24th February 2015 Bagan from the beginning

A really early start for Owen and I as we due out of town at a cafe to run a time control, a hurried breakfast consisting of rubbish omelette but Owen was pleased with his muesli (weirdo).  We again fought through the sixty billion mopeds that were waiting to be mowed down by the red hilux that we have become so fond of over the past month, we arrived at our control to find an open sewer running through the front, no coffee was on offer here but after telling them that 150 westerners will be arriving demanding coffee they sent a boy running off down the road with a wad of their filthy money in hand returning with some Nescafé one shots for the competitors, they only charged about seven pence per cup so we weren't going to ask for a more decent coffee!  We had the music playing on Owens speaker and even some of the competitors had a boogie in this foul smelling roadside dive.

We packed up eventually and headed in the direction of Bagan, there was a competitive section on the way and here we learnt that Peter and Zoe managed to pull it out of the bag and overtook Gerry and Matt to end the rally in top spot in the classics, the vintageants has been won by Bill and Scott in the wonderful fuel injected Chevy Coupe.  It was a busy afternoon when we first came across an Alvis who's fuel pump had failed at the lunch halt, we'd been tow starting this all week and assumed that's all it needed so Owen tugged it off down the road but didn't come back for me, getting worried I hitched a lift with the boss and came across Owen covered in fuel halfway through fitting a new pump. The next car needing our assistance was the vintageants winner Bill who'd broken a brake pile, one was duly made and fitted and they left towards their award, a Bentley had ignition problems and this was rectified using a metro coil, this car currently has metro carbs, 2 metro ignition leads and now the coil, going to make this a mission to turn this lovely fifties Bentley into a 1986 metro by the time we've finished!  

We passed the odd hill where there's a beautiful monastery on top, I've seen this picture in many chinese restaurants over the years, funny how it's in Myanmar!

Coming into Bagan down the very steep hills where one of the other Alvis' had wrong slotted and was stuck in a monastery beached on a large rock, with some ingenious use of pallets, stakes and tow ropes we managed to remove the car and the crew happily left to continue the journey.  Bagan was a total surprise for me, pagodas and temples everywhere, there are around 1500 currently but there used to be 10 times that before it was bombed in the war!

We even managed to get to go through the ceremonial arch unlike Paris and receive some glass wear to commererate this momental journey all of us have taken!  Congratulations to all finishers and commiserations to those who didn't make it to the end for whatever reasons!

A cocktail party in the towns viewing tower before the prize giving started, I had sour rum to start with then had another and then needed just water as I hadn't realised how strong this stuff was, onto the prize giving, without Phillip Eds sister assisted the clerk of the course John in dishing out the bowls to the award winners, Peter and Zoe summed up the event very well and led us into a slide show of the event up to and including this lovely ending to an amazing journey.

23 February 2015 the road to Mandalay!

We awoke to begin the journey up the road to Mandalay, it's been a long journey and although this is the name of the rally it doesn't actually end in Mandalay, now the road, a busy dual carriageway full of a trillion badly ridden mopeds with numerous passengers all wishing obviously to die!  A nightmare from start to finish!  As the cars left Nay Pyi Taw and headed into the hills to do the penultimate competitive section the super highways suddenly went from a massive 20 lane road down to a single lane road that obviously doesn't get used by any vehicles, this road then loses the tarmac and becomes gravel, so in a space of four kilometres we have gone from basically a super smooth highway to a dirt track, this country is bizarre to the extremes!  As we climbed the hills away from the ghost town it became more and more poor returning to the bad roads and wooden homes, the scenery is changing everyday and we've passed areas of beauty to areas of rubbish!  As we approach Mandalay the Kiplingesque vision we have built up in our minds is rapidly disappearing as we pass one rundown concrete monstrosity to the next, the whole place is a bit of a dump to be honest only saved by the reconstructed palace in the middle near our hotel destroyed in World War Two, I think it needs to be bombed again so they can build a decent city instead of the hole we have arrived in!

