MONGOL RALLY PUBLIC HANDBOOK

Mongol Rally Public Handbook Contents

Overview of Mongol Rally......................................................... 3
What is the Mongol Rally?............................................................3 Rally Rules...................................................................................... 3 The Charity Money Rule.......................................................... 4 Vehicles........................................................................................... 5 The Vehicle Rules.................................................................... 5 Cars......................................................................................... 5 Motorbikes............................................................................... 5 Public/Emergency Service and Other vehicles....................... 6 Un-route...........................................................................................7 Route....................................................................................... 7 Time......................................................................................... 7 Costs........................................................................................ 7 Borders and crossings............................................................. 7 Climate, terrain and traffic........................................................ 8 Details.............................................................................................. 9 Where...................................................................................... 9 When........................................................................................ 9 Costs........................................................................................ 9 Launch........................................................................................... 10 Festival of Slow...................................................................... 10 Euro Launch...........................................................................10 Czechout Party...................................................................... 10 Finish Line..................................................................................... 11 Week Parties.......................................................................... 11 THE WARNING.............................................................................. 12

Charity...................................................................................... 13
How charity works?..................................................................... 13 Official Charity.............................................................................. 14 Fundraising................................................................................... 14

Media & Sponsorship.............................................................. 14 Visas & Paperwork ................................................................. 16

Visa Machine................................................................................. 16 Travel Insurance........................................................................... 16

The Adventurists..................................................................... 18
Social Media Links....................................................................... 18 Contact Us.....................................................................................18

Overview of Mongol Rally

What is the Mongol Rally?
The world has gone soft. Satellite maps and GPS have sucked the juiciness out of exploring and some git has already walked off the edge of all the maps. What if you want things to go wrong. What if you need to escape the hermetically sealed world we live in? Fear not, the solution is here. Take a dump on health & safety - do the Mongol Rally. 10,000 miles of adventuring bliss through deserts, mountains and steppe tackled in a car your Granny would use for shopping. The Mongol Rally is hurling yourself at 1/3 of the Earth's surface in woefully unsuitable vehicles to see what happens. Imagine yourself completely lost in a massive desert, hundreds of miles from civilisation, driving a car that the laws of physics say should not have got you past the M25 as 3 wheels fall off and a troupe of bandits wander over the horizon. That's when the adventure begins. The Mongol Rally; the world's best generator of chaos.

Rally Rules
The Mongol Rally is less about making sure you reach the end and more about having a real adventure trying. If you get there with no adventuristic tales to tell you might as well have stayed at home. We don't have many rules but the following make the Mongol Rally what it is and mean it can continue into posterity.

The Vehicle Rules

The whole point of the Mongol Rally is to have an adventure. So big 4x4's are totally unacceptable. You need to try exceptionally hard to bring a car with a throbbing heart that pumps at just 1 ltr (ish). Since the rally began the Mongolian Government have also made a request that the cars be under 10 years old. That means your vehicle must be manufactured in January 2003 or later. Read more about this in the Vehicles Section in this Handbook.

The On Your Own Rule

When undertaking the Mongol Rally you are entirely responsible for yourself. There is NO SUPPORT. If something goes wrong or you get yourself in a right old pickle, you have to get yourself out of it - there is absolutely no support or back-up once you hit the road. After all, what type of adventure would this be if we were to bail you out every time things got spicy.

We are serious about this - YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN AND WE DO NOT OFFER ANY SUPPORT OF ANY KIND.

The Charity Money Rule

You need to raise a minimum of 1000 for charity. 500 of that needs to go to the Mongol Rally official charity, and 500 can be raised for a charity of your team's choice, which you will need to inform us of. Teams in the past have raised much much more than this - the record is still the vast sum of 55,000 of the Queen's real pounds by team Butch Cassidy in 2009. We're not saying you'd have to hit that if you join next year's Rally, but a good bit of effort can see the pennies roll in for charity. Read more about this in the Charity Section in this Handbook.

Vehicles
The Vehicle Rules
The Mongol rally is about adventure and the whole point is to bring a vehicle that makes getting to Mongolia quite difficult. Since the dawn of Rally Time the 1 litre (ish) rule has stood fast to keep things adventurist. But now there are a few more things you need to know that help to keep the Mongolian Government happy.

