Finale
Sihanoukville, Cambodia
January 9th and 10th, 2008
By Dan Murdoch

HOW do you finish a trip like this?
Where is the end?
Well, Sihanoukville, that was the finish line, right?
Actually no, it’s when we’ve visited the last charity. That’ll be the end.
But then there’s an interview the following day, so maybe that’s the then?
Actually I still need to write this blog, once I’ve posted it, then we’ll say it’s over, ok?
Well maybe, but I’m hanging around for a few weeks. Maybe once I’m home?
You just don’t want this to end do you?

WE’D hoped to arrive in Sihanoukville early evening, but a series of press interviews delayed our departure from Phnom Penh.
The Americans had replaced a missing screw in Fez, restoring the pressure in a cylinder and solving the car’s power issues, but the brakes were still broken.
OJ, who was my new driving buddy following Carlos’s departure, refused to let me drive after witnessing me collide with a scooter in the city that afternoon. It is the first accident I’ve had in 16,000 miles of driving and it was entirely my fault- I’d attempted a tight u-turn at Hamilton pace on a major road, but we don’t have any wing mirrors and I hadn’t checked my blind spot. As Fez neared a right angle with the flow of traffic, a scooter with three people on board slammed into the driver’s door. Ooops.
Luckily no one came off, nor seemed hurt, but OJ, who has never been comfortable with my roadside manner, was not prepared to take any further risks.
It is only four hours from Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville, but the BBC reporter we’d spent much of the afternoon with was adamant driving was a bad idea.
“You really shouldn’t drive at night. The road is terrible. It’ll be pitch black. I wouldn’t do it, seriously, why put yourself in danger?”
But if we’d always followed advice like that we would never have left home. And when you’ve crossed the narrow, winding Anzob Pass at night, flanked by sheer drops and dodging unstoppable lorries, then driving to the beach holds few fears.
We were right to go for it- the road was beautiful, and in Fez we were able to stay close enough behind Ziggy to use the spread from its headlamps to light the way (Fez lights are pitiful).
I was happy to let OJ drive, but disappointed that after six months of driving Fez I wasn’t going to be able to take him over the finish line. Luckily OJ is a kind and noble gentleman, a few miles out of town we stopped to take a last photo of Trabant Trek on the road, and he handed me the keys.
“Do you wanna drive Fez in?”
Hell yeah.
It was strange standing there, the four of us, posing for photos with our arms round each other.
“This is it, the final stretch,” Lovey said.
But it still didn’t feel real.

Shortly before midnight we pulled up to Monkey Republic, the bar-guesthouse where Carlos had booked rooms, to find the Spaniard with a small crowd of fans. Some sort of fireworks were set off, with a banner and lots of cheering. Characteristically we were about four hours late, so everyone was pretty merry, and the excitement in the air was palpable:
“We did it.”
“I can’t believe we actually made it.”
“We’re here.”
What else is there to say?
“How do you feel?” people would ask.
“Very strange.”
I don’t think I ever doubted that we would make it, and pretty much since we reached South East Asia it’s felt like we’re nearly finished.
“I’ll feel like it’s over once we’ve visited the charity,” I told people, and myself.

More hugging was followed by a trip down to a beach bar, for intensive celebrations culminating in Lovey and I having a violent falling out. What a way to finish the trip.
The following afternoon, with sore heads, we headed to our second charity, M’Lop Tapang. The wonderful children there put on a show for us, with traditional Khmer music and dancing complemented by more modern moves, break dancing and theatre.
The kids were great fun, and were obviously having a laugh dancing around on stage. There was plenty of hand holding and waving and jumping on the cars.
I’m not sure what it is about Cambodian children, they are just so smiley and sweet and friendly, it’s so touching. I’m not sure what they thought of us though, giant and pale with these odd cars.
We were given a tour of the school. It’s not as big as Mith Samlanh, but follows the same educational principals, minus the vocational training. Another group of people doing fantastic work for children with few opportunities. A worthy cause if ever there was one.
The last official engagement of Trabant Trek drew to a close, and we headed back to Monkey Republic.
“How do you feel?”
It still didn’t feel over. Maybe it would once I’d said goodbye to Carlos, who was leaving the following day to go to Canada and continue his travels. Nutter.

