By David Dyck
The expedition will take them from Eastern Europe, down into the Middle East, and back up into Russia, before arriving at Mongolia
This summer, four SFU international studies students will embark on a trek that will take them from Prague to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. This is a distance of approximately 16,000 kilometers on the most direct route, but these students will be taking the road less travelled, through 13 countries in the Middle East including Turkey, Iran, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan.
The students are taking part in the annual Mongol Rally, in which teams depart from cities in Europe to journey across Europe and Asia. The teams have few entrance requirements, and almost no outside help as they navigate their way across deserts, forests, and mountain ranges.
The team is made up of Alli Cano, Kaisa Hartikainen, Reid Standish, and Jacob Lennheden. They’ll be leaving on July 15 on the trip that they expect will take them about six weeks.
The idea came to them while eating Mongolian barbecue at a monthly International Studies Student Association dinner. Originally there were more than four IS students interested, but “once they realized we were actually serious about it, they either said ‘you’re crazy’, or ‘I wish we could do it’,” laughed Hartikainen.
One of the few rules that exists is that registered teams must use a vehicle with an engine size of approximately one litre. Other than that, the teams all leave from Prague, and have no official help in reaching their destination in Mongolia.
The teams are also required to raise £1,000, half of which goes towards the official Mongol Rally charity, which changes annually. This year, the money will go towards the Lotus Childrens’ Centre, a Mongolian charity that helps care for orphaned or abandoned children. The other half will go towards a charity of the team’s own choosing: Schools Building Schools.
None of these funds count towards the money they will need for travel expenses or a vehicle. In order to pay for the car, the group is putting on a pub night this Thursday. With a prize raffle and ticket sales of five dollars, the group hopes to raise the $2,000 to $3,000 they’ll need.
Although some of their parents are concerned that they’re going to be going through politically volatile countries such as Iran, the group said that they’re not worried about that aspect of the trip. “One, I don’t think there’s going to be a war. I think it’s a lot of political tough talking. Iran, Israel, and America are all doing it. Two, I think there’s a lot of misconceptions. People think that the ayatollah is in charge, Ahmadinejad wants to wipe Israel off the map, and everyone in Iran is crazy,” said Standish.
The group argued that any route they took would take them through some part of the world that is going through some degree of political upheaval. “The more you travel the more you figure out that there are things to worry about and there are things that you read about in the Western media that people get scared about that doesn’t really reflect the situation on the ground . . . Terrorist attacks and robberies? I’m more worried about us breaking down in the middle of the Karakum and not being able to fix the car,” said Lennheden.
Lennheden’s worldview, which the rest of the group agreed with, is simply that if you just be nice to people, they’re usually nice to you. But the group has the travel experience to back it up, and Cano has lived in Turkey before. “Everyone I met in the Middle East was falling all over themselves trying to help you,” she said.
Yet there’s no question that the trip isn’t a safe one. In 2010 a British participant died in a car accident while travelling through Iran. The group also said that they applied for SFU’s international mobility award, but were turned down on grounds that the endeavor was too dangerous.
The group sees the experience as an adventure, and look forward to going off the beaten path. “We’re going to pass five mountain ranges, three deserts, some of the scenery there is going to be absolutely stunning, and we’re going to be going places where very few westerners go,” said Lennheden.
Hartikainen said that she was looking forward to getting some experience seeing the places that they’ve spent their time studying at SFU. “I’m doing my honours thesis on Kyrgyzstan, and it feels really funny. I’m doing all this academic work, but now I actually get to go there and see what it is like.”
