Long Way Round (2004) s01e05 Episode Script

Got sun on my face
Sleeping rough on the road
I'll tell you all about it
When I get home
Comin' round to meet you
The long way round
We're gonna ride 20,000 miles in 115 days, through 12 countries.
Europe, Kazakhstan and Mongolia.
And then ride the Road of Bones in Far Eastern Russia.
Then we're gonna fly to Alaska
and go through Canada, America and New York.
We're gonna give these guys video cameras.
They'll have cameras on their motorcycles.
They will have cameras on their helmets. And mics in their helmets.
-I feel like a fighter pilot. -I'm dropping bombs now.
Having a third motorcycle travel with them,
and on that third motorcycle will be a cameraman.
In addition, there'll be two support vehicles.
We will travel around the world as well, linking up with the guys at borders.
But really, the motorcycles will be on their own.
London to New York. 20,000 miles. Two men, two bikes.
You want my beard? What's this?
I think he's a barber and wants him to cut his hair off.
No, we gotta go on.
We gotta go. We gotta go to fucking New York.
Huh?
No, no, no. It's okay.
I do understand, but
Ah, it's fine.
Our Russian lessons really paid off, you know?
I mean, we're almost, We're that far from fluent, I'd say.
You know, obviously we couldn't have a political, kind of, argument,
but apart from that, we're good, aren't we?
This is the first bit of road, road as we would think of a road,
that we've had since--
Would it be Slovakia? Yeah. I'd forgotten what it's like.
I was going along the road, and I looked down, and all I saw was this sort of--
I sort of shake every bump.
Like, that's-- This is Kazakhstan.
Right? And this is the roads in Russia.
What are the roads in America?
Wow. Crazy place.
We're in Barnaul, and it's a crazy town.
The driving's crazy. It looks crazy.
Feels like some mad turn-of-the-century gold rush town or something, you know?
With modern blocks of flats and things.
This is amazing. We were just thinking,
"Well, yeah. We'll go back into Russia for a couple days to get to Mongolia."
Who knew?
The Altay region in Russia. Fantastic. It's beautiful here.
Listen, in an hour or so, let's get off and have a quick dip.
This is hurting. Damn cold.
Fucking hell!
So cold.
Very liberating.
Three naked men in the countryside, you know?
We should have some drums and bows and arrows and stuff.
So, the plan is
to camp somewhere in this unbelievable valley
for the last-- Well, all day.
It's just been the most extraordinarily beautiful riding, hasn't it?
-Just amazing. -It's been mad.
And the Altay is, I mean, something that none of us ever really even thought about.
It was just a bit to get through to get to Mongolia.
And so far it's been one of the most beautiful places we've been to so far.
I was just looking at these little wooden houses,
and they're from another time. It's like time travel.
We watched this old lady carrying buckets of water on a stick across her back.
I mean, I don't know if it makes you appreciate what we have or not,
you know what I mean?
Why do I assume that, because I've got a tap and stuff,
it's better?
'Cause it is, isn't it?
That's why.
'Cause it's much easier to fill a watering can out of a tap.
But then, easier, happier? Don't know.
We're off to Mongolia!
This is the border that was gonna be potentially difficult to get through.
But, you know, we've left Russia seamlessly.
We've arrived here at the Mongolian border,
and we're just waiting for the paperwork to come back.
I'm tired today. I'm just hanging today.
Maybe it's the five-week wall.
Do we need to cross as a team on these borders
'cause they can be quite tricky?
Every border, the landscape knows to change at the line, doesn't it?
The crazy desert where you stopped and had a drink at the market.
And then this just different you know, voluptuous lands.
-I have this image that is just the same-- -No, that's more like Switzerland.
This is a Mongolian/shamanist tradition.
And this is a hudduck, which is given at sacred moments,
like the birth of a child, or the beginning of a big journey.
So lots of the machines or vehicles you'll see, they have them.
-Is that all right? -Oh, that's lovely.
That's what lots of people say to you.
Which means, "Safe journey."
That's what's been missing on my bike. I knew there was something.
Another crazy country
where I don't know enough about it.
Thank you so much for all your help.
Through that border without any problems.
Now we're off on our own until Ulaanbaatar.
Very few people are allowed in that border,
so this whole western part of Mongolia is relatively unexplored, you know?
Tomorrow we'll get to the market town of Ulaangom,
then from there we'll head south to the White Lake.
Then we should be in the capital, Ulaanbaatar, in a week.
Welcome to Mongolia.
