24:00
Welcome to episode 9 of our biggest adventure ever. In the first 30 days of the rally, we've driven our school bus over 3,000 mi through nine different countries, but the real adventure started when we got to Azerbaijan. In case you missed last week's drama, we shipped the bus across the Caspian Sea on a ferry. A journey that should have taken 17 hours total ended up being 74. SOS, help. It was definitely the most challenging and memorable 3 days of the rally. After surviving that, we finally made it to Turkmenistan!
This is the least visited country in all of Asia. Country number 115 together. According to the internet, they only receive an estimated 8 to 15,000 tourists per year, and you're required to have a guide with you for the entire trip. Turkmenistan is pretty bizarre, but in a good way. They have the cheapest gas in the world. cost $5.80 for the whole thing. The roads are adventurous. We're going to lose a headlight in no time. All of the buildings in the capital city are made of white marble, and it's illegal to drive anything other than a white car there. a lot like the Truman Show.
Then, last but not least, this giant crater in the middle of the desert has been burning for over 50 years. It feels like we're on the edge of a volcano crater. This is without a doubt the most interesting country of the entire Mongol Rally, so sit back, relax, and join us for 96 hours in Turkmenistan. Here we go. Good morning. It is day 30 of the Mongol Rally and our first full day in Turkmenistan. Last night we got off the ferry around 10:00 p.m. It took us 5, 6, 7 hours to clear customs, and then we drove 2 hours to the town of Balkanabat,
where we didn't get to our hotel until 4:00 a.m. this morning we were up bright and early. We piled into some 4x4s and we are heading out into the mountains. Also, if there's any question about how hot it is in Turkmenistan, our guy just stopped and put up all of these window shades to keep the sun off of us. It is a good thing we didn't bring the bus down this road. This is one of the craziest drives of my life. We've been on this for over an hour and it's clear that our drivers have done this a million times cuz they are going so fast. It's bumpy, it's curvy, it's hilly, and there are camels everywhere.
I've never seen so many camels in my life. They just walk right in front of the cars and we have to slam on the brakes every time. Our guy called them traffic police. They do slow you down, but I would bet I've seen more camels today in the last hour than I've seen in my entire life put together. Wow, 3 hours later, we have made it. For a minute there, it felt like we traded the Mongol Rally for the Dakar Rally. That was one of the craziest drives of my life, but now we're staring at one of the most unworldly views I've ever seen.
It's like we're on the moon. What are the name of these mountains? Yeah, they're called like canyons, we call them. They kind of looks like how the inside of my mouth feels. My tongue just sticks to the roof. Frank, you look really uncomfortable with your air mouth. I farted on my butt cheeks. You look pretty stiff. Oh god, I'm so relaxed. This formation is called the dragon's mouth. I could literally munch and break it off of you. So, run at me. I need you to trust me.
Kiss, kiss, kiss. I don't think we're allowed to do that in Turkmenistan. Do it. Illegal kissing. Yes. I'm really going to try not to say this the entire rest of our trip through this part of the world, but it is hot. The best way to describe it is it feels like you're standing in front of a hair dryer. Yes. There's a good breeze, but even that breeze is intensely hot. The car AC can barely keep up. Like it's comfortable in here, but it's not cold. The funny thing is when we booked this tour, like going with a guide was the only way to see Turkmenistan. So, we hired a guide, they put together an
itinerary, and I didn't really even look at what we were doing. And so, all of this is just kind of a surprise to me. Like, I have no idea where we are right now. And Turkmenistan has no internet. So, the next 4 days is going to be us just regurgitating whatever Geldi tells us. You will like it. What is it? Is it milk? Uh it's It's made of the camel milk. Don't don't waste too much on me, and I know the rest of these guys, especially Charlie. Okay. That was Uh maybe a half cup.