He drove Fez to the bus station, then handed me the keys, which felt pretty symbolic- that’s definitely the last time my co-driver will hand me the keys.
We hung around to wave him off. Strangely, in giant letters across both sides of his bus were the words “Child Sex Tourists”. I know there is a problem out here, but I think it’s a little more underground than carting bus loads of paedos around the country. There was some writing underneath the slogan but I couldn’t make it out…

I didn’t like saying goodbye to Carlos. I’ve only known the little Catalan for six months, but it was a pretty intensive six months. We spent a lot of it together in a little plastic box- I must have slept with Carlos more than any other man in my life. Despite what could have been a suffocating proximity, we remained good friends throughout, and other than a few weeks following a brief falling out in Ulaanbaatar, I always felt like he had my back.
Full of energy, he is always the first up in the morning, and normally stands by the door, or leaning against the car, looking pissed off and waiting for everyone else to sort themselves out. The length of time it takes to get going used to really wind him up- but by the end he just took the mick out of us all.
“So OJ can we go? Or do you want to take your top off, do some press ups, watch a film then moisturise?”
And the eyes, the ‘Spanish Eyes’ as they were quickly dubbed- the brooding, faux sexual look he pulls for cameras (and women), the dark, angry Latino stare he uses to show displeasure. Makes everyone crack up all the time: “Don’t do the eyes at me. He’s doing the eyes.”
His surname is Gey, which he pronounces ‘Hay’. This could be a little like Mrs Bucket pronouncing her name Mrs Bouquet. Or it may be the correct Catalan manner, who knows? Either way it means he is often simply referred to as The Gay. Or sometimes The Losbian, a cryptic play on Carlos Gey.
He has a passion for terrible puns, which always make Lovey crack up just because of their sheer awfulness, and he likes some terrible Spanish music. Countless times I have woken in Fez to see Carlos driving with his headphones on singing the female lead to a frightening Catalan love ballad at the top of his voice.
A friend once called for him on our China number.
“Can I speak to Carlos please?”
“What’s the passord?” I asked.
Without a pause he just said: “GAY.”
We laughed about that for a long time.
Despite his smaller stature and girl’s hips he walks a lot faster than me, often with his hands clasped firmly behind his back like Inspector Clouseau. I prefer to saunter around new places, slowly breathing it all in. But once Carlos has chosen his destination he is head down and get there.
Sometimes that is exactly what we needed on the trip: “Carlos gets things done,” OJ once said, quite correctly. Though sometimes I think maybe he acts a bit too quickly. He decided to go to Canada a while ago, set a date in his head, and has never wavered from it, despite only getting to spend a few days with us in Sihanoukville. But that’s Carlos, once he’s decided to do something he goes ahead and does it.
His English is good, and he picks up new words, phrases and insults quickly. But he is also good at making it appear that he understands, when really he doesn’t. So a typical conversation in Fez might go like this:
Me (lying in passenger bed): “I’ve checked the tank, we’ve got about four litres left.”
Carlos (returning from stall with sticky rice): “Okay.”
Me: “There’s not much life around here so we should probably stop at the next place we see and fill up.”
Carlos nods. Then a pause. Then he gets out of the car: “I’m just going to see how much gas we have left.”
Me: “No, mate, wait. Carlos…”
But he’s already out of the car, hood popped and checking the tank.
Because when Carlos decides to do something he goes ahead and does it.
I’ll miss that Spaniard.