Peter and Zoe have dropped behind Gerry and Matt by 2 seconds today but to be honest either one would be deserved winners, let's see what happens tomorrow when they do the last competitive section before arriving at the finish archway.

22nd February 2015 stilts and Mozzies

Well, I've awoken to both my legs covered in mosquito bites!  It seems I didn't shut the door properly last night and have been attacked mercilessly, I nearby vow to kill every last one of the gifts by the time I die!!  It's a good job I'm taking malaria tablets because I definitely would have caught it by now, I was driving today and although the mileage was short it proved to be a tortuous drive, millions of mopeds and really slow trucks, mixed with tut tuts and commercial tut tuts, also with oxen pulling carts it was a trying day!

We stayed last night in naypidor, the town with no one living in it, the road leading into this ghost city was 20 lanes wide and Owen and I were the only ones on it, a truly wierd town built in secret as the new capital city but as I believe no one wanted to move here from Yangon so there's shopping malls, government buildings, hotels etc but they are completely deserted, only a scatter of cars and mopeds are seen here, probably to water the plants that no one will see!

That's the truck watering the flowers on the right.

A completely deserted 20 lane highway, wish the M25 was like this!

During the day we had to marshal the MTC out from the sprawling but empty hotel and was a bit surprised to be presented with a $350 bill for unpaid bar tabs from the previous night, it not a concern as we know ERA will pay us back as soon as we inform them.

Having paid the drinks bill we headed off from this odd but fascinating city into the hills to sweep the route, it was a difficult route, brilliant but challenging, we lost a couple of crews today with mechanical failures but we hope they make it to Bagan, if they don't then we wish them the best!  

At the end of the day we arrived at a lake for the overnight halt, this was our first car park party with GandTs being passed around once the work was finished, thoroughly pissed we drove the few kms to our hotel which was a hut on a lake, very maldive in style but again the mozzies were relentless, a few more bites to add to the perforated legs really doesn't matter, popped another malaria pill and about to get some sleep, it's only half past nine so should have a good long sleep ready for what I guess will be another challenging day, but the end is only 2 days away and already thinking about getting home to Emma and the boys.

Herding cows!

21st February 2015 boring roads and lumpy coffee

Owen and I had to set off very early this morning as we had to man a main time control in the organic orchard cafe some 150kms from last nights hotel, this early in the morning the roads are lined with monks and street traders, rough roads with little passing opportunity made it difficult for us especially difficult for the cars as they would be leaving two hours later, we arrived at the cafe where lovely coffee was being served, we were here for about two hours drinking lovely coffee and rubbish sweets, we palmed these sweets off on the competitors and laughed greatly at there expressions when they realised they were disgusting!  Once these duties were over we proceeded through busy villages and tight twisty lanes strewn with overladen lorries and even more overladen motor bikes, one particular image in our mind is the queue of Buddhist monks lining the streets waiting for their daily portions of rice!

During the day we followed the clerk of the course down the one road we used all morning and even managed to get some snaps of them running through rural Bhurma 

We even managed to catch the rally leader in the Porsche taking their time to to nearly run over a few locals on their way to getting a deserved win in this long event.

Elephants are becoming a more common sight in this part of the world, mainly being used a work tools for locals everyday life, they seem happy and I'm getting the impression they are being well looked after!

We came across a volvo that had suspension failure and with the extent of the damage looks like game over for them, the Buick has finally blown their engine up and they will be finishing the route on a recovery truck!   More basic houses are in his area but people seem contented and get on with the drudge of life.

