So it has been a while since we blogged. It has been a hectic start to 2018 for Yes We Khan and we can’t quite believe it is only 3 months before we head off! So it has been a while since we blogged.
Despite our never ending workloads and general busy-ness keeping us off of social media for a while, we have been deep in preparation. So what have we done…
1) Yes We Khan’s Van….Stan – That is right, we have our vehicle. Woohoo! After searching for 4×4 style vehicles and coming across a whole host of dodgy van dealers, Paul suggested a ford transit style van as they are known to be more reliable and it turns out Go Help like them too despite not being Asian made. So in our last team meeting (which included fish and chips and lots of map reading!) we scouted Autotrader for some transit vans and turns out there was one 8 miles down the road from Katie in Kent. As I (Katie) am not exactly mechanically minded and was fed up of dealing with dodgy van sellers, I asked my brother to accompany me to the viewing. And what a viewing it was! As it was dark the seller, a lovely chap named John, let me drive it 5 miles down the road to the nearest floodlit petrol station and have a nosey at it. Matt (my brother) confirmed it looked in a good working order and it drove like a dream so upon driving it back to John’s Matt went to double check the paperwork whilst I excitedly called the guys and exclaimed how amazing it was! As John knocked £500 off the price as we were doing it for charity, we all agreed it was a good deal and went for it. So we are pleased to introduce Yes We Khan’s van…Stan! Doesn’t he look pretty!
2) Vehicle Tax and Insurance – Stan is now nicely lodged on my parents drive back in Surrey. We decided to declare him off the road for a few months to save us some money and we plan to reinsure and tax him towards the end of May / beginning of June so that we can get used to driving him and start kitted him out.
3) Route Planning – We have also finalised our route somewhat and have a very good estimated day by day plan including estimated mileage, stops and driving times. Of course this is all likely to go out of the window once we actually get going but it is nice to have a vague idea of where we are going and it is essentially needed for visa applications. Sadly after getting some quotes for a tour guide in Iran (a mandatory requirement for British citizens) we decided it was too expensive at over £2000 without the added cost of having to get a carnet du passage for the vehicle. Iran we will be coming at you in another trip for sure!
4) Visas – We have been visa researching and as we are approaching the 3 month mark we will probably start applying for visas in May. Whilst Paul and Tom are travelling on their British passports, I will be travelling on my Irish but thankfully the visa rules as the same for both nationalities. We will need to obtains visas for 5 countries:
Azerbaijan (simple e-visa)
Turkmenistan (aided by Go Help, visa on arrival with pre-authorised letter)
Uzbekistan (standard visa application – although we have heard it takes the longest to be granted)
Russia (sounds VERY complicated and the most expensive at around £120) Mongolia (standard visa application)
Mongolia (standard visa application)
We will let you know how we get on!
5) Travel insurance – I believe we all had annual travel insurance cover in place which needed renewal. Turns out insurance companies don’t like insuring people who say they are participating in charity rallies. In the end we found various ones which cover us for driving abroad. Big thing ticked off the list!
6) Vaccinations – Haven’t yet done this, but I have made an appointment. Having travelled a fair amount already and having all the free NHS ones, we assume there won’t really be any we need except maybe tick bourne encephalitis and some boosters (hopefully!). Let’s face it nobody likes a needle in the arm.
7) Equipment – We have started a suggested packing list on our shared google account. Having seen lots of blogs with various bits of advice we decided to put all the different suggestions down and then work through which ones are the good ideas. Luckily we are all light packers and between us have some camping equipment already, but the ideas on which spare parts of the take for the car have been very useful. We will certainly be writing our own blog for future ralliers on our own purchases nearer the time. Any recommendations of essentials leave us a comment!
8) Money whilst on the road – We all know how annoying it is trying to split a bill in a restaurant with a bunch of friends. We the imagined that 7 weeks on the road would be even worse trying to work out who paid for what and who needs to transfer money to who. So we have set up a pre-pay travel money card called Revolut. I have heard other travellers say how great this card is because it converts currencies at the banks wholesale rate rather than their retail rates. We can also pre-load it with money from each of us to make a group kitty and use it to buy fuel and other group things on the road. Most travel money cards are mastercard but we heard that in some countries (notably Uzbekistan, Mastercard is not accepted) so we went for a visa one. We will let you know how we get on!
9) Mechanical skills – We have also set a date in the calendar with a mechanic friend who I have known for many years and who has offered to help teach us the basics of maintaining and repairing a vehicle. This will really prove invaluable and we cannot wait to get stuck in on 3rd June and get our learning caps on!
10) Fundraising – Unfortunately the fundraising has taken a bit of a backseat recently however Tom has been baking cakes and raising funds with his work bake sales and we have had some very kind donations from friends who have heard about our charity rally. We are 22% towards our target and desperately need help getting there, so as always if you have a spare few quid down the back of the sofa going spare please donate here
Team Yes We Khan 