Welcome to episode 7 of our biggest adventure ever. Over the last 16 days, we've driven the bus over 3,000 m through eight different countries, which means we've averaged almost 200 m of driving per day. I'm getting a rash from sitting on that bus seat. But today, our progress comes to a grinding halt as we attempt to ship our bus overland from Georgia to Azerbaijan. Goodbye. So that we can put it on a ferry across the Caspian Sea. In this episode, you're joining us for all the chaos of this 10day logistical nightmare.
Skip to the part where we were being threatened by the manager to stay and not to leave bad reviews even though they wouldn't give our money back. Bad news or bad news with a little fun mixed in along the way. It feels wrong flying and it feels extra wrong being in business class, but these were the only seats available. Look at that clinching. Just in case this is your first time tuning into this series, every year around 100 teams set off to drive over 5,000 m from Europe to Asia in tiny cars that were never designed to make it that far. But we
needed something a little bigger for our team of nine. Meet Big Bertha. We bought this retired school bus off a government auction website in Colorado. We're just bus owners now. Roadt tripped it all the way across the US, shipped it across the Atlantic to Germany, then finally drove it to the start line in Prague. Then the real adventure began. This is actually what the Mongol Rally is about. So there's no official route for the Mongol Rally and it's not a race, just a massive challenge to make it to the finish line party in 6 weeks and have as much fun as possible along the way. But it's completely
unsupported, which means once you leave the start line, you're on your own to navigate unpredictable border crossings. I cannot believe. So where do how do we get to Kazakhstan? Fix anything that breaks and whatever else that will definitely go wrong along the way. I think you're getting stopped by the coffee shop. Oh gosh. The crazy people who decided to join us on this adventure are Nate's brother Dusty and his wife Sarah. The whole Kn family who we've done some of our craziest adventures with, including riding this ridiculous three-seater bike
all the way across the US a couple years ago. And our best friend Charlie from Australia, who we've already traveled to 14 countries with. Literally. Now sit back, relax, and enjoy this very challenging week. They're not going to be like, "Yeah, it'll be in 2 days." Like, they're going to be like, "Well, we'll just we'll see how long it takes." That's going to be the answer. Well, let's keep a uh find my tag in the bus. Oh, good idea. We can just see when it moves. I don't know. There's uh over 24 rally cars in a big field in the in Tli where we're sitting now and a bunch of teams are turning around because they're
uh they're just they've been here for 7 8 9 10 days. So it is day 16 of the Mongol Rally and we 17 and we are about to start our biggest logistical challenge of the trip. So if you look at a map, Russia sits above us and as a bus full of Americans, we can't drive through Russia and Iran sits below us. Also can't drive through Iran. So the plan is to get the bus shipped over the land border between Georgia and Azerbaijan because for some reason no one's allowed to cross the land border between these two countries. They shut it during CO and then they never reopened it. And then from there once the bus gets to Azerbaijan it's going to go on a ferry across the Caspian Sea. We knew this was going to be one of the
more challenging parts of the trip, but all the other teams are having way more problems with it than we anticipated. And we're we're just about to start this process. So, we're just weighing up our options. I just spoke to someone who dropped off their car on July 20th and it is the 28th with no sign of it going anywhere anytime soon. So, our fears are valid and we're looking at other options, but I think we just do it and it's going to work out. We spent the next 2 hours talking in circles about what we should do. Chat says that we can get a tourist visa that gives us the flexibility for an overland trip and we've got three Australian passports that are valid
which is borderline for getting into Russia and then we could drive through to Turk Manistan and we just fly to Turkmanistan. Yeah, you guys made us in Turk Manistan. Joe is going alone. Wait, let me hear your Australian accent cuz they're not going to buy the Ohio Midwest. Good day, mate. HOW YOU GOING? NAILED IT. pretty good. How come the nor Australians get to break your accent? They're like, "Nailed it. You just nailed that."