We stopped at a restaurant for lunch and enjoyed a mass of foood, far better than UK roadside restaurants but their coffee had lumps of fat in it, ove sweet but rank none the les

Back at the hotel we had a feeling problem on a Merc, points on a Chevy but the most exciting part of the day was being interviewed for local TV and giving one of the countries politicians a tour of the care park, staring to fall in love with this place even though j feel it has an edge to it

20th February 2015 ice creams at the border

After an early night it was finally border time, we set out just before six in anticipation of a lengthy wait getting out of Thailand and into burma, however it was soon apparent that Melvyn from CARS had gone above and beyond the call of duty and we whizzed through the border like a colonial invasion.  The problem with arriving early and quickly entering burma we had a long wait for the convoy run down the road, it was a relief when an ice cream vendor showed up, we nearly didn't have time to eat what could be described as a turd on a stick when our select batch of cars arrived and we departed down the road that only 6 Brits had been on before, at one point we were directed off the road through villages on a dusty track which actually was a nice touch to be honest.

Houses made of leaves was evidence that we had now entered a part of the world that hasn't developed over the years and I think it must be one of the true olde worlde part of planet earth!

It was a relatively short blast down some very poor tarmac roads to the three hotels us and the competitors are living in tonight, we arrived about lunchtime and not much work is needed to be done, that was until Willy Van Loon turned up with some wiring issues, a Datsun 240 with collapsed suspension and a Mercedes Benz with failed steering, this all done it was time to head for dinner, the best sweet and sour chicken I've ever had and a trip to a spice market (the smelliest place I've ever been to), a small stop at a hat shop where I've managed to get a hat made of wood, here shown by Tony, it's amazeballs!  First impressions of Burma is mixed, the roads are terrible and the traffic is incredible but the people seem very nice and it's obviously very strange for them to see westerners driving old cars.  Here's some inviting piccies of Burma.

More snaps tomorrow

19th February 2015 welder, welder oh where art thou welder?

Because of the border into Burma the management have allowed 2 days to get through, because of delays in paperwork we won't be travelling across the border until tomorrow so this has become a rest day for the competitors, a usual 8am start for us six mechanics to fix some of the broken cars, usual points on bentleys, a fuel filter on a mercedes with the loveliest crew on the event.  Other work done whilst having a hangover were coolant leaks, half shafts and other usual old broken bits to change.  We were all done and washed up ready for the evening when roger Anderson came in to the car park with a snapped gear lever, as rules are rules we couldn't work on it so Jim Smith ran to our aid, towed the model A to a welder we'd seen earlier in the day, they said they only repaired radiators but drew a map to another welder, back went on the tow strap and he was yanked to the next shop, this place was owned by the Chinese and as it was Chinese New Year there was no help here!  Running out of options we pulled the ford back towards the hotel but noticed another welder on the way back so with a couple of u turns we pulled in and they agreed to weld his gear lever back on, after half an hours work at this place it was done but it was going to be expensive!  £4 the welding cost so we suggested that roger gave them a tip of another £4 which he gladly did and he was off!

Job done!!

We hastily drove back to the hotel for more beers when one of the Bentley guys came over with a massive hole in his radiator, handily we knew of a radiator repair shop who repaired it immediately for £6, this place is so cheap!

Still reeling from last nights booze up consisting of massive beer dispensers and luminous green drinks I decided enough was enough and headed for bed ready in anticipation for Burma!

18th February 2015 tiger drugs

We are now approaching the border with Myanmar today, the day's destination being only 8 kms from the border crossing, we came within a few yards of Burma when we ran alongside a river with burma on the other side, from what I've seen it looks beautiful with mountains covered in greenery.

That's Burma on the right, bit unclear but believe me it is there, as we leave Thailand and although there is lovely people and a strange but kind culture here I can't help feeling bad regarding the sleepy side to this country, although apart from the one incident it hasn't been rammed down our throats as we've passed through, I would like to come back here maybe for a beach holiday but I'm very much looking forward to seeing the country why we are doing this event.

We had a lunch halt at a tiger place where there were real tigers on show, I didn't take any photos and didn't go see them as they had been drugged to make them non dangerous for the public stroking them, quite a sad place to be fair but the fish were awesome!

