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Welcome to episode 11 of our biggest adventure ever. I feel like this is a pretty good representation of us, beaten and battered, but still hanging on. We only have one week left. Over the last 36 days of the rally, we've driven our school bus over 6,000 miles through 12 different countries. We just thought the rally had some challenging moments when we started back in Europe, but once we got past Georgia, the real adventure began. We got a bunch of stuff stolen out of the bus in Azerbaijan. We found something else that they stole. Then there was the whole 74-hour Caspian Sea ferry drama, and we spent hours and
hours driving the worst roads we've ever experienced in our lives across Turkmenistan. We are really living life right now. These are all amazing memories, and obviously there were tons of fun moments in between as well. But the last few days in Uzbekistan was the reset we all needed. The food was amazing. The hotels had pools we could cool off in. The cities were stunning. Incredible in every direction. And we could not get enough of the friendly locals. In this episode, we cross into Tajikistan, the second most mountainous country in the entire world. The US government website
had us questioning if this was a good decision, but it turns out we should have been way more worried about the roads. We were definitely a little nervous taking Bertha up and down these mountains. If you love beautiful scenery, this is the episode for you because after leaving Tajikistan, we crossed into Kyrgyzstan, which is the third most mountainous country in the world. And after 6,000 miles of driving, Big Bertha started to show some major signs of wear and tear. Oh no. How did this happen? But it's easy to forget about a little problem like a broken muffler when you're with the world's best crew and camping in a beautiful spot like this. So sit back, relax, and join us as we drive through two incredible
countries and have a few good laughs along the way. Those are the first other rally cars we've seen in weeks. Quick stop for fuel before we hit the road. Today we have a 1-hour drive to the border of Tajikistan, which is going to be our 13th country on the trip. It'll be Karen and I's 117th country, and it's a country that I know nothing about. I truly didn't think we would get to Tajikistan on this trip. I thought we'd end up running out of time, but even though we're only going to be there for one day, the teams decided that it's going to be worth doing two extra border crossings to see one more of the Stans.
This is definitely the most unique bathroom that we've seen on the trip so far. They literally just cut a hole in the tile floor. Surprisingly, it doesn't smell. We are approaching the border. So far, the border crossings and the Stans have been much more straightforward and quicker than expected, so hopefully this one's the same. Nice work getting the bus through. Thank you, team. Thanks, Chad. It was interesting. I was glad to do it, actually, just for the experience.
Oh no, the lenses. Oh nice, probably because old mate's hands were all Came through the whole What is happening? Photo by photo. Went through our camera? Yeah, cuz it was sitting on the chair. So he came on and he's like, what have you been taking photos on? And thank goodness Nate hadn't filmed anything at the border crossing, cuz the first picture that came up was you guys at the mosque, and I was like, we love Uzbekistan. He watched movies. He like watched the whole thing. I was like, careful you don't delete them. I was like, it's our special memories. Then in front of me the whole time had been a broken down
car being towed by a taxi, and then the taxi had left that car, so now they were pushing it for the last like leg of the journey. And when I pulled up here and they asked me to move, then I was like, oh okay, no problem. And I thought I could just nick around this car, but then some guys started pushing it, and I didn't know. And so it was like suddenly behind me, and I was in reverse. And then everyone's screaming. And then we just And I was like, All right, we're off. We're off. See you guys. It's been really fun. You hit the car. Touched it. Kissed it. You might say
We're at this 13th country. It only took about 2 hours to get into Tajikistan, which is one of our shorter border crossings, and everyone was lovely. 10 out of 10 experience. No one. No toilet. Mine is Charlie's trauma. Hello from Cape Town, South Africa. Nate and I just got back from the beach where he got to feel the baby move for the first time, and it was so special. I'm officially 23 weeks. Check this out. Wow, that is baby. Um I'm feeling amazing, and I love the magic that is the second trimester. Thank you to everyone who checks in and is excited about this with us. It's so fun. Now, 2026 is already winding down, so I've been reflecting on the year, thinking