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Victory Parade
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
January 7th, 2008
By Dan Murdoch

THERE have been days on this trip that I would rather forget.
But others I know I will remember forever.
Driving the cars to Mith Samlanh Friends, the Phnom Penh charity that we are raising money for, was one of those days.
I had no idea what to expect.
A cup of tea and a pat on the back? An informal chat with some volunteers?
But pulling up to the gate gave me butterflies, I could here clapping and drums, and see photographers and a cameraman.
The reception was astonishing: a corridor of 400 screaming, clapping kids, led by a band in traditional costume beating drums and dancing.
We stepped out of the cars into a bubble among the throng and just stood there while hundreds of people cheered and waved.
None of us were quite sure what to do. We probably should have jumped on the roofs of the cars and raised our hands like triumphant Grand Prix drivers, lapping up the crowd.
But instead we all got a little emotional, it was lump in the throat stuff seeing all these little kids and what our trip meant to them.
We stumbled about, hugging each other and smiling so broadly we got cramp.

Eventually, after an age of cheering, a head of house appeared with a microphone and a translator and gave a speech basically saying that we were awesome.
Then a representative from the kids spoke and expressed his gratitude, talked about how much the money means to them and how they’ve been following our progress.
It was pretty emotional and I didn’t really want it to end.
“I was welling up,” said OJ, “I was pleased to have the camera so no one could see me.”
“I almost cried,” TP.

The kids all swarmed to the cars, we opened them up so they could sit in and play with the wheel, and we posed for photos. I was literally wading through children, hundreds of these tiny, smiley little kids staring up, waving and holding hands: “helloooo…hellooooooo” they would shout and cling onto me.
I couldn’t stop laughing. We spent an hour with them, so many smiling faces. We were told they were expecting us to arrive in big cars, they thought it was hilarious that we’d crossed two continents in these tiny Trabbis.

After the kids had been called back to class, Mith Samlanh’s communications women, Sophea Suong, took as on a tour of the facilities. It is truly a stunning project. At the city centre base the organisation takes more than 800 disadvantaged kids a day, aged 0-24, and puts them through informal education and vocational training. These are kids who would otherwise be living and working on the streets, doing everything from petty crime and drugs to prostitution.
“About 90% of the children here came to Phnom Penh from the provinces looking for opportunity. But they end up on the street or living in the slums,” said Sophea.
“We get new kids here everyday, so we are always trying to reintegrate them. Getting children back into school is very important, and we reintegrate about 500 children a year.”
There is also a healthcare centre providing free medical care and counselling services. The charity also works to try and reunite children with their parents or close family, and if that fails they help with adoption, but only into Cambodian families. Sophea: “We think it is important that these children live in their own culture.”

As part of the core curriculum, everyone learns numeracy, literacy, English and health education including HIV awareness.
On top of this the centre provides training for aspiring hairdressers, seamstresses, mechanics, welders, beauticians, electricians and cooks.

Tony loved looking around the garage, where students learn theory and do car repairs, and the welding area, where the kids were repairing metal beds from the dormitories.
In a room next door there was a class taking apart TVs and radios and soldering circuit boards.  Nearby is a room full of sewing machines where the children were making clothes to sell at the Friends shop. They get paid for their labour, and the charity keeps any profits.
Across the hall we saw a class of barbers watching their teacher give a haircut.
“After training our students are ready to work as hairdressers,” Sophea explained, “many of them go back to their village and start their own company.”
When they have completed their vocational training, the students also do a business class complete with mock interviews to help prepare them for the real world.
I sat down in an English class. On the white board where the words: “Has anyone seen my wire whisk?”
The kid next to me struck up a conversation.
“Hello, what is your name?”
We shook hands.
“How many people are in your family?”
I told him.
“How long will you stay in Cambodia?”
“A few weeks maybe? Your English is very good.”
“Oh thank you,” he looked embarrassed, “this is the first time I ever spoke to a foreigner.”
I felt touched at this: “No? You are the teacher of this class yes?”
“No, no,” everyone laughed, “I am a student.”

