Mongolia. Because you're in the middle of nowhere they may be slightly perplexed but genuinely interested in what you're doing and once you tell them, it all seems to make sense to them."

The Mongol Rally won't be around forever. With over-saturation there will become a point where the mystique and lonely planet feel of it all is lost. If you have had 5000 people do the route the nature of the event changes a bit and it stops being as much of an adventure. So who knows for how long the Mongol Rally shall run.

But fear not. Morgan isn't calling it a day yet, far from it. And of course there is definitely a future for new adventures too, they started the Rickshaw Run this year.

"We just got back from that a couple of weeks ago, and THAT was awesome fun. Four thousand miles, squeezed into a Rickshaw, blatting through India, from the very southern tip of India up to Darjeeling in the Himalayas.

"We had a NZ team take part in that as well. The minimum distance is about 2,500 km and again there's no set route. But people get there in about two weeks so it's half the amount of time as the Mongol Rally and by the time you get back you will probably still have your job. Job losses have occurred from a number of the Mongol Rally entrants."

Danger? "I think the Rickshaw Run is a little bit more dangerous just from the kind of instant road death point of view, but hey, you're there to live life mate. Just like the Mongol Rally!" He chuckles down the phone.

Did I mention they set out from Hyde Park on Saturday the 21st of July? Just in case you're not doing anything.

More info on the Mini team is at www.mongolmini.com

If you enjoyed this story, be sure to visit www.mongolrally.com  for some more amazing info!