Okay. It looks thick. It's very cold. Here's some if you don't mind. Cheers in Turkmen. We have a Russian "Nazdarovya". Nazdarovya. Oh, wow. It's a lot. It's like tingly. Almost tastes like a probiotic, like yogurt. It's kind of salty because all the like salt content of all the plants that the camels ate. And that's what gives it that flavor. Woah. One small. I'm sure Not everybody wants After being out in this hot desert, 104°. Literally you can give us salty camel milk, and we're like, as long as it's cold, it's delicious.
This is out of sheer desperation. The AC knob messed up, and I tried to kind of make it better, and I made it worse, and now the AC doesn't work at all. We're not going to make it. We're not going to survive this. Just for some context, when we got dropped off by our drivers, Rick's driver had a temperature gauge in his car, and it was 107°. And my driver asked how it was possible to drive without air conditioning. This just broke in Azerbaijan. The little like lever that you were using with the pliers to twist like pushed into the dashboard and fell into the hole back there.
This is the worst news ever. What's the plan? This whole thing comes off. Oh. It's kind of rattling off, to be honest. And there's like a few things connected to it, which we could disconnect each one, but because that will take a while and we got to get going soon, I'm going to try to just slide it one way, pull one bolt off, slide it the other way, pull the other bolt off, and get this ace this air conditioning kind of unit out of there and just see if we can get to the back of it, figure out where that knob pushed through, then crank it to full AC and glue it in place. Good news is the road has loosened most of the bolts in the plastic trim.
Okay, I lost that. I see it right here. Good sign. It's not working. That's the knob. Okay. Oh. It's on heat. Who had that on heat? That's zero and now it's max. Okay, max, max. Oh, that is beautiful. Let's go back. There's no way we would have survived without that. To air conditioner. Hey, from here we have a 6-hour drive to the capital city of Ashgabat. Starting at 8:00 p.m. We're keeping our late-night schedule.
Oh, we're going to make it to Ashgabat. Carol is going 80. NO, I'M NOT. I'm going 60. I've heard the roads only get worse from here. Every day it's going to be more of this, but we're getting bounced TO THE CEILING. THE ROADS ARE LIKE SUPER smooth and beautiful, and then all OF A SUDDEN THAT. HEY, IT'S NOT THE BEGINNING, GUYS. THIS IS NOT THE BEGINNING. WE are halfway to Ashgabat and about to fill up with gas for the first time in Turkmenistan. Just wait.
Green or blue? 86 manats. We just up for $8.60. This is crazy. Okay, I needed to do the conversion and double check. $7.16. I had told us that the gas was going to be cheap here, but that is blowing my mind. I just did some more rough math and that's like $0.34 a gallon. They have oil here, but apparently it's also subsidized by the government and that's why it's so cheap. I feel like my brain's going to explode. Wow, 2:15 in the morning and we've made it to the outskirts of Ashgabat. I had heard this before, but I didn't believe it was true. So, in order to drive inside of the capital city, you have to
have a white car. And since the bus is yellow, we've had to park outside the city and we're getting a van to our hotel. Wow, looks like a palace. This hotel is crazy. feels like we're in a movie. Like I don't know how else to describe it. My expectations are too high. Wow, it's actually really beautiful. I'm so happy. We get to be here for two nights. I just like I can't stop thinking about the night we slept at the ferry port and the two nights we slept sweating on ferry on dirty mattresses and now we're here and it smells good and it's cold and it's gold.