There is so much laughter in that place. The kids are ridiculously cute and friendly. Everywhere the children do the hands clasped greeting, like a little prayer- it is such a sweet and respectful hello.
In nursery the toddlers greeted us as ‘father’, and wouldn’t stop waving till we were well out of sight. They made me a little origami car, painted like Fez with the word ‘Trabantterk’ on the side. Tony, our mechanic, was given a paper hammer.
TP: “I’ve been smiling so hard for so long now that my cheeks are hurting. I don’t think I can smile anymore.”

My favourite area was Club Friends, a school hall style building with a basketball court, a stage where kids learn traditional and modern dance, a library corner and an art corner.
A little boy there had painted a Trabant on a brick, it’ll be built into the centre’s wall of friends.

At the end of the day two giant trucks turned up to take all the kids home. About 500 of them live around the city, mostly in the slum areas. A further 300 live in the charity’s two houses, a boy’s house and a girl’s house.
They kept waving and shouting as they boarded the truck.
I wish Carlos had been around to see it. But he went ahead to Sihanoukville a few days ago to meet his mum. I felt bad for him.

After waving goodbye we went to the excellent Friends restaurant just by the school, and treated ourselves to the most expensive meal we’ve had in months.
Tapas and cocktails.
We were all exhausted from a long afternoon, but elated, absolutely on top of the world.
Lovey: “That has to have been the best day of Trabant Trek. I’m not kidding.”
OJ: “That really has made it all seem worthwhile, that was just awesome.”
Everyone agreed.
It felt like the closure we needed. After six months on the road, it was a strange feeling to arrive in Phnom Penh a couple of days ago. I sat down with a beer and sort of thought, well is this it? Is this what we did? It was a bit of an anticlimax.
But the welcome we got from the kids, who made us feel so special, and looking at the work Mith Samlanh does, and how we’ve been able to help, really put it in perspective.
What a day.
I just wish we could have raised more money. But there’s still time.

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The Final Frontier
Poipet, Thai-Cambodian Border
January 5th, 2008
By Dan Murdoch

“This could be the last border crossing of Trabant Trek…if you make it in.”
MTP

MY PASSPORT wasn’t valid for entry into Cambodia.
It hadn’t expired, but there were only two months left on it, and to get into Cambodia you need a passport that is valid for six months.
I had already been warned at the Thai border.
And I was worried.

The chances of getting busted and not being able negotiate my way out of trouble weren’t high. But the penalty for getting busted was- I would have to go back to Bangkok, if they would even let me into Thailand, get a new passport, and try again. So I would almost certainly miss the end of Trabant Trek.
I didn’t like the thought of coming so far over the last six months and falling at the final border crossing.

The signs on arrival weren’t promising. OJ was filming quite blatantly, and the Thai border guards weren’t happy.
One guy was a real prick and seemed determined to give us shit. A shouty little man in an immaculate uniform that looked like it’d been picked up in an illegal French SS memorabilia eBay auction. Maybe the kit had rubbed off on him, he kept shouting: “Papers. Show papers.”
He looked through my passport, but I managed to divert his attention when he was on the expiration details. And for some reason he made me unpack a fold up chair in front of his cronies, but didn’t ask to look in the boot…blog removed…

One Night In Bangkok
Bangkok, Thailand
January 3rd-4th, 2008
By Dan Murdoch

DIVERTING to Bangkok was a controversial decision.
It meant a longer route, but on better roads, and it would add another country to our hit list and let us pull the cars into the travellers Mecca of Khao San Road. But I had no particular desire to go and I was worried about driving into and out of that sprawling, congested city, and concerned that we could easily lose a few days.
But Lovey pretty much forced the decision by leaving his bags there when he went to collect the box of spare parts a few weeks ago.
We made the drive from Vang Vien in Laos to the Thai capital in one hit, stopping off in Vientiane to eat and collect a parcel of car sticker’s we’d been sent from the States.
The journey took about 26 hours. Carlos did most of the work on day one, driving from 10am till 3am, then I got to take over for the last six hours of highway and three hours of traffic. I hate that early morning shift, from dark through sunrise into the blazing noon, and I still felt ropey from New Years, so it really took it out of me….blog removed…