about next year, and all I can really think about is that starting in March, our lives are going to get significantly crazier than it already is, which is hard to fathom. So, I already know I need to prioritize myself and my mental health so I can show up as the happiest and best version of me. And this is something I have already been working on for a while. Um in case you weren't around a few years ago, I hit major burnout, and my health really reflected that. So, I knew I needed to make a change in my life and my personality. First, I had to realize that I'm a major chronic people pleaser. I feel guilt very easily and I get major FOMO. And then I had to learn how to say no and protect my energy, which is
a lot easier said than done, and it's definitely something that I still struggle with, but I am so much better at it now. Therapy is such an awesome tool that has helped me learn all of these things, and I think therapy is something that everyone can benefit from, no matter what you're going through. So let me say a huge thank you to BetterHelp for sponsoring this video and for making starting therapy so much easier because it's 100% online. You just take a short quiz and they'll quickly match you with a licensed professional therapist. Plus, with insurance options from BetterHelp, therapy may be more affordable than you think with copays as low as $15. With insurance, many BetterHelp members pay $15 or less. Some pay $0. Don't have
insurance or don't live in the United States? You can still get 20% off your first month. Click the link in the description or visit betterhelp.com/knn to explore your options. Initial impressions from the first two minutes in Tajikistan. It is super hazy and we can barely see the mountains, and the roads are amazing. Yes. Best roads we've driven in any of the Stan countries that we've been in. I'm a bit nervous that I'm speaking too soon cuz we are going to head into the mountains later today, but so smooth and beautiful. So now that we made it over the border, Ah, sorry.
I hate earrings so bad. Now that we made it over the border, the plan is to drive 5 hours to Khujand, and hopefully we're going to find somewhere to camp tonight because we haven't used the tents in weeks. And it seems to be about 10° colder here. The camping stuff takes up the entire back seat, so it feels like we need to use the tent. So Tajikistan is the smallest of all the Stans, and it's also the most mountainous. The mountains take up 93% of this country, which is just going to be totally different than what we've experienced in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan because those are majority desert, and they have massive mountains here. The tallest one is over 24,000 feet.
We're an hour into the country and I basically haven't put the camera down. It is so beautiful here and it's just so different than everything we've been seeing for the last couple of weeks. It's pretty crazy how much it changed as soon as we went over the border. There are just these massive brown mountains with a huge river running in between them and we're just driving in the middle of a valley between two different mountain ranges. We haven't stopped yet, but the people seem really friendly. We're getting a lot of waves and honks. People filming the bus.
We stopped on the side of the road for a quick snack. An entire watermelon. This is only half of it and we got some beautiful bread. And this is the coolest table I've ever sat at. It's like you're sitting on a giant king-sized bed with all your friends. Look at how they're chilling the drinks here. It's like a homemade refrigerator. They're pumping water up from the river below that's freezing cold. That's amazing. All right, we're back on the road after lunch and we're headed towards Khujand tonight. Find somewhere hopefully around the lake to camp and we've had the most delicious lunch. Turned out it cost 20 USD, which was fantastic value, but it's
maybe a pretty poor exchange rate for us, but it's been brilliant. We all loved it. Worth it in the box and next stop camping. The roads in Tajikistan are the smoothest that we've driven in weeks, but at the same time, this is probably our sketchiest drive of the trip. We're climbing up through the mountains and it's reminding me a lot of the road in Romania except for way more remote and no guard rails on the side and just a thousand foot drop off the edge. Also, we climbed up almost 8,000 feet and this is by far the most comfortable the temperature in the bus has been. This is heaven compared to the hot drives that we've been doing.
Oh, there it is. We just come up to the toll booth and we have no local currency. We're really hoping they take credit cards, and if not, we're hoping 5 USD will get us out of it. Oh. Is this okay? Can we Is that okay? We don't have any cash. Sorry. Please. Would have been helpful to have known that this was potentially a toll road. We only have USD. Dollar? Dollars, yeah. Yeah, US dollar. 5 dollar huh? Yeah. 35 Huh. How much is the toll? We don't know. no idea, but it's not 35 USD cuz that'll be the most expensive toll I've ever paid.