Eventually, we all agreed that we really had no other choice but to just trust a shipping company to take the bus across the border while we waited around here in Tissi. Once Bertha arrives in Azerbaijan, we'll fly to Baku to load her on a ferry across the Caspian Sea to continue our journey. We'll see how this goes. Okay, we're getting all the last minute stuff out of the bus before we don't see it for a few days. We've obviously made ourselves at home and we have not prioritized cleanliness. Our backup camera is literally people that stand in the back screaming when you're about to hit stuff. So, we got to keep the windows clean. So, before the customs officials go
through it and judge us for our filth, just going to sweep up, throw away the trash, get all the stuff out that we want to fly with over to Baku, leave all the rest, and hope for the best. We did get some good news this morning. We were talking amazing. I'm just not sure if we're being told what they want to tell us or what they want us to think. But I was chatting with the guy on WhatsApp who's in charge of shipping the bus. And you know, we just told him we had heard that there were a bunch of teams that were stuck. And I was asking if there was anything that we could do to make the process faster. And he told us because the bus is so big, it's actually being
sent on its own truck. And that it'll leave in the next 1 to two days to go across the border. And from there, it just depends on how long it takes at customs. So, we're feeling optimistic. So optimistic. Oh, it's hot. Before we ship the bus, let me give you a little update on all of that. These are the 16 different beds that we've slept in on the trip. We need to add 17 here from last night to Blazy, Georgia. Did we get an extra fuel tank yesterday that we didn't Yeah, probably needs one more. Okay, so one more to the fuel. My favorite wall of stats. Disco ball head hits is climbing quickly. I think we're going to fill up this entire door. Still only four disco ball head hits from the
border officials which were a hit. Non-residents. This was someone that got in and was just looking around that hit their head. One hitchhiker. We need to increase this number. That should be our new goal once we get to the stands. And we've been pulled over twice. Once with me. Wait, were they both with me? Uh yeah. You are getting stopped by. Oh no. I should win an award for that. Get that air conditioner cranking. I am obsessed with Georgia. Just the views out these windows as we've been driving.
There are like fountains and statues and monasteries and mountains. It's like this beautiful combo of history and modern culture. Oh, it's just so good. I can't wait to like wrap up this bus stuff and just be here for a couple days or five or six or seven days. We don't know. Won't complain if it's a little longer. I hope our disco ball makes it. Okay, we just arrived at a pin that this guy sent us and it's just the side of the road in the gravel. Um, we're about to go get in his car. So, I think the bus just lives here now. What do you mean? I assume it was going to like a secure parking lot or something, but I think we're going to leave it on the side of the road and then somebody's going to pick it up from here and take it to Azure when
who knows. So, let's just make sure we have everything valuable out of it and uh go get something notorized. Goodbye bus. I hope we see you soon. This feels so weird. Quick recap of what just happened. So, the bus is on the side of the road on the side of the highway. We get in this stranger's Tesla and he drives us to this office somewhere. We follow him into the office. We're in there forever. They're looking at our paperwork. They're taking copies. Nate signed a bunch of stuff and got something notorized. I think that's what that step was. Where are we going? Back in his car apparently to go where? No idea. It's a mystery adventure.
Nothing is being communicated. Zero English whatsoever. He didn't even like Google Translate. He just would be like. So we get back in his car. He takes us to this like lot a bunch of other cars and we see all these rally cars. It's like a graveyard. They're all just parked there for who knows how long. And he took our keys and said it would be picked up in a couple of days. What happens next? We don't know. We don't know how long it's going to take to get over there. No one's told us. But thankfully we have an air tag in the bus so we can see how long it sits there, see its progress on its way to Azure. and then we can kind of know when to fly over there and meet up with it. And now
we're in a taxi on the way back to Tlisi where we're going to enjoy our time and hope for the best. Real quick, Nate from the future here. We are currently back in the van filming our first episode that's going to come out after the Mongol Rally. And in some ways, it's as ridiculous as the Mongol Rally itself. But right now, I need to tell you about the sponsor of today's video, who is our longtime partner, AG1. And I think what I appreciate most after working with them for the last 5 years is that every year they continue leveling up their formula and AG1 Pro is the best it's ever been. It's a
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now get my creatine from a company that I know and trust. AG1's creatine is Crea Vitalis, which is made in Germany, and it's known for its super high 99.9% purity. So, with the new AG1 Pro formula, there has never been a better time to try AG1. And right now, if you sign up using our link for your first subscription of AG1 NextG or AG1 Pro, you're going to get a free immunity bundle, which is a bottle of these vitamin D3 K2 drops and the AG Omega3s. This is a $90 value, and all you have to do is click our link in the description below. Okay, so in case you weren't around back then, we actually came to Georgia and did a huge road trip back in 2018. Good morning from Tissy with Charlie. So to
be back here again with him and the rest of our friends feels so cool because when we came here we had no idea what to expect and we decided Georgia is one of the most underrated countries in the world. We fell in love with it. You did that job. Perfect. Hold on. I lick it off. Oh, it was so wide. There's so many things to love. We just had so many incredible experiences. The rusty Soviet cable cars. So we are riding inside of a metal death trap. What's happening? Oh my god. Still to this day one of the scariest experiences of our lives.