New Year’s Eve Laos Style
Vang Vien, Laos.
December 30th-January 2nd, 2007
By Dan Murdoch

I DON’T know if the sport of tubing would be allowed in England.
Mixing one of the world’s great rivers with a bunch of piss-heads screams health and safety. And we don’t really have the climate.
But I can’t really think of a better way to spend New Year.
First though, January 30th: another drive of epic beauty from Luang Prabang to the little river town of Vang Vien. We’d been told it was a haven for Westerners and we had hoped to spend Christmas there. We’re running well behind schedule on our 78th revised Trabant Trek plan, but at least we made it to a party town for the New Year- I may have snapped spending another holiday on the roadside.
The drive through the mountains continued where the rest of northern Laos had left off- awe inspiring scenery dotted with wattle and daub villages and bathed in sunshine. Every corner we turned there was another spectacular view, with plenty of ‘wow’ and ‘look at that’ between the Spaniard and I….BLOG REMOVED…

Parasols and Elephants Northern Laos December 26th-30th, 2007 By Dan Murdoch “WELCOME to Laos: straw roofs, mud houses, kids on the street…and Beer Laos…lots of Beer Laos.” Carlos. CULTURE shock. The way we’ve meandered slowly across the world we’ve completely avoided it. It’s all very well flying in from cold, stoney London to sticky, clingy Bangkok- that’s culture shock territory. But driving so slowly you get overtaken by cyclists is a different prospect. The changes are slower, more gradual, so you see a hint of China in southern Mongolia, a whisper of Turkey in east Bulgaria. But driving into Laos proper for the first time, I felt stunned by the surroundings. The little villages that exist in the northern mountains could not be more different from the Chinese mega cities we came from. It’s a different dimension, an old way of life. No concrete, glass and steel here, this is town planning eau naturale: bamboo houses on wooden stilts with woven wicker walls, thick thatched roofs topping sun shelters, where locals sit around cooking sticky rice in bamboo canes over open fires. Pretty, idyllic, backwards. Mesmerising homes in this remote wonderland. This was unmistakably Laos, not that strange China-mirroring border town of Boten, and it is unlike anywhere else we have visited, from Slovakia to Mongolia, from Romania to Russia- nowhere else looks like this….BLOG REMOVED…

Dante’s Infirmity
Boten, Laos
December 25th, 2007
By Dan Murdoch

“I just don’t see the point in tearing apart a perfectly good car.”
Tony P

I HAVE never woken up with a man on Christmas morning and, other than hoping to catch out Santa, I never expected to.
We could only afford four beds at the hotel, and the Mighty Tony P and I drew the short straws. But at least it was a room with clean sheets and a hot shower, not the crab-infested plywood whorehouse.
And Tony is a gentle lover.
Christmas Eve back home is spent down the pub with scores of old friends I haven’t seen for a year.
I spent this Christmas Eve with a gerbily Mexican-Italian-American watching a Japanese slapstick in Chinese in Laos.
I’ll be home for Christmas.
I’d told that to a lot of people, and although I knew months ago that I wouldn’t, it still felt strange. I felt like Dorothy.

Christmas lunch was fried noodles with squid and coffee. There were a few closed shops in Boten, maybe they knew something of this Christian holiday, but otherwise no signs of festive cheer. And though we’d been living in the village for four days, and everyone had noticed us, no one wished us season’s greetings.
I’m not sure what the locals think of the strange white people with their funny cars.
Someone must have been celebrating something because I watched a man cooking a giant hamster with a flamethrower. He was just out on the street with some gloves, a jet of flames and this enormous rodent.
What you up to?
“Just flamethrowering this here hamster.”
Okay.
Round back they had a crazy looking owl and three medium sized bears in cages. They were a few feet tall, with thick dark hair and powerful arms. I asked two of the boys where the bears came from and they gestured towards the surrounding forest. They told me they got them when they were very small, and when they were very big they would eat the paws and heart.
One of the boys was playing slaps with a bear through the cage, trying to palm the back of its paw before getting clawed.