Yeah, it'd be crazy. Oh, can we swap with you? Thank you, man. Thank you so much. Welcome. Thank you so much, sir. Thank you. Appreciate it. See ya. Thank you. I actually can't believe that. Oh my goodness. That was stressful. More stressful than the border. We're totally winging it right now. Hey. We have no idea where we're at. Basically came to a dead end road, the edge of this town that was full of trash, smells like burning trash.
Somehow this is the best option we found. Once again, we are in search of a campsite in the dark, and we have no idea where we are right now. It's definitely not like the beautiful grassy place above the lake that we pictured. It took longer than we expected to get here because it took forever to get cash. We went to like 10 different ATMs and we didn't have any food or water. Finally found an ATM, bought some ramen, and now we're walking around in a field in Tajikistan. But there's no flat areas. And it's concrete. That's zero for vibe, really. We have a pretty low bar.
Yeah, it's not ideal, but I don't think we feel like searching for another spot just to end up back in the same situation an hour later. Welcome to the dinner table. As soon as we arrived, I don't even think anyone spoke, but we created the quickest ramen station. Like this all came to be in like 5 minutes. [groaning and screaming] Nobody fell for it. You're missing an eyeball. Did you actually fall for that? Ice cream. You didn't even flinch.
Do you have a pulse? Are you even alive in there? At least I know if like the bus goes careening off a cliff, there'll be a nice moment of silence before everyone just explodes cuz not one peep came from anybody there. glad that you went all the way up, carried that all the way down, popped it on? Dude, the scare. You should have done it during the night. Uh well, a little more. Even if this isn't the perfect campsite, I am just so happy to be back in the tents. It's been weeks and it's the first time that it's been under 90° in the evening in a very long time. And I'm happy to be eating ramen again.
Cheers. No. What if I This is like 25% of why I was excited to come here. it in the bag all the way till here. Good morning. It's day 37 of the Mongol Rally. Our campsite turned out to be pretty nice if you look from far away at least. If you get too close up, you start to see a lot of the glass and trash, but nobody from the houses back there came and kicked us out last night, so good start to the day. Oh, it's like 8:30 in the morning. It's already so hot. We're about to get camp packed up and hit the road. Look at the state of the disco ball after the last week. It's missing so many of its mirrors. I feel like this is a pretty good representation of us.
Beaten and battered, but still hanging on. Can we just show what this looked like when we first installed it with no duct tape, no missing parts? Character. We just came to the realization that because it's day 37, it officially makes this our longest adventure ever. The Bike Across America trip that we did with this exact crew on the three-seater bike was 36 days. And that felt insane. And we're still not even close to the end. I mean, we're close.
Relatively. Only Don't say it. 5 days left. No. How long do we have? Is it 5 hours? We don't know. We're not sure how long the drive is, but we're driving back into Uzbekistan. If you look at the map, in order to get to Kyrgyzstan, we have to cross one extra border because there's this little piece of Uzbekistan that kind of curls down over to Tajikistan. So, the plan is drive from here back into Uzbekistan. Maybe if we have enough time, continue into Kyrgyzstan. In case it went in Satch, you doesn't make it obvious, Tajikistan was part of the Soviet Union.
Skinny little road. Look how sweet this guy is for helping us. We are right in the middle of Monday morning rush hour in this little town, which is so fun to see. There are cars and people everywhere. We are just this massive school bus trying to squeeze through everybody. What's fun for us, I don't know if it's as fun for Rick who's driving. A little stressful, but I'm loving it. Hello. Yes, hello. First time filling up with fuel in Tajikistan. Let's see how much it costs. Just having a lot of fun with this and the same countries cuz it's been so varied. Surprisingly, that was actually one of the most expensive fuel stops
yet. We had a little more than half a tank and it cost $100. Hello. Let's go. You go to Go down. Yeah, come. They seem lovely. They got beautiful smiles. That's about as far as they've gotten. We have no idea how we're going to get them where they're going. I'm not exactly sure where they're going, but they seem happy to get on the bus. Cara showed them Google Maps. And they just pointed with their arm like this. So I think they're just going to tell you when they want to get out. me. Okay. That sounds good. Bye. Bye-bye. No, no. It's okay. Yeah? Thank you. [screaming] Oh, it's good. It's dense. Thank you.