We need sleep. Somehow on the Mongol Rally, especially in the last week, we are averaging a 3:00 a.m. bedtime. Not on purpose. None of us are like this in our normal life. It just keeps happening this way. All right. Tomorrow, we explore one of the most unique cities in the entire world. Real quick, Nate from the future here. This whole costume will make a lot more sense in a future video, but for now I need to tell you about the sponsor of today's video, AG1. This little pack right here is basically like an entire cabinet full of all the best supplements
in one single package. AG1 has been part of our daily routine for over 5 years now, and especially during times like the Mongol Rally. We like to think of it as our nutritional insurance. Now, you can't have like a horrible diet and expect this to fix everything, but there are times when we find ourselves on the road drinking a Coke and having a bag of chips for lunch because that's the only option. So, it feels way better knowing that we put at least one good thing in our body that day because AG1 is full of 80 vitamins, minerals, prebiotics, probiotics. All the goodness your body needs made from whole food sourced ingredients. But, I will say there is one thing that AG1 had been lacking for
me personally because when I'm training for these ultra marathons, I like to take creatine because that helps preserve muscle mass and when you're running a lot that's easy to lose. And now, AG1 has introduced AG1 Pro, which is their next gen formula with all the good stuff I just told you about plus creatine. So, now literally the only supplement I take every day while training for ultra marathons is AG1 Pro. So, if you want to try it out and it's your first subscription to AG1, either their next gen product or their AG1 Pro, you can get a free immunity support bundle. We'll link this down below, and that comes with the omega-3 fish oils and the vitamin D3 K2 drops, which is a
$90 value. Again, to grab that just click the link in the description below. Day 31 of the Mongol Rally, and it's crazy. I'm just standing here looking out the window at hundreds of white cars on the road. It seems like there might be an exception for silver and gold as well, But the entire city is basically white. Ashgabat is actually nicknamed the white city and it has a Guinness World Record for the highest white marble concentration in the world. There are over 500 buildings in the city with a white marble facade. It doesn't look real. We're about to go meet up with our guide for lunch and then we're going to go explore the city. And I have not been this excited about a city tour maybe
ever. Like the more we travel the more I crave different and unique and it doesn't get much more unique than this. Wow, even the tour bus is white. This is epic. We thought that you like buses so This is crazy. We get our own full tour bus for the day. It's air conditioned and we all get our own seat. This is a luxury. I bet it's because of our statue. That's our national animal, the horses. What's this building with the gold domes up in front of us?
It's the winter sports complex. Like ice skating? Yeah, ice skating. Yeah, ice hockey. Even the traffic lights are white. White is coming from our traditions, from our history. We believe that white attracts good things. That's good for the fortune. Yeah. So especially the new cuz in 1948 we had a devastating earthquake that was 9.2. Yeah, and of course there are around 200,000 people who have passed away. So did they rebuild it white starting from 1942? After independence they start like
doing white everything. What are some ways that the government supports the people? Like if you are working for a special fields or working like 10, 15 years in the end the government gives as a mortgage with zero interest house and apartment. So education is free here. For example, like second primary school, secondary school is free education. Everybody should have that. Gas and water and electricity is like up to 2030 so like it's all free. The 15-minute ride to lunch was one of the most interesting bus rides of my life. What a crazy place. Our first stop of the day is lunch. He said we have to try one of their famous dishes called plov. This is a popular dish in a lot of the countries around
this area from what I understand, but they all differ just a bit. And here in Turkmenistan, they have this tomato onion mix. Oh my gosh, it smells like salsa. So, apparently I'm supposed to dump this entire thing in this bowl of rice that has some vegetables and an entire clove of garlic just sitting here right on top. Oh my gosh, the rice alone is so good. I'm almost scared to dump this whole thing in there. It's amazing. This is one of my favorite things that I've eaten on this trip.
How's the meat? The meat is exceptionally good. I don't try to eat a ton of meat when I'm traveling to new weird places, but this uh this was uh a risk worth taking. This is really good. We already destroyed it all, but we also got this beautiful plate of bread. I almost put my straw in my rice. It looked like this, but double the size. What's the bread? 11 out of Now the real city tour officially begins, even though the first 15 minutes already felt like we learned so much.
Mosque says preach with mosque of Queen Bashu. So, locals call it Guipchack Mosque. And this is the biggest single dome mosque in Central Asia. You have so many patterns like this. So, this is representing the eight entrances to the heaven. The carpet is so soft. Wow. The ceiling is so beautiful. Like it looks like a kaleidoscope. So, I asked our guide if it was appropriate if I lay down and just look at it. It's mesmerizing. And you see, that's the dome. And we will have a uh window. You see, that's 48 windows. This is representing, symbolizing the year of earthquake. Which way do you face when you pray?
