There wasn't much point opting for the hotel over wild camping, the bed was more uneven then any place we could have possibly camped. Unless we purposely set up the tent on top of one of the massive potholes, in which case the ground would be the least of our troubles - either way the bed wasn't comfortable. At breakfast the menu was in Mongolian so we asked the waitress for help, unfortunately she was in Mongolian too and didn't seem to come with English subtitles. She nodded at our charade of "egg" and pointed at two separate items on the menu. Clearly she had just appreciated the artistic interpretation of "egg" and nodded in approval, because when breakfast arrived neither of the items involved egg. Sharkey and Wanger joined us in the resteraunt and filled us in on the karaoke events of last night. The club had been deserted apart from a few Mongolians and a collection of drunk rally-ers, but that didn't stop the chaos - there was crying, fighting, attempted robbery, drink driving and a knife fight. After our "eggs" we went to the supermarket to pick up our essential supplies of noodles, sweets and fizzy juice. What we didn't order was a tub of strawberry milkshake granules which was helpfully put in our car while we were doing our pre-flight checks. The tub hadn't been open, it had just been placed amongst our luggage, until Chris came along. The powder seemed the perfect gift for to give The Mongoliers after they had kindly washed the inside of our car for us with muddy puddle water. While they weren't looking he poured the granules over every surface inside the car. When they finally found our present they were surprised, and not the good surprised like at a surprise party when your friends and family jump out from behind your furniture, the bad surprised like when people jump out from your behind furniture and it's not even your birthday. Needless to say they were not impressed with their new interior decoration and vowed retaliation.

 

Unfortunately for them they couldn't catch us, after all we are The Gingerbread Men and the road was perfectly smooth tar-mac. We drove out of the city trying to find The Lion Cubs and The Morons by the roadside. By lunch time there was no sign of them, they had probably packed up and moved on while we were busy throwing milkshake around. As silver fox went to overtake a truck on a clear road the driver decided he fancied killing someone, and swerved violently towards them mid-overtake. After each car had carefully avoided the maniac we pulled off the road to have lunch by the side of a river. During the careful preparation of our noodle lunch the truck approached on the main road and began slowing down. We all stood still hoping his vision was based on movement as the truck slowly pulled off the road and stopped next to where we were sitting. Luckily there seemed to be a T-rex driving since it completely ignored us and drove into the desert, presumably to bury its previous victims. Mid-noodle The Morons turned up without their shirts and told us that Red Lions' clutch was broken, so they were sat by the roadside a hundred metres up the road watching as we pulled over for lunch. Clearly they weren't going anywhere so we took our time finishing our meal. When we were ready to leave we found The Mongoliers revenge smeared in a brown stain across our windscreen and wing-mirrors. I wasn't too sure whether to be relieved or annoyed when I found out it was just Nutella, it could have been a disgusting step too far but at the same time it was a horrible waste of perfectly good chocolate spread.

 

The road ended pretty much exactly where they had broken down. When we stopped we found all four of The Lion Boys and The Morons with their tops off, clearly this was a side effect of a broken clutch so we kept our distance while Sharkey bravely ventured into the quarantine zone to inspect their clutch. The cable between the peddle and the clutch had snapped which meant the peddle was now just for playing the drums with and the gearbox was stuck. While Sharkey tried connecting the two parts with a collection of cable substitutes, the rest of us helped by ignoring the broken car. A few of us set about catching the lizards which ran about the desert floor, while the others kicked a football across the road. Eventually the decision was made for The Lion Boys that they were going to be driving without a clutch for the foreseeable future, which though is possible its not comfortable. We sent them off in 2nd gear and gave them a head start for the afternoon drive, after all it should be easy to catch a car with no clutch.

 

They lost us immediately, no clutch means flooring it at high revs and not braking for potholes to them apparently. The roads didn't improve after the tar-mac disappeared, they didn't turn in to the interweaving gravel tracks of which I've heard so much, they turned to single rocky roads. Chris was driving the afternoon shift and,  as has become tradition, removed most bolts from the sump gaurd. I'm beginning to think he has an issue of the sump gaurd on a personal level. I don't care what the sump gaurd said about his mother, I just want them to be friends - especially when we actually need the sump guard attached to the car. The guard made it 2 days on the Pamir highway before we had to tackle it without one, now it had only made it another 2 days in Mongolia. By the time we reached a place to camp The Lion Boys were long gone and our sump was hanging on by a single bolt.  We waited until it was getting dark and pulled a few meters off the road into the desert. While we were tucking into dinner a car stopped on the main road and a couple of burly men approached us through the dark. They said they were from the Mongol Rally Auto Service, a garage which had sprung up in the next city in response to the demand for dodgy mechanics, and were looking for a car which had been stuck in the desert for a day with broken suspension. We looked blankly at them until they left and continued looking at the stars.