We spent the afternoon successfully repairing Dante, and unsuccessfully working on Ziggy. Everything was tried, every piece taken apart and rebuilt, every component tested. But it wouldn’t start. The starter would whir and whir, and then, when you think the engine is going to catch, a loud ominous clunk, and nothing. It was the same sound as back in Beijing, and four days of tinkering had not fixed it.
By late afternoon OJ was plying Ziggy’s engine apart with a chisel. I think at that point we knew it was the end.
Christmas Day 2007, one-hundred-and-fifty-six days since we set off from Zwickau, Germany, twenty-three-thousand kilometres down the road, in our nineteenth country, we were going to have to dump a Trabant….BLOG REMOVED…

Big Trouble in Little China

Boten, Laos

December 24^th, 2007

By Dan Murdoch

“Come to Cambodia he said. We’ll have a good time he said. We’ll be home for Christmas he said.”

A favourite ditty of The Mighty Tony Perez.
 

WHO’S bored of Christmas already?
Those jingles, that shopping, the decorations. Ever wish to be completely away from it all? Somewhere they think Christmas is a hair product.
Well I think we found it.
Boten on the Laos-China border. A one road strip trapped in a terrible struggle for identity. You see, we’re in Laos. We crossed the border, the little barrier that divides Laos from China is visible from all over the village.
But somehow China has crept over that fragile demarcation, cultural seepage or cultural creepage, I don’t know, but the locals don’t seem to realise where they are. It’s Little China here: All the clocks are set to China time, all the signs are in Chinese, all the prices are in RMB, the Chinese currency.
In fact, we’re having a tough time trying to use our Laos Kip. When I hand it over, the locals stare uncomprehendingly as if I just passed them, well, a foreign note.
“It’s Kip. It’s Laos money.” I say.
A shake of the head. “Renminbi,” they reply.
We are able to exchange, but we are getting royally screwed every time, and we’re running out of cash.
And Christmas. What Christmas?
There isn’t a shred of tinsel in sight, not a whiff of mistletoe or a tinkle of jingle bells. I don’t think they’ve heard of Slade. No Santa hats, roast chestnuts, crackers, stilton or port, and the surrounding forest is spared the shame of being chopped down and dressed up like a kitsch, pantomime drag queen.
A nearby tree bends a branch over and squints a knot at my screen.
“They do what?”
“That’s right my evergreen friend, if you’d had the misfortune to be born anywhere in the Anglo-Saxon world you’d have been hacked down, sprinkled with ribbon and glitter, and topped by a winged bimbo with a wand.”
“Frightening. Have your Western trees no dignity?”

On Christmas Eve 2007 this isn’t where I expected to wake up.
In a tiny room with plywood walls in a house of ill repute. The cheapest joint in town and thankfully, unlike yesterday, I wasn’t woken by the moans of the single member of staff doing her job. Someone had a happy ending.
We’ve had some progress with the cars. Fez and Dante work. But Ziggy doesn’t, and more worryingly, we’re unable to diagnose the problem. It’s never taken this long to solve a Trabbi riddle before.
So it’s day three on a patch of dust by the side of the road. There is some life here: it’s a free trade zone, so there’s a big new casino just up the road with a $50/night hotel. There are a few little boutiques with some trendy Chinese fashion, all well out of our price range. There’s also the best internet café I have seen in South East Asia, although I haven’t been here for seven years.
There must be 50 PCs, all pretty new, a good connection and gangs of boys and girls- the boys playing World of Warcraft and Counterstrike, the girls on a dancing game and social networking sites. Unlike the West, computers are too expensive for most people, but internet is cheap- 35p an hour. So the interwang, as it is called here, is the place to be.  Whenever I walk in the girls just crack up. Occasionally it prickles to have a few dozen teenagers giggling at me, but mostly I just take a deep breath.