Uh for the Mecca. So, every mosque direction is always to the Mecca. Yeah, so we have you see, we have eight entrances, eight doors. The eighth one should be in this side, but it's the last entrance from the Mecca side. And I if you pay attention, there is so many codes. Those quotes are from the book of first president. That's called Ruhnama. So and the book is promoting the peace, the unity, the brotherhood. Our next stop is the Russian Bazaar and it's called that because it was built back when Turkmenistan was part of the Soviet Union. It's a big open-air market with all kinds of different fruits and vegetables and I think we're going to
get to try a few things here. Where you from? America. America, you are welcome. Welcome to Gulistan market. Just a minute, please. Melon is the best. Number one. Please. Number one. Made in Turkmenistan. Please. Thank you. Bon appetit. Waharman. Please. Mmm. Sure. Come on. Very good. Made in Turkmenistan. That is really so good. It's like a cross between like a melon and a pear. Yeah. like this crispy like pear almost. juicy.
Yeah, this is really good. It's working here for 25 years. Oh, I love a good melon. The best melons and the watermelons from this guy. He buys the best ones and he always has the best ones. I love him. Number one. Sundra melon. Try this one also, guys. I highly recommend this. Sundra melon, Turkmenistan Snickers, number one. He was number one. You have to try it. Number one. Made in Turkmenistan. Super. Oh my god. It's like caramel, isn't it? They call this a Turkmen Snickers.
Woah, that one is number one. No problem. That might be one of the best things I've ever put in my mouth and to know that it's just melon. It's like all the sugar condenses and it's so sweet. Number one. You're definitely the number one melon guy in my book. Welcome to Ashgabat. I'm sure you negotiate normally, but I'm not negotiating with this man. It's also like $3. Yeah, yeah, exactly. One melon podarka. No problem. It's a gift for you. A gift? A whole melon? Thank you. That is the biggest portion of candy I've ever seen.
Cheers. That's caviar. Come on, Frankie. You don't even have to have like half. Sturgeon, original caviar, Caspian, beluga, osetra. This is caviar from the Caspian Sea, which I feel like I have a whole new relationship with after that ferry ride. Just need a glass of champagne now. Just do it. I'm going to say 3 2 1, go. Are you ready? Tell me why you don't want to try it. Cuz it smells really bad. But you would be so brave if you tried it. I don't either.
Did she eat it? Way to go. Way to go, Evie. YEAH, EVIE. GOOD GIRL. I'M GOING TO TRY ONE SO I CAN SAY HI back to Evie. That's right. That's it. I just swallowed it. I didn't even taste You had two. So at her shop, you can buy 500 g of caviar for 250 manat, which I think is like 12 Is that like $15 for 500 g of caviar? That's pretty insane. We didn't really want to buy any. It's kind of hard to travel with it, and I don't know how much I actually love caviar, but I tried to just give her like 20 manat, a couple dollars worth of a tip, and she said, "No." She pushed my
hand away, and then she gave me like the heart sign with her hands. She said, "Go." So sweet. You would really think like with how friendly they are, like even the melon guy, like take, take, take. Here's all these things. I feel like I've been like jaded to think that like, "Oh, yeah, like they're going to ask for something after this, but let's just like enjoy it." Neither of them did. It was the opposite. He gave us a free melon. Go. All right. Wow. Okay, great. Take this. Love it. Real caviar. How's that hat? Warm. Everything feels warm. Can we remove this?
Thank you. Are we husband and wife? Yeah. Let's go. This is my wife. I can't say that. No, I know. You can't say It's a good look. What's the whip? How's he going to get it? I don't want the whip. I GOT A FLAG. I CAN'T DO ANYTHING WITH THIS. This is our like men's traditional clothing. We're driving past the presidential palace right now and it is absolutely massive. It's on both sides of the road. It feels like a city. And I was a bit worried about coming to Turkmenistan, how much I'd be able to film. I've been
able to film everything except the presidential palace. But I wish I could show you because it is very impressive. Two questions. One, for a million people, the roads seem very uncrowded. Cuz the outside is quite hot right now cuz it's in summer. So everybody is at work. When it's getting cooler, so like after the sun sets, so people decide going out. And everything is so clean. How does it stay so clean? When it's white, it all looks itself is already clean. It's a capital and it should be all proper. It should be all white and clean. So I mean, it's one of the cleanest city in the world. I can say that. This is our motherland.
