Drive to Singapore from London and back

End of trip round-up

2009-02-09T04:14:00.000-08:00

FAVOURITE COUNTRIES:

Daddy's- Turkey
Tessie's- Mongolia
Loong's- Laos
Lewis'- Mongolia

COUNTRY WE LIKED THE LEAST:

Group decision: Serbia

BEST MOMENTS:

Daddy's: staying overnight with a family in Iran
Tessie's: arriving in Singapore
Loong's: watching the moonrise in the Gobi
Lewis': catching lizards

WOST MOMENTS:

Daddy's: getting the car into India and dealing with customs
Tessie's: having on US$ 30 in Iran
Loong's: being told I had to sit in the back in my own car by Iranian officials
Lewis': daddy being an alligator

FAVOURITE FOOD:

Daddy's: grasshoppers (in China)
Tessie's: Loong's birthday barbecue food in Ulaanbaatar
Loong's: maggots (in Laos)
Lewis': Belgium sausages

WORST FOOD:

Daddy's; silkworm (in China)
Tessie's: Mongolia salt tea
Loong's: burger in the Cameron Highlands, Malaysia
Lewis': Indian food

FAVOURITE MUSIC:
Daddy's: Never Miss a Beat- Kaiser Chiefs
Tessie's: Kung-Fu- unknown Chinese artist
Loong's: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix audio book
Lewis': Thunder Birds- Busted

DISTANCE COVERED: 25 000 miles or 40 000 km

COUNTRIES VISITED:
France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Russia, Mongolia, China, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, India, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Austria and Luxembourg
22 countries in total, 11 outside of Europe

FUEL ECONOMY: 40 miles/ gallon; 14km/ litre (this is 2/3 more efficient than going by plane)

WE USED 15 PAGES OF PASSPORT EACH

BITS OF EQUIPMENT:
Best: petrol stove, tool box and chairs
Wost: jerrycan

BUDGET PER DAY: £35 for all of us (including food, fuel and accommodation)

NUMBER OF DAYS AWAY FROM LONDON: 196

FUNNY MOMENTS:
Most funny-
Daddy's: stuck in a river in Mongolia
Tessie's: trekking through jungle Malaysia
Loong's: when daddy got fined by the traffic police in Russia
Lewis': Tessie driving off the edge of the road into a snow drift Turkey

Least funny-
Daddy's: being bitten by mosquitoes in Russia when drinking with youths in his underpants
Tessie's: daddy getting her to drive of the edge of the road into a snow drift
Loong's: Lewis being sick in the tent over everything
Lewis': leaving his birthday presents behind in Singapore

This is not the last post

2009-01-15T11:43:00.000-08:00

None of the following photographs are from inside europe.
we really are working on it and we know that you are all really just building yourselves up for 'the big slideshow' which, i am sure, will be shown on several dates for those of you who my be unavailable the first few times we suggest.

Looking forward to seeing the state we have left people in and hope that no no one has been too grieved by our 6 month holiday although we understand that some people have tried to do themselves injury to get us home quicker.

I hope to God this is the last post

2009-01-14T11:07:00.000-08:00

Location: Geel, Belguim

Temperature: getting warmer

Now in Belguim and should be home post haste. All looking forward to granny's marmalade, buying Beadle Bard's Tales (a book associated with harry potter for the uninitiated), seeing everyone but most going to sleep for a week.

Although happy that we are now so close that we can almost taste the Indian restaurants, we are upset to have just heard from Matt (man fromp Mongolia, just seen in Belguim) that we could have taken the train from Calais which is so much cheaper.

Now enjoying Hendrick's (another man from Mongolia) hospitality which has included giving up his bed and free mayonnaise for our chips. Having a lovely time with the folk from Belguim, including meeting Matt's soon to be wife (Lianne) and daughter (Lindsey). We do hope they appreciate the mention.

Our time in Europe has involved little effort on our part and has mostly included being put up in nice homes or hotels for free. no co,plaints for us.
We had a brilliant time in Dijon with Erde trailers. We met the founder's son were deemed more important than we had realised when the head of marketing put us up in the best hotel of the trip (not saying much but it really was lovely), had dinner with us and gave us a brand new trailer. sad as we were to part with the stoic Larry, we have been highly quick to take Larry Mark II a.k.a Barry, under our wing. No fears about the the trailer making it back now.

Their generosity extended to Luc's wife, Christine, looking after us while Luc jetted of to Spain the next day. she even showed us where to get a new licence plate for Barry. Are now the proud owners of a french number plate.

Daddy is looking forward to: getting away from his children.
Tessie is looking forward to: sleeping in her own bed, by herself with daddy on the sofa.
Loong is looking forward to: getting away from daddy.
Lewis is looking forward to: everything, including getting new clothes as her actually needs the, now.

Date of Arrival back in the UK: this Friday- at least we think so.

Last thoughts: this post had better gets lots of comments as it required lots of effort due to the fact that I am so tired and have had all interesting thoughts drained out of me as a consequence of continued close proximity to daddy.

Western civilisation- i think it's a good idea

2009-01-11T02:16:00.000-08:00

About to leave Carl and Marina in Austria after spending a lovely couple of days with them, their family and Kim and Jean who were suprise guests from Ireland. We are extremely greatful for the effort and time they took to look after us and particularly enjoyed the massive family meal at the parents' house after which i drove home because daddy had enjoyed the schnaps a little too much.

Today we travel to Dijon (yes, yes, we will bring to back some mustard) to have the big reveal of our trailer at the Erde Trailer factory tomorrow. still not entirely sure we will make it that far as wilma has been coughing the type of smoke not seen since 'the big flooding' in Mongolia and it does look a little like she is on fire for a good 5 minutes after we switch her on.

After Turkey we hit Bulgaria, Romania, Hungry, Germany and Austria.
We did try to go through Serbia and Croatia as that appeared to be the shortest route but Serbia is not on our green card and they wanted 100 euros for what would have been less than one day driving for the insurance. Daddy had his usual scene.
Tessie has had loads more stamps than we have and just going to the border of Serbia earned her a good 6 stamps. We then crossed the Danube to get into Romania on a little ferry with 6 lorries and us.

Looking forward to our return and i expect daddy i already dreaming of the special effects he can add to our 24hour photographic/ video slidshow. beds will be available.

Snow and ice endures. So cold.
Harry Potter audio books getting us through the cold days and nights in the car. they are now pretty much what i live for.

In 200 miles we will officially be geographically in Europe

2009-01-06T12:40:00.000-08:00

We have found that driving through Istanbul at night is a highly interesting experience and are looking forward to doing our token spot of sightseeing in the morning: this will consist of us driving along what we think is a scenic road but is probably just a posh road. we saw a yaht and everthing.

daddy is really racking up the roadkill points and today he managed to kill over some kind of game bird. most upsetting as this was a lovely creature and not just a mangy dog like the last hit. he will try to blame the icy roads but wilma only had wheel spin due to extreme weather (even the trucks stopped) later in the day.

snow and ice continues. 'white christmas' on repeat.

here are some photographs taken in pakistan and iran. make of them what you will for we are tired and we are actually staying in a decent guesthouse for once.

BREAKING NEWS: David Beckham made new ambassador for the United Kingdom

2009-01-04T09:51:00.000-08:00

we are now in a lovely hotel a quater of the way through turkey are after driving all day and having pig bits stew for breakfast.

this unexpected extra post is to tell you something that i forgot this morning but daddy is adamant should be included. when stopping at every police check point and just gererally meeting the locals, after telling them we are from England, we are greated by cries of 'david beckham!' and big grins.

this is seemingly the only way people are able to understand where we come from.

we have now taken to preemptive strikes and now generally say 'we are from england; david beckham'

also, there has been masses of snow and ice making our photographs very atmospheric and triggering a new wave of christmas songs.

we are also all freezing and have had a wilma snow incident where, through a usual daddy/ tessie miscommunication, tessie drove off the edge of a snowy/ icy downhill mountain road.

we were towed out by a lorry and some passing men.

not so good at the time but it made for a cracking video.

door step of europe- where east meets west the guıde book tells us

2009-01-03T20:43:00.000-08:00

Locatıon: fırst town ın Turkey, just after the border wıth ıran
Temperature: so bloody cold- daddy about to don an extra paır of trousers.

We pretty much drove flat out (at a racy 50 mph) through ıran. one reason was that we are becomıng ıncresıngly short of tıme. the real reason was that we only had 30 us dollars wıth us to drıve through the country as someone had forgotten that you cannot use credıt cards ın ıran and there are no atms that wıll acept vısa or mastercard. the hour ın whıch thıs revelatıon was uncovered was bleak.
we were so short of money that daddy manned up and overcame hıs fear of my drıvıng (all ın hıs mınd) and daddy, tessıe and I all took 2 hour drvıng shıfts through the nıght. ıf we were not drıvıng then we were on passenger seat duty (maps, sıgns, potholes) or ın the bed made on the back seat. lewıs slept through all.

just as our mıddle east lonely planet guıde book and daddy have promısed the people we meet have been extremely helpful and welcomıng. our only exceptıon to thıs dıscovery have been the polıce ın ıran. they accompanıed us all the way to the fırst bıg town wıth on man ın the passenger seat (tessıe and I were not allowed to sıt ın the front) and a car leadıng us. when we got the town where they were supposed to leave us to our own devıces they kept passıng the buck along, swıtchıng escorts dependıng on the dıstrıct we were ın. they woudl not let us leave for the next town and made us stay ın a hotel for the nıght (on our 30 dollar budget that they dıd not seem to understand). confusıon ın the mornıng as we had agreed to pay 26 ooo ıranıan dollars (usure of name but there are 10 000 to the euro) and they saıd we agreed to pay 10 tımes that much. usual anger and arguement.
they anoyıngly contınued to check us along the way and I kept beıng told by horrfıed polıcemen / soılders to cover my head whenever ı forgot to do so.
one nıght we met a lovely ıranına man and some of hıs frıends who offered us a bed for the nıght and gave us dınner and breakfast. they were hıghly generous and cook especıally for us (ıt was mıdnıght by that tıme) and brought the famıly ın to see us and played a tradıtıonal ıranına guıtar for us. don't worry, we have a vıdeo. they gave us the whole flat that the son slept ın and he got kıcked upstaırs ınto the maın house.
we have gıven them the blog address and so hope that they read theır dedıcated paragraph- ıf they do: thank you.

we drove through the 24 hour ıran-turkey border at about 23:30 turkey tıme and the transıtıon was faırly smooth. the ıranıan sıde fo teh border tokk no tıme at all to cross and the turkey sıde had lots of helpful people.
we are now on our way through turkey on the north road (not rıght on the coast) and wıll decıde on the best way to get through europe fıttıng ın seeıng carl and marına (famıly ın austrıa), erde traılers (party awaıtıng us ın dıjon) and hendrıck (belgıum cyclıst). not sure ıf they all know thıs yet. we hope they read the blog.

we hope that granny wıll take a well earned rest after clearıng the one draw. she ıs a braver woman than me.
we hope that everyone, ıncludıng reve, enjoyed/ were forced to enjoy theır new year celebratıons. we were ın ıran and so dıd not see any drunk people and ın fact pretty much forgot ın the but dıd remember just beofre mıdnıght although ı dıd not get to hear daddy and lewıs play auld lan syme on the recorder as promısed. most dısapoıntıng.
the maın thıng ı mıssed was the chrıstmas doctor who specıal. jane has told me ıt's better than last years but ı bet she hasn't recorded ıt.

we would also lıke to thank haroon and hıs famıly ın lahore for puttıng us up as complete strangers and lookıng after us wonderfully. we are greatful he has added to our comments- we could never forget someone who does that.

2008-12-29T21:25:00.000-08:00

current location: quetta, pakistan.
state of internet connection: poor.
today's special thought: HAVE A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

the whole of the crew has been touched by the dedication five individuals have shown in commenting on the last post. most appreciated. the love was felt.

our christmas celebrations were lovely. the posh crushed velvet hotel was quite an experience and even provided turkey and a chocolate-giving father christmas. father christmas had left us all a suprising number of gifts of high quality concidering the circumstances and even left a special message for lewis.

Christmas day was spent on the road to the sound track of silent night with our christmas lights blazing all day. we camped on christmas night.

in the morning, just before the border crossing, we stopped in amritsar to visit the golden temple that everyone in india had told us we must. the people there were friendly and there were people doing actual relgious things. the building itself was impressive. i tell you it's impressive as that is what daddy, tessie and lewis tell me it was. i did not go in as i was wearing tights; i was full prepared to wet my tights (worn now that the temperature is dropping) in teh clensing water but i was not allowed to go in with anything on my feet.
it looked pretty good from the outside though.
better than the taj mahal which was touristy and not as interesting or impressive and rumour would have you believe. we also found the service we recieved at the golden temple to be more efficient.

the india/ pakistan border was empty and crossed with suprising ease (with only 3 other people) on boxing day. we made it to lahore, only 35km from the border, the same day with the intention of staying with the family of lewis' friend from school. after the obligatory getting lost (and one man escorting us 2 miles to show us the way) we knocked on the doors of complete strangers in a new city in the dark. they had absolutely no idea who we were. their cousins from england had not come for christmas and the new year after all and they did not recognise the name lewis.
oh dear.
we were invited in anyway and such was the hospitality of the whole family that, when confronted with a group of strangers in the middle of the night who supposedly knew the english contingent of your family, offered us a room for the night.
they then showed us the sights and sounds of lahore which included bowling in the evening and the big mosque and impressive fort in the morning.

the other day daddy decided to be ill and thus spent the day cowering in the back complaining about the bumpy ride. this was due the rapid deterioation of the road that had been good from the border to lahore. really gearing themselves up to russia standards they are.
what made driving infinately worse was the thick fog that blanketed us from before we woke to 2pm. we had to follow the lorries in order to see where we were going and could not even see the buildings at the side of the road. not only do we have video of the event but also some atmospheric photographs. the few days of aweful fog we have had, have made driving conditions that worst yet.

as we travelled ever closer to the border with afghanistan, that supposedly you are not advised to travel within 100 miles of, we have encountered more and more check points. this began happening as the landscape evolved into dry, rocky, mountainous passes. one check post stop, where we had to fill out our names, passport numbers, visa numbers, fathers' names and destination yet again, involved aquiring a police escort. the man (who gave us tea and sweets as every pakistani seems want to do) told us that the area we were about to enter was extremely dangerous and night and so called a police van (with conspicous flashing blue light acting as a target) to escort us to the other side of the danger zone.
he first took us to the police station where further detail filling out ensued while daddy tried to communicate the need for a guesthouse. after some time they understood and took us to a small student room. this cost us 200 rupees and was a bit of a pit but it was out of the cold and we didn't really notice in the dark. they made sure we had done our security checks before we locked our door for the night.
highly concered for our safety, our full police escort accompanied us to the local eatery where everyone smiled, waved and wanted their photographs taken.
another police chekc and escort in the morning before we were back on the bad road.

they absolutely love and bit of chinese and treat tessie and me as though we are thier best firends. this means the most of our tolls have bee waived.

eveyone is used to the daily power cuts.
all of this took place in the dead of night.

anti-freeze has been safely purchased.

so far we have been intinately impressed by the kindness of pakistani strangers.
we have only seen about 5 women so far in pakistan and they were in a car.
tessie and i are fairly conspicious.

on the way to the border. we are assured the roads are terrible.
expecting good times.

have to go. hello to everyone who left a comment.
a man who will show us the way in now waiting for us.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ONE AND ALL!

2008-12-24T04:17:00.000-08:00

We have secured ourselves a booking for Christmas dinner tonight at a prestigious hotel, that manages to incorporate copious amounts of crushed velvet as part of its decor, in the centre of New Delhi. Unlimited alcohol- bonus.
When we get back to our guesthouse we will open our presents as Tessie has arranged for us to be first in Father Christmas' rounds this year. This means that we will be on the move tomorrow morning, after breakfast (grace period for Daddy's and Tessie's hangovers) accompanied by a special 13 song Christmas playlist compiled by me.
We will also have a Christmas chocolate allowance.
Yule tide festivities promise to be awesome.
The whole of the Wood Family crew hopes that at suitably Christmassy time is had by all.
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR (in case we are unable to locate the internet before the turn of the year).

A special hello to granny as we know she is the only one who loves us enough to actually read this post on Christmas Eve.

Delhi but no belly (yet)

2008-12-23T01:32:00.000-08:00

We have driven up the middle of India along most of the north-south corridor. It is one of the major roads in India but at times there was no sign of this status. At times it was one the the worst roads we have driven on but we soldered through with not a single repair to our names as of yet.
Exploring Delhi, when we arrived yesterday, in Wilma with Larry was quite an experience. It was a this point that we discovered just how inaccurate and varied Indian directions can be whilst driving amid the culmination of years of ingrained bad driving. The tourist office (and their map) took us to the heart and soul of Old Delhi, an area only traversed by pedestrians, cows and carts, on the way to a campsite that everyone knew the local of but which no longer exists. It took us ages to drive through amid the 100s of people, all of whom were gawping at us.