Traumatizing. Oh, and we looked it up. They're closed now. The hospitality was incredible. The best Airbnb to this day that we've ever stayed in was here. Chaka. The food, the wine, the value. We do this in a lot of places, but Georgia was probably one of the early ones where we started looking at apartments here because we were like, we could live in this place. If I could choose any country on the Mongol Rally to be stuck in for a week, this would be it. 100%. It is day 23 of the Mongol Rally and we have now been stuck in Tlisi for the last 8 days. According to Find My, the bus is still stuck on the border between
Georgia and Azerbaijan. But we've been told by the shipping company that it should be arriving in Baku today. We will see if that actually happens because we've been told a lot of things at this point. This is an odd time to bring up that he's never shipped a bus before, but we're staying optimistic. So, we're currently at the Tisi airport flying to Baku. So, before we get on the plane, let me catch you up on some of the highlights of our last week here in Tlisi. By far the highlight of our time here, at least for Cara and I was uh getting to have our first ultrasound. We just Googled best hospital in Tlisi.
We've got the entire Mongol Rally crew going to Cara's first appointment. The whole experience, like not only getting to like see our baby for the first time, but the Georgian hospital experience was incredible. We didn't have an appointment. We walked in 10 minutes later. Goodbye team. Come. Hello. We're all very excited for our friend. Look as much as you're comfortable with. I don't care.
This is hilarious. She's fully nude, everyone. Oh, wow. She's just going for it. I wasn't ready. Atrix. Now my heart rate. Listen. Stop. Congrats. Oh my god. Can you tell us which one's the father? Oh my gosh. This is crazy. Oh, that is so cute. The little dude. Look. Oh my gosh. No way. It looks just like my abs. So cute. Everything is fine. Perfect.
Everything is perfect. Everything's perfect. Yes. I can't believe it. Look, you tuck. Look, that's the heart. Yeah. Beautiful. Oh my gosh. Okay, I have pants on now. Oh my gosh, that was so fun. Wow. You're my first doctor. You look so amazing. Can't believe it. So awesome. That was crazy. Now it's real. It's so real. Look at it. Good job. We did it. I can't believe this is real. We're in Georgia. That was so awesome.
I'm coming. That's crazy. Oh my gosh, that's so good. Thank you for coming. So, it's so much fun. Best day of the Rally. Yeah. Thank you. So crazy. After the 666 number, it was just all that scan cost $30.89. Wow. just walked in and paid $30 and got that experience and the pictures. He's like, "Best $30 I've ever spent." Let's do it again. I mean, special is an understatement. Like, there's no words. Then somehow Sarah talked the whole team into getting piercings.
What's happened with this Riley crew? We can't just have casual beer. Just don't think about things until they're about to happen and then all the feelings come. I drastically underestimate it. one, how bad the piercing would hurt, and two, how big of a commitment it would be. Josh, third one. All three of them. I already have one of them. I feel like every girl, woman, young, female, child that I know has had a piercing. And all the girls made it seem like not a big deal at all.
