Archive for category Uncategorized

Richy Rich

The last time we wrote a little update, we were (as usual) a little ahead of ourselves thinking we’d be out for a little test drive on the weekend. It’s now a week later and we’re saying the same thing, we should be out in a few days. This has been the story of our journey thus far, everything takes a little longer, a little more effort, a few more parts, than we initially expected. It’s these extra yards, where we learn the most, about the truck, about ourselves, and about why we’re on this crazy merry-go-round adventure.

It has however, been an incredibly productive four or five days . Hammer and tongs, the saying goes, although we’ve also been using wrenches, soldering irons, and more rivets than I can count. We joke sometimes that our truck is held together with spit and hope, but that’s not true, it’s mainly rivets, lots and lots of rivets.

The internal and external lighting and ventilation is all wired and looking pro, we don’t even get out of bed now to turn the lights on and off – nice. Water pumps have been installed, the inflatable tank is full, and fairly shortly the clean, filtered H2O will be flowing into our kitchen and shower, double nice. Even our new chinese indicators are wired up, meaning we can indicate to other traffic which direction we’re going, as if we have any idea ourselves.

Last night, we had dinner with an incredible man called Micko, Liam’s dad (the guy we bought the motorbike off). He is 14 months into a travel from Rottnest to Rotterdam, (that’s Australia to Europe folks) in his landcruiser, with his lovely partner Liesbeth. They have just driven through China and Tibet, and had nothing but enthusiasm for us and our plan to get to africa.

For us, it was inspiring to see a couple of people, so totally happy on the road, telling us that we were on the right track. Long travels like theirs are not always easy, but for them, like us, it’s not about the destination, but soaking up as much of each place as they can. Hopefully we’ll get to spend some more time with them, and it’s likely too, because they have to wait for Russian visa’s, an unpredictable process that begins for us in a few weeks too.

So we’ll leave you, once again, in the hope that next time we update, we’ll have photos of sunshine, nature, and butterflies, instead of a slightly disturbing one of Rikki in a onsey.

(He says it’s not a onsey if they’re overalls, but he also confessed to me the other day his lifelong dream was to have boots attached to his onsey so in the morning he can get dressed with minimal effort sort of like richy rich? n.b Rikki’s birthday is december 3)

Tattoo the world

So Truck the World has got some new tattoos, well not just tattoos, we now are basically a rolling tatto studio, thanks to “translator” formally known as Anya and our shiny new tattoo guns from China.

Sorry the update is a bit late, we have been out in the wilderness in the truck, videos of that will be up shortly!!

Truck update June 2009

Well its Sunday again, ah how time flies, this week a return to progress, see the truck update and a little bit of kit we have for sale.

We may act silly in the video re: the truck for sale, but we are serious, we have a spare diesel powered, Gaz 66, easily converted to an expedition truck, so come on join the madness, the truck is up for grabs. ( of course we are also serious when we say , “translator not included” she is ours!!!)

If you are into the truck , or wanna know about what you get exactly for $3500 USD hit us on facebook link is just there on the left.

Ok that’s it

Enjoy

Till next time

Truck the world !!

Dark days at Truck the World

Its not all fun and games, us boys at Truck the World have our bad days too. Snowy days, cold temps, failure to get stuff finished in time, all reported in this weeks update.

If this is your first time to Truck the World, please watch the other videos first, this post may disturb some viewers.

Enjoy!

Дүүжин Даажин thats Duujin Daajin for you english speakers

So here we go, Truck the World’s first attempt at making a music video.

It’s a pretty dark song. Sung from the perspective of a child, pleading with their parents to listen to the kids, that the law of the land belongs to the people, not the government.
There’s a presidential election here on Sunday, and the band wanted the video finished in time for it -- they also wanted zombies, but i quoted them some Mick Jagger -- you can’t always get what you want … on this occasion, time wasn’t on our side.

The band are awesome, seeing them perform live is quite the experience. They are all classically trained musicians, playing traditional instruments, in a modern way, in this song there are two singers, one of whom, sings with the classic Mongolian throat singing styles. duujin daajin means see-saw.

The video was made for about $35 dollars, most of which was spent on rope.

Trans Mongolian from Rikki Berger on Vimeo.

The week that was….

Sounds like a sports round up , but this isn’t grown men dressed in silly uniforms playing with inflated animal skins or or guys wearing polo shirts trying to get a small white ball into a hole in some grass. This is silly men, not in uniform, trying to achieve what some believe to be a crazy dream.