The organisers or at least some of them have obviously been stressed about the border crossing and other items so once we are in Burma they might return to normal.  We have experienced fantastic food here in Thailand and Thai green curry from loyd Grossman needs more now I've had some authentic curry but I'm sure I'll still like it, I had spaghetti bolognase the other day and that was a nice change, I only hope the food over the next few days will be as lovely as what we have been accustomed to.

More and more cars seemed to be breaking down now and as we aren't crossing the border until the day after tomorrow it will be a non driving day tomorrow and there's a lot of broken cars out there!

No blog is complete without the obligatory cow!

17th February 2015 birthday boy

Our marshalling duties were snatched out of our hands today so a purely sweep duty was the order of the day, leaving the Shangri la hotel to head north after half of the cars was our task this morning, we dressed in our newly laundered work clothes and headed once again to the sweaty hotel underbelly where our truck was waiting to carry out its task for this day.  We had a pretty uneventful morning until we arrived at the regularity this afternoon, a car had dropped the equivalent of Saudi Arabia's oil reserve up the steep hill making us wonder what car had slicked it's way up the heat soaked road towards the hotel waiting at the end, it revealed itself as a volvo PV with a snapped rear axle nearly making it to the end, it's currently all being welded up at one of the million garages that seem to fill the town we pass through so fingers crossed it will all be well tomorrow morning.

Earlier in the day we had received a call that one of the invading German crews had holed their suspension air bag causing a major collapse in the third reich or the back end in this case, neither Owen nor I had ever replaced one of these so it came to us as a great relief to find it in a garage being replaced however, when I got under the car to see what's going on one of the Thai mechanics leant towards me and said 'help please' and not wanting to look like an incompetent mechanic I set about helping them replace it, we managed to fit the new one and get it all working in what seemed to be no time at all so big cheers, strong Bavarian pats on the back were delivered all round, a good job done by all!  

We finished the day on the famous thousand bend road down to the hotel, a tight twisty main road full of hairpins up and down with great views at the summits, definitely will be needing new brakes after all that, some bod has actually counted the bends and I think they mentioned that there were over 1500 hairpins in total!

We eventually arrived at the hotel and whilst the brakes were cooling down we replaced two prop shafts, checked out a noise on a mercedes, fixed a leaking radiator on a Bentley and repaired a handbrake on a volvo, all these jobs were finished in plenty of time to then get washed and changed, have some great food and enjoy whiskey at the competitors expense, this was a good day!

Peter and Zoe Lovett are extending their lead every competitive section so with limited competitive days left looks like they've got it in the bag over Gerry and Matt in the Leyland, but this is rallying and anything can happen!

This has been my most favourite day so far, let's hope tomorrow is even better!

Saw a great sign today, PYs lodger should take heed!

16th February 2015 crap receptionist!

Firstly I've titled this 'crap receptionist' I have done this for no other reason than the photo below, the staff in this hotel are excellent but,

Yes her name is 'Poo!'  Brilliant!!

A hangover is now present as we work in extreme temperatures in the basement car park, it's gone mental, there's brake problems, suspension issues, there's welder needed, wheels to be changed, starter motors need fitting, it's not easy as we should be only working until 12 but it's half one and still work is piling up!  I eventually finished having replaced the leaf spring at the back of a model A and one of the competitors has bought us down a chocolate cake which makes a very welcome change to the beer they usually pay us with, a quick spot of lunch in a little cafe down the road, I had steak and chips but some others had more local dishes, a really nice relaxed lunch had here, and no prostitutes!  A little lay down after food was very welcome giving us more energy for the team dinner this evening, I'm not drinking tonight and in many ways looking forward to leaving this big city and finding a more rural hotel tomorrow night, some of the competitors that have been missing for a few days are now back in the rally so the spare rooms will become less available, Martins elder offspring will have to again share with Nikki I guess but I've given Nikki some earplugs to block out the snoring coming from 'chainsaw Clark'.  Not a lot to report from today just the mosquitoes are getting more bitey and my legs are taking a hammering, I'm going to start eating raw garlic I think as nothing else seems to be putting the little bastards off, could it be the Paco Rabanne I have?