Cars
The 1 litre (ish) Rule The spirit of the Mongol Rally always was that you do it in a tiny car. Basically the 'ish' means that you can take any car with an engine size up to 1.2 litres if you really must. We'd still prefer it if your car has an engine size of 1 litre or less, but because it's a little harder to find them when you're looking for vehicles that are January 2003 or younger (see the 10 year rule below), we're willing to be flexible up to eye popping 1.2 litres or less. Now that really is power. The Under 10 Year rule January 2003 or younger Since 2009 the Mongolian authorities have requested that all Mongol Rally cars are less than 10 years old when they enter the country. In practice, because you will be crossing the border around July/August 2012, this rule means that your car should be no older than January 2003 to be firmly within the customs regulations for importation. Please take this rule seriously the Mongolian authorities are amazing hosts to the Rally, and this is one of the few things they ask us to respect when hundreds of teams arrive at their borders each year! Importing a huge number of vehicles from all over the world into Mongolia each year and then selling them or donating them is no easy task. Each year we engage in lengthy negotiations with the Mongolian government and customs. Without them the Mongol Rally would not happen, but this does mean we have to play by their rules. What does less than 10 years old mean? It means your car needs to be made in January 2003 or later. The rule refers to the vehicle being under 10 years BEFORE you cross into Mongolia and for a period of six months after you have entered in order to give for all Mongolian registration paperwork to be completed. Unfortunately we can't be flexible about this. Don't fall foul of this rule. A number of not very good things can happen as a result, including not being allowed to cross the border with your vehicle, or not being allowed out of the country again unless you're in your car (including not being allowed to get trains or planes if customs decide they are unhappy with you).

Motorbikes
The 10 year rule does NOT apply to this category

Motorbikes have been a marvelous feature of the rally over the years. From Honda C90's to Vespas and Monkey bikes they always manage to amuse. However it would obviously not make any sense to have the 1 ltr rule. So if you want to go on a motorbike (ideally a scooter) they are limited to under 125cc.

Public/Emergency Service and Other vehicles

If you are thinking about taking one of the above, you need to get in touch before you do. The allowances for bringing these kinds of vehicles into Mongolia, change year on year, so please don't go out and buy one before you know whether you'll be able to get across the border!

Un-route
The Mongol Rally is supposed to be an adventure not a guided tour. It's about getting out into the world and discovering it for yourself, so we resolutely refuse to give you a route. Think how much of a second rate adventure it would be if we all followed the same route, like a traffic jam all the way to Mongolia. Rubbish.

Route
Well that is entirely up to you and your team. If you sign up to this here Mongol Rally, we won't give you a route to follow - that has to be your adventure. Take a good look over the un-route when considering which way you want to go. The following points are also worth bearing in mind:

Time
If you have to be back at work within three weeks of leaving, attempting to cross 20 countries en route is not really feasible and border crossings take a surprisingly long time, sometimes even days.

Costs
Year after year, teams rave about certain countries as being really quite special. Iran, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia always stand out. But remember they all bring different costs and requirements for visas and paperwork which you will need to research carefully if you sign up. More countries = more visas = more money. The southern route has really pricey visas. Some countries, such as Iran, also require Carnet de Passages for your vehicle - which is an extra cost.

Borders and crossings

This really is the science of charms and waiting. Certain parts of the world can get spicy and this means border crossings can be: permanently closed closed one way open to locals traffic only closed on weekends heavily mined Apart from all of the above, those that are open to you international types often bring with them a lengthy wait. The record for a Mongol Rally team waiting at a border is 7 days so far - but any crossing can take between 30 minutes and numerous days. If you sign up to the Mongol Rally, you may well find yourself in situations next summer, where the odd official tries to relieve you of some of your money. This will often be set as high as they think they can get away with ($50,000 is the record so far). This often rapidly comes down as you laugh at the ridiculous amount. Unless you have actually done something wrong, like speeding, then most of the time teams get away with paying nothing or very little. It's often a matter of cost verses time divided by charm and wit.