After marching into the tourist office again, late that evening, to demand better service, we managed to find a guesthouse at the top of a building with no lift that, after taking our bags in, told us that we could not stay as we did not have our visa numbers with us. We later found a lovely guesthouse in a Tibetan colony just north of the centre. Currently enjoying the spiritual life of the street community and taking advantage of all the facilities here including a young boy who will shine your shoes for 10 rupees whilst changing the colour at no extra cost.

We do not have our visa numbers on us as our passports are currently in the Iranian embassy having visas attached. We should be able to pick them up tomorrow morning. Our visas are extraordinarily expensive.

A couple of nights ago, after seeing the taj mahal (one of the biggest disappointments of the trip), we had to camp at an abandoned petrol station along the main road as it was already very late. When we started cooking we were approached by an ex-military-turned-nightwatchman Indian with a torch and his cronies. He can only be described as an utter nutter. He said we could stay and make sure no harm came to us so we gave him 100 rupees; he then proceeded to stay and interfere with everything we did. He even, what can only be described as, forced his way inside the tent despite my protests to 'help' set out the mats and sleeping bags whilst suggestively muttering about being unmarried. The highlight of this whole performance was when he woke us up at 04:30 because he thought that was what we wanted. Unsuccessful, he came back 45 minutes later with a bugle and some drums and again just after we woke up to check.
He wanted more money from us.

These are just a small taster of some of the exciting new 'vehicles on the way' photographs that I know you are all dying to see. The first one in the second row is a prime example of the result of typical Indian lorry driving. Since leaving Bangalore we have seen at least one overturned/ broken down lorry per hour. They range from fresh to rusted, they may be in the middle of the road or in a ditch at the side and in this photographs they chaps in the lorry have decided to use the opportunity to have a jolly well earned cup of tea.
The last photograph is of some Indian tanks (easy to photograph) because you know we love a bit of military photograph.

A couple of shots of us in motion. The first is Daddy, Tessie and Lewis at our first market stall next to the main road. The second is the father pumping water from a local pump into our only remaining water container. We are back to camping every day.

A couple of signs we have seen along the way. Gina and Rob (we stayed with them in Bangalore) have given us a book dedicated to amusing Indian road signs. It is amusing. These are not taken from the book.

Some good views in India. The first is of one of the few nice, forest, national parks in India. After daddy insisting that we would find rest houses absolutely everywhere, we found our first in a village in the national park. Lovely and cool with only a minor electricity-cutting-out problem. The last is to prove we are back on the road again and document the existence of at least 500m of good road in India.

This is cricket. First day of the first test in Chennai. We were there. Ha, ha, ha.

A couple of days later we had a very different but equally interesting time at the cricket when Tessie spotted a local match in a small town we were passing through and we thought it a good idea to stop and watch. It was hot and dry and we were standing so we were most jealous of the special people who got to stand in the commentary box. One second later an announcement issued forth from the commentary box of which the only intelligible words were 'British' and 'come to box'; we then had no choice but to walk in front of the packed India crowed, inside the boundary of the pitch with everyone staring, cheering, waving, smiling and touching.

Everyone wanted to shake our hands whilst taking our photos. The men escorting us acted as a proud bodyguard for the royal family. We were mobbed in the box and given flowers, tea and front row seats. They talked to us and were constantly shaking our hands. Shortly after we arrived and daddy had undergone an unsuccessful and forced session and the mic, all play was stopped as the players and umpires lined up on the pitch while we went to shake the whole teams hands.

We had to watch the whole of the match (putting us behind schedule) and as we left the box the whole of the cricket crowed turned into the wood family crowed and swarmed us so we could barely move forward. Wanting to kiss us, photographs us and shake our hands, the mob surged with us towards Wilma and Larry making it difficult for daddy to maneuver our escape for fear of running someone over. Most exciting.

Good luck to Reeve and all those who read this blog who also need it.

2008-12-17T01:31:00.000-08:00

BACK ON THE ROAD AGAIN...

2008-12-17T00:56:00.000-08:00

since Saturday.

We managed to get the car just after posting the last post, and were on the way home an hour later- after lunch.

We made it all the way to Bangalore by late evening just in time for the Christmas party but were not in time to see the children singing Christmas carols. A sore disappointment I can tell you.

Stayed in Bangalore with Gina (2nd cousin?) and her fiance, Rob. Both were so welcoming and lived luxury unavailable even in Leytonstone (with a pool and nice sheets and everything) that it felt a little strange to be going once more and it was with difficultly that we left the Marmite and chocolate spread on Monday morning.

Have managed to find camping spots out of the direct line of traffic but we slept on Monday night to the accompaniment of religious chanting and thundering lorries. We have, as yet, been unable to find any of the nice acomodation promised by daddy. Typical.

Last night's camping was marginally better although the random blowing up of the local hills in the middle of the night by quarrymen, had the camp slightly on edge.

Festive preparations well underway with Lewis currently employed making Christmas decorations. Will soon crack out the Christmas lights purchased from the $2 shop in Singapore.

Daddy and Tessie have been enjoying themselves on the Indian roads, where it appears that the only rule of driving is: there are no rules. They are not particularly aggressive but rather they seem to have a lax attitude when it comes to their safety and that of those around them.

However, the drivers have not been our main problem where Wilma and Larry are concerned: our main problem is scraping Wilma on the, seemingly foot high, invisible, rocky speed bumps that exist only to supprise us.

So far have not hit a cow, only a dog. It is daddy's first dog.

Most of his road rage addressed at the traffic that is unable to properly cross level crossings. Daddy repeatedly banged on the window of one driver. Classic.

We are unsure where we will be for Christmas. Somewhere busy and un-Christmasy no doubt. We envy granny and the peace and quiet that she will get on Christmas day, watching the Dr. Who Christmas special, as all good people must, I hope.

Currently in Adilibad, 600 miles from Chennai; it is around the centre of India as we are pretty much going to drive straight up the middle. Just had a family luch in a working men's club.

Internet connection terribly slow but not as slow as yesterday when we were unable to access the blog at all.

Still in Chennai

2008-12-12T23:37:00.000-08:00

We have been enjoying the cricket immensely and on the first day of play we stayed for the whole day. It has made our trip worthwhile.
However, we have been delayed for a few days now, and whilst the cricket is good, if we stay much longer we will not meet even our rough deadline for being back in London. By the time we leave we will have only 4 weeks to complete what was supposed to be a 6 week journey. Oh well, I have full confidence in our making it.
The reason we have been delayed is because we have had so much trouble retrieving Wilma and Larry from customs. The man we hired to sort out the paperwork for us kept telling us that he needed to get one more stamp and that we were unable to pick up the car time and time again.
There was a bit of a palaver with the opening of the container (done yesterday) as they were originally going to have it opened without us being there. It was good that daddy insisted we had to be there as when it was actually opened they were quiet rough and disruptive with out belongings.
We were 5 hours at the customs as they were 2 hours late with our stamped paperwork.
As we were cruising home in the successfully rescued Wilma, with Larry in tow we realised that the man we hired had not given back all of our paperwork. We were supposed to leave this morning but the man decided to hold us ransom until we paid his bill today, a bill that is outrageously high with lots of 'hidden extras'. He would not even tell us were our paperwork is and insists we need another stamp from customs even though the office is closed today. Daddy and Tessie have gone to sort him out but we fear that we may have to stay until Monday which would mean missing a Christmas party in Bangalore with daddy's cousin tonight. most disappointing.
Am currently watching the cricket. England doing very poorly.

Anyone for Tea or Coffee

2008-12-10T01:56:00.000-08:00

Stall holder just outside the bird park. He was selling shots of Indian-style coffee heated in the pot in the left of the photograph.

2008-12-10T01:53:00.000-08:00

The whole crew at the bird park on the mum's favourite bench that she had been waiting to become available.
l-r: Rajesh, Loong, mother, Rahani, daddy, Lewis, Darani.

We are about to become fully fledged members of the BARMY ARMY

2008-12-10T00:12:00.000-08:00

Cricket madness will commence tomorrow as we make our trip to India worthwhile by going to see the first test match in Chennai.
We are all most excited but am a little worried that the picking up of Wilma and Larry that is supposed to be taking place tomorrow will disrupt our viewing.
Naturally not worried about terrorists attacks but are worried about the threat of rain especially as we have had showers over the last few days.
We bought 8 tickets at 300 rupees which is bloody cheap for us but are expensive for the locals and so are actually the best seats.
After we had quickly bought our tickets (no queue) we were stopped by a local camera man and asked to make fools of ourselves by giving an impromptu interview. embarrassing, especially daddy talking about fair play and it being the taking part that counts.
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Also, we have not yet been able to see our container but daddy has managed to make sure that they will not open it without us being there and so stopping some potential problems. We are hoping that we can get Wilma and Larry back without having to pay any bribes.

We have also had to stop downloading things from the internet at Darani's house as we have gone over the download limit and, as we are responsible people, do not want them to have to pay for daddy's Cliff Richard collection.

We also understand that some people have been having trouble commenting on our blog. We hope that this does not deter people from commenting although understand that this may be a problem only experienced by the uninitiated few.

Still in Chennai waiting for daddy to give the officials a piece of his mind so we can get Wilma and Larry

2008-12-05T23:51:00.000-08:00

We are now staying with Darani and her family in Chennai after meeting them the day after we landed.

We were previously staying in some sort of nunnery in the centre of Chennai. It was all very olde worlde and the whole building and atmosphere was like a page from 'A Passage to India'; there was a lift with two shuttered doors and porters and everything.

. The whole family has taken us on various trips in and around Chennai including a trip to some caves and a bird park where daddy lamented our lack of a bird watchers book yet again

Hoping to get the car today but we feel it unlikely.

Seeing as we won't be getting Wilma and Larry today we have decided to go have daddy's new beard shaved. Daddy only has a beard because he has left his £200 shaver in Singapore and won't let anyone but a barber shave him.

As we did not buy any of the expensive Lonely Planet guides for the countries on our journey back we visited a good book shop in the city and bought a road atlas of India for 50p.

Also saw Transporter 3 in a packed cinema a couple of nights ago especially for daddy. Is now a firm favourite of his.

LONDON CALLING by The Crash (comence manic laughter from the direction of daddy for it was from his wit that such a glorious joke was born)

2008-12-04T06:47:00.000-08:00

Have begun the retreat: driving from Singapore to London- one car, one trailer, one flight and four people.

As we are cheep we got the flight from Singapore to Chennai, India that took about twice as long as it should. the flight also stopped over at a town in the middle of nowhere and during that time we were forced to stay on the aeroplane while an angry looking man checked our bags. suspicious times.

tomorrow we are off to look at suitable sites to unload our container and beloved Wilma and Larry so that we may once more cruise the open road. at least until we get to the border with Pakistan.

We are all well. enjoying sights and sounds of India and daddy talking about how he has been here before. loads of times. daddy showed just how at home he is in India and has already had a particularly loud 'disagreement' with a local auto (motorised rickshaw) driver over performance vs pay.
also like new stamp in passport.

We are all fine. We hope you are all well.

Pictures and slide shows

2008-11-29T00:00:00.000-08:00

We have taken some yes only some of our pictures and added them as slide shows at the side of the blog. Double click on them and they should become larger. Comments welcome..
if they slow everything down let me know and We will find another way of showing the pictures.
Captions will come in time..

Note;- this post has been added by Dwight so will not be up to the normal high standard we have come to expect.
Loong will be writing an article for a local magazine and we are going to see be interviewed by Asia one on Monday.
Happy Birthaday Lewis his birthday party is tomorrow. Loong has been cake making.. there is another story.
Happy Birthday ling our most loyal follower and commentator.

how we crossed the singaporean border

2008-11-20T22:18:00.000-08:00

We crossed the first part of the border and the bridge from Johor to Singapore with no difficulties after being told not to take photographs.
Our problems arose during the second part of the border crossing.

We were told that we were supposed to be in possession of a special paper disk for our car that the RAC had not told us about. They said that we would not be able to cross into Singapore without it and would therefore have to drive Larry and Wilma back to Malaysia and cross on foot to go to the AA office in Singapore.
After we, naturally, refused and asked if we could leave the car in place while a couple of us went to get the disk the fun really started.
They said that we were not allowed to do that, even if someone stayed with the car, and if we did they would tow it away. Daddy replied that that would be fine so long as they told us where they would tow it to so we could pick it up from there. Complications etc... ensued.
In the end they agreed to let us leave the car where it was so long as they could keep daddy as a hostage and confiscate his passport and the keys. They seriously thought that this would bring us back.
Tessie and I had to rush off to get the disk with a police escort in and out of the compound.

We managed to get the disk just in time, preventing daddy having a most amusing night.
The people had actually treated daddy really well and, as we didn't leave him any money and he didn't think to get any from the unlocked car, even bought him food and drink.

We have now been safely in Singapore for a couple of weeks and have spent most of our time traipsing after Tessie when she goes to see her family and friends.
I have also spent a week with her family.

We have also been frequenting the cinemas. The new James Bond is our favourite film.

We would also like to say thank you for all the comments (record number- says daddy)
Most appreciated although it is plain to see that you are all fair weather friends and only wish to associated with us when we are on a high, not when we are stuck in a ditch.

WE HAVE MADE IT TO SINGAPORE- VICTORY IS OURS

2008-11-05T19:37:00.000-08:00

So close

2008-11-03T02:03:00.000-08:00

Are nearly in Singapore now although we all feel as though we should not count out chickens before they have hatched.

Last night in KL was most enjoyable as Alison, Gahni and Adrian (a Malaysian couple with son who are driving all around the world) took us to a friend's house just outside KL. We didn't realise before hand but we were actually being invited to a religious family and friend feast. Alison, Gahni, Adrian and our hosts couldn't have been nicer nor more hospitable; we left the friend's house completely stuffed but only left Alison and Gahni's home at 02:15. They had a pretty good Internet and coffee but kept trying to make us buy one of their tour t-shirts that apparently all their friends are buying. we were not falling for that one.
We also like to think we inspired many of their friends- at least when they saw larry and wilma they started talking and smiling a lot.

Now in the town of Malacca and looked into many of the antiques shops that are here.

We will cross the border either tonight or tomorrow.
When we get to Singapore we will really get in there with the photographs.
Just hang on in there- we would never, as some people might think (greg), abandon the blog.
At least I couldn't even if I tried.

Big lights of the big city- have been eating coconut rice and everything

2008-11-02T01:34:00.000-07:00

All getting very excited as we have made it to KL and this means we are only 200 miles from Singapore.

We have been lax in the posting on the blog stakes recently as the internet cafes that we have found have been highly unsatisfactory. The internet cafes have either have really slow connections or have logged us off for seemingly no apparent reason. We are ok now though so don't worry.

We have managed, in the last couple of blogless days, to meet even more interesting people on the road- a photograph will follow in the 'people we meet on route' album where appropriate.
The two most noteworthy people are a couple of Sony engineers that traipsed all around Butterworth (mainland side of Penang) to find a pulley for Wilma's engine. We discovered that the pulley for the alternator belt had jammed and that was why the belt kept wearing out and eventually broke when in George Town.
The Sony engineers also helped us to discover that it is neigh impossible to get a car part for a diesel part for a Citroen ZX in Malaysia; they ran around for 4 hours helping daddy and Tessie get the 100 pound part (1/3 of what we paid for car).

After daddy worked very hard at fixing the pulley- a job that, according to the Haynes manual only has a difficulty rating of 2 spanners out of 5- we set off for the Cameron Highlands in search of a respite from the heat. We managed to camp twice in the Highlands and worked our way through all of the free attractions: a honey bee farm, a cactus centre, a tea plantation and a rose garden that we paid for as we had not yet got into the swing of things.
The BOH tea plantation taught us the wonder and global influence of BOH tea and was one of our favourite activities of the day, especially as they had a tea shop with tea.
Drove up the highest road in peninsular Malaysia (2000 meters) and very nearly didn't make it. Even with Tessie and me walking, Wilma was coughing smoke.
In the Highlands, as we were going though the tourist guide, we decided to go to the ye olde englishe Smokehouse Hotel for the recommended cream tea. We decided to splash out and order one Devonshire Cream Tea for 25 ringets and one Smokehouse Cream Tea for 33 ringets because it included a slice of fruit cake. Suffice to say that there was an incident where daddy was forced to write an angry letter, due to the absence of a manager, bemoaning the size of the 2cm x 2cm x 2cm slice of fruit cake. The scones and tea were most satisfactory.

During the evening of our second day in the Cameron Highlands we accidental walked into a jungle adventure. We got a little lost in a park-like area -having just spoken to the park manager who told us that is was impossible to get lost- and decided to take what we thought was a path. I thought the path was most definitely there but it was covered over with the vegetation of the rainforest and as the torrential rain fell Tessie began to doubt my judgement.
There were scratches, scrabbling muddy hills, logs, bogs and a river.
When we were safely camped once more we all decided it had been a wonderful adventure.

