In summer 2017 I took part in the Mongol Rally, the craziest amateur race in the world. It’s like the Dakar, but it’s waaay longer (From London to Ulan Ude, 20.000km depending on the route) and you’re only allowed to drive an unsuitable old rusty car. The rally is a beautiful, tiring, crazy, unique experience, and can change how people view not only the world, but life as well.
When I first found out about the rally in 2015 there wasn’t much material that covered the whole experience, and almost all videos on YouTube were narrating the experience during the rally, not after it. When it was finally my turn to drive across the globe, I realized how subjective the whole rally experience was, and I decided that I wanted the world to be able to understand this and read how different people processed what happened in time.
The result of this stream of consciousness I had when I was lost in Mongolia with a broken gearbox resulted in the creation of “Mongol Rally Stories – tales from the craziest race in the world”. This eBook is a collection of 12 stories written by as many teams who attended the rally. Each chapter is a unique story, some tell the whole rally experience, some focus on specific moments, and some focus on what the rally meant to them.
But wait, there’s more!
When you sign up for the rally, the only serious rule is that every team has to donate at least 1.000£ to charity. At the time we decided to devolve our quote to Bhalobasa, an Italy-base NGO that provides free education and healthcare to some of the poorest countries in the world. We felt so much in love with their work, that I decided to devolve all revenues of the book to them. After all, their motto is “Not tourists but travelers”, something I deeply relate to.