We have bread. Oh, that was really sweet. I can't believe they tried to give me money. I didn't She did this symbol and I'm like I thought that was like a symbol for bye-bye in their language. They just started trying to give me money. This is pretty wild. We're just driving right on the border between Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. So to our right is Uzbekistan, just past the barbed wire, and then there's a giant beautiful lake over to our left in the whole country of Tajikistan. Just 22 hours after entering the country, we are already back at the border to cross back into Uzbekistan. This country has been absolutely beautiful. A lot of this trip it's felt like driving has been something we had to do, but it was the highlight in
Tajikistan. The scenery was absolutely stunning. And as we've all been falling in love with the Stans, we've all started planning a ski trip to come back here and ski in these incredible mountains. So it's now 1:20 and we'll see how long it takes to across. Thank you. Just this strange currency. Let's see what happened here. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Oh, I really get ripped off there. I think I should have gotten a million. I only got 7 65. It's not enough. Mo, mo. It's not enough. Don't exchange money in borders. I knew that, but I just thought From a random guy on a scooter. A random guy on a scooter that pulls up. knew what he was doing. He was just taking his time because he knew we were
about to get waved in. He was sitting there counting, recounting, and counting the money until we ran out of time. All right, 1 hour later, we have left Tajikistan. It was painless. Just had to wait a little bit. And now we're going back into Uzbekistan, our favorite country. And hopefully it goes smoothly. But we've learned that they have to like pretty much start all over the whole process even though we were here yesterday with the same vehicle. Less than 24 hours here. At this point, it's not as stressful as it was at the beginning, but the time is still probably averaging 2 hours. I found it really weird that the stands have been easier to cross the border in than within Europe.
Yeah, certainly Moldova and Romania and those countries that they were very strict. Good times. We're in no man's land now though. Yeah, where's the flags? An hour and 15 minutes later, we are back in our favorite country of Uzbekistan. From here, we have a 2-hour drive to Namangan. Big city, hopefully a nice hotel, another rooftop meal. That's pretty much all we did in Uzbekistan last time and we would very much like to repeat that tonight. Woo. Somehow a drive that was supposed to be 4 and 1/2 hours on Google Maps turned into a 9 and 1/2 hour day of driving, but we made it to Namangan and we're staying at a nice hotel.
They're pumping ice into this I've never complained of being so hot and then so cold so close together. I've been winging about how hot it is and I felt nauseous. I know. I'm freezing. Which is great. This is my new favorite tradition, the Mongol Rally. Booking a hotel with a pool. Yeah. For some reason Kara didn't want to do the bed tests, which makes me nervous. Just cute when you do it. No, I can't. We're just switching it up. We're on day 37, HEY? GET UP. I THOUGHT THERE WAS GOING TO BE SOMETHING REALLY HARD HERE, BUT THE mattress is a memory foam.
It's just so hard. Honestly, our camping pads are so much more comfortable than this. Yeah, but we got AC. It's day 38 of the Mongol Rally. Oh, thank you. That was so kind. Oh my god. We can have our coffee in this every morning. Thank you guys. Thank you, thank you. How did you know that mugs are my favorite things? I love Uzbekistan. Every single moment of every day here is amazing. Like the people continue to blow me away. I'm going to tear up.