It's our city. So we all see it's our house, you know? Yeah, everybody wants to keep their home clean. Yeah, it's a beautiful tradition. This is cool. Yeah. You guys build cool stuff. This part is very important and these trees are very special. So when you have a president as a guest with official visit, they plant a tree together. So this is our monument of independency. So we got our independency in 1991, 27th of October. And the height of this monument is 91 m. On the top, there is a gold part that's 27 m which is representing the day and you will see five-headed eagle and a snake at the hand which is
promoting the peace and the unity, the brotherhood. The snake like symbolizing the enemy so you can beat every enemy so when you are all together. And around we have 27 statues and they are the important people who had so big contributions in the history of Turkmenistan. I haven't personally seen the Barbie movie, but apparently everything is like pink and perfect in the Barbie movie. Rebecca was saying the city feels a lot like the white real-life version of Barbie. They're really good building beautiful things. Like a white city sounds like it could get really boring and monotonous, but like there's
something incredible that I want to film around every corner. It was this kind of special engine, the flagpole, and uh when it's not windy out that's why so it's blowing so it's the flag can be waving. Wow, I've never heard of that before. It feels a lot like the Truman Show. Same road. No cars. It's magic. It just feels so otherworldly. Like it's crazy. They have flags that fly when there's no wind. We haven't seen too many locals, but the ones that we have seen seem like characters in a movie. One of them I think escaped or he could've been jogging, I'm not sure, but he We found it.
This is literally the first piece of trash we have seen in 48 hours in this country. And it's right here. It's probably from these workers and they're probably going to come clean it up in a second, but Ashgabat allegedly has a million people that live here, but it feels like no one is outside. There's zero traffic. I don't know where they all are. We I mean, we have a 60-seater tour bus just dropping us off at every major monument in the entire city. And he just pulls up and parallel parks directly in front of all of them cuz there's no one there. Yeah. Ironically, this would've been the absolute easiest city to drive the bus through. So true. And we're not allowed to drive it in here cuz it's not white.
Oh, can you imagine all the parking spots? This is a monument of flight of neutrality. We call it the neutrality arch. And the height of this arch is 95 m. And on the top, there is a 12-m statue, like statue of the first president of Turkmenistan. And why is it 95 m? So it's representing the I'll say the year of neutrality. It's 1995. When it was in the city center, the top statue was always turning towards the sun. So when the sun was here, it's turning here. When it was here, it turns was always following the sun. This is one of the major monuments in the city. There's our group. There's no one else. We're the only ones here. It's completely empty.
I thought we were pulling up to this gorgeous monument. I'm like, "What's that?" The largest indoor Ferris wheel. If you've been following a while, you know that Ferris wheels are special in our relationship. Are we going to ride it? We've broken the seal. The end of an era. We're Ferris wheel people now. How long do you think the line will be to GET IN? WOW. THIS IS ONE of the coolest looking buildings I've ever seen, and it holds the Guinness World Record for the world's largest indoor Ferris wheel.
Unbelievable. There's not a soul here. Not a single soul. We are going to have this entire thing to ourselves. Well, if you guessed zero people in line, you would be right. At the world's largest indoor Ferris wheel. We're the only people in the whole building. It's like they just flipped on all the rides for us to walk around and have a look at. Thanks. Blows my mind. It's like kind of weird that everything is on, like all the lights and the music, but like no one's here. Charlie, how much did it cost?
