Welcome to Tom and Olly's summer adventure! You've probably already heard how wonderful this trip will be, now you can see for yourself!

This epic journey is part inspired by the Mongol Rally, a group of intrepids who 'race' to Mongolia in very small cars for the thrill of the challenge and to raise money for charity.

We are making our journey unique by not joining the rally and using a bigger car. We thought it would be good to support a Mongolian charity so half the money we raise will go to Mercy Corps Mongolia, which is one of the rally charities.

We are also raising money for a different charity, the Masiphumelele Youth Project in Cape Town. This charity was set up by Shake Seigel and his brother so has a personal tie to our medical school. (For anyone who doesn't know Shake he is a legendary member of the GEM staff!)

Please have a look and give what you can:

Our Justgiving page
More project info at: Masiphumelele Youth Project

We will try and use this blog thing to keep you posted on how we get on. But who knows how we'll get on updating it where we're going...

We have currently raised £350 for the Ubuntu Foundation, and by donating the car expect to raise a few thousand pounds for the Kindergarten for cerebral palsy children in Ulaanbaatar. see goodbye susie for more. (6/9/07)

Saturday, 28 July 2007

Glorious Esfahan





No, not the 80's Latino pop sensation, but the most beautiful city in Iran. Long drives across desolate landscapes, avoiding the traffic hell of Tehran and we finally arrive at the premier destination in this country. The big square lives up the hype. Smoking the quaylan lives up to the hype. The bridges across the river live up to the hype. Walking across the river next to the bridge was fun! The food remains fairly mediocre, but, inshallah, we have yet to suffer from 'the Brads'.

Today is a rest day so we've had a haircut and shave (an experience in itself) and attempted to sort out our stinking laundry. Later we may explore the possibility of entering the hellish world of haggling in an attempt at buying a small Persian carpet, or 'kilim'. Then we're off to Yazd and hopefully the road between the two huge Iranian deserts to Mashhad. Petrol of sufficient quality for Suzy (...the Subaru) is scarce here so we've resorted to lugging huge amounts of petrol in various jerry cans in the boot. The plan is to cross into Turkmenistan on Aug 2nd...
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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Glad to see you're still alive Olly, missed you at Whale's wedding though!

31 July 2007 at 10:19
Anonymous said...

Hi guys,
Am very impressed by your progress. Hope you got into Turkmensistan OK. I am busy caring for my old ladies this week but, needless to say, am pretty jealous of where you are and what you're doing. Thanks again for the ride.
Love from Rob

3 August 2007 at 17:44

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