It is commonly thought that Exodus was written by Moses, way out in the Middle East, around the 5th century BC. This edition, however, is being written by Alex in a rather chillier climate, though fortunately graced by the 20th century (AD) invention of central heating.
The decision of which route to take had been a hot topic of conversation recently, to go through Iran or not to go through Iran, to breach the Chinese borders or to skirt round the edge of Uzbekistan, were all weighing on the minds of the fine young explorers. Facing the inconvenient truth that they weren't able to part the Caspian Sea to reach the promised lands (of Mongolia), they either had to go north through Russia or south through a rather more unstable territory. The prospect of travelling through countries like Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan was met with about as much trepidation as experienced by the Jews being told to march straight out of Egypt. The idea just seemed preposterous.
Some were feeling more pessimistic than others, cyber cries rang out across facebook of "But we might get killed", "We're just asking for trouble" and "They don't accept cashcards in Tehran". But unfortunately these protests fell on deaf ears of the other explorers, so it was decided to consult a higher deity, the British Government.
The Home Office website contained a whole host of information relating to the potential countries they could travel through, including ten very important rules, commandments if you please, about what to do and what not to do when travelling to these troubled territories. I shan't bore you with all the details of what looked like fairly simple rules, but the main one made it clear that "thou shalt not go within 100km of the Iran/Afghan border".
It was thus decided henceforth that the quartet should heed the warnings given to them, fully in the knowledge that if they strayed from these rules they would be at the mercy of President Ahmadinejad (Satan). So, safe in the knowledge ground rules had been established it was finally time to put pen to papyrus and get their route sorted once and for all as they had to start applying for visas, without which, safe passage could not be granted.
Hasta la vista,
GKD
Our challenge
Summarised by Microsoft Paint
About Us
- genghiskhantdrive
- London, South East, United Kingdom
- We are a group of friends that have recently graduated in July 2009 and are planning to take part in next July's Mongol rally, a harem-scarem race across Europe and Southern Asia to the Mongolian capital, Ulaan Bataar. Before signing up, we were given the option of using either a car with an engine smaller than 1.2 litres, or an ex-service vehicle. Being a rather intrepid quintet, we have chosen the latter: an old ambulance (with around 250k miles on the clock), which we hope to kit out with bedding, a kitchenette and, assuming space allows, a pre-Baroque dining room with bar billiards.
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