Oh, my goodness. These roads are gonna be intense.
Quite amazing though, aren't they?
One of the things that we talked about a lot during the prep
is that Mongolia only had 80 miles of tarmac.
I'm hoping that's not entirely true.
Charley and I made a big decision yesterday.
To have
one-man tents each. One each.
There is an issue between you two.
Not at all, no.
We've been preparing for this for four months, right?
Four and a half months, five days a week.
And then we've been on the trip now for six weeks.
Well, this is the sixth week.
You don't have any personal space. You don't have any space of your own.
But there is no true love.
There's no true love?
I don't think so. I think we're keeping the true love alive.
No, I just--
-Imagine. Otherwise-- -It's just nice at night.
It's nice to have your own space, come on.
Is there an issue between you and I, Charley?
Think it's nice to have-- I like my own space. I think we all--
Everybody likes their own space.
Claudio, there's no problem with Charley and I. Charley, tell him.
There's a terrible problem with us. We hate each other.
-It's fine. -I can't believe him.
I'm a bit apprehensive.
I'm in good spirits now,
'cause we've got the camp set up in a beautiful spot and everything, but
it's gonna be quite tough.
You know, what have we let ourselves in for?
I mean, this really is the back and beyond of absolutely nowhere.
I mean, it's just extraordinary.
I mean, that's 9:30 at night. Can you believe that?
I'm in awe of it, and I'm completely terrified at the same time.
There's a man coming towards us on a horse.
Maybe we should approach him. Maybe that's what you're meant to do.
Hello.
How are you?
Hello.
I'm not quite sure what to do.
-Bye-bye. -Ciao, ciao.
You see, and there was a big smile. It's just--
Yeah.
I guess, what would you do
if, you know, you're just in this landscape all the time,
and then suddenly we come through?
I mean, you'd probably just come up on your horse and go
-Like he just did. -Like he just did.
But when we said goodbye, he gave us the biggest smile.
I just wish we could've spoken to him.
What's funny about this country is that whenever you stop,
there's always somebody who seems to appear on a horseback
or in a car, or from a ger nearby, or whatever it is.
Hello. Hello.
Magadan?
Far Eastern Russia.
Then we fly to Anchorage, Canada, America, New York.
That's the revs.
Oh, it's Mongolian vodka.
Found them. Got 'em.
-For you. -From Scotland.
Whiskey.
Top lads.
People seem just to pop up out of nowhere here.
This is Claudio.
-Charley. -Charley.
Ewan.
-Limbenik. -Limbenik.
Nice to meet you.
Do you ride your horse?
That's an interesting mime.
-Tomorrow we have to learn some phrases. -Yeah.
Like, "How are you doing?"
-"Would you like a coffee?" -Yeah.
That kind of thing.
So it's 100 miles today.
Well, as the crow flies, so that's probably a little bit more.
Just madness.
We've got this big river coming up, which I think is gonna be a problem.
I get a terrible feeling.
Do you know where you're going?
Yeah. We-- This is the-- Look.
They're just saying that there's no way to get across these rivers.
So, we're right here, where the orange line meets the blue line.
So we've gotta head down here
till we see this lake
go right round the lake, keep the lake on our left,
go round the lake,
back up here till we hit the road again, then turn right.
Okay.
We're off on an adventure.
We've popped into Arizona, it would seem, for the moment.
But we're on a mission.
We can't go the route we wanted to go, the straight route to the-- Ulaangom,
'cause the river's very high, and we couldn't get the bikes across it.
So we're now heading round the lake.
I'm quite glad we've had to come the long way round,
just to meet these kids.
Charley. Huh?
Hello, wee goatie.
The whole town comes out and helps you out pumping the petrol,
which they pump by hand.
And we filled up with the worst grade fuel that we've had yet,
and the bikes have been running perfectly all day.
The other thing that's quite tricky here is rubbish.
Knowing what to do with your rubbish.
Like the camping packets and all that stuff.
'Cause I don't know where people put it.
There's no dustbins or anything.
No, it's fine.
Oh, God.
Guys, look. Try to keep it on the dry ground.
Okay, okay.
-Whoo! -My feelings about Mongolia
are that it could be much harder than we thought.
It could be it could be really towy.
I don't know what we were imagining.
Actually, I don't really know what I was imagining at all.
But when they say dirt tracks
I suppose you think of-- I don't know.
Here we are in deep sand. Always a favorite with the biker.
Ah, God. It's really deep, ugly stuff, this.
I hate it, I hate it, I hate it.
There we go.