Rick stepped up to the plate first. It's awesome. It is awesome. It actually looks pretty good. Okay, good. So cool. Pirate kind of. That's kind of what I was going for. Pirate. Then I just wanted to go ahead and get it over with. I love it. Looks awesome. Sweat on my face. It was more violent than I thought it was going to be after watching the 10-year-old do it. Scale 1 to 10, how much pain? Oh my gosh. I haven't slept good in 4 days since getting this piercing. Charlie somehow got talked into getting his tragus pierced, which is this little piece of skin here. And I think that might be one
of the most painful piercings you can get. I feel like last night I was push and then in the light of day like nothing seems as good. No, Charlie, you can do it. She asked him to lay down cuz she thinks he's going to pass out. She gave all the guys these like silver ball piercings, but for some reason she gave Charlie a diamond without telling him, which ended up being really funny. Wow, that looks so good. And then Destiny went for double. How did we all get forced into this? It was worth getting a piercing just for the memories and to be able to laugh at everybody else while it was happening.
The moment that we figured out Charlie can't wear AirPods for the next 6 months or earplugs for like when we co sleep. Literally live those things. I've never seen anyone wear them. I never consented to a diamond. Also, Georgia claims to be the birthplace of wine. They've been making it here for thousands of years. So, one day we booked a wine tour in Signagi, which is over in like the east of the country. On the way, we stopped at somebody's house to learn how their local bread was made. Slowly, we can start baking this bread, which is called shorty. We had the best food that we ate in all of Georgia with the most incredible view.
Two type of wine, white wine and red wine. Chicken and a garlic sauce, bean salad. They're going to add the kajaur. They're going to add the barbecues and the beans. So, please and of course drink tons of delicious Georgian wine. Maybe a little too. [screaming] The reason TLi is located where it is today is because of the hot sulfur water. So yesterday we went back to the traditional Georgian baths. I had honestly forgotten how fun of an experience that is. Hey, look at that clinching game going on. Something's going on. Me, Cara, and Charlie did that last time we were here. So, it was super fun to get to take Dusty and Sarah back for the full experience.
Charlie, how did this compare to your scrub 10 years ago? Better. And in 30 minutes, we board our flight to Baku. Oh, I really hope the bus shows up and we're not stuck in Baku for another week because at this point we've already used up like a fifth of our days of the entire Mongol Rally sitting in Tlisi. It feels wrong flying and it feels extra wrong being in business class. But these were the only seats available. It's good to have a little luxury thrown in there. So, we had to pay triple the cost of a normal seat for this 1-hour flight to Blanco.
These flights were way overpriced, but look at this steamy hot. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Ali International Airport. How was your first business class flight? Where from? Uh the USA. Got tunes. I love this. The best as Bjani music. jump. The best of my life. Thank you so much. What a start [clears throat] to Baku. That's the best taxi ride I've ever had. Diver ever.
Thank you. Byebye. So good. We're all taking turns booking accommodations on this trip, and this is the one that Charlie picked for us. So, I'd love for you to give us a little tour around. I think we're in an office building, but this in my defense, this is what we booked. The museum hotel, and this is what it shows on booking.com. That's not the That's That's the room. I was like, "Oh, yeah, that's cool. There's like a three room there as well." It's like completely different place. I haven't seen any of this yet. We've got a full hookah, two bunk beds. Not so bad. All right, three beds. We've got all shared toilets. And uh finally, bedroom number three.
WA! Look at this. The floor. I can stick my foot through the floor. Oh, go there. The floor is falling through. The lady goes, "It's okay. That's fine." Wow. Oh, it's huge. What the heck? We've ended up in a new hotel. We uh asked the guys to come fix the air conditioner in our other hotel. These are taped up security cameras. This is the unworking AC. And then this is the sign behind the scene. And that went downhill very quickly. Danny with kids. I don't know who's coming with kids. What about the AI generated images that are different than the actual picture?