We have just come back from watching High School Musical 3 (quite possibly the best film ever made) in the Patronus Towers where we tried to get a taxi from the official taxi stand. By the taxi stand was a sign telling us not accept taxi touts when none of them would let us use the meter. Instead we walked back in the rain. For the record daddy talks about 'jobsworths' with alarming frequency and not a day goes by without him mumbling something or other under him breath.

Dinner with a husband and wife we know through Graham who are going to drive through Africa. Off to see a factory for work on Monday before we make our way down to Singapore, perhaps via Malacca.

OUR LAST FEW POSTS HAVE BEEN REVISED- PLEASE VIEW AGAIN

2008-10-29T05:35:00.000-07:00

Welcome to our blog (am really clutching at straws when looking for new way to open posts)

We are now in penang staying in an newly refurbished hotel with wifi that does not work. We are pleased with our lot this night as it is our first reasonably priced accommodation at 55 ringets for a family room. It is at this point we realised we have been completely ripped off everywhere else.

The view from the middle station of the funicular railway was pretty good but we are well aware that it could have been a lot better if we had been able to get to the upper station which was closed today because of the broken train.
We were lucky to make it to the railway, at penang hill, anyway as several of the people we asked for directions tried to put us off the scent and one taxi driver even told us that the railway was not longer in use. other than that we have found the malaysian popluation very helpful.
They are also just as friendly and laid back here as they are in thailand.

The whole wood camp is now most excited about going to the cameron highlands tomorrow as the average temperature is 16- 21 degrees C. This will be a lovely cool respite for us. We hear the weather in England is lovely. We are also hoping to be able to find a scenic camping spot where we can stay for a couple of nights whilst exploring the strawberry and tea fields and generally soaking up the English-village-in-malaysia feel.

Have been taking some pretty scenic routes already and see many rice fields that are mechanised, unlike in china.

A View from Our Side of the Bridge- the tale of a man, his car, his trailer and a bridge:

The longest bridge in asia runs from the mainland to penang and is 13 km.
We thought it would be nice to go on it to say we had done it.
The sign said it would be 7 ringets.
We got to the counter.
The man asked for 45 ringets.
Chaos ensued.
Upon principle we refused to pay, that and the fact they were trying to charge us the price for a car with a boat on the back.
Much manovering took place as daddy turned wilma and larry around.
The queue had to be backed up and people had to wait ages for us to get off the major section of the road.
Daddy continued to argue with the bridge manager (that he had called for) and even lifted up larry muscle-man style to show that he should not be charged 45 ringets.

We got the ferry for 7 ringets.

Congratulations to daddy, who gets upset that I don't compliment him enough on a public forum. Does he even know that he's my hero?

the internet cafe closed an hour ago so this is not very detailed/ good- outstaying our welcome

2008-10-28T05:29:00.000-07:00

Hai! (we have been assured that this is how to say hi in malay by a malaysian man)

The first thing we would like to do today is say thank you to graham and family, tim and family and our new spam fan- goooooood girl.
We would like to say thank you to these people as they have heeded our vague threats and posted a comment on the blog thus making as feel as though this exercise is bring a little bit of light into some people's lives.

At lunch time we got back from the island of Lankawi where we stayed in an over priced hotel as the ferry we took to the island left an hour late and we only arrived in the main town at 21:30.
however, we did stay in a full sized family room and rent a sick-green air-coned car for 50 bahts- oooooo, ahhhhhh.
did manage to swim a little bit but the beach was average although there was an amusing man who prevented us from parking under a coconut tree for fear of concusion.

tonight we 'landed on our feet' (as daddy loves to say) yet again as, although we did not managed to find an non-silted up beach we are staying in an entire house for 100 ringets (20 pounds). actually above our budget but really rather cheap for a whole, massive three bedroom house all to ourselves.

We are currently been unable to properly arange the photographs that have been displayed recently as the computers in malaysia only show the photographs on blogger when you have actually loaded them. At all other times the the photographs merely take the form of a series of words, dots, dashes and slashes that are only intelligible to computer geeks or other like-minded people.

tessie has been sent home in a cab- not drunk but attacked by mosquitos

2008-10-26T07:56:00.000-07:00

in trang for the night,which is a little way inland and not too far from the border with malaysia.

we are hoping to cross the border tomorrow and tessie is really gearing herself up for the imminent singapore-fest.

have had lots of trouble with the internet today and am getting a tad frustrated to say the least.
when writing the blog the photographs only come up as the script that is only intelligible to computer geeks. next time this happens we will need to see our new best friend graham and his family (driving from croydon to cairns)- self-styled 'king of the computer'.

this is the graham and family from the previous post- still stuck in malaysia. had a lovely time with them but little did we know that they would sell us the most useless guidebook known to man. also- our car has never been the same after graham was in it- the very same day we had to change two tyres (one burst,one bulging). have now discovered that the pulley for tensioning the auxillary belt has probably been siezed up and causes various suspicious smells (usually attributed to team tessie tay and lewis wood). thanks graham.

a little message to janice wilson,
as being sober at work must be a new a distressing state of affairs for you we suggest that you might numb the pain by writing a comment on the blog. we know that you now have plenty of time a work.

to those who read janice's special message- it was a subtle hint at writing more comments on the blog. take the hint lest ye be similarly named and shamed.
please.

time to go back to the station inn. well past daddy's bed time. he has to drive in the morning.

Vehicles

2008-10-26T07:29:00.000-07:00

we love the new vehicles we see.
none of them live up to the infamy of the wilma and larry duo though.

Impressive Buildings

2008-10-26T07:16:00.000-07:00

we are getting well in there with our impressive building photographs but we have so many to sort through that we have only be able to put up a few at first.

Houses

2008-10-26T07:13:00.000-07:00

Border Signs

2008-10-26T07:10:00.000-07:00

really trying to get in there with our themed albums.
don't worry,this is only the beginning...

THIS HAS BEEN REVISED- PLEASE READ

2008-10-26T06:27:00.000-07:00

these are some of our more beachy/ holiday shots.
not all in the same place but we get excited when ever we see the sea which, since southern thailand, has been a lot.
have only managed to camp on the beach once but we continue to look although so far this has only brought expensive hotels. we say expensive but by this we mean double the price of thailand and a quater of the price of the uk.
what the middle photograph tries to display- aside from daddy and lewis' trim fingures- is that the sea starts a long distance from the beach and even at high tide (of which there is one per day) some beaches require a miles trek through the sea to get to a swimming depth.

View from river in the middle on bankok when we were on our very cheap public transport boat

Thai princess, elder sister of Thai king, dies at 84.
we saw lots of memorials and some people looking sad and wearing black.
we did not understand at first.

a couple of 'the streets of thailand' photographs so that you can get a 'flavour' of the normal everyday sights around the town.
the last two are of all the animals that we have seen for purchase on the street side. the last photographs contains squirrels found in a bankok market that sold
we realise that you require more to get an accurate picture but i am sure that our photographic team (headed by dwight wood) would be more than happy to provide a 'streets of thailand' album for you all to enjoy.

these are supposed to be in the Vehicles album but got way laid because they are that good and i can't move them at this time. it will require further work.
the second photograph i a mother and her two boys rowing to school. this was in the older, original part of the floating market and was just about the only thing worth seeing. the rest was some giant form of tourist trap but round the back were still people living and an old man swimming accross the canal with his belongings in a floating plastic bucket.

first guest house in thailand- very cheap and brand new. lovely open walled breakfast area downstairs and owned by an enlish teacher. lucky to find it as the day was completely dark by the time we started looking for accomodation.

tessie loves a photograph of lewis. this is for her. lewis in bankok at the children's discovery museum. we had a big row with the lady at the ticket counter over the price so only i had the pleasure of going with him. was actually an entertaining and educational experice.

we hope you will love these photographs as much as we do- which is a lot.
finally got a photograph of a typical thai cow.
the boy scouts are infiltrating all four corners of the earth- this is for the fanatics (in cluding bill everett).
the coolest man on the planet? yes. still figuring out how this bicycles works- any ideas? this photograph is also for fanatics.

first beach holiday

2008-10-23T06:12:00.000-07:00

greetings to all our loyal fans.

we know that some of you have recognised and appreciated our efforts towards improving our blog. daddy is getting really quite keen especially as some of the blogs of the people we have met along the way have been highly professional.
the slide show is a particular triumph.

for the past couple of days we have been staying on an island two hours boat ride from ranong on the coast of west thailand. staying in a typical beach resort but 'the russian' who runs it has made us feel most welcome and even helped to catch us some fresh fish that we ate for dinner this evening. we had a whole fish each and are feeling pretty fat but content as the fish was more than worth it.

have been having a good dose of human interaction with an english family (graham, loraine, hannah, emily and abigail) that we have been trying to met for a while now; they are drving from london to australia taking about nine months in total.
they came in an appropriate toyota landcruiser but have not been having fun with their car lately as their steering pump has gone and the garage does not have the correct parts. there are toyotas all over the shop in asia but all the parts are different from those that you would get in europe and all the types have seperate parts also.
going to the mainland tomorrow with them so that they can chase up the garage and we can continue south.

have had lots of fun on the island including hiring a motobike that daddy will not ride on with me unless he can drive. chicken. the water on our side of the island is sooo hot- literally bath temperature but everyone loves it.
i got my swimming in early in the morning when the water was cooler (i say cooler...) and the tide in but we still had to walk about a mile out from the shore before i could not stand up in the water. really quite shallow.

we are hoping to be in singapore in about a week so tessie is getting most excited about being back in her homeland.
i'm looking forward to watching the new james bond film.
however, we are all looking forward to camping on some more beaches.

have so far spent only one night on a beach half way done the east coast of thailand with the top cover off the tent. it was quiet with a good sunset and we were left undisturbed. water has been a little bit murky so far though so we are looking forward to malaysia wiht anticipation as daddy has promised us spectacular beaches there.

have met literally some english speaking people since being in this area and we have promised a 'shout-out' to all of them:
1. adrian- the man who showed us the internet cafe in ranong and who subsequently enbarked on a race against time when graham and his family told us on skype that there we had half an hour to catch a boat out to this island. adrian jumped in wilma with us and sorted us out and the tiny port.

2. richard- the owner of oscar's bar, located on the one main road this island has. we were told to go to him and assured that he would 'sort us out' this was indeed the case as when we arrived on the island we had no idea where we were going and no trasport.

3. two girls from israel that we met in oscar's bar- staying on the other side of the island- we gave them and two friendly german guys some of our bags as we thought we were staying in the same place and could not fit all of them on to the motorbike-taxis we got.

4. the man from israel- meeting him for breakfast on the other side of the island tomorrow before we leave for the mainland tommorrow afternoon (we are trying to make full use of the motorbike we rented for 200 bhat/ day). into kayaking and seems to genuinely enjoy our company. free bed in tel aviv.

5. lovely english speaking french family with children- anything that keeps lewis away from us for a period of time can only be deemed a good thing

will either stay in a hotel in ranong tomorrow or try to go 100 km away from 16:00- 18:00 (when to 2 hours boat ride gets in- when night falls) as we are told that is when the nice beaches on the mainland start.

all getting pretty brown, apart from daddy who is getting pretty pink.

we are really into this blog lark now so will be sorting out lots of new photographs next time.
we know you love it.

Animals we have seen along the way

2008-10-20T04:16:00.000-07:00

thailand 1

2008-10-17T22:37:00.000-07:00

hello!

made it into thailand with shocking ease. the border crossing was our best yet and took the shortest time of all the crossings so far.
we were massively shocked as the staff were extremely friendly and helpful and we had previously been told that it would be an absolute nightmare to get in.

have had many adventures since entering thailand and have been pleasently suprised by the fun we have had.
met a lovely 70 year old enlish man yesterday in tesco, that's right- tesco, who told us where the long life milk was and where we could find an invertor for our car (after daddy broke it). he took us back to his house for a cup of english tea and we left him with an address for his son in phuket, who sails, and the promise that he could construct any control systems we wanted.
daddy also gave him some rather intersting advise that we had not heard 100 times before on filtration.

last night, as it was getting dark we manged to stumble accross a couple of people who new a guesthouse owner where we managed to stay. it was in a little village get off the main road with a balcony, breakfast area, garden and it was brand new.

getting closer to the capital but, as we decided to take an extra day to get there, we stopped in the town we are in now at 10:30 and so are spending our time exploring the city and and looking for a cinema.
we all want to watch the new james bond film very much so if anyone could tell us if it is good this would be most appreciated in the absence of a cinema.

the last mongolia photograph, promise. we all wanted you to see the 'russian sparkling wine' shot during extreme dinning.

fond farewell to queenie. we are at the border at that moment; it also shows just how relaxed the border is.

typical petrol station for motorbikes in the lao countryside. we thought it was a special drink at first.

welcome to lao! we were really on the ball at that border.

one of the best activities in laos. daddy and tessie were really into it. making rice wine. we also took a photograph of the instructions for when we get home.

vising the caves on the mekong near luang prabang. i am in the picture to illustrate the size of the caves. yes, i did just want to be in a photograph.

the man wealding the tow bar on larry. he is only wearing sunglasses.

daddy using the irish screwdriver to help fix larry's tow bar.

one photograph of the numerous butterflies we have seen since southern china. this one was ginormous and was sitting amoung his friends at a toll gate in laos.

pretty much the only temple we went to in laos. we did not even go in it, it was just just at the side of the road. we are not a fan on temples but there is plenty of choice.

really cool merchant on a bike. he saluted us. we did not get that photograph.

the merchant's wares. the laos equivilant of the man with the long trench coat.

rival slow boat on the mekong, visiting the caves. he won.

wood camp group photograph. we climbed to the top of the hill in the middle of the touristy luang prabang to see the sun set (as the lonely planet guide told us to). the sunset is slightly to our right.

maggots in loas. would higly recommend.

daddy requested the photograph of his boy using chopsticks to eat maggots. it would be more impressive if lewis knew what maggots were.

making paper in a laos village. this is one of 50 similar photographs.

a man making tradional hats for the village.

snooker tables are everywhere in asia. not many are used for chicken's beds.

one of our many unsucessful attempts to to capture a lao village. if you expand the photograph you can see a woman washing in the village shower.

a corn mill actualy being used. the lady has a baby and dog. to the right of the picture are the rest of the village watching her. the laos people are highly relaxed.

we managed to take some covert military photographs despite queenie's efforts.

this was the view that i enjoyed in laos while going to, what we like to call, an 'open-air' toilet.
amazing waterfalls near luang prabang. the brave ones of us swam in it.
the main bit of the waterfall. we walked up the muddy side of it in flip flops. was an amzing sight especially as there had been lots of rainfall.

hopefully hitting the capital tomorrow.

our last from laos- your right, we havn't been here very long

2008-10-16T07:08:00.000-07:00

greetings from vientiane, capital of laos.

the wood camp would like to dedicate a special hello to the BIG G who has echoed our journey and just arrived in ireland having driven from epping green. we are most proud and hope she took a photograph of the monumentous 100 000 miles on her mile-o-meter just as we did.
we think that reeve may be jealous of the 'goodies' for kim; we too hope that she has lots of things waiting for us upon our return.

we are also here to wish a happy brithday to chris smith.
not entirely sure if she reads this blog.

for those of you who have not been especially mentioned and are feeling left out, the rest of the post has been dedicated to everyone.

it was all drama and suspense yesterday as the fickle hand of fate struck larry another heavy blow. i can picture the scene as if it was yesterday. as we were cruising slowly up another windy mountain road (apears to be the only type available in laos) daddy looked in the rear-view mirror and could only see half of trusty larry: we stopped emidiately to asses the situation and say that the towing bar was practically severed. daddy decided that it was best to simply drive on slowly and hope that we made it to the next town with a wealder before the enevitable struck; however, continuing up the hill we decided that it was best to stop and try to attach some form of splint.
our first splint was rather primitave (wooden plank used to support trailer table) and secured using only two webbing straps.
our second attempt was much better as we really got into the swing of things. during this second stop we hunted for some stronger wood but only found some weak bamboo. this is when inspiration struck and daddy suggested we take the extention legs from the gazeebo and use them on top of the wooden plank. the second splint consised of the wooden plank, four steel gazeebo legs and four lengths of webbing straps (all of our lengths of webbing straps).
this much sturdier quick-fix managed to get us into a large village where there was a wealder, using sunglasses for protection, who managed to weald on a few new bits to the towing bar.
problem successfully adverted
although the splint had held, the wood had split and the legs were bent.
our main concern now is how we are going to make the gazeebo higher when we get to camping on a beach in thailand.

the hastle of fixing larry once again ment that we were pushed behind schedule and had to drive in the dark looking for a place to stay for the night.
in our tired state and in the dark we only just managed to avoid a night in a brothel.

we drove in to the capital this morning after a breakfast at vang vieng, our intended stop last night, in a local haut that played inappropriate re-runs of family guy.
today, in the capital we have looked at the outside of some temples, the palace and the american embassy. we also arrived at the post office 10 minutes late but managed to procure stamps elsewhere.
dinner at the night food market was a particular joy as the food was lovely but, most importantly, i found it when daddy said i was going the wrong way.

we will cross the border into thailand in the morning and are preparing ourselves for a long wait (have brought cooked pork in preperation) into a country that has so far told us we need 5 copies of everthing. i look forward to it with anticipation.

