TO MONGOLIA THE HARD WAY

You have three months to travel nearly 20,000km and cross a little-known Asian wilderness. A pair of Soviet military amphibious vehicles should do the trick

- Robb Pritchard

When choosing an expedition vehicle for a multi-month trip from the Czech Republic to Mongolia through challenging countries such as Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, considerations such as capability, reliability and the availability of parts should be taken into account. Usually. Dan Priban carried out his vehicle selection slightly differently: a pair of 40-year-old Ukrainian supposedly amphibious vehicles was his choice.

‘You wouldn't be sitting here talking to me if we'd done it in a Land Rover or a Unimog,’ Dan shrugs. Unusual expedition vehicles, it turns out, are his forte. He is known in his native Czech Republic for the ten years he spent driving Trabants around the world. ‘We went to many countries, but one we couldn’t do in such useless cars was Mongolia. It was a country we wanted to explore, but we needed another car for that. We decided to see Mongolia in a way that “normal” people don’t. We chose one that floats.’