The Route
Lift off: May 20th 2006, Bangkok,
Thailand
Landing: August Bank Holiday weekend, 2006, Brighton,
England
Average daily mileage: 150 miles
Cruising speed: 50 mph
Full throttle: 70 mph
01. Thailand
02. Laos
03. China
04. Kazakhstan
05. Russia
06. Ukraine
07. Poland
08. Czech republic
09. Germany
10. Belgium
11. France
12. England
1. THAILAND
Random country facts: The official name of Bangkok is: ‘Krungthep mahanakhon amonratanakosin mahintara ayuthaya mahadilok popnopparat ratchathani burirom udomratchaniwet mahasathan amonpiman avatansathit sakkathattiya witsanukamprasit’. Thailand is home to the world’s smallest mammal, the bumblebee bat.
The mission begins on May 20th when we fly out to Bangkok to be united for the first time with the last, but most definitely not least, member of the team, our Formula 1 tuk tuk. With a week of acclimatising, mechanical training and last minute panic and preparation under our belts we’ll crank up her engine and take the first tuk on the long road home. So begins the tukathon.
After our baptism of fire amongst the city’s bronchitic melee of traffic, we will wend our way north towards Laos, about 400 miles away. Our first major port of call will be Ayutthaya, the old capital of the Thai kingdom, once so teeming with temples that sunlight reflecting off their gilt decoration was said to dazzle from three miles away. Today it is a UNESCO world heritage sight, in memory of this illustrious past. Here we will turn east, taking in the wonders of the Khao Yai National Park, one of the locations used in the filming of The Beach, before tukking north towards Vientiane. We’ll add another National Park, the Nam Nao, to our list, before we get to Phimai, a small town in the north east of the country which hosts one of Thailand’s most impressive Khmer temple complexes, redolent of Cambodia’s Angkor Wat.
Just before we hit country number two we’ll pay a visit to one of Thailand’s more unusual attractions, the Sala Kaew sculpture park in Nong Khai. According to the Rough Guide this ‘looks like the work of a giant artist on acid’ and features a bizarre array of gargantuan sculptures inspired by Hindu-Buddhist imagery.
2 miles from here we’ll cross the Friendship Bridge into Laos. With one country down it’s a mere 9,600 miles to Blighty.Random country facts: Laos only has around 50 written laws. Laos is the most bombed country in the history of modern warfare. DJ’s are officially outlawed in Vientiane.
First on our Laotian agenda will be Vientiane, Laos’ capital city. By all accounts this is a delightful spot, fusing a cornucopia of styles and influences; Lao, Thai, Chinese, Vietnamese, French and even Russian. Built on the banks of the Mekong River, this ancient city abounds with temples and things to see. Hopefully we’ll have time to have a brief explore before we hit the road again and tuk off to Vang Vieng, about 100 miles north. As we drive up Route 13, we’ll be following the valley of the Nam Ngum, home of the Hmong and Yao hill peoples. The scenery here is said to be spectacular – limestone caves, waterfalls and dense jungle.
Another 150 miles north up Route 13 we’ll come to Luang Prabang, the second UNESCO World Heritage Site on our Grand Tour. We won’t have time to visit all 32 temples in this former royal capital but it’ll be a good pit stop at which to soak in the laid back Laotian atmosphere. If time allows we’ll squeeze in an excursion to the nearby Pak Ou caves and Kwang Si falls.
Heading north-west from Luang Prabang we’ll pass through Udom Xai, one of the biggest settlements in northern Laos, before tukking the last 80 miles through the Luang Namtha province to the Chinese border at Boten. This last stretch is the Nam Ha national protected area, home to clouded leopard, tiger, elephant and 288 bird species.
With a bit of luck we’ll be in Laos during the annual Boun Bang Fai (Rocket festival), a Buddhist rain making festival involving bamboo rockets and a muddy demise for all failed rocket designers.
Random country facts: Ice cream was invented in China around 2000BC. The Great Wall is the only man made structure that can be seen from the moon with the naked eye.
On June 10th we'll tuk into China. Due to Chinese laws regarding foreign drivers we will be accompanied for the next 3750 miles by a Chinese government guide. Considering our Chinese language skills end at ‘Ni Hao’ this is probably a very good thing.