Every time we come downstairs, every hotel we've stayed at in this country, when you walk into a room, they all stand up and they put their hands here and they're like, good morning. It's just so different from everywhere we've been on this trip. Here's another example. Last night we went to a restaurant for dinner and they had zero vegetarian options, like none. But we're already sitting down and we're, you know, taking up all this space. We made such an entrance with nine people and we're just like, what do we do? Like seven of the nine of us are vegetarian. And so we tried explaining with broken English like we don't eat meat and they just could not
even compute and through some translating, they basically said, what do you want and we will make it. And so I wrote down a few like options and they made them all. Like we all got a special plate of their local vegetables. It was the most beautiful experience. The guys working at the hotel asked us to pull the bus right up front so that they could get a photo with the bus in front of the hotel. Oh! No way. Uzbekistan. This morning we have a 1-hour drive to the border with Kyrgyzstan, so these are our last moments in Uzbekistan, and this feels like an appropriate way to end it.
Our front mirror, like the bar that holds it on, had broken off yesterday. Like the metal had just completely snapped. The guys at the hotel saw that it was broken this morning. They gave us a few hand gestures like wait, and now a guy has appeared out of nowhere with a welder, and he's going to fix the mirror on the van. Just welding in flip-flops. The hospitality here has just been next level. Probably the best we've experienced in the entire world. Can they also fix the bumper? You got a bit of a list actually. Thank you. It is literally good as new. Where did he come from?
Oh, our master. Oh, he's working at THE HOTEL. OKAY. [screaming] BYE. THANK YOU SO MUCH. All right. We are off to Kyrgyzstan, 1 hour to the border. It's not super obvious on Google Maps how exactly we get to the border. And then once we get to the border, we're 85% sure that we can bring a foreign vehicle across it. There's only certain border crossings where international travelers can cross, and then there's even fewer border crossings where you can bring an international vehicle across. So we're really hoping we're not driving an hour in the wrong direction this morning.
One thing I think I realized through this journey is that the bigger border stations are no by no means better border stations. You want the ones that aren't busy, that you get processed quickly, where everybody's friendly and they're not just getting like, you know, overworked all day. And it feels like we're driving out into the middle of nowhere to get to this way. All right, thanks to a couple helpful locals waving us in the right direction. We found the border and we are attempting to cross into country number 14.
It's a coffee van. What? Um added to the list of reasons Uzbekistan's the best. We go to Bishkek. Bishkek? Uh cool. Cool? Cold? Yeah. Yeah, good. It's hot here. Love you. See you on the other side. Love you. Turkmenistan. Uh Turkmenistan. Oh, we all go to America. Goodbye. Those were all the boys that were just waiting in line with me. They all were super interested in the bus. Everyone is so nice here. All right, heading into Kyrgyzstan.
All right, we have officially been on the Uzbekistan-Kyrgyzstan border for 2 hours on the dot. Um the crew got through no problem. Like left Uzbekistan and entered Kyrgyzstan. Zero hiccups. Just had to wait in line for a little bit. It was actually so cool because while we're waiting in line to get into Kyrgyzstan, Rick was in the front and we saw him turning around and like answering all these questions about our group and there were like multiple border officials in one booth like looking at his passport and they told us these were the first American passports they've ever seen. We are kind of a random border crossing that like I don't know, I feel like most tourists
wouldn't be driving this way, so it kind of makes sense, but I thought that was really special. As soon as we left the building and entered Kyrgyzstan, there were all these yurts and this one is equipped with iced Americanos and pastries and most importantly, AC, because Kyrgyzstan is still hot. Order cafe. We barely made it through that one. This is the bus First stop, Kyrgyzstan. What is this? Iced Americano with sugar. Oh my gosh. He asked me where I was going and I've been telling the same story. And then we get to Kazakhstan and we donate the bus and that was not the right thing to say.