One thing you can be sure of - if you're rude and demanding to the border guards and officials, they'll be sure to repay you with a few extra obstacles. Charm goes a long way when trying to cross borders or extract yourself from the grasp of an annoyed official, and those teams lacking in it always find themselves waiting rather longer than others when it comes to continuing their journey. If you don't think you can handle smiling sweetly at a customs officer or police officer who wants all of your money and work your way through the ritual of persuasive techniques which mean you get to keep all your money, then the Rally probably isn't for you.

Climate, terrain and traffic

The route you take to get to Mongolia will be completely down to you and your team. However, whichever way you go, you're likely to pass through a wide variety of climates and terrains. In past Mongol Rally teams' experience, different regions of the world have rather different perspectives of the concept "road". In many places, a road means a goat-path of six and a half inches between boulders. In other places, it's a nice long stretch of tarmac dotted intricately with holes large enough for a small car to hide in completely. In Mongolia, "road" might be a series of twelve or so intertwining mud tracks that meet chaotically in the middle. Basically, if you choose to go ahead and take up the gauntlet of the Mongol Rally, you will have to adapt to the kind of terrain and traffic rules of the region you're in and remember that because those systems won't be familiar to you, you will need to employ extra vigilance and care when driving. Traffic can be chaotic and difficult to drive through in many areas - cities and countryside alike. As much as the terrain and traffic can vary wildly, so can the climate. You will be travelling a huge distance across the planet, at different altitudes and through different weather systems. In some regions, for example in Mongolia, the temperature can go from 40 odd degrees in the day to minus figures at night. Once or twice in the past, teams have reached Ulaanbaatar with tales of snow blizzards in Western Mongolia - that's in August! So you need to be prepared for a whole cast of unfamiliar situations - some would say that's the whole point of the Mongol Rally, but again, if you think such unfamiliarity is more than you want to handle, then the Rally probably isn't going to provide you with the best time you've ever had.

Details
Now you know what you will be doing next summer you might have the odd question. So here are the very basics and a link to find out everything you need to know.

Where
Launching from Goodwood UK or the Czech Republic and finishing in Mongolia.

When
UK: 14th July 2012 Czech: 16th July 2012

Costs
714 per team (a team is 1 car or 2 Motorbikes and as many people as you can fit in).

Launch
Festival of Slow
For the last three years, Festival of Slow has been played out at tiny car-ed snail's pace around one of the world's greatest motoring tracks, Goodwood. By all accounts, the same will be said again of 2012. Previous years have seen smaller launches from Spain and Italy as well, but in 2012, as in 2011, the Euro launch for those who don't want to come to merry England, will be from the equally merry Czech Republic - the site of our notorious Czechout party. The 2012 Festival of Slow will be one humdiddly-dinger of an affair, once again providing a forum for a wondrous display of slow, small unsuitability for the task of driving to Mongolia. Splendid.

Euro Launch
If you're not able or don't want to come to the UK Festival of Slow at Goodwood, fear not, for you will be the focus of everyone's attention as you celebrate your team's launch from the Czech Republic. We understand that not everyone wants to get to the UK before starting the Rally, so we'll make sure there's an albeit smaller, equally marvellous launch from the Czechout site.

Czechout Party
In case you haven't already heard whisperings of the wild parties in far-off lands that await you on this year's Mongol Rally, we wanted to give you a little nudge to remind you of what lies in wait. After you've all departed from your launch, waving a tearful goodbye to friends and family, you'll need to hot foot it to the Czech Republic for the mighty Czechout. A party of increasingly epic legend as each year the night gets wilder and wilder, staged in a historic castle. Castles, camping in verdant meadows, live bands and DJs from all over the world playing fine musical tunes from every nook and cranny. There'll be enough gin and tonic to do lengths in we expect you all to be still dancing as the sun rises over the ramparts. The party kicks off at lunchtime on Monday July 16th 2012 festival and will rage until the wee small hours of the next morning.