Really looking forward to getting towards Burma now, we are in proper northern Thailand now and I've heard there's some revolutionists in the area that don't like the colour red, good job I'm not driving a big, bright red truck!?!

It's now getting to the point that people are missing their loved ones now, Nikki is missing Kim, I'm definitely missing Emma and the boys now but am enjoying this journey immensely, Thailand is an interesting place with some delightful people, definitely would come back here but not sure how the tourist side of this country would measure up to this adventure, the beaches are awesome, as is the countryside, get rid of the mozzies and prozzies and it would be perfect!

15th February 2015

The rally has changed feel as we arrive at our destination in Chiang Mei in eager readiness for the "day off" I use inverted commas as we don't have a day off and we are referring to these days as non driving days!  The competitors have settled into a routine with the rally, they know how fast to drive and are looking forward to the uncharted border crossing into Burma, I am now looking forward to this exciting new experience as is Owen. 

The route today was one of busy highways and meandering hairpins with mixture of gravel, tar and broken concrete, through paddy fields and pineapple plantations with the odd coconut trees lining the sometime narrowing back roads, the competition element today started with a regularity section at the top of a mountain, the local traffic has hindered some of the competitors and their times show this, but this is rallying and for people to share roads to go rallying we have to expect that sometimes it doesn't go completely our way!  Owen and I again had a go on the regularity and arrived 1 second early to the finish control, I say it's not good enough but I am improving with time!  We proceeded on the route taking time to try some arty filming with Owen hanging out of the side with his ipad whilst closely following Anton in the Bentley, Owen had to give up as he was slowly turning browner and browner with the dust sticking to his face and hair whilst filling up his eyes and nostrils, he proved this by blowing his nose and showing me the contents of the tissue!

We arrived at the lunch halt where the Cottons were running the time control and we had a spot to eat at a lovely rural looking cafe where the food was excellent but the coffee tasted like mud!  People were working in the fields nearby but stopped to let me take a quick photo of them.

  We sat with the doctors and discussed high brow topics such as who's going to get the most drunk tonight and which competitors we fancied the most, mine was Dana Hadrecky, Owens was Paul Merryweather, Dr Ollie fancied Dr Matt, and Dr Matt fancied himself!  

The Bentley of the two posh lads was finally running right after two weeks of tinkering and they are really loving the car now, isn't it great that it took an old metro ignition lead to be fitted to make it run properly!  The Chevy Impala lost a bolt on the suspension in the afternoon but Skippy and Tony were on the case getting it all put back together ready to drive up to the hotel.  Once we arrived at the Shangri la in the middle of town we were ushered to the basement where another Bentley was waiting with a noise from the rear brakes, these hadn't been adjusted since before the event and a quick twiddle of the nobs it was back to proper brakes, and so we were ready for the night before the day off, we are now realising that these nights are pretty much all messy especially for the management who have a bit of a blow out as they don't have work the following day, we need to watch what we do as we have to tend to the cars early tomorrow morning.

We had a pre dinner drinking session in Nikki's room where she had filled the bath up with beer and wine bottles, laid on some nibbles so we could have a chat before we headed down to an official dinner with the competitors, there were a few tables laid out just for the Peking to Paris 2016 competitors and Nikki asked if we didn't mind sitting with them as we had been on the event previously, I sat with the Hadrecky husband and wife team who have entered and had a ball chatting about preparation, both them and the car, spirits where very high and the food was excellent and the wine plenty, I was the only one on our table drinking white wine so I couldn't finish the second bottle on the table, needing to leave room for more alcohol when we left to go out on the town.