2008-10-14T02:39:00.000-07:00

hello!

we have made it through china largely unscathed and are now in luang prabang, laos.

daddy and tessie have been dying to post some observations of our latest country.
who am i to deny them?

OBSERVATIONS SECTION:
1. very few people.
2. lots of land uncultivated.
3. people much poorer than in china.
4. lots of children
5. loads of tourists in the current town- majority rotund americans but also lots of europeans.
6. they only eat noodles outside the city.
7. the lao people make pretty much everything out of bamboo- from hats to houses.
8. the whole population is relaxed and friendly.
9. they recently had heavy rainfall that washed away lots of the embankments and trees.
10. lots of people walk and most of the people who use the buses are tourists.
11. very few vehicles on the roads and the roads themselves are bad even on the one road from the northern border with china to vientaine.
12. tropical weather at last but so far has not been too hot for us and have not used the fans at night.
13. the internet is not as censored as it was in china although some clips still do not show up on youtube.
14. there are monks all over the shop.

the border crossing was the easiest any of us have ever encountered.
the ease at which we crossed truly astounded us.
it took an hour on the chinese side from getting to the barrier to crossing into no-man's land. they barely glanced at the car and the queue through passport control was really short. the officals at both sides of the border were friendly and relaxed. the border itself was not even made us of much- just a man and a metal barrier on the other side of which were more houses and buildings that looked no different to those before the border.
when we crossed on to the lao side of the border the queue to sign the arrival form and get a visa was like that at a supermarket.

for the past couple of days we have been crusing through laos on roads that were supposed to be motorways but are in actual fact more remenicient of the roads in russia. sweet memories.

due entirely to the nature of the roads, not anyone's driving, two days ago the accelerator pedal on wilma disengaged from the accelerator cable. as wilma is an automatic we managed to trundle up the hill on tick over to a safe spot where the wood pitstop crew were on again. we attached the cable to the pedal and, using an electrical connecting block, the cable to the engine. so far it has been perfect. daddy is also feeling smug and professional.

have been enjoying the city despite its touristyness but have found the food laking in originality. the religious caves that we visited today we interesting but the more exciting bit of the expensive and disorganised trip, was the boat ride up the river mekong- 2 hours up stream and 45 minutes down.
we also passed lots of old people on a saga holiday that looked much better than ours.
started taking our malaria tablets as soon as we were in laos; should be no problem with the flu for us but lewis does have a cough and so is not allowed to touch the cats.

we saw a 2 yuan shop- leytonstone eat your heart out

2008-10-11T01:37:00.001-07:00

bye, bye china

2008-10-11T00:17:00.000-07:00

salutations!

we are in the last town in china before the border with laos. have just discovered that the border is open tomorrow so we will attempt the crossing then leaving a buffer day before our visas runs out on monday.
in preparation we have been trying to spend all our cold hard yuan (of which there are just under 12 to the british pound); so far have bought six rulers and three chopsticks sets.
weather here is truly heating up and we have all donned the shorts and flip flops.

the wild elephant park we went to yesterday about 50 or so miles up the road. this is our first taste of the rainforest seen here from above. if you have constantly read our blog you will notice the stark change in vegetation: we even saw our first rubber trees today.

the 'wild' elephants at the wild elephant park. did not discover any real elephants despite the masses of signs telling us to watch out for them. at least we did not have to pay for the show- we would not have been best pleased. the show contained 3 of the 70 elephants that are native to the region.

genuine wild monkeys in the wild elephant park although they had been somewhat domesticated by the vast number of mainly chinese tourists that visit the park. like true monkeys they tried to stell people's food and got whipped away by the park keepers sticks. lewis dropped the pineapple on a stick on the floor in excitement/ fear. not best pleased. this was the cheeky and extremely active monkey.

the less cheey and more sleepy monkey.
in the cablecars above the wild elephant park. the canopy was so thick that you could not see the forest floor or indeed any of the vegetation below the top canopy. the cablecar ride was about two km long but did not actually take you anywhere so you still had to treck from entrance to exit. however, tessie, queenie and lewis took the bus back to the car (the driver drove especially for them) and daddy and i walked the 830m back. we are not sure if it was 830 m as they don't seem to actually measure distances here.
for granny (or the big g as she likes to be known), freddie (birthday girl) and other flower fans. one of the many beautiful flowers that we are seeing now we are in warmer climes. this one was at the wild elephant park in the pond.

one of many chinese to english signs. clearly there are not elephants for miles around although another sign told us that the park closed at 18:00 as that is when the elephants come out of hiding.

indeed

our first proper supermarket in china. when we do buy food, which is a rare occassion as we no longer camp, we buy it from the local food markets/ stalls. this supermarket was in kuming and was really quite snazzy with fresh meat and bread galore.

leaders of the pack. vroom, vroom. one of our favourite chinese taxis. whole camp had a ride on these petrol motorbikes (didn't appear to have the previously ubiquitous electric ones) about 100m down the road just to say we had. lewis and i had a specially extended ride to the expressway.

please note their fancydress hats. truly something to behold- my favourite is the wicker one on the far right. none of them have straps.

more pool. they love a bit of it in asia. saw one today that had been outside for 8 years.

all the people we have come accross so far work extremely hard. something i cannot even begin to comprehend. they are threshing the rice here by hand which they do in most cases. when in the countryside the fields are usual packed all day but the fields are all in various states of the growing/ harvesting cycle.
in the ancient part of one city there were fairground rides everywhere the bumper cars took our fancy. they were without wires and were completely battery powered. would like it known that lewis and i completely smashed daddy and tessie. they brought a whole new meaning to the word terrible. so much knitting goes on in china just in the street as part of some sort of w.i. meeting. however, we have not seen any knitted items for sale but in the colder areas of china some people were sporting rather fetching jumpers.
they will wear simply any hat in china including setsons on bikes whilst travelling on the expressway and wedding hats when washing cars.
making baus by hand.
special military band playing the ancient area of one city. we enjoyed the free concert whilst eating in our restaurant with the french windows open. luxery.

chia jin (goodbye in chinese as hopefully we will have entered a whole new world by the time we put up our next post).

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KIM!!!

and hello bryn- we know how much this will be appreciated. you have a new found fame in the wood camp.

daddy helped me with this post, sorry

2008-10-09T06:22:00.000-07:00

the whole camp would like to say a big hello to everyone who reads this blog. we would like you to feel that each hello is personal. thank you.

have now made it within spitting distance of the border with laos and are staying in a small town about 200 miles away from the town where we will actually cross.
tonight was shorts night as we ventured out into the town to find dinner. despite stumbling across a few appealing take-aways we settled for a restaurant serving szechuan (please note perfect spelling-standard) cuisine as recommended by queenie who is from that province. queenie did not eat any of the recommended items. we know her game. suprisingly the food was good and not a spicy as forcasted.

today queenie and i had enjoyed legitimate massages at the hotel where we will stay tonight. daddy, tessie and lewis did not have massages but were on scrap book and postcard duty instead.

loong looking pretty good at teh tiger gorge. it took us about 7 hours to drive to the tiger gorge as tessie decided to take us via the scenic route. daddy was not best pleased. however, when we got there was discovered that is was well worth the daddy's effort. this photograph was taken when the minivan that took us to the middle leap stopped at the road side for out tourist shots.

also at tiger leaping gorge, this is when we stopped ourselves to explore a cave in the mountain side. we all felt most explorer-like (especially daddy with his 'edmund hillary' walking boot firmly strapped on) but the feeling soon faded as we vnetured further into the cave and pitch blackness. i would like it known that i wanted to plough on but for teh good of the group accented to return to wilma and the bright sunlight that was with us for one day only.

looking downstream towards the lower leap at tiger leaping gorge. the steep sides of the gorge were sometimes covered with masses of vegetation.

looking upstream. this photograph was taken when standing next to a lovely couple from hong kong via paris and thier baby. we shared our minivan with them.

evidence of our bit of walking for the week. we managed to treck down the wooden steps and the upper leap to the bottom of the gorge and the raging rapids. we are currently in the possession of a video in which daddy plans his route down the rapids a feat that we are told is potentially fatal.

the taxis vary from city to city. we particularly enjoyed this little number but failed to actually get in one.

not an uncommon sight but as this day was clearer than most the evidence of pollution was made even more stark. this is not the only sign of inefficiency in china- today we have taken a photograph of 2 communal coal hotwater boilers outside our hotel (where we were advised not to sleep on the ground floor incase we got eaten by ants).

we do indeed have an artsy side. taken in the morning, having woken at the crack of dawn, as we left dali. in the bottom left you can see a typical fishing boat of the countryside. we have eaten much freshwater fish.

all people- big and small- seem to carry tremendous loads in china. they carry everthing from rubbish to babies. this woman in carrying both.

perfect example of traffic directions.

today we had a ride on some motorbikes that were used as taxis in a city we stopped in for breakfast. unfortunately they were not electric or protected using a bike umbrella but the experience was exciting all the same. with a bike each we looked like the hell's angels. this is the truth.

daddy is a poser. currently outside a tea shop preparing to go on a boat ride to his, at this point unknown, favourite temple.

in the middle of an ancient city tourist trap our amazing photography skills managed to seek out this cracking photograph of the 'old city' and river running thorugh it down which rich chinese tourists were rowed.

a little punkin stall next to the orange stall near to daddy's favourite temple. we were sorely tempted but thoughts of the chutnies that granny is now brewing kept us at bay.

car transporter of chinese proportions. two rows of cars on the top deck. these trucks keep up with the rest of the traffic on the expressway. we do not.

lewis wishes he was this child.

cruising on the expressway.

l-r: wilma, tessie, loong, lewis, daddy, jon, jack, hitherto unnamed 4x4 landcruiser
the hut of oranges next to the famed stall of pumkins. in the middle of the mountains with seeminly no one in the hamlet but still advertising for accomodation.

snowcapped moutain in the background. stunning photography managed on the only clear day we have had so far in china. this in on the way to tiger leaping gorge via tessie's scenic route.

welcome to stoke-on-china. typical brick kiln in the area of lijang.

the river down which we were punted going towards daddy's favourite temple in the mountains. this ride was made all the more exciting by the notable absence of safety equipment, and indeed any equipment or safety at all, and the rapids. tessie was bricking it- we will try to upload the video.

one child policy. permanent poster.

not the highest height we reached but when taken we feared it might be. lewis' height obsession kept us looking but we missed the photograph opportunity of 3.2km. also note vera in all her glory.

modern ancient china. this is the old area of one town at night.

grasshoppers. would highly recommend. lewis no longer enamoured. a couple of days ago we had our first taste of the elusive dog. our excitement was tempered by the housing of the dogs we would be eating in in actual toilet cubicle. they looked like people's pets. lewis was not allowed in. very tastey though.

drying handmade noodles in the street just like they do everything else.

inside the now famous daddy's favourite temple. original building- now 1000 years old. one of our favourites as it was actually authenic, quiet, interesting, different and modest.

dear reeve (and anyone else who doubts us),

daddy would like to make it clear that he is an amazing driver and we have, in fact, seen many a smashed up car. as there is no hardshoulder on the expressway these cars may be seen anywhere at anytime and are usually in a worse state than wilma.

n.b. our trusty tesco tent has mould. this not unexpected discovery was unearthed when we brought out the tent from the depths of larry and dried it in citroen garage in kuming where wilma spent many an hour.

observations section revised

2008-10-07T23:48:00.000-07:00

OBSERVATIONS SECTION:

1. the cost of expressways (motorways) is 5p/ mile. on standard national roads it's about 2p/ mile.
2. toilet paper is not put down the loo but in it's own bin next to it. this makes for interesting smells in some less well attended loos.
3. there are uphill and downhill sections on expressways- they may be 5 miles per time.
4. tunnels are frequent on expressways and often 3/4 km long.
5. trucks spray their wheels and brakes with water to keep them cool on long downhill sections. lots of steam may be seen coming from their wheels.
6. in the countryside there are hundereds of workers harvesting the crops; this goes on for mile after mile.
7. electric bicycles have most definately taken over from pedal cycles.
8. it is common for homes to have solar heating for the hot water (by using vacum tubes).
9. there are numerous factories in the cities and countryside all giving out copious amounts of smoke.
10. food costs between 1 yuan and 20 yuan per dish/ person eating in various street-side cafes. restaurants prices can be a much as in the west.
11. most days have been misty with poor visibility. it is the rainy season.
12. accomodation costs are about 60-100 per double room on average. this is only in the places we stay in.
13. 27 km uphill section on the expressway took us up 1500m.
14. the main crops in the areas we have visited have been rice and sweetcorn. now we are in the south and the weather is becoming hotter we are seeing bananas and oil palms besides all the vegtables the variety of which is vast.

Photographs

2008-10-04T06:12:00.000-07:00

nihao (how cultural)

have made it to the last big town in china- kuming- with eight days to go until we have to cross the border.

have been mightily impressed with the town so far as it has proved the cleanest of the cities we have visited in china. the organisation of the road system has stood out as, although we have been lost many a time in the few short hours we have been here, they have a lane and instructions for everything, including u-turns.

we think that being back in the big city has been pleasing for queenie as last night we camped for only the second time in china. we were forced to such action as it was getting late and we were driving along steep and windy mountain roads with no lights but plenty of signs telling you that it is compulsory to beep your horn. beeping of the horn is something that daddy and tessie have taken to with gusto.

getting back to nature was a somewhat mixed experience. we happened to chance upon a perfect spot as we were driving along but proceeded to struggle to get permission for using the bit of wired-off land. in the end we had to ask several people from the hamlet at the bottom of the hill. the concensus was that it would be ok so long as we looked out for bandits that everyone assured us were there.

having erected our tents and used our emergency rations (in an actual emergency no less) for dinner in the dark, we settled down to sleep. having got past the seeming perpetual rain in china we were expecting it to be a dry night. rookie mistake. in the middle of the night more rain fell than you could shake a stick at; the whole thing was most exciting as there was also lots of thunder and lightening. it was after a little bit of time that we realised that tesco had failed us: the tent, which had proved trusty up until now, let in about half of the rain that fell on our tent. my sleeping bag was soaking as was the bottom of my roll mat; it was so wet that because of the water falling i had another roll mat put on top of me by daddy for protection.

it was also bucketing it down when we were packing up in the morning. bad times.

last of mongolia photographs:

the train station at the border. we went train spotting virtuallly every moment we were in the town and indeed the station was like its own community with people eating, sleeping and selling. this is an example of the typical passenger train that passed through, which ran the length of the platform, that we tried to beat on the morning of the border crossing.

said border- openly taking photographs

if you have been reading faithfully you will remember out haircut frenzy.
this is lewis post haircut.

lewis pre-cut. n.b. we did not get our ice-creams; it appears that there are genuinely no ice-creams to be had in mongolia outside ulaanbaatar. however, when we crossed into china there were loads of ice-creams: the soyabean one is out favourite and only cost about 1 yuan.

geography photograph- dried up river in the desert. we drove into the gobi just after the big rains so we were lucky. there was evidence everywhere of how the water had affected the land- much of it had also been turned to mud.