450 manat, less than 40 USD for nine people. Pretty good. We don't know how long it takes. We don't know what we're looking at. Except we're going in a golden orb. This line is long. Even you have when you see inside. All the AC is nice. See you there. Bye. It was really great to be with you. Good luck. They've never used them before. They don't know how they shut. I think they shut like this. We didn't even look at our ticket.
They didn't I mean it. Why did they even give it to us? We're the only people in the town. Yeah. Three heavy people. Oh, this door is open. Exciting. The door just falls open when you touch it. We're overlooking a massive park with all kinds of beautiful trees for shade and benches, and there's not a single person out there. Like, it's hot, for sure, but like the sun's gone down. It's definitely cooled off. It feels lovely. And you would just think more people would use this space.
Like, why is it here? Why do they build all this stuff if no one uses it? Thank you. All right. Check that off the list. Ride the world's tallest indoor Ferris wheel. We've come out to a viewpoint to overlook the city as all the lights come on, and uh once again, I'm standing in the middle of the road. Not a soul in sight. We've been saying that there's no people here, but we've just come to the mall for dinner, and I think we found everyone.
Wow, so many people at the mall. It's just a bit of a shock after not seeing anyone else the rest of the day, but this is obviously where the locals hang out. We're back in our hotel room, and I definitely did not picture a night in Turkmenistan ending with pool and karaoke. Where are we? It's turned into a nightclub. Day 32 of the Mongol Rally. I just saw the room rates. The most expensive room is like $40 at this hotel. What time did y'all go to sleep last night? 3:40.
This is the biggest rager we've had the whole trip happening right here in this uh apparently locked down authoritarian state where you can't do anything. We did a lot of things, and it was really fun. And now I feel like I'm going to die. And I got to get on a bus for 7 hours. I think we just did an absolutely massive shot because we are heading out into the desert for the next 2 days. This is where the trip really starts to get exciting. What we're about to do is how I pictured the majority of the
Mongol Rally and we're 32 days in and we haven't even gotten there yet. We've been panicking on how we're going to keep 24 eggs safe on a 5-hour drive with non-stop bumps where we literally come off of the seat. And I think this collector's edition Jack box with a scarf could do the trick. It's our friend Jack helping us out again. It's going to work. And from here we have a 6-hour drive to the Darwaza Crater, which is nicknamed the Gate to Hell. This place has been on my bucket list for years. And the fact that we get to drive a yellow school bus to it just makes it that much better. All right, gas fill-up number two. Let's see how much this one cost.
We've got majority of the eggs secured in the Jack box. We're going to store them in the cooler and hope for the best. We just got a fourth of a tank for $3.41. So there's one thing that we haven't talked about yet, which is there's an official exchange rate and then there's like a black market exchange rate. And I don't really understand how this whole system works. But like if you look online, 1 US dollar is equivalent to 3.5 manat. But here through different means of exchanging money, we've been able to exchange 1 US dollar for between 12 and 18 manat. So the first day when we went to the grocery store, we bought a bag of Cheetos and we thought it cost $14 and we thought this is the most expensive
country in the world. But then once that exchange rate shifts from 3.5 to 18, it starts to feel like the cheapest country in the world. Trying out a new strategy for the first time in the entire Mongol Rally, and that is driving with all the windows shut. Every time we've gone somewhere, we rolled them all down. It's super windy, but at least there's like a breeze cuz the AC hasn't been great. But ever since Breaking Back fixed it, it feels five times better than it was before. So, we're trying to just cool the bus with the AC only. Problem is the vents are all in front, and I don't know
if it's ever going to reach the back, but we figured it was worth a try. And right now, we're all sweating so much it's comical. Like I think this is the hottest we've been the entire time. We've been in the car for 5 minutes. The weather said the high was 102° today, but it feels hotter. Yes! Nice, Carol. It's totally working. I've resorted to wetting a bandana and putting it around my neck. It's like we're running an ultra-marathon, but all we're doing is just sitting in a bus all day.
