Once upon a time in China

Yup, another Blast from the Past. This old story actually started back in 1907, long before I was born, with the Peking to Paris Race. My part in the story was relatively recent, in late 2006, when I was one of the two Malaysians invited by Mercedes-Benz to participate in their Paris-Beijing run to commemorate the centennial of that historic auto race. My part in this epic adventure began in Lanzhou, China, and ended in the final destination, Beijing. Though I did not get to drive any four-wheel-drive car, there were several shiny new G-Wagens running around as support and media cars.

IT was not love at first sight. Everything was one shade of brown or another. Beige, buff, cream, khaki, ochre, sand, russet, tan, tawny, terracotta – these are just some of the many shades I needed (yes, a thesaurus was necessary) to describe the desert landscape around Lanzhou in north-western China.
The drab scenery rekindled memories of the month I had spent in the Sahara with the Petronas Adventure Team two years ago. That was an “adventure of a lifetime”. Now, on the edge of China’s Gobi desert, I was about to be a part of another – the Paris-Beijing 2006 E-Class Experience.
On Oct 21, a caravan of 36 diesel-powered Mercedes-Benz E320 CDI sedans had set off from France, on a modern motoring epic that was to end in China, 28 days later.
The journey was broken into five legs, with new teams taking over at the end of each stage. (The only other Malaysian picked for the event was motoring journalist Khong Yin Swan, better known as Y.S. Khong, who went for the second leg from St Petersburg to Yekaterinburg, Russia.)
The participants came from all walks of life and they presented a colourful cross-section of peoples of the world. Tens of thousands of people around the globe responded to advertisements in newspapers, magazines and websites, and were put through a rigorous selection process that included interviews and driving training and evaluation.

Car #35, representing Malaysia and Singapore.

The lucky 360 included several French cabbies (pardon; they insist that they are Parisian taxi drivers!) driving an E320 fitted out as a taxi; a German woman who could pass for a model but builds custom bikes for a living (“yes, just like American Choppers … I’m like Paul Sr”); an engineering consultant who got “very lucky” just by replying to a letter from a magazine; a Mexican who speaks Cantonese; Poles, Slovaks, Koreans, Chinese and journalists.
In the four stages before handing over the cars to the last group, the motorcade had traversed Germany (passing through the cities of Stuttgart and Berlin), Poland (Warsaw), Lithuania (Vilnius), Latvia (Riga), Estonia (Tallinn), Russia (St Petersburg, Moscow, Yekaterinburg), Kazakhstan (Astana, Almaty), and into China.
The final leg, which I was invited to be a part of (as a writer for The Star), took the modern-day caravan from Lanzhou through Hohhot (capital of the autonomous region of Inner Mongolia) to Badaling (where tourists get up close and personal with a part of the Great Wall) and, finally, Beijing.
Along the way, most of the participants absorbed sights, sounds, smells and experiences far different from the daily routine of home.
Lanzhou, the capital of Gansu province and the geometrical centre of China, is the only provincial city through which the mighty Yellow River (Huang He) flows. It used to be an important stopover on the ancient Silk Road and is still a vital hub for transportation and communications today.
Heading from Lanzhou towards the coal-mining and industrial city of Wuhai, those of us who were first-time visitors to China were amazed by the superb new highways that linked the various towns and cities.
And, with a population of 1.3 billion and low wages, it seems the Chinese can afford to have sweepers stationed about a kilometre apart, keeping the multi-lane macadam clear of sand blown in from the surrounding desert! There were also stretches that were so bad that it was like driving through virgin desert.
One of the less savoury discoveries was that there were hardly any toilet facilities along the highways so the travellers simply defecated anywhere and everywhere along the roadside.

