in Kiev

We drove straight through Budapest to Kiev, after picking up the paperwork that Nick left us at a hotel about 45 mins from the Ukraine border.

We sat down, had some espresso, and forged documents.

Over the past 24 hours we've been cooped up in the car and are literally destroyed, and need to sleep, eat, and then sleep again.

The confidence is high, but so is the tension, after driving around the capital for hours upon hours in search of tires, Nissan dealer, internet cafes, and a place to crash.

Tonight we recharge and head out again...towards Russia and Kazahkstan directly, as we planned from the beginning.

A new direction.

I suppose things aren't supposed to go as planned when you're having an adventure. Yesterday, Nick called from the Ukraine border. They were turned away due to a problem with their car title. The kicker is that they have our car title.

So, the new plan is to leave Budapest and catch up with them today near Poland and travel together to the Russian border through Latvia.

Since the Micra title is in Nick's name, we will need to cross the Russian border with them and hopefully not have anymore problems.

This could mean that we can't get to the other countries we planned to visit, but at least we'd be in Russia and have path to Mongolia.

We'll be leaving here within the hour and will update if we can when we stop for the night.

Pictures

Just posted some pictures on Flickr...

Budapest, Hungary

We made it to Budapest last night at 9pm local time. Bryan and I met Justin's friend Craig who hooked us up with an amazing apartment for two nights. It's in the center of Budapest near the markets and close to the Danube river bridge.

After unloading our bags, we had dinner at a medieval "style" restaurant with Craig and his girlfriend Kati. We drank a cup of mead and ate large portions of meat and potatoes. Afterwards, we came back to the apartment and met team "Do You Do Airports". Nick, Mark and Edward stayed with us at the apartment. Nick was the chap who picked up and stored our Micra for 4 months leading up to the rally. They are a great group of guys and we stayed up too late trying to top each other's stories. They left for Kiev this morning and we hope to meet them in Alamaty, Kazakhstan later in the rally.

Today we walked around Budapest a bit and had a terrific lunch at "Kek Rozsa" or Blue Rose. It's a Jewish-Hungarian restaurant and I had the best Goulash, ever. We're taking pictures of every meal and will be posting stuff on flickr later today if we can use Craig's SD card reader.

We're back at the apartment now resting up for the drive to Kiev tomorrow.

Justin promises to post again later tonight and provide more amusing stories and anecdotes. Hopefully my factual entries aren't too boring. It's all I can manage on no sleep.

We are having a great time and will enjoy our beds tonight. They may be the last we'll see for awhile.

Greeting from Vienna

Here's a quick recap of our journey so far. This will be fast because it's internet cafes are expensive.

- Left London late due to problems installing our roof rack.
- We fixed it at Halfords in Wimbledon and still made a 730 ferry in Dover.
- Drove all night through Belgium, Germany and made it CZ before noon the next day and partied at the castle. Then camped for the night.
- Left CZ this morning and are now in Vienna in route to our luxurious Budapest apartment.

Things are going well and the car is holding up. We'll try to post a picture if we can arrage for an SD card reader here.

crunch time

Tomorrow Justin & I (Cloud) will drive to Shepparton to pick up the over nighted roof rack & install it. Then we drive back to London & meet Bryan at Hyde park for the start at 10:30-12:30. We have to make it to the Dover ferry by 4:20 and drive on to Prauge for the rally castle party. More later. Updated via Bryan's iPhone.

Best Intentions Team Update

It's hard to believe the Mongol Rally is only a week away! We only have a couple more things to do and we'll be ready.

We may have to make some adjustments on the road, but if things go as planned this is our finalized route.

Bryan leaves for London on Tuesday to get the car ready for the start on Saturday. Cloud leaves on Wednesday night and Justin will mosey on over on Thursday evening.

Please check back after the rally starts on the 19th. We plan to update this blog as often as possible while we're on the road.

Also, if you use Twitter, you can follow our updates here.

If you've been meaning to donate, but keep forgetting- There's still time! Please use the donate buttons on our site.

Lastly, check out this article on Bryan and our team in the Austin Statesman!