Babs’ travels -The Peking to Paris Rally and other driving adventures.

Samarkand. What a name to conjure with. The knot in the Silk Road. The almost mythical place that one has heard of but, somehow, never thinks one would see . I have to keep reminding myself that we are really here in fabled Samarkand. It was a fairly easy journey to get here from Tashkent; the roads were, the main, reasonable. As long as we made regular stops to top up the radiator the car actually ran well and we made good time. Uzbekistan is a great contrast to Kazakhstan, physically it is much more fertile and the inhabitants look quite different too. After dusty, brown Kazakhstan with it's drab, grubby villages with no thought given to the environment Uzbekistan is fertile, pretty clean and neat. Thi country is the largest exporter of cotton in the world. Amazing for one that is so small. As soon as we crossed the border we started seeing endless fields of cotton growing along with watermelons and pomegranates. It makes it all look very attractive. Such producti...

Tashkent, Uzbekistan.  We are back in the rally! George arrived at 1.30am  and sailed through customs even though he was laden down with 70kgs of car parts.  We went  straight to the garage where the car was waiting and the mechanics almost ready.  The plan had been to have the car stripped down and ready to receive the new box hopefully allowing us to leave with the rest of the cars at 7.00am.  In fact, they were still working on the Auchinloss's Rolls that had major problems and is very complicated mechanically.  Latest news is that they are on there way but probably wont catch up until Samarkand. Adrian stayed with the car whilst George and I went back to the hotel to meet Rupert as G had various bits for him too.  By the time all this had happened breakfast was starting and all the crews getting ready to leave were busy packing lunch boxes.  George was horrified that everyone was grabbing food from the buffet to take out.  I explai...

Almaty is a green city; wide avenues ,lined with tall trees abound. It is also all quite neat and tidy.  It is not an especially attractive place but there are still some examples of pre USSR architecture, and being the commercial capital, plenty of new post Soviet glitz.  The official capital is Astana.  It is one of the most expensive cities in Asia and our hotel, the Intercontinental, certainly knows how to charge.  Large beer?  $20.  two g & t's sir, that will be $80!  Our laundry bill will probably be high enough to justify throwing everything out and starting again. Car 29 went off to the garage this morning to have the old gearbox taken apart ready for the new one to be fitted when it arrives with George at 1,30 am.  Adrian and I will meet him at the airport and go straight to the workshop where the chap's will be ready to install it and so, hopefully, we can leave with the rally in the morning.  G is also bring over some stuff f...

Yesterday, we hired a translator to help us with finding a garage for our repairs.  His name was Dimar and he was an earnest young man with superb English.  I asked him if he had seen Borat and he told me that it is banned here, in Kazakhstan. If you are caught down loading it from the internet you face a three year prison sentence.

We managed a couple of hours sleep before preparing for an 8.00 departure for the Kazak border, another 500 kms.  Our wonderful friends from the Siberian Old Timer's club had been up all night helping all the competitors who had broken down at the side of the road.  Everyone who encountered this fabulous group was astounded at their generosity, friendliness and expert mechanical skills in getting them back on the road.  We had rather more terminal problems  but my one lasting impression of the tiny bit of Russia we saw will be our new friends some of whom travel to the U.K. and, I hope, will come to stay with us soon.  They had decided that their trailer was not strong enough to hold our car for such a long journey; they had all ready had a blow out the night before.  But, they had organised for a proper car transporter to come to take us. We waited until about 11.30 for this to turn up. It was sad to see the rally departing and be the last ones in the ca...

Day 13 Southern Siberia, Russia. 24 hours ago we were being thrown about in the back of a Unimog, a massively high truck on monster wheels with a wooden box on top. Not long after leaving Khovd our gear box failed – disaster. It was not a repair that could be attempted and Adrian new that a new gear box was the only solution. It needed to be a specialist Model A type that would be impossible to find and the only solution would be to fly one out to Almaty, in Kazakhstan, our next stop of more than one night and somewhere with direct flights from London. We called our local agents to ask for a lorry; a very sad moment. Other cars were going past and, of course, all the Model A's stopped to see if they could help. After a while all sensibly left as there was nothing that they could do . We were told that the truck would take about 4-5 hours to reach us. After a while the very last rally sweep car passed and we were totally on our own in one of the most remote spots in the world. We h...

UNREAL 24 hr. Now in southern Siberia with a Russian car club convoy. Our car has broken gear box. 3G in Russia. So much to say about all that has happened but not from my phone. Sometimes life can be just too adventurous.

Days 10-11 Khovd, Western Mongolia. It did not feel quite so cold in camp last night, thank goodness and so it was easier to sleep. It was a fairly short run to get to Khovd, Mongolia's second city. It has a population of just 31,000. That classes as a metropolis here. We left camp anticipating an easier day. We set off across the vast plateau with snow capped mountains around us and total emptiness through the western Gobi desert. After the day before where only saw about 5 people in over a couple of hundred miles it was amazing that until we were nearly at Khovd we saw hardly anybody. It is very dry and arid, well it would be being a desert! It is too dry for any animals and consequently there are no nomad settlements. We had the extraordinary experience of being a desert with a glacier fed lake of cobalt blue beside us and a backdrop of snowy mountains. Staggering. The only other place that I have experienced that is in Nepal where I was in a pineapple plantation w...