Traffic on some sections of the extensive road network was so sparse that we could park the Mercedes in the middle of the highway and take photographs leisurely, while other stretches were congested with everything from toot-tooting three-wheeler lorries to huge semi-trailers and tiny tractors pulling loads of hay as big as houses.
Chinese drivers can be described as unpredictable at best, and red lights are not even a suggestion that you might want to stop.
One particularly useful bit of advice we received was to avoid driving at night since the local motorists do not deem lights to be necessary when travelling on the dark, unlit streets.
But, after a while, my Singaporean co-driver, Geoffrey Eu, and I learned to expect the unexpected. And, a while later, we learned to
overtake using the slow lane, the middle lane, or the emergency lane, just like the locals.
Despite the widely varying road and traffic conditions, there were no serious accidents during the entire journey, and only five fender
benders occurred in traffic.
The well-known German aptitude for organisation and logistics (see Adding up the figures) ensured that things went smoothly, but it
certainly was not an easy task.
The low-sulphur diesel fuel needed for the Mercedes engines was not available on most of the route, so the German oil company Aral had to pre-position supplies. Fuel for the Russian sector was sent via Finland because of its simpler customs procedures while the containers for China were shipped to Shanghai, from where they were taken by trucks to the intermediate stations along the 5,000km route through the Middle Kingdom.

Each evening, as if by magic, a refuelling station complete with regulation pump appeared in the hotel parking lot to top up the tank of each E320 CDI.
But, even the best laid plans cannot forestall every conceivable problem. On the penultimate day, the convoy ground to a halt because a trucker’s blockade completely closed off a stretch of the route.
Fortunately, the enterprising locals quickly organised a guide service – for a small fee, of course – to lead the Mercedes cars around the blockade and through back lanes and rough fields.
As part of the unplanned adventure, we had a surreal moment driving into a new property development called Jackson Hole, complete with American-style log cabins and stone chalets set against a backdrop that looked uncannily like the famous Wyoming resort, just a hundred kilometres from Beijing.
I was among the fortunate ones who made it through the detour quickly and arrived at the next town, Badaling, with ample time to visit its most famous landmark – the Great Wall.
The following day, all that was left to accomplish was a short 90km run into Beijing and the finishing point at the ancient city’s landmark Yongding Gate, with progress aided significantly by police escorts.
Thus ended the adventure inspired by the original 1907 Beijing-Paris rally initiated by the now-defunct Parisian newspaper Le Matin (French for The Morning).
The 2006 edition does have a more practical objective – to demonstrate the economy of diesel engines. With an average consumption of 8.32l/100km for all 36 vehicles over the entire distance, the goal of demonstrating the diesel’s superior fuel efficiency was met on the individual legs as well as over the entire distance.

Although Mercedes probably wouldn’t want to highlight it, the marathon drive is also a confidence booster that demonstrates the company’s recent quality issues have been resolved.
Officially, the total distance travelled was 13,608km but, with cars getting lost, diversions and detours, most cars had clocked up over 14,000km at the finish line on Nov 17.
The fact that the toughest test drivers – ordinary people who don’t own the cars and don’t have to pay for repairs, and journalists – can push the cars over real world roads and tracks, with a punishing schedule, and arrive without any mechanical problems, is convincing testament to the reliability of the new E-Class.

More photos here

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IN Paris 23 days ago, one of the great modern automobile adventures began. In the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, 36 Mercedes-Benz E-320 CDI cars set off on Oct 21 on a 13,600km journey to Beijing, where the fleet will arrive on Nov 17.
Mercedes-Benz intends to use the diesel marathon across two continents to demonstrate the global potential of its technology. It is also a commemoration of the world’s first ever long-distance motor race, the great Beijing (then known as Peking) to Paris run of 1907.
Then, the winner reached his destination in 62 days. With the modern E-Class cars, Mercedes-Benz aims to accomplish this journey in only 26 days.
A total of 360 drivers from 35 countries will each take turns behind the wheel of one of the latest E-Class sedans, which will cover a combined distance of more than 490,000km before arriving in the Chinese capital.

With Mercedes boss Dr Dieter Zetsche.