The difference in the roads here are that there aren't any.
They're not roads. They're just
tracks in the earth's surface.
I think next time I'll go round the world in the back of a van,
with someone else driving.
God, I tell you, this is one of the first days where I've really
I've really felt quite low. We've come such a long way around.
It's sandy.
Really soft sand, which is a nightmare.
We're trying to-- trying to just push on.
I mean, it's-- What's depressing is when you look at the map and see
there's the border.
-And we're gonna come out here. -That's all we've done.
So although we've been riding for a whole day,
we've effectively only achieved from here to here, which is 35 kilometers.
As opposed to here.
It's like some moon or something. It's just
so barren, and there's just no one around, and
just nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
-Do you want the last bit? -Sure.
I hate most the sand.
Yeah, just don't know how to drive in it.
Well, it's now 7:30,
and again we find ourselves in absolutely the middle of nowhere.
We're gonna press on for another half an hour,
and then we're gonna stop.
And I think we've done the best we can today, really.
An extraordinary day.
There was a couple of times today where I did question
what are we doing?
What are we doing? Why are we out here?
We were comp-- It felt like we were riding on the moon.
I felt, "What are we doing this for?"
"Who thought this would be a good idea?"
You know, that kind of thing.
Today was a total learning curve.
You know, we had to learn that there are six or seven roads,
and that if a road does go over, go around the hill this way
and another one goes that way, they're usually gonna meet, and--
You know, so all of that, we had to learn
-Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. -really fast today.
Chicken stew's good.
Some climb over this hill.
Really.
Incredible. All this 'cause we couldn't cross that river.
We're still not back on the road that was blocked by the river.
You don't wanna have a breakdown up here.
Can you imagine?
I don't think, you know, International AA reaches up here.
"Where are you, sir?" "Well"
I don't wanna tempt fate, actually. That was a silly thing to say.
This is where things went pear-shaped.
We're coming down the mountain, and I heard on my radio
I had a very bad fall.
It was Claudio. He was behind Charley and I.
I just thought, when someone says they've had a bad one,
it means that they've hurt themselves, you know?
Oh, Jesus Christ.
You just gotta be so careful.
It's really-- You know, we've said this before about your recklessness, Claudio.
Sorry.
No, don't apologize. You all right though?
That's the main thing, if you're all right.
I was looking left and right, you know, enjoying the view, the countryside.
And, of course, there's one huge, big rock, and I went straight in it.
It's ripped off your-- your pannier.
Nice place to crash though. Beautiful place to crash.
The biggest problem from your crash, Claudio, is this.
We discovered a break in Claudio's frame
on the back of his motorcycle.
What we gotta try to do is try and brace it a little bit.
With these.
Just so-- Just to try and give it a little bit of something.
Try and get one on each side.
And then we need to get it spot-welded.
Charley did the most incredible bodge job.
He splinted, if you like, the frame
by wedging it between the two tire irons and tightening all the cable ties around.
We're now gonna have to try and get to Ulaangom
and find someone who can weld it and fix it.
Then Charley had a wee off and bent his brake lever.
Did you hurt your leg? It seemed to go on your leg, no?
No, it's fine.
Jesus.
-We need to get the screwdriver-- -What happened?
Just bent the back brake.
This is really going tough, Claudio.
I hope that that road that we're trying to get to is-- I hope is a little bit easier.
I don't know.
We'll get there.
We've found our way back onto the road that we should've been going on yesterday,
and it had taken us a day and a half.
Imagine that at home, you know?
"Sorry, this road's blocked off, but if you go a day and a half that way,
it'll bring you back to the road just over there."
We finally got to Ulaangom a day late,
but we found a welder to fix Claudio's bike.
Wow. Wow.
He's done an excellent job. That's fantastic.
Within 15 minutes of being in town, we've fixed your bike.
Well, he's fixed your bike.
So we made it to Ulaangom at last.
And we've fixed your bike, Claudio,
and in the process of welding the frame that had broken
managed to do something to the ABS brake,
so that now you don't have any brakes at all.
We've come right up against our first major disaster.
We fried Claudio's bike.
I don't think it's worked, 'cause otherwise the front wheel wouldn't lock.
We're stuck in the middle of nowhere, and--
We're stuck, and Claudio's bike doesn't work.
We spent hours trying to get this braking system to work.
No.
And we just can't do it.
We met this American guy who works for the American government.
He's a really nice guy. Kyle.
And he helped us out, and he's made a deal for us
that for $300 we can get the bike shipped to UB.