We need snacks. We need water. Apparently, this part of Turkmenistan is really nice, but I wouldn't know cuz I blocked every window to keep the heat out. This side of the bus has the sun facing it, and the whole wall's just hot. The glass is hot, the metal's hot. We knew this day was coming. So, we've just gotten to the last gas station before we head out into the desert. They're out of diesel now, but they said a truck's coming in 30 minutes, and we have 500 km to drive before we get to another gas station. So, we have to wait for the truck to come fill up the pumps so that we can get diesel before we continue on. But check out the view from this gas station. It's just dunes as far as you can see. Look at this guy.
Where could he possibly be going? Well, there could be worse places to wait. We're in an air-conditioned cafe with uh one of the cooler sitting arrangements I've ever seen. It's like a big raised double king bed with a carpet on top. I love it here. This is my favorite truck stop I've ever been to. Wait, wow. It's like a pumpkin empanada. Woah, Rachel, you're really going for it. It's delicious. Like, I know the camel milk stuff was a little heavy. This is really light and like, I mean, it's it's like sparkling water with a little fizz.
Like, it looks way milkier than it tastes. Yeah, it's really refreshing and it's really cold. Refreshing. It's not salty and camel milky. It's really interesting. Back on the road and Yaeldish is in the driver's seat. Yaeldish is really excited to drive the school bus and we're all very grateful to not be driving, so this works out. I mean, I wanted to try to give up being a guide. Like, I can be a bus driver or Yeah. Gosh, we're going like half a mile an hour.
Yaeldish is wild. We're really living life right now. We're going to win the headlight in no time. This is the first time on the trip that I've needed motion sickness medicine. We're just zigzagging back and forth across the road trying to dodge as many puddles as we can. For the first time in the whole trip, we're playing musical chairs based on who feels the most carsick. We've also given up on the AC strategy. We've got all of these windows open, but we've also covered up all these windows and it's not too bad. Sun goes down in about an hour, which is great for the heat, but not great for the roads. I'm actually quite nervous about that. We
tried to leave in time to not drive in the dark, but nine people, everything just takes longer. We haven't learned our lesson yet. We're having to do a lot of work up here. I like driving the bus. I never expected like I would drive this good at this road. I have no idea how he can sleep on this bed. Okay, the sun just went down. It's been 5 hours since we left and this drive is supposed to take 5 and 1/2, so we might be in the clear. Fingers crossed. If the bus survives the next 2 weeks of
this, it's going to be a miracle. OH MY GOD. WHAT IS THAT? THIS IS INSANE. WHAT IS THIS PLACE? WE'RE GOING IN. WOW. OH MY GOD. OH MY. WHAT IS THIS? THAT IS WILD. OH MY GOD. WOW. LOOK AT IT. OH MY GOD. AMAZING. HEY, great driving. Wow, this is better in real life. This is insane. I've seen so many videos of this place online. It feels like we're on the edge of a volcano crater. And this is feels so sketchy. There's no Holy. We literally just drove almost drove the bus into the hole. Absolutely wild. You can feel the heat coming off of it. As if it wasn't already hot enough. So the story goes, back in 1971 during the Soviet Union,
they were drilling for natural gas here. At some point their whole rig collapsed into the ground and the natural gas was leaking out everywhere. So, their solution was to light it on fire, and they thought it would just burn for a few days, and now it's been here for 56 years. I am a little sad we didn't bring marshmallows. I read that it was getting, um, less. It's getting less. Why? Because of like so many wind and then so many rain happening here. So, it's covering the fire, the flame. Maybe we need to we need somebody go inside put the fire.
They have more fire. It's hard to believe that this bus started in Colorado, and now it's sitting on the edge of the door to hell in Turkmenistan. What a journey. If it all ended here, I'd be content 10 times over. This is the closest I've ever been to an eternal flame. This little guy escaped outside of the Never heard that one. I want to touch it. Depending on where you walk around the crater, you just get these massive like hot gust of wind coming right up in your face. It changes by like 20° depending on where you are. After soaking in these views as long as we could, it was time to make the
5-minute drive to our accommodations. But, to get there, we had to drive up this hill, where according to our guide, every other Mongol Rally car has gotten stuck. Here we go. Oh, oh, crap. Goddess, we went off the road a little bit. Let me go see where the road's at, and we'll we'll get you back on the hard pack. Okay. You want to go that way about 3 m. So, angle it back that way. Cut it as hard as you can, and go slow. All right. Now we're stuck. Okay, we're attempting to push it back past the steep part of sand. Yes! Keep going!