“The long-distance route from Paris to Beijing is not about speed. Rather, the sporting challenge for the participants is to achieve the
lowest possible consumption on the individual stages and across the overall distance”, said Dr Dieter Zetsche, chairman of the DaimlerChrysler AG board and head of the Mercedes Car Group.
The route of the Paris-Beijing E-Class Experience passes through France, Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Russia and
Kazakhstan, to China.
The event has been particularly challenging not only because of extreme temperatures, ice, snow, dust and mud, but also the short hours of daylight. Tackling the daily stages of up to 750km under unusual traffic conditions, and crossing passes at altitudes of up to 2,900m requires concentration, experience and fitness.
In a reverse re-run of the original long-distance route of 1907, the drivers will cover five stages, each stretching between 1,750km and 3,550km. These include international journalists, VIPs and celebrities as well as participants selected from more than 50,000 Internet applications.
The first stage (Oct 21-27) took participants over approximately 3,400km from Paris to Stuttgart, Berlin and Warsaw as well as the Baltic capitals of Vilnius, Riga and Tallinn to finish in St Petersburg, Russia.
The next batch took over for the second sector (Oct 28-Nov 1; 2,700km) that leads to Yekaterinburg, Russia.
On this stage, one of just two Malaysians invited to take part in this event was automotive website editor and freelance writer Y.S. Khong, 55, better known for being a Malaysian rally champion four times in the 1980s.

“It was very, very cold … days were short and it got dark early, and there was plenty of snow, ice, more snow, more ice, and yet more snow,” Khong recalled from his first experience of the notorious Russian winter.
“The roads were very slippery, and we could see many local cars and trucks that had come to grief in the ditches by the roadside. Even though the Mercedes has an excellent traction control system, the tail will wag if you accelerate too hard.”
The third stage (Nov 3-6; 3,100km) crossed into Kazakhstan and ended at Almaty, the country’s old capital. From Almaty, the fourth stage (Nov 8 to today; 3,100km) takes the convoy into Western China and ends at Lanzhou.
On Nov 17, four days and 1,750km after setting off from Lanzhou and travelling through the valley of the Yellow River, crossing the outer reaches of the Gobi desert and the grass pastures of Inner Mongolia, the drivers are expected to reach the finishing post for this remarkable long-distance drive: the Yongding Gate in the centre of Beijing.

Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world ---

FOR those who know Casablanca only through that great movie of the same name, it is a city synonymous with new beginnings. Here, on Thursday, the adventure ended for the Petronas Trans Sahara 2004 expedition, and the 44 participants felt it was an appropriate place to look back on how it all began.
There is now a special bond among us, the kind that only comes from having survived an extended period of trials and tribulations together, as well as the excitement of shared discovery and exploration.
It has been a bumpy ride, literally and figuratively. The journey has taken the Petronas Adventure Team through six North African countries, plus a brief detour through Spain that entailed two overnight ferry rides for the expedition members and their 18 vehicles. Overland border crossings are always a tedious, time-consuming affair involving plenty of paperwork and patience. But serious differences between Algeria and Morocco mean the border is closed, thus making the trips across the Mediterranean Sea necessary.

A Roman fort in Tunisia.

With only a few rare exceptions, each day had begun early and ended late. In between, there were many hours of driving, more often than not over difficult terrain that took a heavy toll on vehicles and occupants alike. The rewards, however, were opportunities to behold numerous natural wonders that few Malaysians have seen before.
Spirits have remained high for most of our journey although there have been the inevitable moments when normally suppressed tensions broke through and tempers flared; and, of course, there was the melancholy as homesickness crept in towards the last few days of the long trek.
Everyone remained in good health for a surprisingly long time, considering the long days spent in the desert, camping without any water other than what had been carried in bottles and jerry cans.
However, just when everyone thought expedition medic Khairuddin Mohd Ali was having a relaxing holiday, the bugs bit with a vengeance. After nearly a month going through countries with ever-present hygiene concerns without major problems, about 90% of the team were hit by food poisoning, which led to severe diarrhoea and some vomiting, shortly after we disembarked in Alicante, a port in Spain – ironically, the cleanest country we had been to thus far. The prime suspect was the orange juice served during breakfast on the boat from Oran, Algeria.
On the morning after, “How are you?” became a question of concern rather than the usual, mechanical greeting. Another greeting frequently heard throughout the hotel corridors was, “How many times did you do it last night?”
Things were looking better as the sun rose over Nador, the Moroccan port where the team returned to in North Africa. But a dozen or so of the team members still looked ashen and less-than-enthusiastic adventurers.
The drive to the historic city of Fez got off to an inauspicious start when the local handler’s Land Rover suffered a broken timing belt barely two hours into the journey up the famous Atlas Mountains. It could not be repaired immediately and had to be left behind in the nearest town.
The Moroccan landscape turned out to be a dramatic and welcome change from the harsh, arid desert we had been passing through earlier. For a start, there was plenty of green everywhere and the silver glint of sunlight reflecting off the leaves on thousands upon thousands of olive trees got the cameras clicking.
The vegetation gradually changed from sparse shrubs to tall pine and spruce trees as we climbed higher, and the temperature fell to a pleasant average of 23°C.