Our itinerary whilst we are in China is all pre-arranged by the CSITS in Beijing and the next 28 days will be spent travelling north via Kunming, Leshan, Chengdu and X’ian, the nucleus of ancient China, before turning west along the fabled Silk Route towards the plains of Central Asia. Our route will take us via subterranean caverns, the world’s largest carved Buddha, the dense forests of Emei Shan, temples, bustling modern cities and the infamous Terracotta Army.
At Xian we'll turn north-west for the final leg of our Chinese journey. Lanzhou, once a vital stronghold on the Silk Route, will mark the beginning of our drive through the Hexi corridor, a narrow strip of land sandwiched between the Tibetan Plateau and the Gobi desert. This road takes us through Jiayuguan, the last fortress of the Great Wall, an isolated place with the same connotations in Chinese myths and legends as Siberia for Stalinist Russia. Tukking due west, our route then takes us through Xinjiang, China’s remotest province, home of the Uighuy people and gateway to the Islamic world. Hami and Urumqui will be our last pit stops in China, before we enter Kazakhstan at the Khorgos border crossing. All going well, this will be on July 7th.
Random country facts: Kazakhstan sells 400,000 barrels of oil a day. Kokpar, goat polo, is a popular sport here.
The word ‘Kazakhstan’ instantly conjures images of endless steppes, exotic
bazaars, nomadic ger villages….and Borat. And on
July 7th our three
wheeled odyssey will be crossing the border and heading for Almaty.
Our biker contacts in Almaty assure us that the roads in this area are
good, so the 200 miles from here to the old capital should be easy going.
The Singing Dunes and Charyn Canyon are apparently not to be missed,
so we'll be stopping for a cold beer or maybe a refreshing bowl of koomiz (fermented
mare's milk, a Kazakh speciality) before hitting the cosmopolitan hub
Almaty.
Almaty is the commercial heart of Central Asia's richest country and
will be a welcome respite after several weeks in China's western wilderness.
While TT has a service we’ll get some R&R and perhaps even don our
glad rags and sample the local nightlife. The Long Way Round team have told
us that The Lord Nelson club is not to be missed….
From Almaty we'll head north up the M36 to the capital Astana (meaning
‘capital’ in Kazakh). Our original plan was to travel through western Kazakhstan
via the Aral Sea, but sadly the roads (if you can call them that) are too
bad and we would probably have had to resort to hitching a lift on a camel
or a Kamaz. This route via Astana shouldn’t disappoint though.
A few hundred miles north-west of Almaty we’ll come to the southern end
of Lake Balkash, Central Asia’s fourth largest lake which according to a
recent UN report is sadly echoing the demise of the Aral Sea. Next it’s
Karaganda, famous for coal and Gulags, then Astana, its glass skyscrapers
rising incongruously out of the treeless steppes.
200 miles north of Astana is Lake Burabay, AKA ‘Little Switzerland’.
Hopefully we’ll have time for a brief explore here as it’s forests, strange
rock formations and mountains sound idyllic and will be a welcome contrast
to the endless steppes we’ve just driven through.
Random country facts: Around 6 billion bottles of vodka are drunk
in Russia annually, at a rate of 40 per person. Russia spans 11 time zones.
According to the CIA fact book the population of Russia is 143, 420, 309.
At the border we’ll turn west, open the throttle and head for Europe across the
West Siberian plain, one of world’s largest regions of continuous flatland, bounded
by the Urals in the west and Yenisey River in the east. Although a mere 1000
miles south of the Arctic Circle the summer temperature should be a balmy 20
degrees.
First on our Russian agenda will be the city of Chelyabinsk, a key centre of
military production during Soviet Era and scene of the world’s worst nuclear
accident pre-Chernobyl. The city is also the last metropolis on the eastern side
of the fabled Urals, the geographical divide between Europe and Asia. As far
as mountains go however they are little more than a wrinkle on the earth’s surface
and our three-wheeled friend should tuk over them without any problems.
On our western descent of the Urals we’ll go through Ufa, capital of the self-consciously
autonomous Baskortostan Republic, before tukking through the southern tip of
Tatarstan and into the Volga Region. This is the heartland of Russia and ‘Mother
Volga’ one of the nation’s most enduring symbols as well as being Europe’s longest
river at 2290 miles. We’ll be travelling through the area at the best time of
year, when the river’s banks become a haven for swimmers, sun worshippers and
sybarites. As we tuk down the Volga we’ll take in the cities of Samara and Saratov.
The latter was home to Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space.
