As some of you may, or may not, know Walktall.co.uk has recently sponsored a team for The Mongol Rally 2007. The team were called The Crimson Monkeys and you can visit their site here.
After completing the rally the boys were kind enough to e-mail us and let us know about how the rally went, including details of the Charity Fund they were collecting for. Please see our gallery for the pictures that were attaced to the e-mail.
Dear All,
I am writing to thank you for your and your organisations' generosity in sponsoring and also enabling myself and my team mate, Jonny Chrystal to undertake The Mongol Rally 2007. We have now collected nearly all of the sponsorship money and with your help we have smashed our £1000 pound target and are currently at £1630! This money will go directly to Mercy Corps Mongolia and also Send a Cow both of whom help families support themselves both in Mongolia and also throughout the third world.
During the rally we encountered many extremely difficult and trying moments, and the event was certainly a life changing experience. We had the disappointment of a rear wheel falling off the van whilst travelling at 60mph on the autobahn on our way to Prague which we thought may have put us out of the rally all together before we had even really got going, the danger and worry of running out of water and also nearly petrol in the 45 degree heat of the bandit filled Kazakhstan desert as well as many other mentally and physically trying moments.
All of these moments however, were offset by the enjoyment of the places we saw and also the people we met along the way. From the children and families in small Kazakhstan villages who have suffered greatly through times of communist rule but are still smiling and willing to share any of the things they have to help others, to the people and families in Siberia who make their living by selling small amounts of fruit at the roadside but will gladly show great hospitality towards people who come by. We saw some amazing scenery along the way, from the high, craggy mountains of central Russia, to the steppes and deserts of Kazakhstan and Mongolia and everything else in between!
Our journey was certainly one of extreme highs and lows, and after covering 8000miles and travelling for 3 weeks and 5 days, we finally achieved our goal and made it to Ulaanbaatar! Here we met some of the street children of the city who have been either orphaned or have run away from home because of the wide spread alcohol abuse and social breakdown experienced in Mongolia since the end of communist rule. In order that these children can survive the harsh Mongolian winter temperatures of -25 degrees, they now inhabit the heating ducts and sewage pipes below the city which are warm all year round.
Before signing over our van and all of its contents to the local children's charity who will auction the items and the van itself to raise funds to re home and help the Mongolian street children, we managed to off load the food supplies we had left directly to a group of local street children, they seemed very happy with their haul of countless tins of beans and macaroni cheese and went to get their friends to share the bounty out! By meeting the children it allowed us to see first hand the hardship and struggle they face every day.
I will be receiving updates from the charities involved throughout the year so that we can see how and where the money raised is being spent, which i will forward onto yourselves as I receive them.
I have attached a few photographs to this email and have placed many more photographs from our trip onto the gallery section of our website, which is located at www.thecrimsonmonkeys.com which some of you may be interested in, I will also be uploading our travel diary within the next week or so. If any of you would like original copies of the pictures then please let me know. The event was also filmed by ITV for Jack Osbourne's "Adrenaline Junkie" program, which will be shown in the next few weeks.
Once again thank you to you and your organisation for your kindness and generosity and for enabling us to undertake and complete this challenge of a lifetime!
Regards,
Tom Eggleston
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