Underground dwellings called 'troglodytes'.

Expectations were high in Fez, but the team was disappointed, mainly because there was not enough time to enjoy the old-world charms of this ancient town’s medina or bazaar. We were herded from one overpriced shop to another by the handler, Azeez, whom everyone suspected was more interested in his commissions from the vendors than our interests.
At no other time had we felt more like the typical tourist – precisely what the expedition did not wish to have happen. Justice was served when the rogue was dismissed and kicked out of the convoy several days later for running off to sleep in a nearby hotel while everyone had to camp in a rocky, dry riverbed.
Things improved somewhat as we set off higher into the mountains for three days of camping. The rocky ground proved tough going and the temperature fell to below 10°C at night. Freezing feet and toes made getting a good night’s sleep difficult, but there was some joy to be found in a roaring campfire.
The scenery was nothing short of spectacular. Most of the Atlas Mountains comprise sedimentary rocks formed in layers over hundreds of millions years. Geological forces have pushed the layers up this way and that, and countless millennia of weathering have exposed the many layers at all angles and shapes, and in many colours.
Our vehicles had to negotiate frighteningly narrow and bumpy tracks that clung precariously to the sides of steep cliffs. This was mountain goat territory, and there were plenty of these hardy animals around to stare at the unfamiliar sight of 4X4 vehicles crawling through their turf.
Traversing a pass took the convoy to nearly 2,700m above sea level, and into yet another amazing landscape which could be called Morocco’s own Grand Canyon. Deep gorges cut by rivers over millions of years have created a scene that resembles different varieties of layer cake (like the popular kuih lapis) in a bewildering array of colours and shapes.
This was also the area where the convoy encountered the phenomenon of rural Moroccan children, who have learned that visitors passing through meant handouts of food and other treats.
When there were only one or two children by the side of the track, giving them a packet of biscuits or some sweets was a pleasure, if only for the satisfaction of seeing the joy on their faces. However, when there were large numbers, they behaved more like an aggressive mob, chasing after and pounding on our moving vehicles. Some even climbed onto the cars and clung on desperately with one hand while using the other to take items by force. Some flung stones at vehicles whose occupants did not meet their demands.
Earlier, many of the expedition members had been anxious to know the local inhabitants better. But passing through the villages soon became a harrowing experience. It was with relief that we drove out of the mountains and into Marrakech, Morocco’s second biggest city and most popular tourist destination.
What joy! No more camping, no more going days without a bath. PAT members may be tough adventurers who enjoy roughing it out, but there comes a point when enough is enough, and everyone is ready to appreciate the creature comforts and niceties of civilisation again. A day of sightseeing and shopping for souvenirs in the huge, vibrant bazaar at Marrakech’s famed medina got everyone cheerful and upbeat again.
As the convoy rolled closer towards the final destination on the final day, many of the expedition members took turns on the two-way radios to address the group, thanking each other for the good times, for the little gestures of kindness that would be remembered forever, and apologising for any offence they might have caused.
There was emotion in the air, mixed feelings of relief because the end was near and we would be going home to loved ones soon. Yet there was sadness at the thought of the impending parting of ways for a motley bunch of people of all ages and walks of life who, for the past six weeks, had been closer than family.
There is always next year’s expedition to look forward to, and it’s a safe bet that everyone will leap at the chance if asked whether he or she would like to “play it again”.

What doesn’t kill you…

Yet another blast from the past, this one from 2004, BEFORE I went off to the Sahara with the Petronas Adventure Team (which, sadly, no longer exists).
I dedicate this to the memory of the late Halim Abdul Rahman (pic above, with leg up), the inspirational leader of PAT who made it all happen. This was a story I wrote as part of the run-up to the PAT Trans Sahara 2004.

