Er, which way to Ulan Bator?
They will be joined by their Scottish friend Sandy, 30, a banker who is quitting his job to travel half way round the world in a battered old Land Rover. It’s an epic journey – made more hazardous by the three men’s worrying lack of any kind of relevant experience in this field. Tom has only just booked his driving test. Sandy is scared of the dark. Archie can’t grow a beard. Not one of them has the faintest idea how an internal combustion engine works. “We realise,” says Archie, a master of understatement, “that there are many things that could go wrong.” But what they lack in expertise, they make up for in enthusiasm. They know they will get tired, that they will have rows, that, inevitably, they will get lost and the Land Rover may break down or, at the very least, run out of petrol. They know there will be outlaws out there who will be only too keen to relieve them of their cash and food. And that Tom’s mum, after seeing the route for the first time this week, has already started g
