Kieran Turner's photos with the keyword: nissan micra

I don't as a rule post photos by other people here — it's just not how flickr works, I feel. But since I "set up" this shot, I think I'll let it slip through and chalk it up as one for the "production team"! This little Nissan Micra (the 6th most reliable car of 2007, I'm told, though I had to point out that's the next generation...) is going to get us to Mongolia. Yeah, it is. Sump guard and petrol tank guard currently being welded on! Taken in the Brecon Beacons National Park where we tested out our navigation and camping skills with three other Mongol Rally teams :)

May come in handy in the Mongolian desert. They assured me it had been thrown out, rather than nicked from the local pub! With apologies to the chap whose face I've half cut off. You moved! You moved! ;)

Well, it was for me. For reasons not to be gone into here, but essentially regarding differences in desire amongst the team... and time available... and personal issues for me and for others... and my desire not to be rushing headlong past everything, missing it all, this is just about the last shot I took before flying home from Bishkek. Next year, with TEAM AWESOME, i.e. John, and hopefully the Vagabonds, the Khans, the Danes, and others, if they can be persuaded to do it again... or perhaps it'll be the Rickshaw Run... but in any event, that's your lot for photos for now.

Or the hay monster's gonna get you!

Achieving a maximum of about 40mph by this point but still plugging on.

The wheel closest to you is the one that was expertly provided with a new stud nut by a Kazakhstan mechanic. Within just a couple of hours, and with the most basic of facilities, he had the old, sheared and threadless stud off, and a replacement fabricated, fitted, and refitted in fact until it was to his satisfaction. He was ably assisted by a good dozen teenage apprentices.

The car ended up with a gooood many signatures, including some scored out as we nearly started a war between Kazakh and Uzbek border guards who took to insulting each other's countries by means of their graffiti on our car! Here, this is the staff of the hotel which was located for us by a drunken policeman. He'd found us at the side of the road, and offered to help. Sadly, it turned out that he wasn't a good guy at all. After careering around in the dark with only his blue flashing lights and no headlights (and the blue flashers only when he thought we might need them, like when he hared off around a corner), he found us a hotel. The rooms were $30 a night (for a double). He wanted $100 for his trouble! But the twit couldn't quite say so, and kept saying it was his birthday instead. So I lined us up and we sang "happy birthday to you" at him. I have seldom seen such a look of contempt on a face. He ended up being packaged off with $10 for his petrol and a guilt-trip "salaam alekum" from me.

It's really not the done thing to take pictures at borders. Thankfully these days most guards understand about digital cameras and the non-corrupt ones will, if they spot you, simply insist on your deleting any offending pics. This one, however, is worth a shot, as I was very proud of myself here for getting a bit of corruption fixed. Almost every border works the same way: there is a kind of gatekeeper who gives you a piece of paper to start you off, which must be stamped by each required stage of the process, and will be checked to let you out. He then shows you through the gates. Then there will be passport control by police-like people, followed by the various levels of customs procedure, usually involving filling in forms for the car, and having it searched. Finally you get out, and do it all over again for the next country (that was exit, now you're in nowhereland and have to do entry into the next one!) After all that there's usually a stop at a bank and insurance office too. Aaaaanyway, the police-uniformed gatekeeper guy exiting Kazak was a bit horrible, and demanded we empty our pockets. While "searching" my wallet, he helped himself to a note. Not a lot you can really do in that sort of a situation, since they have so much power over you. But it irked me particularly that he wasn't the type who considers it a "thank you" and then ushers you to the front of queues. No, we got nothing for our money. However, at the next stage, the soldier searching our car seemed much more professional. He was searching intensely, but not making a mess as some of them deliberately do, and also very clearly neither stealing nor asking for "presents" or "surprises". (Sometimes one feels like offering a nasty surprise!) But this guy seemed decent. And I *love* presuming people are, and treating them with respect until they prove unworthy of it; basically resetting the irritation and prejudice counter with every official. Also, this guy seemed to appreciate my pigeon Russian so we had a certain rapport. Eventually, he asked me if our passports were sorted, meaning had we done the previous stage, and were we ready to go? I took a chance and said "yes, passports... and money!" and mimed how it had gone from my wallet — just testing the water really. He could have just laughed. But no, he seemed very cross, and asked, "money?" I confirmed this and he wandered off. I thought he was disappointed in his team, but that would be all. However, not long afterwards he returned, and asked me to describe the guy who'd taken the money. I did so. He went around the corner and moments later – not long, so he'd clearly known full well who to expect it to have been – he marched the offending policeman out to me. "Is this the one?" he asked, and I confirmed yes. The policeman sloped off looking utterly bemused. The nice guard took me round a corner out of sight of everyone else... and handed me back my money! I said goodbye to him with a mighty handshake and used "tovarish" – comrade – rather than just calling him a friend. This, too, hit the spot, and for the first time he broke out a smile. :-)

Weirdly, Kazakhstan is littered with brand spanking new petrol stations like the one in the background here. Not one of them is open. The rusty old places like we're actually in here are usually open and staffed, but they fairly seldom have any fuel. Or anything better than the 80 octane stuff that goes in old Soviet cars. We sought anything from 91-100 (yes, we saw 91, 92, 93, 95, 96, 98, and 100 during our trip!) but often there was none. On this occasion, the woman running the place had a few 20-litre plastic bottles in a shed, and allowed us 10-litres each of whatever was in those. The cars were pretty sluggish on 91, especially as we gained altitude later on in Kyrgystan. The Micra's emission control light came on more than once, although it had been doing that across Western Europe too, after I'd been running it on V-Power 97/98 for a while to get it cleaned out (and to give it fun extra oomph :) I still wonder why V-Power is 100 in some countries. Feel cheated back home!

You try pronouncing it.

(This one was taken by Tonia's mum but it's in here to help tell the story...) John's car couldn't be taken into Russia after the departure of his team-mate, so we donated it for use by an orphanage, with help of my friends here, in Chernihiv, near Chernobyl, Ukraine. There are some ongoing customs issues, but the key thing to know is that our cars in Ukraine don't count as cars for customs purposes — they are "sports inventory", and this means it's not a problem to leave them there. Only wish that we, the Adventurists, or the Irish embassy had been able to extract this info from the Ukrainian customs a little quicker.

(This one was taken by Tonia but it's in here to help tell the story...)

(This one was taken by Tonia but it's in here to help tell the story...)