Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t
do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the
safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

– Mark Twain

Since the last article — which saw the Optimistic Fools without a vehicle, penniless and with no specified route — many things have changed. And the world-renowned Mongol Rally slips progressively closer into view.

This rally is unlike all its rivals in as much as it has little more than three distinct rules which its participants must adhere to. The first is that each team must raise a minimum of £1,000 for charity. The second dictates that the vehicle that will transport them from London’s Hyde Park to the capital of Mongolia, Ulan Bator, must have an engine displacement of less than 1,000cc (or 125cc if your car has two wheels) and ‘generally be considered crap’. And the final rule is that the teams are not allowed support teams following them. Even so, the road less traveled has, for the Optimistic Fools, become mildly more chartered.

The Fools — full of unfounded optimism — is made up of two idealists, Ollie and me (Chris), who have had little time to prepare for this epic escapade. The moderately loquacious lackey, Ollie, is from Guernsey, a small picturesque atoll nestled in the English Channel between France and England. In the final throws of building a house, his time has been limited to assist in the planning of such a grand adventure. And myself, half-German half-English, living and working in London (where working 9 to 5 is a cruel myth). However, despite the initial lack of planning, we Fools are steadily surmounting the many obstacles laid before us, in a slightly dubious mission to cross more than a 1/3 of the Earth’s circumference in some rusty old throw-back from the automotive world.

Mongol Rally: The Fools’ Route

Mongol Rally 2008: The Fools’ Route Options

On a weekend visit to London, Ollie and I sat for three hours in an internet café on the fashionably alternative Brick Lane. This East London street, once cheap and arguably unattractive, has since become trendy. With street signs both in Urdu and English, the road is lined with secondhand clothes shops, small cafes and Bangladeshi curry houses catering to everyone from the prosperously sleek city crowd to the followers of retro trends that are awkwardly seeping back into fashion.

The sole aim of this meeting, the first of the Fools, was to assess the route and to plan a path from the centre of London to the plains of Mongolia, and from there to our final destination, the origin of the illustrious Genghis Khan, Ulan Bator.

However this simple task proved harder than originally expected. If we decided to head south we would miss the wonders of Poland, the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains in Ukraine, and the fertile steps of Russia. Yet if we opted to travel north we would forgo the glorious sights of Turkey and the wondrous charm of the Iranian people. As frustration stated to gnaw at and penetrate our fervent enthusiasm, we dropped the map, left for the pub and picked up the pints with a mutual friend — whose suggestion that we flick a coin led us simply to our chosen route. Head south.

On this elected itinerary we would take the ferry from the English port of Dover to the French docks of Calais, across and into Belgium, the land of chocolate. Onward bound would see us accelerating down the autobahns of Germany through the ancient historic towns of the Czech Republic and into Slovakia. Hungary would follow, then mystically romantic Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, the long open plains of Kazakhstan, a brief glimpse of Russia and finally, after 10,000 miles of exhilarating highs and piercing lows, the glorious land of Mongolia.

Mongol Rally: The Fools Meet Irene

With the route planned, we had something to focus our hearts and minds on, something concrete. We could now start to scour the internet, dive into books and pick the minds of knowledgeable souls to learn and prepare ourselves for our epic journey across sea and plain.

The next step was also to find a vehicle under 1,000cc that could possibly be worthy — let alone capable — of such an awesome voyage. The first choice was the Citroen 2V, inimitably beautiful yet ultimately made from little more than papier-mâché. On the opposite side of the spectrum was the Suzuki SJ40, a heavy duty four-wheel drive with built-in crank, resembling a sturdy tank and therefore far too boring. Or the robust curves of the cute little mini? Light and fast, yet predisposed to trip over a pebble or drown in a puddle.

Irene using logs to aid her non-existent brakes, and Irene with Ollie in Guernsey

After much deliberation, a spectacularly kind gentleman from Guernsey who is a Renault 4 aficionado, offered to donate one of his beloved cars to the cause. Initially with a price of £200, he succumbed to the charm and charisma of my teammate and relinquished his pride and joy into the hands of us Fools. Born around 1970, this sky blue Renault 4 with four axel independent suspension originated in France as a trusty alternative to the donkey and cart. This little car is the most successful French car to have ever been produced, and in Colombia is still known affectionately as Amigo Fiel (trusty friend). With a high carriage base and simple mechanics this vehicle would suit the bumpy rural terrain of the Kazak steppes and the dusty Mongol dessert like a duck to water. And so, no doubt to her great dismay, it was that Irene became a Fool.