Oh wow. It just turned into this whole thing like you can't leave the bus. You had to de-register it in the US like he Google translated that like 10 times. No. And then finally I was like, okay, we're going back to the USA. We drive through China. We ship it back to the US and now I have this form and he said I can't leave the country without the bus. But I think this works for Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Russia. So we have one year to get the bus out. It has to BE OUT BY WE'RE ALL COMING BACK. THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT WE WANTED to do. And even if you made all that up, that was the best way to get the buy in from the girls. exactly
That's exactly what he said. All right. Well, I guess we're going back to go drive across the rest of China and get Bertha back to America. Let's go. Hopefully I can fly home. 2 hours 25 minutes 25 seconds 38 That felt a lot longer. It feels good to be back in the mountains. Kyrgyzstan is basically the size of Nebraska, but like Tajikistan, the majority of the country is mountainous. So 90% of Kyrgyzstan is mountains and I cannot wait to get back in that cool mountain air. Also Karen and I were here back in 2018 for this crazy event called the World Nomad Games. Somehow we got invited as press
and it's basically like the Olympics It's nomadic games. So I think like archery, wrestling, and then the flagship sport is kokpar, which is their national sport. It's basically rugby on horseback and you're using a dead goat carcass as the ball. It's one of the craziest things I've ever seen. And I just remember having such a good time here in Kyrgyzstan and I'm so happy to be back. This road is amazing. Mountains as far as you can see. Beautiful blue rivers snaking between it all. So we've been seeing these little white balls, actually medium-sized, large ones. They're all over. They're in big baskets and bowls, every roadside stand.
And then we've avoided them up to now cuz we didn't know what they were, but we ended up with one at the last stop. We think it's cheese, so we're going to give it a shot. Pretty salty. Oh, it's actually very salty. It's like an extremely salty cheese. It's like chalk. Yeah, maybe this isn't supposed to be eaten directly. I'm surprised Rick didn't have a bigger reaction because we took the lid off this glass ball of cheese things and the tangy stench filled the entire room.
Oh my god, that is like a freaking salt lick. Yeah, isn't it? It could be for animals. That must be why it's like never doesn't go off. It's like just salt. What is that? It's more like cheese-flavored salt. That's more of a reaction than I expected. I'm not sure those are meant to be eaten. What do you think you do with it? Rub it the campsite? I don't hate it, if I'm being honest. Unfortunately, when you're pregnant, you're not meant to have unpasteurized milk, so this feels a little risky for me, and I'm just so devastated that I can't try any.
Nice Ranks. How many do we have? 14. The hunter finds his prey. He creeps up on the unattending cow. We dared Rick to touch a cow. Oh, I don't think it's happening. See you, Rick. Bye now. Have fun out there with your girlfriend. We have almost made it to our campsite for tonight. Duct tape. And oh no. How did this happen? Don't worry. We got duct tape.
It's literally just uh like a hose clamp, and the two pieces of pipe have fallen apart, and it's hanging off this little hanger. But because we have to go out this way tomorrow, I'm just going to yank it off, and then tomorrow, when I feel really good in the morning, I'll put it back on. Interesting plan. I just don't want to yank it back on myself cuz it's going to be really hot. Yeah, don't do that. Looks like some duct tape could hold it in place right there. Let's just leave it there and get to the camp spot. If it falls off, we'll know where it's at.
You get me that far from here. This is Mongol Rally style. If it falls off, we just retrace our steps and put it back on. We're just trying to get to the edge of the lake to camp tonight. Everything was going so well. Vibes were so high and we bottomed out back there and it knocked the muffler off. This is a nothing problem. All it's going to do is make the bus sound sweet. Yeah, we got to be rolling. It feels like the biggest mechanical issue that we've had yet.
Well, we have definitely found the most beautiful campsite of the entire trip right next to this giant lake and we made it before sunset, but it's also probably the most rocky area and we have to figure out how to put the muffler back on. Is this a tonight job? I mean, nah. Actually, probably cuz then we can swim in the water, cool off. Honestly, I'm surprised it hasn't fallen off before this cuz we've hit a lot of bumps and if this is the worst thing, even if it was not on, it wouldn't be the end of the world, but some exhaust fumes could start kind of filtering their way into the cabin. That's worst case scenario, but we've done worst things to our brain cells, so.
We have basically spent all day today talking about how Bertha is invincible and how we're going to drive her all the way across China, get her back to the US because we could never part with this vehicle. It's a minor problem. Actually worked up a sweat on that little rock concert we had on the way down here and thankfully, we're right on the water so we're going for a swim. It's warmer than the pool last night. Wow, and to think we had no idea where we were going to sleep tonight and we ended up here. So incredible.