CHINA:

traditional farming- in the poorer farming areas they still use buffallos which are essential when the paddy fields are flooded. however, we have seen many farmers using a multi-use engine that may be attatched to differenct bit of farming machinery. this lady appears to be surfing on her field. the animals have generally been treated well and with respect apart formt eh incident when we saw some children throwing cans at their herd as they were taking them home through the village.

one of the many amazing views that seem to be everywhere in china. the expressways, which have been impressive in themselves, have been made even more stunning by the views that are either side of them the whole well. we have particularly enjoyed getting to the highest points in areas and today we reached a heady 2.2 km high. don't worry guys, we took a photograph of vera (sat nav) at the time- you will not be seeing that photograph at this time.
have also be speculating on formation of hills and different rock formations, of which we have seen many.

our first and last city wall. me in front of the watch tower. all the cities once had city walls and bell and drum towers but the only city with the whole of its original wall intact is xian. this is not xian. this one had a good view from the top of the tower over the river below.

more scenery on a typically misty day (our first non-misty day was today after the heavy rain of last night). the jagged hills are covered in vegetation. as the countryisde has been so hilly, most of the farm plots have been terraced;however, as we move from paddy to tea land this is becoming less common.

daddy- ever the trooper- driving through another lot of water taht the locals said we could not. we all had to get out and walk whilst daddy drove at the edge where there was less water and the road had fewer potholes. daddy leart his lesson with the stuck-in-the-river fiasco and so went slowly despite the racing trucks around him. we have notcied that in many of the towns the drainage system has been wholely inadaquate although on the mountain passes it has been impressive.
the forbidden city we wnet to see was not in beijing and had different architecture to its famous brother. when we explored on our own we enjoyed it but where dissapointed at the beginning where it was all new, for show and built for the olympics. we felt highly cultural but have since not been to any of these tourist spots as outside the major cities they are extremely expensive and, as far as we can make out, not worth the money. however, in tomorrow we are off to tiger gorge as recomended by jon and jack who said that it was well worth the visit despite the crowds and difficult access. we are putting our trust in them.

jon and jack are the father and son from melborne we met a couple of days ago who are driving, in a suitable car, from melborne to london. they are doing the same route in reverse to us so daddy is very keen on recieving and giving advice. they are moving rather quicker than we are and are hoping to reach paris on the 19th of december in order to meet the wife. we, on the other hand, make no such promises to anyone.

one of our favourite meals. queenie has, on occassion, tried valiantly to steer us away from the street stalls but we will not be swayed. it is here that we have found our best and cheapest food; we have also been greatly enjoying the variety that was severly lacking in mongolia. they do love chille a little too much here though. at this stall we had a form of chinese fondu: lots of different food on a stick in hot soup.

have been trying greatly to interesting photographs in china. these are pigs on a motorway. have also seen chickens, ducks and buffalos.

terraced land for paddy fields.

the yangtze- stopped illegally in the middle of the 3 km bridge taht crossed it. the water was full of silt and the day was cloudy but you can just make out, through expert photography, a couple of barges. the river was too bigt to even get even the whole of the width in shot.

majhong den, den of mahjong. found these chaps outside a food stall at night and asked if we could watch. they were clearly very good and made for exciting watching as they were so quick. note ancient game being played whilst men were constantly on thier mobile phones.

one of the many things we have seen drying on the concrete driveways outside people's houses in the countryside. these are wood chippings. they put the items, that range from rice to chille, along the half the road aswell. this makes for interesting driving. it is clearly not thier land. they block off thier 'area' via strategically placed rocks.

example of the massive mist and fog. standard through out the day. not unexpected since it is rainy season. this was taken early on when driving on a mountain road with lots of tunnels that go straight through the mountains/ hills.

a shinning example of our covert photographing. this is the arrivals hall on the chinese side of the mongolia/ china border. the staff were lovely to us and we suspect they would not have taken any notice of me taking photographs even if i had not been taking them at random intervals from under my coat.

one of our favourite people. we met him a just under a week ago near the small village we were staying in for the night. we were wondering through the village and stumbled across this man. we then proceeded to force ourselves upon him and took many photographs of us working teh machine that you can see which is for blowing the dry skin off the rice.

we walked further down the village and ventured off the beaten track only to find ourselves at the back of this man's house. he invited us for dinner and the whole neighbourhood came to have a good look at the funny foreginers. when having dinner we found that him whole family had come round for chinese national day (last wednesday but last several days) but he was the only one doing any work as the old people are expected to work while their children do nothing. quite right too. daddy, tessie, queenie, loong and lewis at the caves during the early days in china. this cave was blocked off as some people were filming inside. buddha was the theme of all the caves. although you can see the bas-relief, this was one of the less well preserved caves.

house in the mountains. if you look closely you can see the yellow rows of corn hanging out to dry and ripen. these are hanging from virtually everyhouse in the mountains we passed at this time of year.

loong, lewis, daddy, son and queenie at our favourite old man's house for dinner.

when we were exploring the village with our favourite old man we came across many people who wanted to talk to us although their strong accents has made communication for queenie and tessie even more difficult than usual. this lady walked a good proportion of the journey with us. whe was carrying vegtables in the basket on her back. however, the basket that everyone uses, has also been used for transporting children; some even have specailly seats for them. luxery.
the bit of the great wall that we saw near the border when we came into china. is was slippery from the rain and the fact that it was just mude after the locals had stripped the suriving mounds of brick and stone for builing materialsn. the bits of wall we saw were located near some kind of massive pottery merchant. that is what the giants pots that you can see in the foreground are.

our first sighting of cotton. we have also seen much of this drying at the side of the road.

father-son bonding session. at the base of a mountain pass in the village with our favourite old man. how touching.

citroen central (am getting seriously catchy now). china is crawling with citroens, most made in china. the vast majority of the taxis are citroens and citroen zxs appear to dominate the scene. daddy, leaning out of the window, has been strategically placed at a juxtaposition to the parked citroen. cunning.

silk worms from erenhot. first exotic food from china. would most definated not recomend.

sparrow from the same restaurant as about. was just like a tiny bird crisp. whould most definately recommend.
a monunentous occassion- our first bin in china. we have been looking out for them ever since but when we do spot them they seem to be everywhere. have mainly been unloading our rubbish, of which there is a suprising amount concidering we are not camping, at the service stations of the expressways.

our favourite place of accomodation so far. a lovely and traditional guesthouse. the owners were so helpfull that the daughter even left to stay with her grandmother for the night in order that we have a good room. this is thier courtyard in the old bit of the town. we slept through the second door on the right.

one of the streets surrounding the gusesthouse above.
a typically bustling market at breakfast time. lots of food for eating and being sold freshly on the side of the street. most of the bicycles you see are electric. we have been most impressed by this aspect of china.
queenie cooking us a meal. she simply asked if she could use the kitchen of the resaurant we were eating at and they let her. they seem to be casual abou this sort of thing hense the photographs of the kitchen. the man at the back is cooking on a big stone cooker.
the grandad at our favourtie old man's house from the village. he even posed for us when he came out smoking the massive pipe. he does not have a wig on his head. it is in fact some form of traditional turban-like head gear. daddy made the mistake of thinking it was some form of poorly made head gear with a hole at the top.

man making noodles. typical in china but novel for us. noodles made on from scratch on demand right in front of you. as daddy is not a great fan of noodles he quickly made a vow not to have any that were not made infront of him. lewis is obsession with noodles. this vow did not last one meal.

in the old quater of a town. a photograph of the old bank in china (about 120 years old). we did not go in as we declared it an overpriced tourist trap.

the shop where daddy purchased yet another set of glasses. these ones are special as they fold into quaters (more stuff to break and now more difficult for daddy to put them on) and came in a patent leather case, attatchable to belt (makes him look an idiot).

really cool transport if you ask me. this seems to happen lots in china.

thank you to the internet cafe for downloading skype for tessie. we are swiftly learning that complaining gets you everywhere.
have no complained about two sets of toilets. one set was at the spa we went to two nights ago. it was boiling hot but the toilets had human waste all over them. to and insult to injury the spa had been bloody expensive concidering we are in china. queenie bought a swimming costume for under 1 pound especially for us and so as not to leave us unaccompanied at the spa.

am sure there is more complaining to come.

P.S. jon and jack's website is http://www.melbornetolondon.com/

2008-09-29T06:12:00.000-07:00

have endured another day of driving under the control of daddy.
when on the motorway the roads are rather good but when we venture too far off the beaten track the roads turn russia-esque making us feel we are on familiar territory but also fearing for the health of wilma and larry. swings and rounderbouts.

am in the second internet cafe since cross the big border which is far better than the connection i had in the hotel last night. the hotel was lovely on the surface but everything was superficial; for example, the sockets came out of the walls whenever i touched them. this was not good.
in teh morning when leaving the hotel tessie had her morning row with the hotel staff. tessie has these row with alarming frequency partly induced by her love of being able to speak chinese but mainly just being able to talk. the rows revolve around the staff being unable to washing things in the room, in this case the towel daddy had used to clean the pressure cooker which contained one week old meat.
this morning's hotel saga was dragged out longer than it normally is when daddy and tessie had an exciting arguement about who left daddy's phone in the hotel room. the day was saved when we went back to retrieve the phone from under the bed where the hotel staff had placed it. to reassure himself of its precence daddy took photographs with it all daddy. this cost us about 5 extra hours due to his lack on knowlegde on phone use.

the weather here has really started to heat up as we travel further south. although this does mean i have been able to stash away the thermals once more it also means that tessie's mosquito chat is back. i saw one mosquito today- aparantly she has seen hundereds.
i do feel that i should not be complaining, however, as i am reliably informed that we are not missing much in england weather-wise.
during our stay in china, so far we have not been able to dodge controvisy as daddy is forever making inappropriate comments of the like that cannot be repeated as we understand they are hot on censoring over here. we have also has mixed experinces with the people who stare at us where ever we seem to go. we are making plans to charge commision for all the extra buisness we bring into restaurants we eat in. must say we feel rather like the spice girls. exept more famous and cool.

now, im sure that everyone, reeve in particular, is wondering how daddy managed to damage poor larry once again. we had been subtlely lured into a false sense of security by the roads of china and therefore, when we woke up at the crack of dawn, and started to drive we did not see the first few extremely large potholes. we managed to smash into an impressive number especially as the day was rainy and overcast. when we stopped for breakfast high up in the mountains (along the scenic route we had been following) daddy thought it best to check how larry was getting along. it was then that we saw that larry's left wheel (as yet uneffected) was standing at 45 degrees outwards. me were forced to use yet another set of wheel barings and when changing them the wheel had been so badly abused that it practically fell off.
since teh incident we have tried to buy new barings and trailer wheels and have bought two new tyres for wilma.
when trying to get another of wilma's wheels changed we went to an incompetant garage and were forced to change the tyre ourselves or risk it exploding.

today the whole camp has gone on an economy drive. this has been much needed as we have only been able to camp once since being in china, have thus far been ripped off by hotels and had to pay expensive tolls on the roads.
today we spent over 20 pounds sterling on the roads and we pay at least some every. this has not been all bad though as without the good roads our progress would be painfully slow.
today we managed to eat extremely cheaply with breakfast costing roughly 50p for five people. rather proud of ourselves.
tonight we have managed to say in a couple of rooms above a street restaurant. particularly chuffed as the room even has a large balcony overlooking a hospital and costs 1.2 pounds sterlilng per person. impressive or what? however, we will not be able to have a shower as it costs extra. daddy has has reasoned that we would not have any water camping. great.

walked on an ancient city wall today with a bouncy castle at the bottom. hoping to drive on some more roads that other people would not advise tomorrow. all in the aid of good scenery.

we would just like to take the time to say that we were rather pleased with our last letter writting frenzy (i hope you appreciated the effort) and would like to say that there should be another soon as we got about 15 postcards each from queenie from our tour company. i hope you were not under the impression that we would buy postcards; having said that, we have picked up some pretty cool chairman mao gear even if i do say so myself.
we are also rather pleased that queenie is with us as it means that we have been able to unload lewis onto someone else for a change. his lessons are going swimmingly but this is somewhat over shaddowed by his love for his new book of puzzle adventures. lewis would like to say that he hopes all his friends are enjoying school back in london.

final thought:
hello to everyone but a specially grand tour camp welcome back to ling.
we are excited that she has been to syria but upset that she has managed to upstage us in the travelling stakes.
she should have picked the exciting side of town to say in. it would have made a great story.

am honestly still working on the photographs but my computer still has no battery as someone (daddy) burned out the intervor in the car and the search for an adaptor has so far proved futile.

intermediate post

2008-09-28T06:36:00.000-07:00

am updating the blog from a rather swanky hotel (for us) in dengzhou in helan province.
the swankyness of this hotel is being judged by the fact that there in an internet connection.

however, they do not have an english adaptor or plug so this post will be very short and will not have the usual attention to detail and subtle replies to those who comment on our blog- these will come later.

we have had a heavy day of driving and daddy's enthusiam at smashing wilma and larry into the massive potholes that love suprising us on the roads caused larry to loose another wheel.
but it was ok as it was the other wheel this time that had, up until that point managed to remain in tact. we soon saw to that.

battery going on my computer.
details on exploits to come later.

2008-09-26T23:19:00.000-07:00

we reached xian last night in the rain that has been virtually non-stop since we arrived in china.

the rain combined with the muggyness of most days means that out view of mcuh of the amazing scenery has been impaired but we have only camped once (a plus in my book).
queenie's bags are smaller than ours so it has not been difficult to pack all her stuff.
so far queenie has been lovely and is getting used to the old man's ways and is even cracking some great jokes of her own. however, she does appear a bit nervous and amuses us greatly when she pops out if the car to check the directions every 5 minutes.

greg, alex, frances and animals will be especially pleased to know that we ourselves are planning what animals to get when we are back in england. i was most disappointed when daddy wne tback on his word that he would get me a cat and tells me that i am only allowed to have a turtle as it will be really easy to keep when i am at university. great.
all this animal discusion has been going on while we have been on the hunt for dog and donkey restaurants that we have seen occasionly.

a few days ago we managed to secure our first big of donkey whihc was extremely tender but 'was covered in too much sauce', said daddy who is most pleased to have something new to complain about.
on our first night in china we also managed to grab two delecicies in one fell swoop- sparrow and silkworm. the former tastey if a bit cruncy (it was the whole of the scrawny bird on one stick), and the latter foul. silk worm, although crossed off out list is not something we would recomend to anyone.
we are now on the search for dog (which queenie doesn't eat) and as you can imagine the existance of hundereds of stray dogs in china has caused many jokes and much helarity amongst the camp.

i am currently typing to you from a guesthouse which is a little to trendy for us.
i think you will get the picture when i tell you that there was someone beatboxing live int eh bar in the basement last night.
have been by myself all day as the other have finally decided that the terracotta army was something not to be missed (though tessie insisted it was). as i have seen them before i have been exploring the city by myself for most of the day; i have had quite the adventure.
everyone who i have tried to speak to in chinese, through the aid of my trusty phrase book, has promtly gone of in search of someone who speaks english to translate. this in turn has made be somewhat conspicious. the first restaurant and bank i went to lead me to another where the people spoke english. this has been most disressing.

a couple of nights ago we stayed in a smaller chinese city. we arrived in the late evening and were fortunate enough to stumble accross the ancient part of town where we found some men playing chequers who lead us to a guesthouse tucked in a side street. the family we stayed with was lovely and the room the best an cleaneset so far: there was even a real toilet (as a pose to the squat ones that are the toilets of choice in china). the floor was stone and the bed was built in from stone and took us one half of the room.
that night we were in more the china that we had wanted and as usual took countless photographs.
will try to load some photographs today but this may not be possible as i need to charge my lap top but we don't have an adaptor and the invertor in the car thtat we ahve been using got burnt out.
i was nowhere near the scene of the crime.

since being in china we ahve ben on proper roads for the majority of the time as we have been travelling on the expressway despite the best efforts of the officials at the toll boothes on every entrance and exit to them. every offical has appeared to take umbridge with larry and the the number of fights we have had have been countless.
the charge of the toll varies with distance and we are given a card when we get on the motorway that we give back when we get off. when our distances and charges have been calculated that the further you go the cheaper it works out to be. it is still bloody expensive though.

seeing as we are back on the tarmaced roads we have tried to repair wilma and larry as best we can. we even went to a proper citroen garage in the last big town and, luxery of luxeries, we fixed the severed handbrake cable. when at the garage we acted as great entertainment for all the stuff who crowed roudn the car as though we were mao himself and took lots of photographs.

we are glad that this blog in not pointless and that people actually read it and promise to do our best to upload more photographs that will not get us arrested as queenie has told us some of them will.

we would like to wish freddie a happy birthday. we wish we could send you some caviar and russia's finest. if only we were there.

granny, say hello to kim, jean and abby for us.
we hope poppet gets better. show her the blog. am sure it would help.

chinese food is not yet making us sick although noodles in the morning is no loger novel, as it should be. hoever, we are missing good old fashioned granny-style jam and pickles. i am sure she is saving us some. also, i hope this plug for granny's jam is not going unnoticed.

lewis is looking forward to hearing from the new p1 and was most excited to hear from mrs de jager.

the rest of us are just excited to hear from anyone at all.
every comment is read and apprecited.

CHINA

2008-09-24T05:39:00.000-07:00

hello everyone!

don't worry guys, we have been fully briefed on what we are and are not allowed to take photographs of so we do not get arrested. we have also even been provided with a bible of road way rules and regulations, which makes good bedtime reading, and free postcards so you should all be recieving one soon as long as we have your address.

we are most excited as have made it to china in one peice. crossing the border into china did not take as long as crossing the border into russia which we were most pleased about; however, once we had got through the mongolian side and the chinese side of the border we had to sit around for fours hours while they were processing wilma. we were originally told we would have to wait only two hours; as you can imagine this made the whole camp rather angry. our lunch that day, during the wait, consisted of milk, water and some pretty intersting cakes that queenie got us (see next paragraph); however, as we continued to get hungry after our hearty snack, we decided to venture out of the compound and into the border town of erenhot. on the way back we had a pretty interesting time getting back into the compound as the guard told us that we had to go through in a car or bus.

whilst we were waiting for wilma and larry we found that the officials at the border were friendly, helpfull and amusing, which was a bit of a suprise- they even supplied free ice-tea. during this time we also met queenie, our guide, who tessie instantly began chatting away to in chinese and no doubt laughing at daddy's and my expense.
so far we have found queenie to be lovely (just incase she reads this) and is very good at dashing out of the car to ask for directions. she also has a tent of which we are most jealous and a blow-up roll mat that even has a built in pillow- snazy or what?
daddy has already waded in there with some political hot potatoes. good times.

today we have seen some great caves near datong and are now about 300 miles from the border. they were more impressive than the terracotta worriors for anyone who is one their way to china. we were along side the chinese in the phototaking stakes and had to dodge the crowds at times but the caves were generally well preserved and the intricate carvings were made all the more impressive when you concidered the height of the ceiling- over 20m- and the the colour of the rock.

since our few nights in china we have only managed to camp once as the weather has not been suitable and has been muggy all day and night; however the scenery has been quite interesting although queenie promises us that there will be better landscape to come. we have also finally come to some hills once again; the combination of hills and good old russian-like roads ensure that larry has continued to be tested. we have had some choice potholes in the ground aswell which daddy aimed for perfectly and got 10 points.

we a currently looking our for some good citroen machanics (apparently daddy has seen loads since being in china) to repair the brakes. at the moment we are living on the edge.