Truck the World is rolling full steam ahead, every week, without fail, check it out

Music in the clip is Shook (Mobb Deep And Sigur Ros remix) by Emancipator.

Gorki is famous, and oh so tough!

So here are a couple of clips from the Russian version of Top Gear, they have done a little piece on testing the so called toughest vehicle Russia has ever produced, yup that’s right , its the Gaz 66, our beloved Truck the World Gorki.

The Russian Top Gear Team, test the truck through a series of brutal processes, first they drop a mid size family car onto the Gaz from 12 metres, then knock it around with a wrecking ball, finishing it off by hitting it with a flame thrower and then submerging it in a cold Russian river. Will the mighty Gaz survive the tortuous tests? Will it still start and be able to be driven?

The clips are well worth a look, giving you a look at the Gaz in its native homeland, the clips have subtitles too, so you can enjoy the dry Russian humour while you watch.

So, trucktheworld has been in hiatus. No, that’s not a holiday spot in the Caribbean, it means we’ve taken a short break – reason being, Rikki was back in New Zealand, and Alex was growing his beard. (Rikki sarcastically strokes his beard and laughs with a hearty tone)

But all cylinders are firing once again. Got a couple of new updates for you, letting you know what’s going on with the truck, the warehouse, and our new foray into professional documentary making.

It’s feeling good. The truck isn’t ready yet, but we are. Rikki got back, and joined the ranks of the un/self-employed, finally joining trucktheworld full time. Up until now, he’s only been dreaming this shit, and working on it after school, but once he returned from his holiday in NZ, both of us were up the creek -- build your own paddle.

He didn’t return empty handed however, he had a bottle of codeine, a new motorised rotor for the camera’s, and a crossbow. Yup a crossbow. We will now be able to shoot grizzly bears from a hundred feet, and still be able to re-use the arrow once it passes through the torso. Cool.

Other things are changing. Looks like we’re going to have to go to china soon, and when we return from that visa run, we’re going to be homeless. Nothing like a bit of pressure to up the ante, put a spring in the step, and, well, get that bloody truck up and running.

The weather has been delightful. I can already sense that summer in Mongolia, is an amazing time, a beautiful thing to behold. It’s like the rains arriving in India, the wet finally hitting Darwin after a month of teasing, or daylight savings in the south island. It’s not just the land that is affected, it’s the people, who are very much of the land, and there’s a change, like world cup fever in England. To survive the winter, five months of sub zero conditions, to be alive, healthy, and in many cases, beautiful, is something to be proud of, an achievement.

So yes we are about to be homeless. Yes, we have to go on a visa run to china, temporarily forsaking the truck and our documentary making expedition here in UB. But, it’s impossible to miss the vibe, summer is here, and as d.i double z double e said before us ‘it’s gonna be a long hot summa!’ believe it -- we will share it all.

We think the truck will be up and running some time in may. Rikki truly is a mastermind, his attention to detail is inspiring. It’s a daunting trip, task, challenge, this journey we have set out for ourselves, but I have no doubts about the practical sides of it. I have complete faith in the truck, and the concept, and any time a difficulty seems to arrive, it is solved before it gets time to sink in and fester. Yeah – I’m gonna live in a truck for the next few years – and yeah, I reckon there’s nowhere else I’d rather be – that truck is going to be better than most accommodation I’ve had in the last five years. It’s gonna be pimped – and the places we plan to go … shit, I haven’t heard of most of them.

I realise that there are many details left out from our website. To be honest, we’re not sure who’s reading – we figure it is only people who know us, and therefore, have missed out lots of details we figure you already know. Like, how we got here, why we’re doing this, how long we’ve been planning it, what we plan to do .. etc etc.

Truth is, we are very much learning everything as we go. We’ve never made videos, audiocasts (coming soon) or documentary’s before, we’ve never built Russian military trucks from scratch either. But we’re ambitious. We are doing it. We don’t know if it will work, or how it will end, but that’s the point.

Sorry, I actually got off point there for a minute, my point, is that I think we should write a little over the next few weeks, about ourselves, and where we are at, in order to level the playing field, put all our cards on the table. So if there’s anything you’d like to see, anything you’d like to know, let us know, and we’ll get it online. Trucktheworld … it’s a family.

So welcome to trucktheworld as a full time entity.
It’s gonna be a long, hot summer


A quick technical update for you gear heads.


A showcase of our professional ambition.

Keep the truck running, we are!

Ok so bit of a gap here but we are still rolling, plans are coming to fruition , and the truck inches towards completion.

Enjoy the spoils, hard work, we bloody love it!!!