Finish Line
If you sign up to the Mongol Rally, and then if you actually make it to Ulaanbaatar, when you arrive you'll be welcomed into the Mongol Rally Finish Line. Apart from registering your team and vehicle as having officially made it all the way, there'll be a variety of fun-filled eventy things on offer. From football tournaments to quiz nights and parties for early and late comers - there will pretty much always be stuff going on to greet you. Unless of course you're really late - like you arrive eight weeks after the launch when everyone else is already tucked up at home and the Finish Line has been dismantled - there'll still be people here to help you register your vehicle correctly, but you'll have to make your own fun - Mongolian vodka can help there...

Week Parties
Lest we forget the finish line parties. From previous years' experience these have a tendency to be high spirited. Recollections of people going missing for days, waking up in strange basements and crowd surfing - basically this tends to cause more injuries than the Rally itself. Just how we like it. With the usual range of music (with a Mongolian twist) and drinks to fuel your celebrations itll be worth packing some painkillers for the finish line parties. The parties take place between 4 and 6 weeks after the Mongol Rally launch.

THE WARNING
The website is written in a light-hearted fashion but you cannot underestimate the risks involved in undertaking this kind of adventure. The Mongol Rally is NOT an organised tour. You may end up stuck at the borders of any of the countries you choose to travel through for days or even weeks. You are completely at the mercy of those countries' authorities. You may miss your flights home, you may not get even half way to Mongolia. You will likely find yourself in situations that were not foreseen and which pose you some degree of danger. And you will receive no support should such a scenario occur. The Mongol Rally poses risks to your health and your life. You will be driving for many thousands of miles in parts of the world that are unfamiliar to you, which means your chances of being involved in a road accident or in any number of other health and life-threatening situations is significantly increased from your day to day life. In the 7 years of the Mongol Rally there have been a several serious road traffic accidents. Usually, but not always, these are the fault of the team driving badly. Sadly some individuals who undertook previous Mongol Rallies have been permanently injured, disabled or have even lost their life in such accidents. Road traffic in many of the regions you might encounter can be hectic, chaotic and dangerous. Should you be injured or harmed in some way, medical help might be hours from where you are. Even then, the kind of medical help you may receive may differ vastly from the quality of medical care you would expect to find at home. By way of example, Mongolia itself has no centre of excellence in which you could be adequately treated for serious injuries. If you are unfortunate enough to become involved in an accident it is quite likely you will be blamed by local authorities for the accident regardless of whose fault it was. At this point you may end up in prison for several years or face very large fines. This adventure is not a glorified holiday. It is an unsupported adventure and so by it's very nature extremely risky. You really are on your own and you really are putting both your short term and long term health and even your life at risk.

Charity
How charity works?
One of our main principles is that we don't blur the line between giving money to charity and having a bloody good adventure. So we don't touch a single penny of the money that is donated, it goes direct to the charity. When you give some of your hard earned cash to a team you can be sure it all goes to the right place. Teams that sign up for adventures are asked to raise 500 for their adventure's Official Charity, and 500 for a charity of their very own choice. Each event has an Official Charity that our teams raise money for. This means that each organisation gets a meaningful sum of money to benefit their projects. It also means we can support projects in the areas our adventures thunder through.

Official Charity
This here adventure isn't just about coaxing your granny-mobile across the world's toughest terrains to Mongolia. It's also about raising unfathomable sums of money for charity. The official Mongol Rally Charity for 2012 is The Lotus Children's Centre Charitable Trust. The Lotus Children's Centre is dedicated to providing care, accommodation, support and education to orphaned, abused, and abandoned children in Mongolia. It was set up in 1993 by Australian Didi Kalika, who started simply by giving food and basic medical care to children living on the streets of Ulaanbaatar. She soon realised that more was needed, and with the help of friends built a small home for the children in the ger district of Yarmag, on the outskirts of the capital. Harsh economic conditions in Mongolia resulted in more babies and children being abandoned. In 1997 Didi founded a kindergarten, and this was then followed by The Lotus Primary School. Since then Lotus has cared for and educated up to 150 children at any one time, in small family units each looked after by a housemother. As the children have grown up there has been an increasing emphasis on vocational training programmes to prepare them for adulthood. Lotus also runs a Guesthouse in Ulaanbaatar staffed almost exclusively by ex-Lotus children, which not only provides employment as the older children leave school, but also generates profits which contribute towards the running costs of the Centre. In 2009 Didi Kalika was awarded the Order of Australia for her services to the street children of Mongolia. To find out more about this superb project please see their website.

