Spinal's Mongol Rally Thread

[Howard]

Let me have a look tomorrow to see if they are still where I think they are and I'll let you know.

Bought a box of about 25 of them years ago , because 'they were cheap' , had a bit of a sort out a few months ago and binned a load of them , but I'm sure I kept a couple. Depends if my dad has given them to anyone or binned them ( as they were stored in his workshop )

I might also have some h7 HID's in the garage ( fitted them to the clk when I first got it , before seeing just how dazzling they really were and taking them off ) , you can have them if I can find them.

 

[John Jones Jr]

Thanks
Something like that would work - but I need to figure out what to mount it too! TBH, the panel isn't the biggest worry (I can make the panel out of some aluminum sheet) - it's the box behind that I need. I was hoping to find a ready-made solution on the cheap, but it looks like either I need to make my own (i.e. cost of renting some oxy cylinders + some sheet) or getting it made.

Some light alloy, a vice, drill & pop rivets should do the job.

 

[Spinal]

???? FROM THIS REFERENCE web service - Free download of Soviet topographic maps (also known as Genshtab maps) - Geographic Information Systems Stack Exchange

Òîïîãðàôè÷åñêèå êàðòû

That's one annoying website!!! It terminates your connection if you open too many links at the same time...

Will have to write a script just to get the maps...

Thank you though - they don't have them all, but they certainly have many of them!

Interestingly, buried somewhere in there (Ukranian?) is a link to the OziExplorer metadata to actually link the gifs, which is amazing.

M.

 

[Spinal]

This site also has the Soviet maps (and some others), but won't allow me to download them automagically as they use captchas... that said, it has a very (very) nice implementation/frontend to view them. While not so useful for this trip, it's quite interesting to look at really.

Maps for the world

This site on the other hand lets you download 200 maps at a time
Homyaki
Which is quite nice, but again, when downloading 20,000 maps may take a while.

I may have found a solution (growing impatient with the 25Kib throttle I need on the Ukrainian site)... if it works, I'll be very pleased.

Second map source will be OSM, which should work quite well everywhere bar Mongolia and Kazakhstan as there are no permanent roads in the areas we are going... The attached picture gives an idea of what the highways look like in the Gobi desert.

The third and worst case scenario source will be some paper maps... trying to find these; but they're all hard to find (i.e. not on amazon )
* The Mongolia Road Atlas has a scale of 1:1,000,000. Published by Gazryn Zurag Co. Ltd
* The Mongolia Geographic Map. You need this one because it comes with trilingual place names - marked in English, Russian and Mongolian

I haven't looked into maps for Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan (the stans). I know we will avoid Iran and Afghanistan, which means probably taking the "ferry" across the Caspian, which isn't the safest of things.

Note to self... pack an inflatable life-raft... (or even better, does anyone know where I can get one of those airplane, self-inflating, things? )

M.

 

[Dieselman]

Bring spares, plenty of spares. As, from my experience on several different cars & 4x4's, they don't like rough roads. I had to revert back to good quality standard bulbs, no issues with premature bulbs blowing since.

Think about it, how do you make a tungsten lamp glow brighter...make the filament burn hotter.

 

[John Jones Jr]

Think about it, how do you make a tungsten lamp glow brighter...make the filament burn hotter.

Did somebody say different?

 

[Deleted member 65149]

The third and worst case scenario source will be some paper maps... trying to find these; but they're all hard to find (i.e. not on amazon )
* The Mongolia Road Atlas has a scale of 1:1,000,000. Published by Gazryn Zurag Co. Ltd
* The Mongolia Geographic Map. You need this one because it comes with trilingual place names - marked in English, Russian and Mongolian

I have a set of Operational Navigation Charts (ONC E7, E8, F7, F8) covering all of Mongolia and adjacent bits of Russia and China. They're 1:1,000,000. I haven't used them for over ten years but they were better than the navigational skills of the locals when I did! They're all from the late 80's but, as you know, there's little in the way of roads anyway so they'll still be a pretty good guide. PM me if you'd like to borrow them.

But having said that about the roads, there are some new ones going in (particularly to the mining areas of course) so it would be handy to know about them. If you can't get hold of the Road Atlas, I'm sure I can get one of my many Mongolian relatives to source one for you. My wife did a lot of travelling around there last year and says the atlas is very good. (Have you tried the Mongol Centre in London? 020 7603 5453)

 

[Deleted member 65149]

As for negotiating the "roads" - here's an example from a school trip I went on in 2012:

(My wife and I helped to set up a school in Ulaanbaatar 15 years ago. Oyunii Tuv Secondary and Highschool)

 

[Dieselman]

Do they normally drive on the left in Mongolia?

 

[Deleted member 65149]

Do they normally drive on the left in Mongolia?

They drive wherever their fancy (and the potholes) takes them!

 

[Spinal]

It struck me that I haven't posted the fundraising link here, but only on my site.

Cool Earth - Cool Earth

Thanks to knighterrant for the first support, and the best map of Mongolia!

Any support for cool earth is kindly appreciated. Obviously, as donations are made directly on cool-earth's site, all donations go to them

M.