He's got a sister who lives on the route that we're gonna take.
So we're gonna try and hook up with her.
And she's-- he's given me this medallion which he had made up.
Here. This medallion here that he's had made up
to give to his sister when we see her in America.
So hopefully we can do that.
And then his friend, who's the only other American here,
he's gonna help us in the market,
and we're gonna try and get a bike for Claudio.
I think that could be quite an interesting venture.
Very interesting venture, yeah.
Yeah.
These are the new border guards. Every three months, they change them over.
And then they teach them to march and all that kind of thing,
and then send them out all around the border of Mongolia,
in the middle of nowhere,
and they're left to find their own food, and
they just walk up and down the border.
-Okay, anyway, Claudio -Let's go.
This is the market where we're gonna try and find you a bike.
So, let's get on with it.
Todd, who we met last night.
I am an English teacher at Ulaangom College.
Todd just teaches English at Ulaangom College.
-Exactly. -Been here for a couple of years.
And so he knows the market a little better than us, obviously,
'cause we've only been here for 12 hours.
We reckon for about $200
we should be able to buy a Russian motorcycle in good nick.
There's too much wrong with it.
The front brakes don't work, the front tire's worn. The--
It's just too old, and there could be potentially too many problems with it.
So we're just better off getting this new one.
We've decided we can't risk the bike breaking down,
so we're gonna buy a new one.
She's checking the exchange rate on American dollars
to see what it would cost.
$1,034.50?
48 cents.
I like them. I like the look of them.
They remind me of the bikes that I used to think about when I was a kid, you know?
Kind of old-fashioned-looking.
I think it'll be fine-- I think it'll be a rough ride for you,
but I think it'll be all right.
I'm a bit jealous. You get a new bike.
Any new bike's a great feeling, isn't it?
Thank you very much.
Whoo!
It's really windy now, and there's big spots of rain.
If it rains, it's gonna be difficult. It really is gonna be difficult.
The bikes are fantastic, but the problem is with that kind of mud and stuff,
they're just so heavy and so
difficult to manage.
Whereas Claudio and his little Russian bike just went scooting past.
I tell you, this machine does the trick.
It does the trick. It's much easier.
Because it's lighter.
Even if you have a wobble, you can hold it with your legs.
These huge BMWs, you know, once you get a wobble, that's it.
It's the end of it. You're on the ground.
Okay.
Yeah. They're some roads today, eh?
-Yeah. -Sand and mud today.
-The nice thing is no dust. -What?
No dust but mud.
No dust but mud and sand.
My heart's just sinking about getting across Mongolia
in anything like the time that we'd planned.
It's got really hard now. This has really toughened up now.
So I've gotta dig deep and get tough with it.
You know? Not gonna become a big moany, pansy-ass arsehole
just because it's got hard.
I have a warning light on my bike, and I don't know why.
My warning light's on as I'm riding along.
Which can either be the brake light, which is fine, or the ABS.
We weren't planning on seeing the support crew until Ulaanbaatar,
and they're supposed to be a few days behind us,
but we're going so slowly at the moment that they caught up with us.
All it says in here is that it's ABS or brake light, right?
Brake lights, yeah.
But the ABS warning light isn't on. It's just the warning light. So maybe--
We've had our ABS light--
Our ABS has broken, like, three, four thousand miles ago.
ABS can be, like, demobilized easily just by, like, breaking the wire.
You know? By hitting a stone or a rock or something.
Decided to ride with the support team for the rest of the day,
and to be honest, with the roads like this, I'm quite relieved.
Jesus.
This is hard, guys.
There's no point looking for the why and the wherefore.
It's just the when.
When do we get to Alaska?
When do we get back on tarmac?
It just
It's just getting on top of me at the moment, actually. Really.
I may never, ever ride a motorcycle off-road again after this trip.
That might be it. I'll have done it.
So you're telling me we've done now 20 miles in
almost one and a half hours.
I had a, kind of, my only ever, ever Star Wars dream this morning.
But I was naked as Obi-Wan Kenobi. It was quite a weird one, that.
It's just testing us, this, in every respect.
The bikes seem to be-- There's niggles and problems,
and the roads are really difficult, and navigation's impossible.
It's just testing us to the full, this bit.
-What happens-- -I'm starting to dream of Alaska.
And I love it here, you know what I mean? I really love it in the--
the people we met and the culture and the animals, it's beautiful.
But it's hard, it's hard. It's harder than anything we've done so far.