2008-09-20T20:53:00.001-07:00

we are cleaning ourselves and tidying up wilma and larry in preperation for queenie (our guide for china).

we will get to the border at 07:00, despite the lonely planet telling us the border opens at 08:00, in an attempt to beat teh passanger train that arrives at 08:00.

the whole camp is most excited about going to china as it will be somewhere new and hopefully have some fruit other than apples.

the big news today is that lewis and i had our hair cut. the only reason for this was that ice-creams were promised. i feel i got a pretty good deal and my hair is feeling properly clean for the first time since leaving london. the hairdressers style of washing hair was agressive but thourough.

i realise that all our blog fans out there did to expect another post today, particularly as we have not been the most regular users. however, we are making the most of the slow internet connection and have very little to do today.

THE SAND INCIDENT
i had forgotten to tell you about the most interesting and dangerous part of the gobi tour.
we had carefully been avoiding the deep bits of sand when we came across a wide pond of sand across the whole of the road with not path either side. tessie and i got out to make the car lighter, lewis go in the front to give daddy moral support and advice and daddy reversed for a run up. we decided that we would just have to plough through and, in the time honoured fashion, we got stuck.
it was suddenly all hands on deck as we detached larry from wilma and moved him to another part of sand just as deep. just as we were deciding upon how to get wilma out, a 4x4 drove up and i hailed it down. we think he only stopped because there was not way past us due to wilma's wonky angle and larry in the middle. the 4x4 kindly towed us out of the sand with embarassing ease (wilma was moved before she was even in gear). wilma then towed larry out all by herself. no problem.

zamyn-uud (border town)- the post with all the photographs has been completed, please read to the end- sorry for any inconvenience caused

2008-09-19T23:44:00.000-07:00

we have made it through the mongolian gobi in one piece and are all most impressed with wilma and larry. we gave them a celebratory wash this morning in honour of their achievements.

we drove 300 miles from ulaanbaatar to the border.

the whole camp is agreed that the gobi has been one of the best, if not the best, parts of our trip. the varried terrain and complete lack of road made it exciting while the vegitation, wildlife and night sky made it beautiful. one of the things that most suprised daddy was the contrast in temperature and landscape as we journeyed south; i, however, was not suprised being a budding and dedicated geographer (and having read the lonely planet).

the road was worst friday arriving at the border town, particularly as we were all keenly looking out for the 10 km of tarmac that was promised us as we neared the border. there is, in fact, about 1 km. friday was also the most sandy and having to close the windows to stop the dust getting in the the the angry heat was aweful.

our luxery in this town has been a some-what dubious hotel with, again, not hot water. for our much needed showers we were forced to use the camping shower that i recieved for my birthday which funnily enough had not been used in the great gobi incase of a water shortage.

since being in this town we have;
1. gone train watching and taken lots of photographs of the train in the station before they cross the border.
2. eaten at the same restaurant opposite our hotel 4 times and have become favourites.
3. looked everywhere for an internet cafe event though daddy was such he knew where one was. in the end we found a really expensive one and this one with a dial-up connection.
4. been to get larry's puncture fixed.
5. found more caviar at our new favourite supermarket.
6. called our chinese guide, who goes by the name of queenie, to arrange meeting her on the chinese side of the border at 10 o'clock this monday.
7. washed out clothes.

we must also say that we are most impressed with granny's budding computer skills and hope she had a good time on open house day. glad you are enjoying the photographs; they are made to amuse/ enthral all but some of the flower ones were taken with you in mind granny.

we hope trevor is well although know that alarming the locals is not a new concept to him.

we love you ling.

we hope that you are all as pleased as we are to be back on the road once more. we take it from the amount of complaints we have recieved that everyone has had enough of posts from ulaanbaatar.

daddy says:
the road from ulaanbaatar will be completed next year.
said road is being done by a chinese contractor with indian consultants.
we saw a massive bug. it was greeny-brown and was a cross between a spider and a grass hopper.

the internet connetion here is terrible so the following post is incomplete and under construction. the problem should be fixed in a few days.

2008-09-16T23:05:00.001-07:00

on the move again

2008-09-16T20:20:00.000-07:00

greetings from back on the road.

reeve will be pleased to hear that we average 10mph.
70 miles a day is quite a feat.

this post is coming to you from synshands- half way between ulaanbaatar and the mongolia/china border. we are in the middle of the desert and so far wilma and larry remain alive and well. the wind and dust has only really started today but we expect it to get a lot worse before we cross the border to china on monday.

the road has been nonexistant and the 'improved road' has proved little more than a raised and hardened bit of land if there at all. we drive along old tracks and make new tracks across the grass when the ground gets too bumpy or sandy. as per instructions and advice we have been following the railway and our sadness has been proved every single time we still get excited about seeing a train. what is also embarassing is the fact that although we only see, on average, on car an hour, every time we do they overtake us in a cloud of sand and daddy gets really angry and starts mumbling about boy racers.

the desert has been hot and dry for all but tessie has really been feeling the strain to such an extent that she has been halucinating tarmaced roads galore.

we are off to the boarder town now.

this is daddy at the questionable ulaanbaatar circus. he is happy. this is before the event. you and see the big top behind him. there were lots of empty seats opposite us but all full behind.

LOONGS 19TH BIRTHDAY DINNER. we looked for a lonely planet recomended restaurant but when we found it, it was not at all as the description had told us so instead we had to go the silk road restaurant just down the road. it turned out that this restaurand twas actually rather pleasing and served the elusive dish of good meat. we had window seats and so where able to have a lovely backdrop of one of the monestries in ulaanbaatar. we had a lovely evening which ended in theobligatory caviar and champagne back at the guesthouse.

this is the last guesthouse we stayed in which was a little out of town but was right next door to the largest monestry in ulaanbaatar. daddy liked it because we were able to park in the compound itself and so for the first time in ulaanbaatar we genuinely felt safe. although the washing facilities were clean and there was plenty of hot water (another ulaanbaatar guesthouse first) they were outside, as were the toilets. this is a photograph of me outside washing; this si one of the many duties that i am forced to perform. this time is took me literaly ages and daddy and tessie had so many dirty clothes.

the family at our last guesthouse were all highly welcoming adn spoke very good english. the wife had even been a russian and english teacher in her heyday. we all had our photos taken at the insistance of tessie and the husband in the guesthouse (in blue); they were taken outisde the ger in their courtyard which they use in the summer but is also availabe for rent for those foreginers who are too lazy to get to a real one outside the city. please not that we are not those lasy foreginers. when at the guesthouse we met a highly interesting individual called jason. jason is a young version of tony newman. he is a one man comment machine and has great chat provided that you are complaining. jason is from hastings and our words cannot properly describe him. we apologise.

oh my god, she is so amazing!

windy hill with a tank memorial at the top which we are using as a shelter from the wind whilst daddy is braving it and taking the shot. this was taken mere hours ago in saynshand.

birthday tea the day after my bithday (which bythe way was so special it spanded 3 days). what the photograph doesn't tell you, and i'm sure you're interested to know, is that is took daddy about 1000 matches to light the candles and 1 hour. the peak of the amusement and excitement (other than the cutting of the cake) was daddy light all the candles just before the wind promptly blew them all out before i had a chance to. we can safely say the cake was not worth it.

helmet/ hat japes at our favourite camping spot just outside ulaanbaatar, on our last night there. the helmet belongs to hendrick and it was a very cold night. i would recomend the use of a helmet in this way to anyone.

the balck market in ulaanbaatar. anyone for brown jumpers?

a proper picture of black market life. this is in the indoor section which we spent lots of time in as the day we went was teeming with rain and i even had my, now much loved, selapets on. the market was just a potholey as the roads and we had soaking feet.

the true gobi.

lewis making the most fo driving when in the gobi as it will be another 13 year before he is allowed to drive again. this was possibly the scarriest moment of the trip so far.

this photograph was taken on our first night in the gobi. the trains quite frequently during the night and were not condusive to a good night sleep. we still take lots of photographs of trains.

lewis obsessive tendancies were aimed towards lizards when in the desert although it was not until the third day that he was able to spot one himself. as usual they were imprisonned in a plastic tub after being caught but were subsequently humanely released. here were many lizards, from brown to green but all appeared very calm.

in saynshand, on our second day in the town daddy, tessie and lewis went to the small but pretty park in the centre. the amn who was watching over the park kindly put the fountains on expecially for them. behind the fountain is the town museum. this museaum was one the most interesting we have ever been to and is well worth a visit if you are in the area. the museum displayed everything from dinosaur eggs to portraits and was compact with not too much information. it was highly informal, with the lady of the musuem running out to find us change.

extreme dinning. we were spured on to new heights in dinning extremeness by bryn. we were inspired by his activites and felt compeled to put our travelling through the gobi to good use. we had cavair, champagne and candles. we stocked up in ulaanbaatar even buying tie substitutes when we stumbled across a buddihst shop. we had a white table cloth and everything.

the first ger camp we saw in the gobi, which are all situated by water sources. we were most impressed that this one had sunflowers growing although we did see may wildflowers of all differnt shapes and size with were put in lewi's scrap book.

saynshands again on one of the windiest days of the gobi section of the trip. some of the night were so calm and warm that we were able to sleep without the fly sheet on and so had a window through which we could watch the sun set and the moon rise. on our last night camping in the desert we took 5 minutes to watch an spotlight bright orange moon rise over the hill. sorry, the photographs taken were aweful. however, in this photograph i am trying to stay upright at the top of a hill next to a war memorial.

one of the many tyre-men we have visited. this amusing one has a special place in our hearts as he put the tyre on his head and made fun of us for having such small wheels. he also did the whole job quickly and by hand.

one of the water pumps where the locals pay to get their water, only 20 togrogs for one of those barrels. this was jsut before the desert in preperation for water shortage further down the line. we english folk found that the queuing system left something to be desired.

crossing the railway in the gobi which is far quicker and more efficient than driving, especially in anything other than a 4x4. i had to open the gates, which were a couple of bit of red and white painted metal.

this is one atempted sunset photographs. we did our best.

2008-09-09T23:16:00.000-07:00

we have once again entered the big city of ulaabaatar for the final time.

we have come to ulaabaatar to make sure that we have everything we need for our forward journey through the gobi which will commence on saturday morning. it should take us about two weeks to reach the border by which time, it is looking increasingly likely, our permit for entry into china will have been granted for 22nd september.

however, the more important and pressing reason for coming back into ulaabaatar, that the camp agrees is not the cleanest, safest or best city we have been to, is for MY 19TH BIRTHDAY THIS FRIDAY, 12TH SEPTEMBER.

our last camping trip just outside the city (that we have just come back from) included more people that we picked up in a guesthouse- lea and tom. they are french and forced us to practice ours: we were rusty to say the least. lea and tom have two dogs called kelab and spooky who were big but were teh best dogs we have come across and even daddy liked them. they left us yesterday to continue their journey west but left such an impression that we invited ourselves to stay with them in their ger in the pyrennes next summer.
when we were with them we managed to climb, in our eyes, a big hill near to where we were camping. we were slightly put out that this was a big deal for us but not so for them.

OBSERVATIONS SECTION (by daddy, written by loong):
1. every mongolian road junction is nicely highlighted by a few crashed cars.
2. in ulaabaatar there are many policemen on poit duty twiddling battons.
3. during the night the temperature falls to just above freezing.
4. there are gers even in the city.
5. many of the minor roads in the city are unpaved.
6. the hot water is supplied by the central power stations.
7. there are loads of chelsea tractors (this is the right place for them).
8. the film, mummy 3 was really good.
9. diesel is about 1 pound/ litre.

helooooo cherry

2008-09-09T21:41:00.000-07:00

we feel you deserve a private post as you are one of our most loyal posters.
you have been with us through the good and the bad (ling has deserted).
as a bonus your posts are actually mildly amusing.
i do hope you will be with us on my birthday 12TH SEPTEMBER- THIS FRIDAY, with a lovely birthday message.

greg, alex and francis

2008-09-09T21:39:00.000-07:00

thank you to greg, alex and francis for their birthday message. we will be leaving ulaanbaatar on saturday and so hope to spend friday, my birthday, in the city at an expensive (7 pound) restaurant. we know how to have a party.

granny's "shout-out"

2008-09-09T21:29:00.000-07:00

congratulations on your first highly successful post.
we had read your other two but gathered that ling had helped you with at least one.
the whole camp is impressed with your efforts.
i am glad to hear that you have made lots of jam and trust that you will keep a good stash aside for us to consume upon our return.
we hope to hear about adventures from liverpool if you survive the walking.
we hope this personalised messsage encourages you to keep posting.

also, we are sure that what we hear of your pie from reeve and cherry are lies. we trust ling on this matter. if we had been there i am sure that would have been no pie left.

Dear Reeve

2008-09-09T21:25:00.000-07:00

the crew would like to thank reeve for all of his witty comments.
they have been most amusing.
we apologise if we have made you feel neglected.
in future we will do our utmost to respond with haste.
all your comments are most appreciated, especially by daddy who says that you keep the car rocking with laughter.

2008-09-04T22:35:00.000-07:00

we have been in and around ulaabaatar for quite a while now and the camp is getting quite restless.

yesterday was a fairly bad day (apart from the quiz in the evening- i think we all know what happened there) for daddy and tessie. just as they were going into an internet cafe a man tried to rob tessie but she screamed, punched him and then daddy tackled him to the ground. the man did not put up much of a fight but his friends tried to make daddy let the man go and all the monolians came into the street and told daddy to let them go. a man from europe managed to phone the police and told daddy and tessie that he had robbed him the year before. teh police turned up and hit the would-be-thief twice before taking him to the police station. daddy and tessie wne to the police station to give a statemetn adn were told to come back the next day so that daddy could be reimbursed for his glasses that broke in the foray.
lewis and i were not there and so missed the excitement.

matt (fellow camper), was also with them and helped and bought daddy a big cake for bravery.

the attempted robbery was the last straw as the day before daddy had had his boots stolen from inside the tent in the middle of the night. never fear, daddy managed to get some really quite solid second hand boots that we think once belonged to edmund hillary. although we have been in one place we a still shocked at the amount of crime in this city, especially as nothing happened to us in the whole of russia.

a couple of days ago we managed to get our visas extended until the 23rd of september. we are hoping to leave on the 22nd but have got an extra day just incase of any problems.

on a lighter note:
i would like everyone to recognise that it is my birthday on 12th of september and expect that all readers of the blog (i know you are out there ling) will wish me well.

photographs with captions- novel

2008-09-04T21:04:00.000-07:00

our first cultural experience in ulaabaatar- daddy and me outside the winter palace. everyone enjoyed the day. we would like to thank hendrik for his excellent photography.
the famous belgian cyclist (ooooh, aaaaaaah)- hendrik vandyck- and lewis. both at our regular campsite haunt just outside ulaabaatar, that is until we were robbed.

daddy enjoying the merryment of the evening- caviar and sparkling wine (russia's finest). these treats were recently bought from the state department store in ulaabaatar. the caviar is about 2 euros for 50g and the wine, i am assured was one of the best they had ever tasted. needless to say we have bought much of the same. the night during which this photograph has been taken was not a special occasion but hendrik did make us chips, chicken and maonaise. daddy is sitting in the kitchen of our new and extremely cheap guesthouse run by boggi who loves children but got introuble for pinching lewis' cheek: all was forgive with ice-cream. it was on this night that lewis and i were invited to see boggi's family. we had a traditional mongolia rice pudding and lots of sweets. we reached her brother's flat by taking a taxi, which is ulaabaatar means just any driver who will give you a lift. eveyone had a lovely evening but some remember more that most.

hendrik slaving away at the stove. he is earning his keep from all the times we took him camping with matt who comes form belguim via england. he is cooking on the one ring on the hob that actually works in the kitchen of boggi's guesthouse. we hope you can see the mountains in the background that are visible despite the flat being in the middle of ulaabaatar.

close up of russia's finest and the caviar. teh is teh one table in the kitchen but all the people staying at the guesthouse eat here every morning. we have made ourselves somewhat more at home than most and have brought in all the stuff from the car and trailer (including the precious loong-bought scissors) as we have found that crime in the city is high and we have yet to find secure parking. all our stuff takes up a lot of the kitchen and the dorm in which we are sleeping but means that we have access to all our stuff easily (the guesthouse is a flat on the 4th floor) and daddy cooks breakfast.

at our second guesthouse we met a couple of boys from holland who knew someone living in ulaabaatar also from holland. in the end we went on an expats night out to an expensive traditional mongolian restaurant. there was free entertainment that lewis enjoyed so much he had to have his photograph taken with the muscians in traditional dress.

this is the amazing solar system that lewis and i made during a science lesson. we make quite a lot of stuff. we attached it to the inside of the gazeebo and then the scrap book. i'm sure you will all see it when we get back.

the whole crew including newcommers hendrik and matt near our amazing campfire. i think lewis is setting up card den, den of cards.

this is a massive hill that we all managed to climb near our favourite camping spot. we are sitting around a buddihst pile of rocks. we had all walked around the rocks three times before putting three more on. we are just enjoying the view before story time with daddy and lewis. the hill is just south of ulaabaatar.

we picked lots of edelweis so that we can get arested when returning to the uk. they are a protected species in europe and are extremely rare but they are everywhere in mongolia. this is one of our better photographs and was taken on our walk up the big hill.

camping at night.