Like the actual walls are so beautiful. Yeah. It's all brick to the top in the pictures. It's been the pictures are falsified. We've ended up in a gorgeous apartment. Now, after initially checking into the hotel, subsequently we found out that our apartment was a 10minute walk away on the other side of Oldtown in which they wanted us to carry all of our luggage, including for Rick and Beck to do that with the girls. Arrived there. It's an old hostel room, including this check-in desk. I don't know how to describe it. underwhelming and nothing like the description. I genuinely
think we're in a tourist information office. Photos have been edited, so it's just an overall disappointing experience. Like genuinely, I've been played. I'm going to call up. Wow, that was such a positive version of that story. Skipped the part where we were being threatened by the manager to stay and not to leave bad reviews even though they wouldn't give our money back. It's a better location. You skipped the part where we pointed out the damage in the hotel, the old one. It's going. You're going to break it. Look at these bags of dirty sheets. And he pointed to it and he goes, "Oh yeah, it's from like people like you
dranking the whiskey breaking things like your kids." He said, we're like, "Wait, we haven't we've been here for 5 minutes. He's blaming us for all the damage in the place." Yeah, he did actually seem drunk. And I think the whole conversation ended with him saying, "I'm a millionaire. I don't need your money." But then he refused to refund us. And so we basically at this point have paid two times for two [clears throat] hotels and we're hoping to get one back from booking.com. Rally. After all the uh hotel drama yesterday, we went out, reset with a nice meal, had a lovely walk around the city last night after the sun went down. And today, the Mongol Rally Run Club is back. Azer Baan looks even more like Dubai than I
remember. It is uh before 7:00 in the morning, and we are already melting out here. The city is super beautiful in this early morning light. 2 hours later, we made it to the Flame Towers. Cara and I were here back in 2018 and this city is just like this stunning mix of like modern Dubai meets ancient Silk Road Morocco Oman vibes. It's just this incredible mix of architecture which probably just says a lot about their history and being a trading route on the Silk Road. Like this was one of the main stops on the Caspian Sea back hundreds of years ago. We had a lovely day yesterday walking around the city, but
we're having a hard time settling in here and enjoying this day because we've just gotten some bad news that really throws off our whole schedule and we're all kind of freaking out. Bad news or bad news. Literally almost had the nicest meal. It's a nasty time. I think that days or nine days to get to the party. So today is about deciding what we're going to do with the rest of our trip, which is a pretty daunting task. We're about to have a team meeting. We're going to figure it out. It's the ferry. It's the Turk Menistan. is the visa. It's just all these things and we've just got to figure it out.
Our room is an oven. So, we're heading over to Sarah and Dusty's because their AC actually works. I knew there was going to be a lot of problem solving on the Rally. Like, that's just part of it. But this is not the kind of problem solving I was picturing. I thought it would be a lot more like we're broken down. And I think the logistics have been a bigger challenge than I was expecting, which I'm terrible at. So, feel pretty useless right now. It's up to the rest of the team. The last ones to the party. Hey. Sorry for the delay.
One idea that was discussed was going into Kazakhstan first just to get on a ferry just to get on the other side and then trying to work our way down to Turk Ministan to arrive the date that our visa allows us to arrive. We can't arrive early, but we've just discovered that you can only enter at the port of arrival that get on a ferry tomorrow, which would actually get minist. And then there's always the chance that we don't get a ferry, which seems like a decent chance of that. So, that would just kind of blow up all plans if that ferry in 3 days didn't go. Basically, what happened was this morning after our run, we just started getting a lot of WhatsApp messages from different people. First, it was the bus
guy that's shipping it from Tlisi to here. And then we learned that it was delayed a day later, which was going to miss the ferry that we were planning on getting tomorrow. Then we felt like we had that sorted out. And then we learned that we actually can't enter Turk Menistan on our visas until the 7th, which is 3 days from now, which basically just like compresses the rest of the trip through the stands, which is probably the part that we were most excited about, into basically 9 days driving 10 to 12 hours a day in 100 plus degree heat. So, we're going back to the drawing board to try to figure out how to make the end of this trip a little more enjoyable. I uh just got a voice note from the guy who is in charge of
getting the bus here to Baku. And last, we heard it was for sure going to be here tomorrow morning at 10:00 a.m. A 99% guarantee. Maybe 99.9. Uh now, I received a call from the driver at the customs in Azarbaijan site. It crossed from the Georgian side. Okay, so the bus made it across the Georgian border, but it's stuck at the Azure border. So, it hasn't made it across yet because they wanted something special. He said, "Is it safe to book a flight from the end destination right now?"