Dante now has a skylight stretching over the driver and passenger seats. Which is interesting. Because Dante is now terminally insecure, we have taken the passenger window and put it in Fez to replace the one Carlos broke. But now the passenger door has stopped locking, so you just tug it to pull it open. Not especially secure.
The American’s have tried pretty much everything on Ziggy, with no success. So they have gone to a mechanics up the road to try again, and see if the guys there have any ideas.
If we don’t get it working then we have to ditch it.
“It’s annoying if we have to dump a car just because we don’t know what’s wrong with it,” Lovey told me.
“I agree, it could be something really simple.”
Ziggy has always been the strongest car- it would be a shame to leave it here, when it could be fixed.
I don’t feel like we’re in a rush anymore. We’re not going to make Vang Vien for Christmas, nor Sihanoukville for New Year. So why hurry? I’m resigned to this thing not being over ‘till 2008, why bother rushing through the last few weeks of the trip at a frantic pace, getting stressed out and not enjoying it?
We’ve made South East Asia, it’s warm, it’s cheap, I’m happy to settle into a more gentle rhythm, and if that means we sit here for the whole of Christmas trying to get Ziggy going, then so be it.
I’d only be whinging about Christmas at home anyway. Those jingles, that shopping, the decorations. Ever wish to be completely away from it all?
Try Boten, Laos.

UPDATE 9PM: Ziggy still doesn’t work. The Yanks spent the day taking the car apart and rebuilding the engine, to no avail. No one knows what the problem is, but rather than dump it and move on, the Americans want to try a couple more things tomorrow. If that doesn’t work we either dump it here, or send it ahead to Luang Prabang by truck, and dump it there. That way there would be a chance we could come back for it at a later date. Who knows when?
Dante is broken too. Carlos and Lovey needed a tow back after a 20km trip to the petrol station. But Tony thinks he knows what the problem is.
Another job for Christmas Day.
Fez starts, but we haven’t tried taking it more than a few hundred metres- who knows how far it will run?
So we’re staying here in Boten tonight.
As a group we have $100 left. There’s no ATM here- we waved a credit card at the manager of the hotel/casino and he looked very confused.
They don’t take Visa.
We’re dirty and smelly, having spent the days deep in engine grease and the last two nights alternating between a brothel and a tent. So we want a hot shower and fresh sheets as our Christmas present. We found a hotel that’ll do it, but it’s about $35- a fair chunk of our money. We’re going for it, just so we don’t wake up on Christmas Day in a whorehouse.
But that only leaves us $65 to try and get to Luang Prabang, where there is an ATM.
Hopefully we can fix Ziggy and Dante tomorrow, and get there without breaking down.
That does seem pretty hopeful. Otherwise we’ll try sending Ziggy down by truck, and hope the driver will accept cash on arrival.
There’s a chance we’ll be stuck somewhere in northern Laos with cars that don’t work and no money. This seems just as likely as getting to Luang Prabang.
A teenage girl just walked past wearing a flashing Santa hat. The only hint of Christmas cheer here on the China border.
 

TO SEE OUR PROGRESS ON VIDEO, PUT TRABANT TREK INTO YOU TUBE.
If you read and enjoyed this blog, why not show your appreciation by making a small donation?
www.firstgiving.com/trabanttrek
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Siberia was the part of the trip that I was concerned with from the beginning.  Forget the 4000-meter-high peaks of the Pamirs, nevermind the beauracracy of Turkmenistan - and does it really matter that there are no roads in southern Mongolia?  All of those things did nothing but excite me for the trip.  However, in order to get from Central Asia to S.E. Asia we would have to cross Siberia.  The name itself brought about images of a lonely death in a frozen car.  A vast, snow covered wasteland with wind that would tear through the plastic panels of my beloved Dante.  When planning this quest we agreed that Siberia was best dealt with before the Fall; it would be a lovely place with a brisk breeze, but it would be manageable. 

