One Helluva Trip
In this video, Team Any Way We Khan talks about their experience.
Three Georgia Tech Students Drive 8,209 Miles
The goal was simple. the destination clear. Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Statistically, the coldest capital city on the planet.
The journey, however was not as clear.
“We could go any way we wanted to, we just had to end up in Mongolia,” explains Allen Butler, a fourth year aerospace engineering major.
Butler joined his three teammates at the starting line for an extreme driving race called the Mongol Rally: Pavan Iyer, a fifth year architecture student, Cameron Addleton, a fourth year aerospace engineering major, and Matthew Farkas, and industrial engineering major. The quartet named themselves Team Any Way We Khan, word play referring to their final destination.
All four students are Georgia natives, and they chose to take on the trip of a lifetime.
Highlights from the Mongol Rally.
Drive a Small Vehicle From England to Mongolia
The contest prides itself in encouraging teams to get lost and scrape across the finish line with your vehicle in shambles.
Butler found his team’s car browsing used auto sale websites in Scotland. A practical Czech-made Skoda Fabia. It was practical, compact, and bright yellow – reminiscent of Buzz and perfect for a team of Georgia Techies.
“I didn’t really feel like I was doing the rally until they were like, “Okay everybody, honk your horns,’” explains Iyer.
Team Any Way We Khan crossed up and over the starting ramp in London with hundreds of other teams watching.
“You felt like you were part of something amazing,” Iyer recalls. From then, they were Mongolia or bust. But thirteen other countries and over 8,000 miles stood between them and their destination.
Any Way We Khan was armed with a GoPro camera to capture every possible moment of the journey. “We had a good time in some sunflower fields throwing the GoPro,” recalls Addleton.
Matthew Farkas’s father left Hungary as a teenager. He got to see the nation of his heritage for the first time on the trip.
There were hours of video and hundreds of pictures taken in an attempt to record marvels of the journey. Each moment captured a new location. Each new country the team traveled to brought picturesque scenes that most people will never get to see.
The bright yellow Skoda trekked the winding roads of what has been called the most beautiful road in the world., Romania’s Transfăgărășan Highway. A ribbon of asphalt weaves through emerald green mountain faces. It’s a scene pulled straight out of a luxury car commercial, likely because commercials have actually been shot there.
“We can’t do it justice. It’s just amazing,” Addleton says.
There were a few hiccups. The team backed into a car in Georgia. The former Soviet Republic, not the U.S. state. “Immediately there was a crowd of 50 people around us,” Addleton remembers. The guys had to come up with a quick fix. “I think we gave him like 50 dollars,” Butler says.
Team Any Way We Khan's route from London to Mongolia
In Russia, the Skoda was pulled over 16 times. “We eventually just knew to have our passports ready.” Iyer says. “Most of them just found Farkas really entertaining. “
Team Any Way We Khan members ended up spending a week in Kazakhstan, the world’s largest landlocked country.
“The roads were so bad it was hard to get anywhere,” says Butler. What were highways in Europe had turned to dirt paths in Kazakhstan and into Mongolia. But finally, the goal was within sight.
“Right after we got into Mongolia, everyone was so excited, and we were with four or five other teams,” Butler recounts. “ We were all cheering and the view was incredible,” Butler recounts.
The car started to take more of a beating. The guys lost their back bumper and had to repair a punctured gas tank. But they made it to the finish line. Amazingly, without ever using a GPS.
“We just used maps the whole time,” says Iyer.
“I think that’s one of the things that Georgia Tech has taught me. If you’re as prepared as you can be, you’re going to do well,” says Addleton.
They drove through fourteen countries: England, France, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Georgia, Russia, Kazakhstan, back to Russia, and Mongolia.
Another amazing element of this story, the four Yellow Jackets ended up circumnavigating the globe. After leaving from Atlanta to pick up their car in London, then driving through Europe and Asia to Mongolia, their return flight home routed them through Incheon, Korea and back to Atlanta.
These guys say now they want to see even more of the world. They considered skipping the flight home and driving down to Beijing. They returned to Tech, but might have another transcontinental trip in the works.
“Our next plan is getting a school bus and doing the whole Pan-American Highway,” says Addleton.