Wait, back. Smell this. Come over here. You think all these plants growing around us? Smell it. What is that? It's weed. But it doesn't It is weed. We're camping in a field full of weed. Yeah. It's all over this one. Everywhere. Are you serious? Yeah. Hey, look. Yeah, it's all over. For the record, we don't smoke marijuana, but I don't know. Just feels like it's better It's not poison ivy. So, I'm happy about that. That's he's cooking ramen. Rick's under the bus, and I've got a front row seat. So, what's happened, Rick?
Uh there's just this like kind of like a clamp that holds this piece of the pipe to this piece, and this just diverts like the exhaust all the way out the back. And this piece just kind of fell apart. You can see where it's supposed to be about an inch back, and I should just be able to loosen these clamps and uh jam it back on and tighten them up again. This metal bracket looks like it is a little bit cracked, but honestly, we have three days to go, and two diesel fumes aren't going to kill anybody. Ooh, that sounded good. I'm actually bending the whole pipe. It's not looking quite as good as it once was.
Yeah. All right, the exhaust is off. Are they in dual capture mode? Hey. Instead of fixing it, we just took it off cuz we don't think it does anything anyway. Do we really need this piece? Yeah, that doesn't look good. I bet these guys here I mean, you saw it. They welded a like a rearview mirror on in 2 seconds without us even asking, without any words being spoken. They could probably fix that. Yeah, I probably put it in the back. Put it in the back and see if someone can do it. All right, nice work. So, the first time most of us met, we were trekking with Rick and Beck's company in Nepal.
Charlie happened to be trekking with another company that was going the same The poop smoke's blowing on me. It was going in the same direction of us. And in Nepal, they use yak poo to light the fires because it's above tree line and they don't have wood. So, in an effort to have our first campfire on the Mongol Rally, Rick has collected some animals' poo, and I think we've succeeded in lighting it on fire. We have fire. This is awesome. Next week will be our Mongol Rally finale. In this last episode, we'll make the final push to the finish line party. But in order to make it in time, we still have to drive over a thousand miles across Kazakhstan in less than
four days. Basically, at this point, the roads are going to make or break whether or not we get to the finish in time. It was all fun and beautiful until I got hangry. More than 50% of the group had bad diarrhea yesterday. And we ran into all these kids on bikes. And we think they're taking us out to the main road. They're waving for us to follow them. Sometimes you're in a field with cows. Sometimes uh the local authorities are chasing you off. You never really know what's going to happen.
We got stuck looking for a campsite. And let's just say big Bertha saved her drama for the end. Going between change engine oil soon and engine power is reduced. here to do this. Whoa, we're spraying oil everywhere. Our top speed's about 40 mph right now. There's literally nothing for the next 450 km and it's literally the day before the finish. Can it see us? All right, day in 315. Walking in the heat again, carrying everyone's stuff. Trash and glass. Trash, glass, needles. It's exhausting out here. I'm dry as a chip.
Hoping that we make it to the top of the hill. Which we probably won't because I'll just push Chad back down. I should be okay though. I'm tolerating this 12-year-old's tiresome. OW! SHE HITS ME. THAT WASN'T even hard. You're such a wimp. I worry about my safety. Help. Somehow the border of Tajikistan to Uzbekistan just automatically gets hotter when you get here. It's my only complaint about Uzbekistan.
How do they keep all the heat within the boundaries? I don't understand. But it does feel that way. I know. As soon as we went across yesterday, it was beautiful. As soon as we crossed back in, it was just boring Uzbekistan for life. I love you. I don't even know what they yelled. They And I was like, okay, that must mean stop. Did you make some friends? Yeah, they're they're awesome. They don't know English. Even the words thank you, they're like thank you. Aw. It's like they kind of like, I've heard that before. They don't know what it means, but they said it back and it's like everybody's laughing.
I came out of the shop and found Rick surrounded by locals making them all laugh. I just had to know what was going on.