Next stop is Volgograd, a days tukking down the Volga from Saratov. Better known
by its former name, Stalingrad, the city was the scene of WW2’s bloodiest battle.
At least 600,000 German troops died in the battle with a further 180,000 captured
by the Soviets. The total number of Russian dead is unknown, but again the figure
is probably around 600,000.
This will be an opportune spot for the team to relax, refuel and prepare for
the final leg of the odyssey. We might even indulge in the odd vodka, knowing
the legendary Russian propensity for the drink.
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Random country facts: Ukraine translates as ‘borderland’ or
‘on the edge’. The Ukraine is one of the world’s main centres of sugar
production.
Ukraine gained its independence from Russia in August 1991 and is so far unblighted
by mass tourism. Oxen still plough the fields in many parts and rural areas are
yet to be tainted by the encroaches of the modern world.
Our first major pit stop will be Kharkiv, 250 miles north-west of the Russian
border on the M03 via the towns of Krasny Luch and Slovyansk. Eastern Ukraine
is an area little visited by tourists; during the Soviet era this was a military-industrial
centre, today it is the business (and mafia) end of the country.
At Kharkiv, the Ukraine’s second largest city, we’ll take the M03 west for a
further two days to the capital Kiev, the apotheosis of the nation’s new found
wealth. Here old women selling corn cobs rub shoulders with Prada clad urbanites
and blacked out SUV’s and Mercedes are the norm. If time allows we’ll park up,
kick back and check out some of the sights; mummified monks at the Caves monastery,
Independence Square and the Chernobyl museum to name a few (the destroyed reactor
is a mere 60 miles north of the capital). But we’ll have little time to loiter
….next stop is Lviv, 400 miles west on the M06.
Random country facts: Poland shares its borders with seven countries.
Chopin and Copernicus both hailed from Poland.
By the time we reach Poland the trickiest parts of the trip should be behind
us. We’ll have put over 1000 miles between us and the Central Asian steppes and
Brighton will be well within our reaches. We hope!
We’ll spend less than a week skirting across the southern underbelly of Poland,
going via Rzeszow, Krakow and Opole before coming into the Czech Republic 60
miles east of Prague.
Krakow is Poland’s most important historic city and was the royal capital for
more than 500 years. Amazingly it was almost unscathed by WW2, which ravaged
the historic centres of Wroclaw and Warsaw. Today it is a World Heritage Site;
no other city in Poland has so many historic buildings and monuments and nowhere
else will you encounter such vast collections of art. This is a city not to be
missed and we’ll take a day out of our home run to explore its treasures.
The city is also famous for its close proximity to Auschwitz, a name synonymous with Nazi brutality and the horrors of the Holocaust. The camp is just south of our route and will certainly be on our itinerary if time allows.
This area of Poland, Upper Silesia, is heavily developed and industrialised and home to 10% of the population. It doesn’t promise to be the most scenic part of our adventure so we’ll open up the throttle and push on to the Czech Republic via Opole in Lower Silesia.
Random country facts: Pilsner and Dvorak are two of the country’s
most famous exports. The national sport is European handball.
The Czech Republic will be a short but sweet fragment of our tukathon. We’ll
cut 200 miles across the heart of the country in about 5 days. We could do it
in less but since this is one of Europe’s most historic countries it would be
foolish to do so.
Prague is the obvious highlight but it might come as a shock after the tourist
free expanses of Russia and Eastern Europe we’ll have just experienced. If we
can bare the hordes we’ll stop here for a night and do the tourist thing before
pushing westward towards Germany. Our route will take us through the dark forests
and fairytale castles of West Bohemia as well as the ancient spa town of Karlovy
Vary. Since Emperor Charles IV allegedly discovered the hot springs here in 1358
luminaries such as Beethoven, Karl Marx, Chopin and Peter the Great have all
made the journey here to drink the curative waters.
9. GERMANY, 10. BELGIUM, 11. FRANCE….the home stretch
The final leg of our journey will take us through the heart of Western Europe, via Frankfurt, Brussels and Calais. This should only take 5 days.
If all goes to plan we’ll be driving the TT onto the Eurotunnel at Calais in time for the August Bank Holiday’. Then it’s the last 64 miles to Brighton. What an amazing moment that’ll be…and time for some serious celebrations. If you are a tuk tuk owner and fancy joining us for the home stretch then please get in touch.