Mongol Rally: The Fools Need Money

Asking actual people to part with their cash is an undertaking laden with obvious hurdles. And nevermind large companies, which get a plethora of such requests on a daily basis.

Viator, however, didn’t even have to be asked and proffered their generous support before any other. But the Fools want to raise as much as humanly possible, from all possible sources, to help their four chosen charities. Suitable sponsors might be travel organizations, clothes companies, and extreme sports retailers but even after numerous letters, the effort proved to be fruitless. We even thought of oil companies such as Shell, to donate petrol for the 10,000 miles, but as it turned out they couldn’t afford (despite their record-breaking profit of $31.3 billion this year) to spare even a few hundred on much-needed positive publicity.

We soon realised that in order for companies to take us seriously, we had to have a website. So armed with embarrassingly meager IT skills the Fools set to work, pen to paper and fingers to keyboards, to conceive and give birth to optimisticfools.co.uk. Second step, we had to get the press interested, so us Fools contacted our respective local publications, smiled for the cameras, answered the questions and basked in their Andy Warhol predicted 15 minutes of fame. After this, the tide soon turned, having stirred either certain wanderlust, or the promise of an excellent marketing opportunity. The phone has started to ring…

–Christoph Courth

Editor’s Note: Please, for the love of adventure and the sake of wanderlust, send the Optimistic Fools some money! They are doing all of this for charity, the cause is worthy, and if you don’t send them 10 bucks, euros, pounds or whatever local currency you use, then we wash our hands of you! Seriously, send the fools a few bucks. Click here for full details on donating to their cause.

Editor’s Note: Read the latest on the Optimistic Fools preparation for the 2008 Mongol Rally here. Viator is pleased to be a sponsor of the Optimistic Fools rally team, on their journey to complete the 2008 Mongol Rally from London to Ulan Bator, Mongolia. We’ll be checking in with the team over the next 6 months as they prepare for the 2008 Mongol Rally. The team will also blog for us as they make their way from London to Mongolia.

Do you sit in your car each morning — or on the bus, the train or tram — the sun not yet broken above the horizon and the sleep-dust still in the corners of your eyes, headed for a day in the office thinking, “why do I do this each and every day?”

The Optimistic Fools: Christoph Courth & Oliver Westgarth

If the answer is ‘yes’ then you are not alone. We all do, we all yearn for something else, something new to test ourselves and to make us feel alive again. For this very reason Oliver Westgarth and myself (Christoph Courth) have decided to take leave from the daily grind and take up the challenge of the ‘greatest adventure in the world’. As in, the Mongol Rally. Our team name: the Optimistic Fools.

Mongol Rally, Explained

Whilst sitting in a pub on a dark and dreary Sunday morning, head pounding preparing myself for another week at the office, a few friends including Ollie and I were nostalgically discussing past trips around the world. And our dreamlike adventures for the future, one of which being the Mongol Rally. The following day while downing my first cup of strong black coffee at my desk in my windowless office, I Googled the Mongol Rally website and found that the lottery to sign up for the rally was to open that very afternoon at 2. Come 2 o’clock, I excused myself from a meeting, ducked back into my office and quickly signed up for this awesome challenge. Three weeks later an email arrived in my inbox and the planning began.

Launching on the 18th of July 2008, 200 teams of ramshackle cars and bikes will convene in Hyde Park, London, ready to journey across both Europe and Asia, to meet up again, should luck and providence dictate, at the finishing line of the Mongol Rally in Ulan Bator, Mongolia. Now in its 5th year, this rally was founded not only for adventure but to help Mongolian charities such as Mercy Corps Mongolia and the Christina Noble Children’s Foundation through fund-raising and public awareness. Each team is required to raise a minimum of £1,000 which is donated to these designated charities; any extra raised by the teams can be given to a charity of choice.