2008-09-01T20:07:00.000-07:00

we are in ulaanbaatar once again with our new friends from belgium- matt and hiendrich.

we have spent a couple of nights with them just outside the city, camping. both have proved themselves proficient fire makers: we are currently the owners of a fire that has been going for 72 hours. hiendrich (member of the belgium paras) in particular has put the whole of the wood camp to shame with his efficient cooking, washing and going for a run and wash in the river in just his underwear in the morning. he has also shown he is a dab had with a barbaque- our first since being on the road.

Matt, an english expat and biker, has also made himself useful by recommending a cheap guesthouse that we can use during our nights on the tiles. tessie and i are particularly looking forward to ladies' night at a club near our guesthouse where all the ladies get free entry and half price drinks.

yesterday we did our first truly touristy thing in ulaanbaatar since arriving in mongolia- visiting the winter palace. i think you will get the measure of the place when i say that daddy throughly enjoyed it: it was not too big, had different things to see and, most importantly, had very little to read. the first building of the winter palace (more like a monastery) was fully restored but the other buildings were going into disrepair. the winter palace also had a museum where there were tapestries that granny would have been proud of; we even took two videos because we knew that granny would just be that excited about them.

two days ago daddy, tessie, lewis, matt, hiendrich and i ventured out of camp to climb a big hill near our tents. i have to admit that the thought of exercise was daunting. we stocked up with fruit, water, and chocolate and charlie and the great glass elevator (as treats when we got to the top). being mongolia, our walk up to the top was impeeded by the varies piles of rocks to honour the gods; at these rocks we had to walk around them clockwise before depositing three things that were precious to us. e.g. rocks. we were all sucessful in our endevour and were duly treated to a piece of chocolate each and story time.

it is now that we come to the sad chapter in this tale we call the blog...
on the night of the 1st september 2008 an unknown thief snuck into our camp and took off with our foot pump and the car battery charger. this was only discovered in late during the next day as everyone just assumed that daddy had forgotten to put the padlock on larry and had subsequently lost it. today we will have to by new ones. although we are angry about this incident, we would like to add that this is the first time we have had something properly stolen and we were not in the city.

2008-08-29T22:25:00.000-07:00

time is pressing. blogging today has not gone too well.
the whole of the grand tour crew understand that the following few posts many be difficult to understand and we apologise.
this post is meant as a form of damage control. next time we are online we will rectify the mess that, i would like to add, had nothing to do with me (apart from good stuff, naturally).

Ulaanbataar 30th August

2008-08-29T22:09:00.000-07:00

Hi from Ulaanbataar again, we have news from the chinese agent and we are very likely to get across Chinese border on 22nd september 2008. fingers X.

Still in Monoglia Resort Guesthouse, (the owner sold the guesthouse business and officially closed from 1st september) using the wi-fi free. Meeting up a few Mongolian Rally guys, 2 from Holland (went out dinner with them last night) andd 2 from Belgium. The Belgium guys will be joined us to go camping as we have good forecast weather. With this we have a good prospect of Barbacue today.

Lost Blog, Tessie' fault when Loong is away

2008-08-29T20:57:00.000-07:00

At this moment we are still in Mongolian Resort Guesthouse in Ulaanbaatar (for one night only due to cold weather), making use of the free wifi.

we have had good news from china and it is looking increasingly likely that we will be able to enter china on 22nd september. fingers crossed.

In the mean time we are taking a couple of people, Matt and Heinrick camping with us with fine forescast on the weather. Both came from Belgium, Matt rode on a Honda CBR 1000 and has giving in his bike to a Mongolian charity. His bike is so unusual that it will fetch more money than a 4x4. Heinrick was unfortunate as his bike has failed and he has to abandon his in Gobi desert and hike a truck into Ulaanbataar. We have a the great prospect of a barbeque as although we have a camp fire every night when we camp we cook on our faithful petrol stove.

Lewis has made a solar system with Loong's coaching which was amazing and exciting illustration of King Charles I using Humpty Dumpty set up.

Great news that Greg and Jowanna are making great progress with their selfbuild house

check them out at http://www.gregandjo.wordpress.com/

another video on youtube. first old kite flying way back in Latvia July. (are we gong backwards? @no just catching up with technology)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNMZ6ufni_I

2008-08-29T20:55:00.000-07:00

we are most excited about greg's new house.
as we are in a permanently tented state this makes us most jealous.

2008-08-29T20:48:00.000-07:00

we would like to start this post with a massive shout out to our most dedicated follower- ling.
she has stuck with us through thick and thin, the good times and the bad times.
ling, you are the pit stop crew to our grand tour crew: we know you will always be there to back us up. true dat.

everyone will be most pleased to know that a smoking habit (for those of you who have watched the video) will be the least of lewis' worries as a result of this trip.

2008-08-26T09:29:00.001-07:00

the grand tour crew would like to say a specially hello to granny who has just come back from holiday. we hope someone tells you how to read this and post a comment.

(if you are feeling exculded and would also like a 'shout out', please do not hesitate to ask and the grand tour crew would be pleased to oblige).

2008-08-26T09:08:00.000-07:00

another night in ulaanbaatar and daddy is starting to get nervous of the city.

today we are glad to be in the city as this morning we had one of the worst mornings of the trip. last night we had cleverly decided to sleep down a slope in an overpriced national park just outside ulaanbaatar. the night was one of the coldest yet and lewis was sick in the tent. daddy, tessie and lewis went to sleep in the car but none of us could get much sleep. at six o'clock we had to get up in the cold and rain to pac away. our way out, however, was impeeded by the muddy slope and the precipation, which, at this point, consisted of sleet, snow and rain.

daddy, tessie and i were soaked through but we donned the waterproof trousers anyway in a bid to keep warm. my specialist sailing trousers meant that i was not cold but did it lots of the water that i had already collected inside.

we took over 5 attempts to get wilma (with larry detatched) up the main bit of the hill and i cannot count how long we had to push her. most of the time wilma slipped backwards especially as we had little or no grip on the wet and muddy slope. tessie and i also had task of ensuring we had chocks ready for the big sliding down the slope.

although wilma had tried to kill us on many an occasion, with unpredicatable sliding, we all felt sorry for her and her thick layer of mud. however, i remained wet in the car all the way back to ulaanbaatar so prehaps was not a sympathetic as others.

i would like to add at this juncture that larry, too, had to be pushed up the slope as did his contents which we had taken out to make the load lighter.

the whole incident was not so great at the time but looking back on it, it definately counts as japes.

tessie and lewis are currently ill- this is both a cause of 'the incident' this morning and a result of it.

2008-08-25T21:39:00.001-07:00

the grand tour camp is proud to present its first minature production.
please visit the following link to view this beautifully filmed and edited piece:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8AR_RSejRU

if you have any views or comments please feel free to air them.

2008-08-22T07:00:00.000-07:00

2008-08-22T06:23:00.000-07:00

2008-08-22T06:05:00.000-07:00

2008-08-22T05:36:00.000-07:00

OBSERVAIONS SECTIONS:

1. they have no coins.
2. camels, horses, goatss and sheep galore. a cow could very well walk past the tent at any time.
3. there have been more crashes and accidents on the road than we have ever seen. daddy says this is really funny.
4. they have pretty interesting music- trace.
5. great contast in weather between cold (night) and hot (day time).
6. lewis' reading is going well.
7. the berries that the locals collect are inedible- we think they do something to them as they are selling them everywhere.
8. they love wooden bridges (not sure if we have said this before).
9. lewis has a new found and strange obsession with black jack.

n.b. daddy would like to encourage more questions as he is struggling with his observations section.

2008-08-22T02:31:00.000-07:00

this is the first time we have been to the big city of ulaanbaatar for a week.

a couple of days ago we suffered the big rains of the season. our camp spot next to the river in the local national park, which was usually packed with music blaring mongolian campers, emptied completely. it rained for 24hours with a break of about 2 hours when we went exploring for fire wood; even the mighty gazeebo could not keep us dry. to entertain ourselves we played cards, mainly black jack, for an extremely long time. good times.

after the 'great rain' (as i like to call it) the river next to us rose by two feet. amusingly we had crossed a dry river bed on the way to our camping spot and had not taken into account the fact that, after the 'great rain' it may no longer be a dry river bed. this morning we had to leave our camping spot so that tessie could get a visa. funnily enough this was not a easy as you might think. we spent a little time trying to find the shallowest place to cross the ever deepening river; when we had selected our spot (the place where the water was just under daddy's knees) we prepared ourselves for 'the big swim'. we decided to unload some of the trailer and the boot of the car in preparation for flooding. daddy then drove through- full steam ahead- into the water. the low point was probably getting stuck half way across. i heroically waded into the river (well over my knees) and attached the tow rope to the car that had managed to cross the river in front of us.

after safely dragging us out, the car would not start as we had got water in the oil and had soaked the air filter. after a little time and some biscuits we were on our way. wilma now sounds like bill's boat.

2008-08-22T02:18:00.000-07:00

2008-08-14T20:22:00.000-07:00

greetings from ulaanbaatar, party capital of the world.

we were caught up last night in the party atmosphere and crowds that gathered in the public square outside dave's place (an english pub). the spontaneous mass gathering was to celebrate the first time that mongolia has ever won an olympic medal. they won two yesterday, a gold in judo and a silver in archery. the gathering was made all the more exciting by the fireworks that were being set off a couple of metres from us. although joining in mongolia's celebrations we felt strangely at home as we were sitting near some 'ladz' who, we are certain, are from essex. we were first alerted to this possibility by a white wife beater and gold medalion. our suspicions were confirmed by a chant of 'let's go f*****g metal', in true essex style.

the celebrations rounded off what was an exciting day for us with my exam results and a pub quiz. i got into exeter and we claim that we won the quiz.

the last two nights were spent in a ger camp which was a different experience. there were four beds round the edge on the round tent and an iron stove and table in the middle. while we were there we were able to watch some of the olympics as even the ger camps have massive satalite dishes. we also enjoyed an hours horse ride around the hills and streams. we are unsure of the photographs we were able to take as daddy was in charge of the camera.

we would like to noted by anyone who is from up north that our plates from stoke have survived everything we could throw at them and are in sturdy form. we are impressed.

this morning we were most supprised to be greeted by a man willing to purchase wilma; he was offering $500 (a price i thought over the odds to be honest). we declined his offer but have kept his buisness card just in case we should need to sell her for example if we have problems getting into china with her.

OBSERVATIONS SECTION (by dwight wood, written by loong wood):
1. the city is hight smogy.
2. the city is an old soviet built town.
3. the cost of staying in a ger (four people per night) is $10.
4. fuel is roughly 75p/ l.
5. the trolly buses here are completely ancient.
6. there are herds of animals all over the shop.

2008-08-11T18:05:00.000-07:00

happy belated birthday to tessie from ulaanbataar!

we reached the captial of mongolia yesterday afternoon just in time to take tessie to a mongolian restaurant for her 40th birthday. we had a lovely time yesterday giving tessie her cards and making her a birthday crown which she wore all day (photographs will follow some time); however we were forced to be nice to her for the whole day which was, needless to say, quite testing. swings and roundabouts.
driving in ulaanbataar has been quite an experience: it is a true asian city with people who drive how they wish and use the horn excessively with seemingly no purpose whatsoever.

as a birthday treat we also stayed in a guest house for the night, which is where we are now. this was our first bed since omsk.
thank you to granny and ling their cards and gifts. made tessie's day.

crossing the border to mongolia was quick and trouble free. the mongolian officials were very friendly. our only slight problem was a girl we met at the russia side of the border that we chose to take across: she was a bit dodgy, with money for bribes; also, at the mongolian side of teh border she just disappeared without saying thank you.

it feels most exotic being in mongolia and so far we have see hundereds of animals- cows, sheep, yaks, goats, buzzard-type birds and our first camels. it has been somewhat of a binocular fest. the gers we have seen so far have also been most exciting.

when we first crossed the border the roads in mongolia appeared to be far superior to the non-roads we had been experiencing in russia. however, after lulling us into a false sense of security the road disapeared and was replaced by nothing: we had to drive on the sandy dirt at the side of the road with no clear path on this 'diversion'. the cars where driving anyhow they liked and it was so dusty that we had to use the windscreen wipers and they had no effects. the open plain was also lovely and bumpy. daddy was most upset as we had washed the car only the night before at a flat riverside where were camped.

last night we stopped at an expat pub called dave's place, which is where the mongolian rally ends. it was there that we men to english guys who told us of the guesthouse they were staying in. they had just completed the rally in two weeks.

now we are in mongolia there has been a change in scenery. daddy is supprised that it has been hilly.

2008-08-11T18:00:00.000-07:00

reeve and cherry-
please could you show granny how to put comments on the blog.
we know she really wants to and will have an endless stream of things to say.
we appreciate your comments. we hope it rains lots when you are gardening for granny so that we can appreciate our weather all the more.
must say that the stories you recount do not insight confidence never find how funny they are.
you will be pleased to hear that the wheel bearing on larry's right wheel went again but we managed to stop before the whole thing fell apart. we are becoming quite the experts.

2008-08-07T19:00:00.000-07:00

as we have a bit of time left until we are due to be at the border, we are still in ulan-ude. this is why the next instalment of our adventures come to you so quickly.

we camped just outside the ulan-ude last night and the night before, in the same spot. this spot was comfortable with a great view of the town but it was at the top of a windswept valley.

yesterday we went to the natural history museum of ulan-ude. it was small but lewis loved it and it was exciting becuase we had to wear plastic slippers to protect the museum.

yesterday we also tried, unsucessfully, to get some mongolian money from the local banks but none of them could help us.

one of the reasons we stayed in the city (our last big one before mongolia) was because we felt we had to take a ride on a trolly bus before we left russia. we went on two: an old one and a new one. i have to admit that it has been one of the hightlights of the trip so far and i used up all the battery on my camera taking photographs of this adventure.

last night daddy was highly pleased with himself as he managed to catch a giant grasshopper and subsequently win leiws love for half an hour. daddy and tessie also had their first night without an airbed as it was undergoing repairs and as it was raining had not managed to see to it properly. they have not yet revealed whether or not it was uncomfortable but there was talk about doubling efforts to fix the bed tonight.

we should be out of the city this afternoon after we have tracked down the history museum. the rain has held off so far today but as there has been more times of rain than not over the past few days we do not hold out much hope. the drainage system in ulan-ude is extremely poor and we all got wet feet yesterday because of, quite possibly, the biggest puddles in the world.
the most anoying thing about the rain is daddy complaining.

we have also noticed that pedestrians and drivers have are highly sympathetic towards each other during the great rains and generally allow each other to circumnavigate the biggest puddles in the road.

2008-08-05T20:53:00.001-07:00

sorry, we forgot:

OBSERVATIONS SECTION (by daddy, written by loong):
1. there are shrines: ribbons tied to trees. this has been since we have come close to mongolia

2008-08-05T20:53:00.000-07:00

we are all most greatful for the questions that have been asked.
we really feel that with all this interaction we are ahead of the game.

have made it to the final frontier of russia: we are in ulan-ude, our last big town in russia. tomorrow we will begin to head south for the rest of the 'grand tour'.

our major excitement has been hitting lake baikal; however, the road we have been driving along does not take us along the edge of the river (as the train line does in many places) but takes us through the valley to the side of the lake. due to this lack of lake we were most excited when we spotted a road leading down to the lake. it was here we decided to camp. the train was in the background, running every 10 minutes and there were stretches of pebble beach and ruined buildings. most of the night was spent beach combing for drift wood with which to make a fire.

it has also been fun times again with larry. daddy was driving, in what can only be called a wreckless manner, trying to overtake a lorry on one of the windy mountain roads when he smashed into one of the biggest bumps to date. larry's right wheel flew off and rolled down the hill into a ditch. we had to unload the whole trailer again and put out our red danger triangle. we are now looking out for a garage as we have no spare wheel bearings left and daddy stripped the thread on the wheel retaining nut.

whilst shopping in the cash and carry at the edge of town they had music in the car park, relayed over loud speakers (suggestion for tesco perhaps?- says daddy). appropriately they were playing 'the great escape'. we felt most at home.