The taxis where summoned as about 22 of us gathered in front of the lobby, it very soon got out of hand as Chris Elkins, Owen and Tony thought it a great idea to climb on the roof of the cab as there was a luggage rack that obviously looked too inviting to ignore!  Once these morons were ordered off the roof and ushered into the second taxi we sped off to the emptiest, noisiest club in this town, it was rubbish and after listening to rubbish music and necking a bottle of gin between us all we wandered down the road and ended up in a bar called Loco Elvis where karaoke was in full swing, many drinks later the Kirkhams decided to get up and sing as it was there 35th anniversary, not wishing to be shy the doctors went up to sing 'you've lost that loving feeling'!  A great rendition was enjoyed by all but quickly overshadowed when Owen, Kitch, Tony and I leapt on stage to perform a one off surprise but excellent performance of 'hey Jude', the crowd starred starry eyed and amazed at the beautiful sounding quartet that shone before them, we left the stage to flowers being thrown at us and a huge cheer and round of applause as we soaked up the sheer admiration of our fellow staff and competitors drinking before us, we were awesome!

It didn't take long before we were ushered out of the pub as they were closing now, the night was still young so the pub staff pointed us in the direction of a club called Spicey, a prostitute ridden hole with crap beer and worse whisky.  It didn't take long for the midget prostitutes madam to thrust a young girl at me giving me a price list and what that price included, I wasn't sure this girl was a girl to be honest but the whole situation was not a pleasant one for me and although it was funny to start with we were all feeling a bit uncomfortable to be honest so exit strategies were being formulated, it was getting so bad towards the end of the night and I was starting to feel sorry for this girl as she had only been doing this for a couple of weeks so I did the best thing I think I could've done, I paid this girl the going rate and told her to go home, it wasn't very much money in our terms but guess it's a lot to them, the problem with paying her to basically leave me alone was that all the other prostitutes then stormed me to give them money to not go with them so I legged it, straight into a tut tut and left at breakneck speed with one of these girls still trying to climb in next to me, I yelled at the driver to go as quickly as possible shaking of the girls as we roared towards the Shangri La, phew that was an experience I do not wish to have again!  I texted Emma as soon as I got back to the room which made me feel a lot better and we had a bit of a laugh about my evening escapology!

Need to sleep now as proper pissed and tired!

14th February 2015 valentine

Firstly I'd better start with wishing Emma a happy Valentine's Day, we at home don't do it like Thailand, bands everywhere, heart shaped monuments go up, we thought it might be because of the Chinese New Year but not so sure now.  I'm starting this blog sitting half way up a mountain ready for the competitors to start the regularity section of which we are the start control.  We are on the edge of a small car park, a waterfall to the side of us.

The brains behind the event, Anthony has just pulled up to make sure all is ok, had a quick chat and buggered off to make sure all of his minions are behaving in the appropriate manner!

Rumours are circulating that Martin's youngest offspring visited the local nightclub with the doctors last night and didn't get back to the hotel until an hour before we had to leave this morning, I saw Marinas sister in law this morning and looked surprisingly chipper!  I'll get the full story later, currently Peter Lovett is leading the event but Crown/Bryson should over take him by the end of the day as its all very hilly and the P76 has miles more power for the steep inclines.  After the long hill climb from our regularity there was only one casualty, a Datsun with a failed fuel pump, quickly fixed we had a long downhill into the lunch control, the brakes on our HiLux haven't really been used until now so got very hot and caught fire much to the amusement of some competitors!  The lunch halt was a pontoon out in a lake but the food was good so the novelty was short lived!  Owen changed an alternator on a Chevy fangio and isn't feeling too well now, possibly a touch of dehydration?  

A lovely drive through the jungle took us to the test this afternoon, lots of dust around and steep climbs, we had time to fix fuel vaporisation on the impala and he soon roared off up the hill, we took some pictures at the start line.

We stopped to look at the thickest jungle we've ever seen, had a pee and drove on towards the hotel.

Once back at the hotel we set about repairing a couple of the bentleys, one had a broken exhaust and the other had ignition problems, also fixed a couple of punctures and rewired the chavelle (beginning to really dislike this car for lots of reasons) a pushrod on an alvis is being sorted as I write, the beetle I spent a few hours on last night seems to have given up putting waste to the hard work put in to it.

A couple of beers and an early night is needed so ta ta