Founded in Bristol, England, by the League of Adventurists International Limited, the inaugural rally rolled out of London in 2004, seeing 6 teams leave and 4 stumble across the finishing line. In 2005, 43 heaps of petrol-fuelled rust wooed the crowds in London, of which only 18 arrived intact in Ulan Bator. The 2006 Rally left the UK in July with 167 cars crossing the English Channel and 117 teams arriving in Mongolia. In 2007 the number of teams rose to 200 with only around 70% arriving at the finish line. Due to high demand, 2008 will again see the places limited to 200, however the real question remains; how many will survive the crossing?

Each year the Mongol Rally has gone from strength to strength, attracting adventure junkies and press coverage from across the globe. These modern day adventurers attempt to traverse the 8,000 - 10,000 miles in three to six weeks, crossing up to 16 different borders and two continents. Some teams even find that on arrival in Mongolia all they want to do is turn around and drive back or continue traveling into China or Russia. Those that return via plane or train donate their cars to the League of Adventurists who then pass them onto local charities.

Mongol Rally: Just a Bunch of Normal Disenfranchised Amateurs

Facing the unknown, the participants are mostly amateurs; just normal people disenfranchised with the humdrum drone of everyday life, yearning for something challenging to keep the innate restless beast at bay, if only for a short time. People from all backgrounds of all ages take part in this annual event; it was even chartered in the 2007 rally when Jack Osborne filmed his participation in a 1991 Fiat Panda for a television production.

This rally is by no means conventional for many reasons. First of all the cars must have an engine displacement of less than 1,000cc and bikes less than 125cc, which rules out all vehicles designed for such an epic voyage. Cars such as the Mini, the Renault 4, the Citroën 2cv and the Fiat 500 (and bikes such as the Yamaha RXS) are typical choices. However, exceptions to the above rule are considered “for vehicles of notable unusualness with high comedy value”; in fact the event organisers actually stipulate that the vehicle ‘must be generally considered to be crap’.

Secondly the participants have none of the comfort of support teams and have to cross the vast unpopulated areas of land, left only to their own devices. Thirdly there is no specified route, as each team can choose its own way from north through Russia to south through Turkey. And finally there is no prize for the winner; the sole golden trophy sought by the 200 contestants, is the golden cup of adventure.

Surprisingly so far, no one has been killed whilst attempting to complete this epic voyage. And my team mate and I sincerely hope not to change this astounding statistic. All routes are fraught with considerable danger and the very specification of the vehicles, with all odds stacked against them, makes for true adventure. Each year there are numerous accidents, muggings, hospitalisations and a worryingly high percentage of participants never even make it to Mongolia. (In fact the 2005 rally saw one team engaged, 3 people banned from Turkmenistan for a year, 2 teams robbed at knife point, 1 car snapped in half and another team cycling 200km to reach the finishing line after their car blew up.)

Mongol Rally: 3 Simple Rules

There are three basic rules to the rally. The first being the “on your own” rule that stipulates if you get into a ‘pickle’ you must fend for yourself. In fact prior to signing up for the challenge the organisers ask all participants to sign an agreement so that ‘you can’t sue our arses when you die’. Maybe it would have been more reassuring to use the word ‘if’ instead of ‘when’.

The second rule is the aforementioned ‘charity money rule’ whereby the participants must raise the £1,000 for the specified charities.

The third and final rule is the 1-litre car maximum. Aside from these the organisers note that participants ‘are free to sneak, bribe, cheat, connive and generally out-wit the world to get yourselves to the end’.

The widespread press coverage that this rapidly expanding rally attracts enables the participants to sell off space on the facade of their car to companies and organizations to emblazon with their logo. All money raised in this manner helps the ralliers to raise finances for their desired charities. For some companies however, sponsorship through material goods such as tents or tyres are preferable to money yet equally as important for the teams, some teams have even managed to get their vehicle donated.

So far, however, the Optimistic Fools have no car, no route and no funding as the application stage has only just come to a close. Designing the website, seeking sponsorship, finding a cheap or donated car and sourcing the route are all in their infant stages, but bit by bit this challenge, this life long dream, will become reality. To find out more about the ‘Optimistic Fools’ or to get involved in any way, keep watching the Viator website or visit www.mongolrally.com.

–Christoph Courth