Here, a month behind our original itenerary we were about to do what we had said we would not do.  We were about to enter the land that would be my personal hell, in the dead of winter.

The cold air slid between the gaps in the duroplast and cut across my already numb fingers.  A blast of cold air crept between the floorboard and the pedal burning my toes after ten minutes of driving.  We had been on the road for 3 days straight now and the long driving shifts as well as the cold air was beginning to take its toll.  Zsofi was already miserably sick and was sleeping most of the day.   I too was starting to feel a bit under the weather.  It was late, the road was dark and the street signs were beginning to play tricks on my eyes.  I lit up another cigarette and took a bite out of my frozen iced tea.  I chuckled to myself thinking “who the hell buys ice tea in the middle of Siberia?” Obviously I was beginning to lose my mind if this is what I was laughing at. 

Lovie, Dan and I had been driving for around 8 hours at this point and I kept looking at my odometer. I watched the kilometers click slowly by and thought once we hit 200 it would be time to refuel and switch drivers.  187 -  I try not to think about the cold air that is freezing my toes.  I made the mistake of wearing three layers of socks, it is too late to change this now.  My feet sweat and the inside sock gets wet, the cold air coming through my boots hits my toes and freezes the sweat, numbing and then burning.  I wonder what temperature is required - and for how long - before frostbite sets in.  188 - my hat is beginning to itch on my head.  I want to adjust it but the minute I do all the warm air trapped there escapes and I am colder than before. 

What have I gotten myself into?  I wonder how long we will be in this frozen land and I start to dream  about Cambodia and the beach.  I think about running down to the shoreline in a bathing suit and sandals, and for a moment I am comfortable.  For a moment in my mind I can feel the warm breeze and smell the salty air. 

189 - The smell of the streets in S.E. Asia, a smell that at first is sickening to the stomach but after a few months there becomes a pleasing fragrance.  I can only compare it to a classic car.  At first the smell is weird, but after a awhile one becomes used to it.  Eventually it is the smell that reminds one of the good times had in it. Eventually you begin to crave it.  That is the street smell of south east Asia.  That is what it has done to me.  Here in my car - 190 - in the middle of Siberia I can almost smell it and it takes me away from this wretched cold. 

My thoughts drift back to my knees and how cold they are.  I adjust the long jacket that I have bought in Tajikistan and try to bundle up a bit more.  Every window frosts over from the vapors coming out of my mouth.  My moustache begins to freeze from the condensation around my mouth.  This is the coldest I have ever been, and once the morning sun comes up I know it will get colder for about an hour.  I dread this; I want to be home in my warm bed, wrapped in big blankets.  Why did I decide to drive this plastic car through Siberia?

193 - the kilometers are ticking by faster in some respects.  If I can keep my mind off the cold and my eyes on the road - we should be looking for a gas station.  Near the gas stations are usually 24-hour diners and there will be a hot cup of coffee for me.  One cup of coffee will not keep me awake, and I think about how nice it will be to get out of this refrigerator.  That is exactly what Dante is right now.  I start to think of him as the “icebox” and in a way feel trapped. 

There are lights ahead - 194 - there are wonderful lights from an all-night diner!  Salvation is upon us.  We pull the cars to the side of the road and wake the next round of weary drivers.  Sleep has not been easy in the cold weather.  Groggy and half asleep, the six of us wander into the cafe.  The lady at the counter is sleeping and is not happy when we wake her for coffee.  For the next twenty minutes I linger in the warmth by the fire.  Outside the windows ice over and I can hear the wind blowing past the cracks in the door.  For now this does not matter.  I hold the hot coffee tight in my hands and close my eyes.  After filling up the cars with gas I will bundle into a sleeping bag and attempt to get  few hours of sleep.  Novosibirsk is only 140 kilometers away.  A little over two hours and we have discussed getting a warm bed there, depending on how we feel after another all night drive.

-Anthony Perez