NEXT ONE. YEAH! WOO! NOW, TURN! TURN, TURN, TURN! ARE WE STILL GOING FOR THE HILL? YEAH! SO! Well done, team. All right, we're off. Here we go. Made it, guys. Yeah. Here we are. Best day ever. Unfortunately, during all of that chaos, our microphone quit working. So, let me help explain what you can't hear us saying. Tonight, we are sleeping in these domes, which are super cool in
theory, but it was still over 100° outside. So, this is me noticing that the walls were made of this beautiful thick carpet instead of windows for ventilation. Somehow, it was hotter in here than it was outside. But, we were pumped to find this remote that turned on this teeny tiny ceiling fan. Um but, more on that later. For dinner, you guessed it, we are eating this tower of peanut butter ramen with cilantro and boiled eggs, thanks to our friend Jack who protected all but two of them. It's 12:17 in the morning. We have a 5:00 a.m. wake-up call, but the boys are in the middle of a very serious ping-pong tournament. So, I decided to go to bed. However, I just needed to share that this place is amazing and in
theory, these domes are so cool, but it is boiling in this room. I have this on me right now, but I will be lying on top of the bed completely naked. At least it's less than 5 hours and then we go sit in the hot tubs. Ah, this is great. I really do love it. Sleeping right next to this burning crater in Turkmenistan with all my friends. It's a beautiful life. Good night. So, during the night, they turned the generator off, which meant that tiny fan giving us the slightest relief was no more. This is us explaining that we basically laid in a puddle of our own sweat all night long. And here Rick is
telling us that half of our crew decided to literally sleep on the ground outside because it was so unbearably hot, which I wish I would have thought of too. But we all rallied and hit the road at 6:00 a.m. in order to drive 10 hours to the Uzbek stamp border before it gets dark tonight. Geldis told us these would be the worst road conditions of them all. So, we had a long day ahead of us. Okay, so the AC keeps turning off and there's this button that's missing and we need to get the pliers and like pull it towards us in order for the air to be cold and we're failing at that and Rick's taking the whole thing apart
again and we're going to try to tape it. Why are we able to get it about 40° in here? So hot. We've covered all the windows up with blanket. All right, driver swap. We're just going to finish out the last 2 and 1/2 hours. Hopefully it's actually 2 and 1/2. That's about all I got in me. Kara and I have traveled for 10 years and we have driven a lot of bad roads. Without a doubt, this one wins the prize for the worst road I've ever driven. Not your best work today, Rick. He's getting into the flow of things up here. I love how this is the not so bad part.
Freaking terrible. It's a sad day. That was our last time filling up in Turkmenistan. We had 1/8 of a tank left and it cost $5.80 for the whole tank. We made our first turn of the day, which is a big deal. This road already feels a thousand times better. It's not perfect, obviously, but I think we'll go twice as fast. Now we just have a roughly 2 and 1/2 hour drive to the border. We survived the worst part and if this tells you anything my watch thinks I've worked out for 42 minutes today. And all I've done is sit here.
I lied. The road is totally bad. Oh yeah, that wheel is definitely about to fall off. And we're realizing it was got removed from the car as well. Removed from the car, stolen. I reckon this is the first school bus ever to drive into this old city. All right, in the next episode of simple things made hard. I'm not kidding. If somebody said we should just forget the finish line in Kazakhstan and stand in his Pakistan, I would sign up for that.
Incredible in every direction. Which is your favorite fire? I've got one. My favorite is the little one over on the right there. See how it's kind of It's like two burning rocks. Yeah. That is cool. The dead fish is up here nice touch.