And we're camping tonight with the support team,
and some locals have invited us into their ger for tea.
Wouldn't it be great to have in your back garden though?
You're right. It would be fantastic.
With all this carpet and around the outside and--
This sort of thing, yeah.
-Would you like to eat nuts? -Nuts?
Oh, my Lord.
It was balls.
Cow balls, sheep balls and goat balls. And there were 200.
-Go on, have a bull's nut. -No.
-Have a look at it anyway. -I don't wanna have a bull's nut. I--
I just-- I don't wanna eat nuts.
I guess we should try,
but it does worry me slightly, what it's gonna be like to eat.
-Same. -Slightly?
Okay, one each.
Okay, we'll go for it.
-Just one each though. -One small one each.
They all thought that was quite funny, just having one,
because they all had big bowls of it. Big bowls of balls.
And they've all come off today? So they're all fresh, right?
So this is--
Thank you.
-Cut it in half? -You gotta do the whole thing.
What, the-- All that?
Ewan went first.
I've only got a wee one.
He's very good about eating that kind of stuff. He can do it.
Go, baby.
That's very good.
-Okay, ready? -Down.
Sorry, just thinking about it.
-Did you eat it? -Go on, Charley.
No.
Did you eat it?
-Yeah, yeah. -Did it go down?
-Oh, get off. -Honestly, I didn't do it. I can't.
I can't do it.
-Here you go, he's eating one here. -Have one, Russ.
Here you go. Right.
Go on, Russ. Go on, Russ.
Comb through the hair there.
Oh! Oh!
Sorry. Sorry, I couldn't do that.
-Nearly. Sorry. -I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
We've come this far, and
people's faces have changed, and people's houses have changed,
and people's
beliefs may have changed,
but ultimately, the-- we're not--
we're not any different from one another, you know?
We all love our kids.
We all need somewhere to sleep.
We all need some food.
And
and we're not all that different, you know?
The world isn't that big a place.
I mean, we're probably about a third of the way round now.
And we've ridden every inch of it on the back of three motorcycles.
One of the nice things about being here
is you're just completely out of touch with what's going on,
and at the moment, I think that's a huge relief,
'cause it's just
what a mess we're making.
What a mess is being made of the world.
And, you know, and we're all just the same.
Beautiful. We'll see you in the morning for breakfast.
Bye-bye.
So we've left the support team.
They're taking a different route from us to Ulaanbaatar.
-The roads are much easier today as well. -Much easier.
-Dried out a bit, haven't they? -Yeah.
I was having such a great time in the morning.
I felt like some great explorer.
We were really riding our bikes into nowhere.
Should've been a pointer.
But I felt like we were like the nomads, you know? A bit.
We were just-- There was a mountain, so we'll ride over it.
And then moments later it all just went just to your worst nightmare.
We got to a stage where the road kept just fading out,
and we'd had to cross back over the same bit of river twice
'cause we'd gone the wrong way on the other side of the bank.
That road just ran out there.
I mean, completely ran out.
And, you know, I don't wanna go on a road which nobody ever goes on.
At least this road, somebody always goes on this road, at least,
-if something happens. You know? -Yeah, you're right. Yeah.
We're just a bit confused as to which road to take.
We've taken the left fork when maybe we should've taken the right one.
Frustrating having to turn around and come back all that way.
It's just the way it is.
Funny how quickly a great morning can turn into a really crappy afternoon, isn't it?
I think we've gone up the wrong valley, personally, but
God, this is just madness. It really is.
I mean, look where we are.
Look where we've come from.
This is just crazy.
Just keep soldiering on, that's all we can do.
Ewan got bogged down two or three times, and we had to push him out.
And just my stamina was just getting lower and lower and lower and lower.
And we got a little bit further on,
and then it just suddenly became just this marsh,
when we hit the bottom of the valley, I suppose.
It just completely and utterly just turned to bog.
It was the worst roads I've ever had.
Small craters. It's just bog and marsh and mud.
And the road is just mud.
And you just can't get through, and you just keep falling over.
Bloody hell.
This bit's been sent to test us, isn't it?
Test me, anyway.
Oh, Claudio.
Whatever happened to just a bit of tarmac, you know?
Just a little bit of asphalt.
Whatever happened to third, fourth and fifth and sixth gear?
Whatever happened to dry clothes?
Whatever happened to
being able to sit on a motorbike without falling off it?
And why is it that you haven't fallen off at all?
The red devil.
That's so annoying.
Okay.
-What? -Fucking hell!
Wait.
That's it.
Let's get going.
