By Ida Bridgeman.
‘A third of the way around the planet in a vehicle you swapped for a bag of crisps…Welcome to the World’s Greatest Road Trip.’ This is how the Mongol Rally introduces itself. I spent a snowy March evening nestled away in the corner of the Swan and Three Cygnets pub, hearing about the plans of four young men with a serious mission ahead of them. They plan to take on the Mongol Rally 2023, a road race from England to Mongolia in which they are given next to no guidance or help. The organisers of this event say that their ‘only job is to tell you where the finish line is and wait for you to turn up a battered but better person’.
As all good stories do, Charlie starts his with ‘We were in the pub one day…’. Having met in the early weeks of their first term at Durham University, the four young men proceeded to, as is now a regular occurrence, chat the night away with tales of stupidity and plans of adventure. When given too much free time and a couple of pints, they have a habit of ‘coming up with dumb ideas’. Charlie in wistful reminiscence tells me that ‘we were going to sail a bathtub across the English Channel’, but then, in reflection he adds ‘you forget about the choppiness’, followed by ‘and bathtubs aren’t particularly stable’ (Not quite a sieve, but something of that Edward Lear poem ‘The Jumblies’ springs to mind). Unlike the failed bathtub race though, the Mongol Rally actually exists, as does the boys desire to partake in it, and so they shook hands and were set.
The trip has been branded ‘Tour 4 MMM’. They proudly regard it as ‘a very clever multi-layered name’. Four young men, raising money for the charity Men’s Minds Matter, by touring across Europe and Asia in a rattling tin can. Their slogan? – ‘Eat my rust’. It’s a tacit nod to the boys’ style: speed is necessary at all costs, and a little rust never hurts. Or does it? I’m not entirely convinced by the quality of mechanics skills on hand. Fortunately, ‘Ralph studies engineering’. This reassuring statement seems to be their answer to any mechanical mishaps they might encounter along the way.
Friends of the boys thought it was a ‘pipedream’ until ‘Nina’ showed up in Durham. The love these four have for one car could quite frankly compete with any Hollywood meet cute. Think love at first sight but the car dealer version. Ralph found it on Ebay, and Archie and Charlie went to check it out in some slightly dodgy looking industrial estate. They spoke to ‘a proper wheeler dealer’, with an earpiece in and a supposed long list of clients desperate to buy the car if these boys didn’t. One test drive alongside some haggling and it was a done deal, that was their car. ‘It’s the look we’re going for’ is the fond way they describe the rusted top, jammed close sunroof and awkwardly square bonnet of the tiny Nissan Micra. They were hooked. And the next week ‘Nina’ (the name taken from a sort of anagram of Nissan) arrived.
The role of securing sponsorship and heading the campaign is given to Archie aka ‘Mr corporate chat’ himself. He is also head navigator because, unfortunately at 20 years old, he still can’t drive. A skill one might think useful for a multi-week road trip. This did not seem to faze the boys; they are convinced he will learn before the summer – nothing will deter this team. I asked who would be the man to get them out of a sticky situation and Archie is their answer – at least he can talk if he can’t drive.
George, head of socials and marketing, has big plans for spreading their story, aiming for 1,000 Instagram followers by next term. The Instagram page in question is a combination of amusing stories and serious content, ‘come on boys take this seriously we need a picture for our corporate post’ we were told on the photoshoot. It was hard to balance that with George’s insistence on ‘more sex appeal’, if we’re going to look like a boy band (as a passer-by suggested them to be) we want more Oasis and less Blur.
Charlie is ‘Head of finance’ or so they say – Archie usually chips in before a heated debate ensues regarding who best lives up to their roles. They meet in the Swan to discuss plans, a pub where electronics are banned and storytelling encouraged, an environment fitting for the remote nature of their upcoming mission. When I asked the location that they are most looking forward to travelling in, Ralph suggests anywhere remote, ‘when the road goes from tarmac to dust, then we’re getting serious’.
‘What’s going to be your go-to meal?’ I tentatively asked. Archie’s face lit up as he explained that he is in the process of gaining sponsorship from MRE empire, an army rations company. Quite a pragmatic answer to the pertinent issue of eating during the trip. The same couldn’t be said for George’s insistence on bringing ‘one of those blow-up mattress things’ along with him for five weeks in a car that barely seemed big enough for themselves. Another sponsor that Archie has worked hard to secure is ‘Fuel the Adventure’, providing the boys with iconic jerry-can shaped electrical power banks. CEO Barry Jenkins described the boys as ‘4 lunatics’ but has said in a comment ‘I am delighted to be supporting such a worthy cause as they fuel their adventure for MMM’. Then, George piped up with ‘do you want a joke for your article?’:
‘Who can drink 20 litres of petrol?
Jerry can.’
(There we go George, joke included)
I inquired, in true Desert Island Discs fashion, what luxury items they would be taking – they will be camping and roughing it with the bare minimum of luggage. Ralph initially said a pillow, which they all agreed was a necessity, before settling for loo roll. In my opinion loo roll is a given – but there you go. Archie picked a satellite radio so he can listen to football – the language barrier won’t be an issue he insists, ‘I could be listening to it in German, you can still understand ‘1-0’.
Charlie contributed with ‘I’m a pretty simple man I don’t really need any luxuries in life’ and mentioned something about maybe a pot of olives. In the meantime, George, as a diligent PPE student, has decided he will bring a book or two to enrich himself along the way; he’s recently been reading Hawking’s ‘The Theory of Everything’. He reckons he’s cracked physics, now I wonder if he should move to a car manual.
Loud would be an understatement when describing these four. I overheard someone put to them the question of whether they might run out of conversation. My opinion? No chance. The only silence will be when they have a hugely over-dramatic argument over who messed up the cable ties that were holding the wing mirror together. Not unlikely given it fell off during a drive to the coast. I asked if they think it will fall out and the responses were mixed. Let’s hope the team doesn’t implode from within like a supernova surpassing Chandrasekhar’s limit, but only time will tell. This phenomenon (dredged from my non-existent knowledge of physics) happens when a star’s core surpasses a certain mass, which leaves me wondering what the mass limit is for a Nissan Micra to carry four blokes, an armfuls of army rations, George’s blow-up mattress, a slab of hopefully correct visa paperwork, and a couple of tinnys thrown in for those not driving (so Archie all the time at this rate).
The Mongol rally organisers give some helpful words which I think are quite fitting: ‘if the sky falls on your head, prop it up with a stick and carry on. If you break down, find a way to fix it, buy a horse or start walking’. Our interview ended with imaginary maps being drawn in the air, and across the pub table, the words border crossing, getting lost, and avoid war zones blended into the general evening buzz.