No, it's not. We've had a 2hour team meeting as long as our guide is willing to meet us and just rent a car. Why don't we just arrive and start driving to Ash? I guess it just depends on what time we arrive and leave Big Bertha on route. We could actually do kind of like a half day on both sides of the capital city. Fly back and join her. I mean, show some humanity though. Like, and the new plan is to stick with the old one. I agree. than actually eats. I mean, day 26 of the Mongol Rally and day 10 of waiting for our bus to get shipped from Tlisi to Baku. So, after our team meeting, we all needed bit of a pickme up. So, we went over to the cool flower
shaped mall by the water and we went go-karting, which if you haven't tried as an adult, 10 out of 10 fun. And I may have accomplished my proudest moment of the rally. Fast this month. Pretty good. Charlie Grand Prix. Charlie and I both topped the monthly leaderboard for fastest laps. But then while we were still at the mall, the roller coaster continued. We got a message from the guy shipping the bus that said that the bus was stuck at the Azure border. This is an odd time to bring up that he's never shipped the bus before and basically that we were going to need to pay a $700 bribe to get the bus across the border and the bus has been on the border for
48 hours. Apparently, we didn't drive there. It was very suspense. We debated over this for a while, but ultimately, long story short, decided to pay the $700, but even then, the bus got delayed an extra day. So, we had one more day waiting here in Baku and decided to make lemonade out of lemons. So, we booked our first luxury hotel of the trip, which was the Fairmont. But what makes this hotel super cool is that it's actually located in the Flame Towers, which is probably the most iconic building in all of Baku. I'm so happy. So, yesterday we had a nice relaxing day at the pool because I'm pretty sure the next few days are going to be some of the most challenging of the entire trip.
Does it feel like to anyone else that this is one of the longest videos that we've ever filmed, yet somehow nothing's happened? Tiblis and Baku are awesome cities and we probably should have done more in both of these places, but I think we just kept thinking that we were going to go like something was going to happen. We've done too much sitting around in uncertainty and I think the whole team is super excited to get back to the bus. So, the bus is here in Baku and I'm about to go meet the guy at customs and hopefully we'll be back in the bus in the next couple hours. There it is. We're back. We've been waiting for this moment for so long. The most important button on the whole dash
fell off. This is our AC and now there's no way to turn it on. Don't break it off. Oh, we just leave it there. Yeah, don't touch it. All right. What a morning. So, we met up with the antagonist of this old drama, the guy that we've been messaging with on WhatsApp that's been in charge of shipping the bus. And I was reminded that it's really easy to villainize someone when you've never met him in person. Like, with text communication, you just can't get a feel for the other person's vibe. It turns out he was a super nice guy. Everything seemed to be going really smooth at customs until we
realized that the toolbox that we bought in Prague was missing from the bus. And then he was on the phone with his drivers trying to figure out where it went, who took it, but he was nice enough to take us to a hardware store. We couldn't find anything exactly like what we had, but he bought us 90% of the tools that were in the toolbox that we had. He said better than what we had. I think these cost 50 and the toolbox that we bought cost 200, but hopefully they'll do the job. We're reunited. Everyone in the bus. 10 days later, we're back.
I don't even remember where TO SIT. WE'RE BACK. USBs [screaming] must have gotten taken off. Do you need a charge? Oh, no. Just to get up there, I'll be fine. Okay. Did they steal those, too? Seriously. What? Like our USB cables that we were using to charge everything? Surely not. We might have grabbed your mouth. No, we were when we were cleaning. I don't know if we did. Which is given that he helped himself to other stuff.
Anything besides the tool box? Our fuel tank, which was at a little over 3/4 of a tank, is completely uneat. Someone's obviously siphoned all the gas out of it cuz it came on the back of a flatbed truck. So now we got to we supposed to get to the port today to hopefully go to Turk Menistan. Uh but the first thing we have to do is go get gas cuz the nice fella took about 100 bucks with the gas out of the thing as well. I reckon there's even more missing, but we just haven't quite processed exactly what's been solid. They didn't take my moldy tent, which is a real let down. This starts the portion of the trip that from the very start seemed the hardest, but in a weird way, it's also the part that I've been most excited about.
It's like complete joke at this stage. There is a barbed wire fence behind me and once you go through there, they don't let you out. We're entering jail. SOS, help. One of the most foul smelling toilets I have ever been in my life. We have been here for 29 hours. What's happened? The toilet doesn't flush anymore. All of a sudden, it's really full. And I literally feel like we're living in a prison. We're in jail. And no one cares.
No one here cares.