We've really gotta get on, Claudio. These rain clouds are coming.
The weather was closing in, and I was getting more and more concerned,
seeing these black clouds coming over the hill.
And 'cause we were in such a boggy area, the thought of it raining again,
it's just gonna be a nightmare.
All I wanted to do was be back with my wife and my children.
I just can't do it. I can't stay on the bike for two seconds in that.
It's just killer.
I fell off a lot.
I get a terrible sense that I'm slowing down the whole thing, and
Oh, Jesus.
I end up feeling, "Oh, I'm slowing down Charley,
and he'd be much better off on his own without having to worry about me."
And, you know, all that negative stuff just brings me down into a
into a kind of depression, I suppose.
I can't do this. I can't take my gloves off, 'cause they're so wet.
Okay. Let's go. Come on.
Well, we're gonna try and push on, I think is the thing.
'Cause we don't wanna be stuck in this valley when it gets really wet.
If it rains all night
we're better to push on now. Get a bit wet now.
Ewan, how do we feel?
I don't really know, Claudio.
How I feel, really, I don't have
any idea.
I'm kind of numb.
Think we need to get out of this valley as quickly as possible.
And-- 'Cause otherwise we'll be stuck here for a couple of days.
Just carried on and got even worse and just
got even worse.
Come behind me.
We had to cross, like, the same river five times.
We had to dip down again into this just-- this bog again.
And it just went on and on and on.
And it was just so, so, so difficult.
I was just crawling along, not knowing where to go,
just crying in my helmet.
I just was crying.
And then suddenly
we came up the crest of a hill.
So we came to the top of this hill,
and then suddenly, we're now in this landscape now, which you can see.
A day like today is like living hell at moments,
when you're falling all the time.
Every three feet, you fall down, you know?
That's, kind of, what the trip's all about, I suppose,
because those are the memories that you look back on and laugh about,
or are proud that you got through it about.
We are getting better at it,
and we're gonna have to be, 'cause the whole of fucking Mongolia is like this.
Could've gone to Cannes.
Could've been in the south of Spain.
Could've gone to I don't know, Mexico or something.
We're just not getting anywhere. We've got so far to go.
We've got 1,000 miles of this.
We've been riding for three and a half hours.
We've done 12 miles.
This is really hard.
I don't know what we're playing at really.
We saw this small shrine
and decided, with the way things are going,
it couldn't hurt to have the gods on our side.
Well, your bike's broken down and it won't go into gear.
And then Claudio's bike broke down, and we thought, "Christ.
No idea what to do. Absolutely none."
Then these guys here just turned up.
He took the gearbox side off. He took the gasket cover off.
They're laughing at us because we've got all the tools and no fucking idea.
These last few days have just been so testing really.
I don't know what to do.
I mean, we're so far away from where we're supposed to be.
We gotta get from here down to the White Lake.
We need to discuss this together.
And then all the way across to the capital.
And then all the way out.
My reaction was to look at the map
and just get freaked out by how far we've got to go.
That we've got to go
you know, an enormous amount of distance
and that we'd only managed to achieve this amount in the last three or four days--
I don't think we're gonna be able to all the way to there.
And then out.
I was looking at the map, and I just looked at the border to Russia,
and I suddenly thought, "There's the solution."
Get out of Mongolia and get back into
Russia, where there are roads.
I'd hate to look back on it and think that we pussied out of it,
but at the same time, we're achieving 25 miles an hour at the best of times.
Yeah. What--
Really, at the best of times. And we've got--
It's over 1,000 miles to
Ulaanbaatar, isn't it?
My reaction to it getting difficult was to bail out, basically.
I thought I was made of tougher stuff than that.
Jesus, I don't know.
I was just scared. I was, you know, wasn't enjoying myself.
It was hard.
You know, the whole thing was just, you know, getting on top of me.
part of the problem--
I mean, just the last couple of days has been such a struggle
on the roads here.
And it hasn't gotten any easier.
No. And it maybe won't.
No, it won't. It'll stay like this.
-I really don't know. -I don't know.
Jesus. Ewan, I'm gonna have to call you back, man.
Russ and Vasiliy just got into an accident.
I'm gonna go up there and see what happened.
I gotta call right back. Stay by your phone.
Don't go there, because there's some ditch there or something.
-Fuck. -Oh, no.
Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.
Oh, no. No.
Are you okay? Are they okay?
They took the southernly route. They took that
The--
They've gone further south than here, I guess.
They're probably
over there somewhere.
Oh, my God.