Mongol Diary reported by IBM ENGINEER : Hanada
Aug.15 (ETAP-1) 5:20A.M. rise. 6:00A.M. breakfast. 7:30A.M. liaison starts. We went to the special starting point. The ceremony was held in Mongolian language. We could not use Inmarsat....Another receiver on the Indian Ocean was fixed at 7A.M. this morning though... I could find two artificial satellites in the starry sky.
Aug.14 8:00A.M. breakfast. The news that Inmarsat was out of order came to us. In the evening, we tried to beam to the East. We got it! The signal level pointed at 10, we moved the receiver so then it became possible to telecommunicate.
Aug.13 At 9:00A.M. the final briefing meeting. From the introduction, we received a news that cholera was prevailing in Mongol. As a result, we all injected preventive vaccine. Afterward, we went to tourist GEL from Uraan Bataar airport. We were left in the dark.
Aug.12 At 2:00P.M., Meet in front of the counter of Haneda All Nippon Airways. It was fortunate that everyone met on time. At 7:00P.M. we had a beer party in Matsuyama ANA hotel. We had some alcohol with the side dish of demonstration video.
8/14 Disconnect to Inmarsat B-type!
We set telecommunication. M-type (only telephones) was OK but B-type was off. We moved the machine and set again but the result was the same. We cannot send and receive data.
After the press conference in Uraan Bataar, we contacted to Tokyo. In Tokyo, the situation is the same. The bus to go back to the camp was out of order. The driver started to wash battery with water???
They try to change to the satellite on the Pacific Ocean, then they barely receive E-mail messages and printed them. The members read the message board and got impressed.
At 9:00 A.M.the final briefing meeting. Cholera was prevailing in Uraanbataar. They called our attention repeatedly not to eat and drink local food on spot. We were injected preventive vaccine at the airport lobby.
2:45P.M. Take off. From Matsuyama airport. Mongol Air was not so bad at all.8:00P.M. The airplane lowered its altitude. I assumed that white spots were GEL.
8:05P.M. Landing. It started to rain. We, the members of Rally Raid MONGOL, were welcomed by an unexpected thing : a rainbow. When we passed this natural gate, the tour would begin. We transferred to a bus.
10:05P.M. We could see lights. ügHere is where we stay.üh There were the tourist GELs standing side by side. We found four beds in a GEL. 10:30P.M. We had a supper. For now, we might not be able to drink any beer.
11:30P.M. Suddenly the electric current was cut off. Outside of the door was just like a deep sea bottom. We could barely reach our GEL with other's lights. To bed.