OBSERVATIONS SECTION (by dwight wood, written by loong wood):
1. lake baikal is the largest lake in the world and the villages that surround it feel very sea-sidey. the only land we have seen across the water has been and island in the middle of the lake.
2. fuel is 50-60p/l. we travel c10 miles per l.
3. we fill up wilma about every two days/ 400 miles.
4. every house, what ever type, has either corregated metal or asbestos roofs. daddy has observed that the last craze is bright blue.

Q&A:
reeve- we have two spare tyres and wheels for larry and no sets of wheel bearings because of daddy (we started with two). daddy, we are now realising, does not have a good track record with trailers and are feeling a little tense that he is so frequently driving with only one wheel. we hope you are jealous of cheap fuel. slow and steady wins the race, reeve.

greg- the food is quite basic- rice, pasta, potatoes, onions, carrots, cabbage, cucumber. there is no escape from the dill. fruits in supermarkets are mainly apples and, suprisingly, bananas; however, they sell many berries at the side of the road that we think are picked from the surrounding countryside.

ling- we have not bought presents for anyone. indeed, true to form, daddy and tessie spend all our spare money on wine (though it should be vodka). we have too many mosquito bites to count. tessie and lewis do a daily count and are what may be call, obsessed. we think they exagerate. tessie says lewis has 50 but we know that it is more like 10. daddy gets loads but pretends he doesn't: he is learning to man up. his bites go really angry and red.

we thank everyone for their questions and welcome any more.

2008-08-04T00:06:00.001-07:00

photos galore. how exciting. if you make them bigger their titles will explain a bit about each photo.
don't think we left you without a post:

(NB. there is a significantly longer post after the photos. please read on.)

OBSERVATIONS SECTION:
1. they drink lots of beer as it is as cheap a bottled water.
2. we have discovered real cow boys (men on horse-back herding cows- says daddy) in the wild east.
3. most lorry trailers are imported and tractor units still have names of companies on the side.
asda is a regular round these parts.
4. there have been storms most evenings, lasting 1/2h- 1 h (this makes camping very exciting- says daddy). the tent leaks. we are not fully satisfied with our purchase and would like a full refund from tesco (another 25 pounds wasted- says daddy).
5. we get up a 06:00 (latest every morning).
6. we are seven hours ahead.
7. three holes in the bed so far. daddy is patching them up.

2008-08-03T23:51:00.000-07:00

2008-08-03T23:19:00.000-07:00

2008-08-03T23:01:00.000-07:00

2008-08-03T22:04:00.000-07:00

we have made it to irkutsk (our final big town before mongolia) with plenty of time to spare.

the roads along the way have been testing in the extreme: i don't think that any of our party has come across roads as terrible as the ones we have been encountering recently. much of the surfaces have had no man made covering at all and the little surface that has been there has been gravely and uneven. the bumps and creaters in the road have could very well be described as moonscape. however, the potholes, ditches and mounds of rubble (at times forcing driving on the lowered bank at sides of roads) have ment that the constant thwack of the towing hitch on the ground has become a reassuring indication that larry is still with us.

larry has been recieve much love and attention from the pit stop crew (daddy, tessie and me) and has undergone two major repairs in the last two days:
as we were peacefully driving out of a garage on a typically russia road (seeminly non-existent) a faint thud and scratch could be heard in the car and a lopsided larry could be seen out of the rear-view mirror. his right wheel had fallen off. daddy stoped (he is always driving during these incidents) and we pulled back into the garage. we had to change the ball-bearings on the wheel, a job which was undertaken with the up most efficiency, and seal the wheel from dirt, which was done with foam and tape.
this morning the right tyre punctured completely but this came as no suprise because it had become paper-thin. we were forced to pull over on a public footpath and look for bricks with which to raise larry off the ground. two new wheels were attatched to larry.

a couple of days ago we met our first english travellers: an english couple from oxford and an american couple from santa fe, new mexico. both were lovely and travelling in the same direction abit in suitable vehicles (landrovers). the english couple had left oxford only the week before and were due to reach ulannbaatar today. i cannot believe we have been driving so slowly (10-20 mph on the unsurfaced areas).

OBSERVATIONS SECTION (by dwight wood, written by loong wood):
1. police check points may be encountered every 50-100 miles and also before and after towns and cities. we have only been stopped by three as of yet.
2. the vast majority of towns still use a stand pipe for their water and cities have functioning ones everywhere. this is how we have been getting the majority of our water.
3. wooden buildings are in the majority in the towns and villages. they are also common in the inner cities. they are painted colourfully but are always wonky as they have no solid foundations.
4. horse-drawn carts are the prefered mode of transport in and around villages, frequently with little boys driving them.
5. we have camped in lovely locations a little off the main roads every night in russia. there are seeminly no campsites in russia. the few campsite signs we did see (near the latvia/ russia border) led us to a car park area by a cafe where we were expected to sleep in the car.
6. cigarettes are 25p a packet and colourful to boot.
7. people swim in the rivers.
8. towns are big a well spaced in the countryside.
9. all towns are centred around, novelly, the town centre with a statue (usually lenin).
10. hundreds of imported cars that are right-hand drive (probably from japan). in the last few days we have seen many being driven from east to west, covered in masking tape.
11. in the cities the russian women we have seen have been tall, skinny and well dressed.
12. we have had to stop for cows and goats that have been in the road, at the side of roads and in people's gardens.
13. many oil works.
14. many new ladas out and about. we have been told to look out for a model near you.
15. as you would expect, given the area and ecosystem, the vegatation is not varied and you find silver birches high up.
16. the terrain has been hilly but not mountainous, even in the urals.
17. parking is free in towns.
18. the traditional food stores (majority) have no windows and only a poster an small sign on the outside to indicate thier existence. they are usually concrete. we are also not allowed to touch any of the goods (you get in trouble for that sort of thing); instead everything is behind the counter and a lady goes round getting what you want for you. things that are not behind the counter are in locked cooler cabinets.
19. many goods still go by rail (one train every 30 minutes) and railway tracks, roads and pipes lines run fairly parallel.

Q&A: in another bid to make our blog more interactive dwight wood would like to formally open the floor to all and any questions. please note that he mainly invites questions on russia.

2008-07-30T22:55:00.000-07:00

hello, from an internet cafe in krasnoyarsk!

we have just worked out on vera that the distance to lake baikal is 530 miles. we are all looking forward to the fun swimming times to come.

this morning we found that another tyre was going flat all too quickly and managed to find a garage at the side of the road. the tyre was fixed and we even struggled through asking the garage to change the tyres round on larry. larry is indeed our long suffering trailer. the DIY job that was the creation of larry has thus far held out but we have lost some paint and used quite a few screws in trying to save him.

the comments from ling and reeve were particularly appreciated by me. it has to be said that this experience, so far, has been aptly summed up by ling and stories of daddy's driving amuse all (however, nothing will shock now).

i thought a weather up date may be in order:
has been coudy and overcast recently, a vast change to the heat that has been surrounding us up to this point. i have been enjoying the cool respite but the other want the hot weather back.

whatever the weather, the insects have been relentless during the evenings.

2008-07-29T01:29:00.001-07:00

we have been trying to put up photographs but have not been too sucessful. at the moment the laptop is struggling to work with the internet properly even thougough it tells us it is connected. this post is coming to you from one of the internet cafe's own computers.

2008-07-29T01:29:00.000-07:00

currently in kempbo(?) having not driven far today because of the vast distances we have been driving lately.

i apologise for the technical problems at the last cafe that meant i accidently posted the same entry twice.

more japes involving daddy and policemen. warnings of caution from many parties were seeminly ignored by daddy. in the central square of this town we were to find the reason the road we had been driving down was so empty: it was a dedicated bus lane. the cost of the enlightenment- Rb 200, down from $200 (bargin!). the amusement (mainly me) and tension- priceless.

a couple of hours later we saw all the policemen of the local district lining up outside thier station to take their annual photograph. daddy was higly childish and said that we should make 'buny ears' over thier heads.

earlier today we were running low on water and were fortunate enough to come across and charming and animal packed hamlet and the side of the road. at the end of the village was, we had to admit, the best kept well we have yet to see: it was wooden with a new metal bucket and a perfect turning action. we were most impressed. daddy and i filled up the larger (30 l) water container whilst tessie and lewis took photographs of all the aminals, including partridges.

we all feel as though we have got the bulk of russia behind us as we are now 2/3 of the way through this country. the roads have also been getting smoother but we feel they are lulling us into a false sense of security as the bumps and creaters have caused us to scrap the bottom of our car 5 times already. no doubt fate will smite us down for our optimism.

2008-07-27T20:26:00.001-07:00

greetings from the geographical centre of russia: novosibirsk.

we will not travel very far today as yesterday we travelled double the distance planned due to the weather.

when we decided to stop and put up the gazebo for a little break, about half an hour later it began to rain. the hail followed immeditely after this and the driving conditions were so bad that even we pulled over at the side of the road with the other drivers to wait for it to ease off. the rain, hail, thunder and lightening coninued for hours and we got drenched when we stoped at the service station for dinner.

we eventually found a set of abandonned buildings at the side of the road with flat enough ground and not too many trees where we were able to set up camp (this has been a problem for us in siberia).

when we got out of the car we found that the strengh of wilma and larry had been tested to the extreme: they were not in a good state. larry has been stripped of some of his paint and wilma has a broken wing mirror. this is a sad day.

however, it is not all bad for wilma as we had both of her slow punctures repaired by a lovely garage who did a great job.

the sighting of an enlish car caused much excitement as it over took us.

2008-07-27T20:26:00.000-07:00

2008-07-27T20:25:00.000-07:00

thank you to ling and kay for wriing comments and keeping daddy happy.
all contributions are most welcome.

2008-07-25T23:07:00.000-07:00

we have arrived in omsk (siberia, mid-russia)
i have been reliably informed that this is the home town of the girlfriend of bruce, a friend of dave rocker.

last night we celebrated our triumph of reaching the half-way point in russia, and wilma making it to 100 000 miles (on the clock) by staying in a hotel. this was to be out first proper bed since leaving for dover. it proved to be quite the ordeal what with our getting lost and being completely unable to communicate our room requirements.

the first hotel was a disaster and once daddy established it as being dirty and got angry we swiftly left. the second hotel was fully booked by a football team- this was a suprise as the guide book had refered to the 'drab concrete block' as being 'very rarely full'. the third time was a charm- the receptionist even called her english speaking friend to help us book a room.

the hotel created a permanent and very special place in our hearts when we were serenaded by the local dj/singer/karaokee man in the restaurant.

we, the group, would now like to take the time to retell some amusing anecdotes that have have involved us during this trip (a backlog, if you will) that have unfortunately, up until this point, slipped our minds.

1. we have seen a stoke-like taxi with the phone number of 777 777 (lucky seven).

2. the whole car is really into 'thunderbirds are go' by busted and 'oh my god' by the kaiser chiefs. this first for obvious reasons; the second because it contains the line 'oh my god i can't believe it, i've never been this far away from home'. cool.

3. we have, as yet, been so inconspicous that we have only been stopped at the numerous police check points once. however, in the early hours of two days ago, daddy was hailed down but sped on through. we have been reliably informed that a slow speed chase ensued but the policeman didn't really care and went back into his hut. it was a close run thing that we were not stopped at the next police check point as daddy though that our descriptions would have been called through.

if you have managed, thank you.

2008-07-23T21:25:00.000-07:00

2008-07-23T20:50:00.000-07:00

2008-07-23T20:40:00.000-07:00

we have reached tyumen and found some lovely toilets.

every night lewis insists on catching insects. his parents condone animal cruelty by making no attempts to prevent him. last night's green spider has been the highlight of the trip to date.

we were going to sleep in a hotel last night but, in the end, decided that the side of the road would be better. however, i am still holding out for a hotel in omsk (mid siberia), where we will hopefully stop for a rest.

siberia is so far proving to be very flat but the whole camp feels excited at the prospect of traveling through such an exotic region. at the same time we are being wary of ticks that we a told are rife during this season by our lonely planet guide book.

we are on track so far and making sufficient time.

2008-07-23T20:35:00.000-07:00

a note to our sponsors,

thank you for the compass dave and vicky. have not got lost yet.
greg rowe sr- he hand pump filter is coming into its own.
janice- the air bed is still pumping up.
mike earl- the torch is still lighting our way.
granny- for the lightweight mug, russia money and chuney (just finished).
all- the great advice.

dwight wood.

Hello To Trevor

2008-07-22T02:49:00.000-07:00

hello trevor, thanks for your preview comment, from Dwight. we have a good giggle.

2008-07-22T02:38:00.000-07:00

we thank you for your comments.

great to hear that tim and family will be camping in devon (wish we were there).

we are glad to hear from the family and were happy to see that reeve did not manage to cock it up.

i am the only one who can write. despite exams, i am still the front-runner in the literacy stakes.

glad you recieved post. were a bit nervous about it. hope trip goes well, granny. take lots of photos.

lewis would like to say hello to PR.

2008-07-22T02:15:00.000-07:00

we are writing from the legendary chelyabinsk.
daddy thinks it's very exciting and thinks everyone will want to hear about it.

we have not yet seen any tanks but we are still holding out.
we have, however, taken discreet photographs of some officials.

there are some lovely bronze statues in teh pedestrianised zone of the city. we have taken photographs of all of them. i am upset with lewis as he ruined one of my photos by scowling and would not stay out of the next one. he cried, but it's ok because im not in trouble.

this area is surrounded by lakes and we will stay by one tonight. lewis has been told that he is not to drink the unclean water: he did the first time and got the 'runs' (for one day only).

tomorrow, although at the eastern edge of the urals today, will be our last stop in the urals. we have to go north so as to skip out kazakhstan.

last night was an evening of contrasts. the flies appear to be growing in size the closer we get to singapore. daddy in particular looks like a blotchy pin cushion. the locals appeared friendly at first but we were later to find out that they were buttering up to tourists in the hope that we would supply alcohol euros. but there was a nice honey man washing his car in the river.

the roads during our drive this morning (170 miles) were the hilliest we have yet to encounter ('they walk the tighrope between diabolocial and perfect'- daddy). this means we have been using more fuel, but we still manage c 450 miles to a tank. it has also created somewhat of a sport out of overtaking: today tessie had her foot to the floor and was really pushing 30mph.

we have passed many police checkpoints this week and we always ensure that lewis gives the illusion of being strapped in for them. today he was rewarded for knowing his 4 times table: i was similarly rewarded.

2008-07-19T08:09:00.000-07:00

(horses on the latvia/ russia border)

we are now in camapa in the food section of a shopping centre a little bit like the ilford exchange. it has a bouncy castle and arcade games also.

daddy would like to request that anyone who is out there reading this writes a comment on our blog so that daddy knows people are reading it and for some interaction.

last night we had some more visiters to our tent (outside a grave yard). the were a group of young 'lads'. daddy went out in his underwear; this coupled with language barrier caused much amusement. they stayed for 1 1/4 hours, during which time daddy said that he loved everything about russia, we heard some more techno russian beats (on phone- also used to take pictures of daddy and tessie). as they were drunk (the 'lads') they left only after autographs were exchanged. we were reliably informed that one of the boys saw putin's son.

we have not stayed in a campsite now for over a week and are not feeling too clean.

camapa is around the urals and has lots of pretty, but run-down, houses lining the streets.

we have recently been driving further than we need to so that when we come to the less tarmaced roads closer to mongolia we can afford to go a bit slower. we travel over 200 miles a day.

we are hoping to find a campsite tonight but it is getting late and we are told that water and the washing up bowl will be fine.

2008-07-18T03:39:00.000-07:00

writing from a lovely internet cafe in penza, raussia (with techno blaring in the loos).

the first proper city we have come accross that is not in our guide book.

we have just bought a sim card from the local phone shop; slow process due to limitations of phrase book.

last night we were going to camp at an abandonned garage with 2 thunder boxes (this is posh). we managed to undertake minor repairs on wilma (the car) and managed to find more things to organise and throw out. however, at 21:00 a lady said that we would have to move on as we were a fire hazard. this was a shame but she did give us directions to a wonderful spot on the local river, rna. it showed on vera (sat nav) so we knew we were going somewhere good. that night daddy built the most spectacular fire i have ever seen: he was suitably modest about his acievement.

this morning we drove past some live sheep on the road as we left our 'camp'.

driving to this city today i discovered that daddy loves a bit of dicing with death. i was driving and he told me that the road ahead was clear to overtake the truck in front but in reality that was a massive car coming towards us. when i tried to quickly bring the situation under control daddy got really angry and said that i should have held my nerve. we switched places.

we are off to find a nice place to camp next, hopefully next to another river as we have all been enjoying practicing our swimming. although i fear that daddy does not wish to get beaten by me a 3rd time and so has mixed feelings about finding another river.