We got up around 11 a.m. and Razvan realized that his mobile was not working anymore. We added this up on the short to do list with the things that we needed to arrange before leaving the country. We managed to close everything quite fast and left the country around 2 p.m. We were 6 hours behind the plan and so we decided to sleep the first night somewhere around Istanbul, second on the Black Sea coast and third in Batumi, Georgia.

We left on the road with a very low energy level. We stopped on a beautiful beach in Bulgaria to have a short swim (we need to thank Dragos for this tip) and we drove further away with no problems up to a very strange Turkey customs.

Marcel wanted to take us to Edirne. We had the green card, the passports were good, they asked us to take out all the luggage for controlling them but when they realized we are from Romania they left us drive away without so strict control. When we got there there was another Mongol Rally team that already had the entire luggage out of the car and they were under a strict control. So we had an advantage there to be from Romania.

We took the highway to Istanbul where in 2010 I managed to find out how the tax is paid but this time we did not manage to do it and we are waiting to do it when we come back.

We saw the Istanbul before. Razvan and me were very impressed to see it this time from the highway. It is simply amazing. At 2 a.m. we were smoothly crossing Istanbul on the highway and we were very lucky because the other way was jammed.

The gas price is between 8 and 9 ron but we are lucky enough to have the Michelin Energy Saver+ tires which help us reduce the consume because of the Polymer layer placed beneath the lane.

We were looking for a hotel on the highway but in the same time we realized that we are not so tired and we could push a bit so that we have an entire day at the beach next day. We stopped to eat something at a gas station and we arrived in Samsun from where we headed north to discover a beach like in the movies. We fond a very nice terrace on the coast of a peninsula where we had a delicious lunch and after we drove further to see other places around.

Yurty arrived at the boarder with Georgia after more than 36 hours of continuous drive and 2000 km. Even if since we got closer to Istanbul the traffic was chaotic and we put some strong breaks the Michelin Energy Saver+ tires helped us to avoid problems especially that they have a contact surface bigger with 10% in comparison with their previous model. This also helps them to keep cooler longer time.

At this moment we already completed more than 7000 km together with Yurty. Starting with this point we are going to decrease a lot the daily average because we are entering some roads on which we do not see ourselves driving again soon.

We want to mention to you again that Yurty is a series car. The only additional elements are the stickers, the metallic shield because the car is quite close to the ground and the oil pump need a bit of a more protection, and the top truck in which we keep all the camping materials.

Finally here we are in Batumi. We had a strong cultural sock here because the discrepancies between office buildings / high-end hotels and the slums were considerable. We check in a strange hotel and we went for a small city tour. Razvan and Nico decided to stay longer and visit the amusement park from Batumi.

Running so much in the last two days we managed to set a new record for Mongol Rally. We completed the longest distance in one piece – 2200 km. even if in Mongol Rally you do not get a prize for such performances, the organizers thought it is a crazy enough accomplish and they decided to mention it further.