There are not enough superlatives in the lexicon to describe Mongolia. The beauty, the emptiness, the variety of geographical features. It has left all of us 'mad motorists' almost speechless with wonderment. We all agree that mere photographs cannot possibly convey the spectacular gorgeousness of this place. You have to be here and see it all for yourselves. But first leaving UB. We had a special send off from UB. First, we had to group in the main square. There was a stage, banners, balloons, a brass band, throat singers and lots of jolliness. Actually, we were all eager to go as we had a very long day ahead of us but it was made more enjoyable by the hot toddy that we were all given. About twenty miles out of UB, in a stark, bleak place that, at that moment was probably the coldest place in the whole world our engine stopped. Adrian went to investigate, fiddled around but could not discover what the problem was. Just as I was about to get the sat phone to call for...

I have just been trying to upload some photos for you to see a little of the magnificence of the Gobi and the steppe but the bandwidth here is very poor and it is impossible.  Maybe it will be better in Russia.

Well, we made it across the Gobi. and are enjoying a rest day here in UB.  Well, not a rest for Adrian as he has been working on the car all day.  It's a good thing that he enjoys fettling.  It was more than fettling really as there was a problem with the electrics and that, along with the routine items took him 10 hours.  Still, other people were much worse off and have some very major difficulties.  Some arrived here on lorries to try to gt fixed at a local garage.  some people are already organising to have parts flown out t wait for our arrival in Almaty.  I, on the other hand h,ave been cashmere shopping and had a massage.  I do have some guilt about it.  But would have contributed nothing to the car repairs.  I am not allowed near a spanner. The border crossing was tedious as you would expect.  The contrast between orderly, clean China and Mongolia was immediate and very great.  You would think that the main road betwee...

ERENHOT, Inner Mongolia, Day 2, 10.40pm. 0.94 miles for the Mongolian Border As I write, Adrian is in the car park with one of our support mechanics fixing the car. I thas been a truly exhausting couple of days. When we read reports of the last rally we were amazed that a small number of cars did not make it out of China. After the last two days we have had we are not any more. Our problem is not major, just difficulties with the fuel supply, probably because of the atmospheric conditions. We have been climbing steadily since leaving Beijing as Mongolia is on part of the Tibetan plateau: it is very hot and dry too. There is a solution ,it just needs to be worked on. Other cars have not been so lucky. Several cars are not drivable and need to go to Ulaan Bataar on lorries to be fixed. One car had an accident, luckily no one was hurt and the car has been made drivable. There is a big problem with cars not leaving China as a massive bond has been paid to ensure that no cars rem...

Mickey and Bill find an alternative vehicle for the journey Adrian wires in the race logic timer..... ...whilst Barbara enjoys a last 5 star soak in the tub Looking good

In eight hours we leave the Shangri la in Beijing to make our way to The Great Wall for the 8.00am start of the Rally. I wonder how much sleep we will all get tonight? Not much, I suppose. The day has been a whirl of briefings, scrutineering, medical stuff, GPS programming, route talks, packing the car up etc. Adrian has been very busy with last minute adjustments to the car and every inch is crammed with stuff. Our roof box, made to hold the tent is now also our pantry. We have lots food for the remote areas of Mongolia: Adrian is very keen on looking after the inner man. We have noodles, peanut butter, and oatcakes and marmite for when some comforting familiarity is required. We have just been for a night time walk around the parking area and are hoping that it is not the last time that all the cars are together. There is already a great camaraderie which can only become more intense and I am sure that all will be upset if anyone has to retire with difficulties. Tomorrow ...

Palpable excitement in the air today as we all went to collect the cars from the dock. But, first, I had an early rendezvous with Rupert, who was on the Indian rally with us, and we set off in a taxi to see Chairman Mao. Adrian decided, quite sensibly, to have a lie in. We were soon stuck in an immense, unmoving, traffic jam. We abandoned the taxi in the middle of a six lane highway and walked to a nearby metro station. We then squeezed onto an impossibly full train; worse than any tube train in London, and off we set for Tienanmen Square for our date with The Chairman. He is raised from the freezer every morning for a few hours before descending back down for the rest of the day. This vast square was heaving with thousands and thousands of students all clutching tickets to visit the Great Hall of the People. After struggling through throngs and being admonished by a policeman at one point we could see that the queue for the mausoleum was about a mile long. We had to be back ...

BEIJING: Chairman Mao, smog, the forbidden City, Tienanmen Square, smog, the Bird;'s Nest Stadium, Starbucks, McDonald's, KFC, smog, Dairy Queen........ We went to a huge 17century Catholic Church just to the east of the Forbidden City today. During the Cultural Revolution a giant wall was built around it and guards were posted outside. The Priest's were sent away for 're-education'. It is fully operational these days and holds mass in Laitn Chinese and English. There is a Catholic minority of about 100,000 in the city. A very helpful official with excellent English started to talk to us and offered to take us downstairs to where he holds a Sunday School to teach the catechism. There are no Catholic Schools in the city and so any religious education has to be extra curricular. Outside the Church there was a bride and groom being photographed, it was not the wedding as there were no guests but just an opportunity for some lovely photographs in their weddi...

SHANGHAI: I hadn't appreciated quite how difficult communication would be in China. The Great (fire) Wall of China is firmly in place. I cannot access my blog, our website or facebook. I can log onto my google email account however and, so have had to send Henry and George this as a document for one of them to post. George tried all sorts of ways to get me to bypass the problem but none were satisfactory. Censorship rules. Because of this posts from China may be rather limited. We arrived in Shanghai minus one of our suitcases, unfortunately the big heavy one with lots of stuff for the car in it. It should have come on the conveyor as a priority but we got that aweful sinking feeling as we waited and waited until all the luggage had come out and no sign of our big blue bag. We discovered that it was still in London and that, hopefully, it will get to us. It is packed full of car parts and essentials that will be impossible to buy here and so we sincerely hope that w...