Fundraising
There are all sorts of hundreds of thousands of ways to raise money for your selected charities. Teams in the past have used all sorts of ingenious fundraising methods, from asking their Mums all the way through to auctioning off chalet holidays for thousands of pounds. Once you're signed up, the world of charity fundraising is yours for the picking.

Media & Sponsorship

Lots of teams on the Mongol Rally go down the media or sponsorship route to help fund their adventure. This is not to be confused with charity fundraising, and its important to be clear from the outset, that sponsorship money which goes towards your adventure, and charity money that goes to your charities are totally separate things and need to be kept that way.

Here at Adventurists HQ we're keen to help you chaps attract sponsorship and even have some cunning ways to work with you if you were interested in a partnership. This here mighty adventure could cost you bugger all if you put time and effort into sponsorship. This can mean selling companies a bit of advertising space on your trusty steed or on your team pages on the Mongol Rally website or even your body if you like. If you sign up to the Mongol Rally, you'll have access to our guide on how to approach your team media and sponsorship and what you can and can't do for your sponsors. But for now, if you have any questions about this before you go ahead with your sign up, then ask us at media@theadventurists.com - we'd much rather hear from you about your ideas for than for there to be any confusions further down the line!

Visas & Paperwork

Visa Machine
Visas are an expensive pain in the arse. But they are essential. In case you're not up to speed with the world of visas, these are basically your permission to enter a country. The countries that you need to get a visa for vary dependent on your nationality and so it requires a bit of research to be sure you don't get stuck - and you would quite literally get stuck for an indefinite period between one country and another should you get this wrong. Requirements and details about visas change every year - in fact the requirements for some countries change by the day. We run a visa service which can help to alleviate said pain and answer your queries - it can be worth working out the costs and requirements for visas early on so that when the Rally comes around, the boring paperwork like this is well and truly sorted.

http://www.thevisamachine.com/

Travel Insurance
If you come on the Mongol Rally, you'll need to sort out some serious travel insurance. There are numerous travel insurance options out there, but what's important for you is that you have the right kind of cover. It might be that you are interested in a policy that can offer you cover for the Mongol Rally Entry Fee in case something happens to you and you can't come on the Rally after the normal refund period is up. Or it might be that your interest is only in finding out what kind of cover is available to you on the adventure itself. Whether only the latter, or both, this is really important, and you could find yourself in a whole world of unpleasant trouble if you are, for example, injured or harmed in some way and unable to pay the medical bills.

Because of the inherent risks to your possessions, your health and even your life on the Mongol Rally, you need to research your choice of travel insurance very thoroughly and be sure that your insurer knows exactly how you're going to be traveling. If you want to find out about this before you sign up, one place you can start is Campbell Irvine who can provide insurance cover for the Mongol Rally without charging you an extortionate amount. Anyone who is a resident in the UK or European Union can apply for cover from them. If you live outside the UK or European Union it is still vital to get the right travel insurance for your journey! So please be sure to research this properly before or after you sign up for the Rally. Campbell Irvine are a completely separate organisation so if you are interested in what they have to offer or have any questions about the cover or any aspect of the policy you need to contact them directly. Telephone: +44(0) 20 7937 6981 Email: info@campbellirvine.com

The Adventurists
Social Media Links
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/MongolRally Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/theadventurists YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/theadventurists Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/adventurists

Contact Us
To fill our e-mail inboxes with thrilling tales: Mongol Rally: mongolrally@theadventurists.com General: info@theadventurists.com Charity: charities@theadventurists.com Media: media@theadventurists.com To scribe to us in old fashioned scribble: The Adventurists, The Independent Republic of Adventurism, Hamilton House, 80 Stokes Croft, Bristol, BS1 3QY United Kingdom To sound our telephonic devices for the possibility of one-way, perhaps even two-way speech transmission: 0117 329 0884