MANY of us dream of adventure. Of travelling to far-off lands and experiencing exotic cultures … and then we wake up to the harsh realities of bills and mortgages and deadlines and commitments.
Then there are the people who actually live those dreams. A nice holiday for these people, known collectively as the Petronas Adventure Team, might be a 20,000km drive over 60 days or so from Istanbul, along the historic Silk Route, and back to Kuala Lumpur. Or, how about a trip through China, Mongolia and Siberia over a month and a half?
Names of places that most Malaysians would know only from National Geographic are memories for them, and photographs of scenes we know only from the magazine’s pages are their holiday snapshots.
Each year since 1999, the intrepid Malaysians members of the Petronas Adventure Team have been setting out to explore remote places in their rugged four-wheel-drive vehicles, brightly painted in the colours of Petronas, their main sponsor.
The programme was the brainchild of Halim Abdul Rahman, who first made headlines as an adventurer when he made the cut for the first Malaysian team to take part in the Camel Trophy in Madagascar, back in 1987. After several years of organising local 4WD events as a business, the adventurer in Halim longed to venture further and wider.
“The world is such a big place, and I wanted to see more of it,” said Halim, adding that, “quite a number of people shared the dream.”
With backing from the national oil company, he and several partners put together an expedition to Tibet. The success of the trip, entailing 15,000km in 41 days over some of the toughest trails in Asia, prompted Petronas to sign on for the long haul and the Petronas Adventure Team was officially launched under the auspices of Petronas Motorsports in June 2000.
Since then, team members have driven through Indochina (2000), along the Silk Route (2001), and through Siberia (2002) and Southern Africa (2003).
Now, final preparations are being made for what could be the toughest challenge to date, the Trans-Sahara 2004 that will flag off from Khartoum, Sudan, on Aug 30, and trek through Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, ending in Casablanca on Oct 7 – if everything goes according to plan.
The team’s members go forth in search of experiences beyond the ordinary and, more often than not, find challenges in the most unexpected places.
Crossing from Myanmar to Tibet, for instance, the entire expedition of 1999 were placed under “house arrest” by suspicious Chinese local authorities, who had never had to deal with so many travellers in foreign-registered vehicles before. Each day, the team members would pack their gear and load up their Land Cruisers, climb aboard and wait for permission to leave. They repeated this routine for five days, and each time, they had to dismount despondently after hours spent sitting in the cramped confines of the heavily laden vehicles. The confusion was eventually sorted out and sets of local licence plates were flown in from Beijing, clearing the way for the adventure to continue.
It takes a special kind of person to be an adventurer, Petronas Adventure Team-style. Physical stamina, mental endurance and patience are essential traits, obviously, as well as a sense of humour (to maintain sanity) during gruelling journeys that often, by choice, take the road less travelled.

It also requires money, lots of it. Even with the generous sponsorship of Petronas and other big firms such as the Malaysian International Shipping Corporation, participants have to come up with over RM20,000 each “for the privilege of suffering,” as one team veteran put it.
That’s in cash (to cover airfares, insurance, hotels and other expenses, excluding pocket money), on top of the considerable expense of buying a suitably rugged 4WD vehicle. Count on spending between RM100,000 and RM140,000 for a Toyota Land Cruiser. The big rig, known affectionately as the “Ninja Turtle” because of its rounded lines, is the team’s vehicle of choice because it is famous for reliability and has the capacity to lug around the copious amount of food and water, clothing, camping gear, spare parts and other miscellaneous equipment needed to sustain the adventurers for up to two months.
This is not to say that other 4WD vehicles can’t cope, but it makes sense for everyone to use similar equipment in order to cut down on the quantity and type of spare parts that need to be brought along. For the coming Trans-Sahara, Ford Malaysia is sending along two Ford Everests and a Ranger.
Then, there’s another RM30,000 to RM50,000 needed to modify the vehicle with protective bumpers and roof racks, winches, extra tanks for fuel and water and assorted paraphernalia, and a heavy-duty suspension system to hold up all that extra weight.
Once a vehicle is suitably kitted out for the rigours of an expedition, it is no longer suitable for use as daily transport because the suspension would be too hard without a load, and it would probably be too tall to enter any basement car park.
But the reward can be enormous: journeys not only to foreign and distant places but also voyages of self-discovery in which they find out how well they hold up under stressful conditions that are so far removed from routine normalcy. Try to imagine, if you can, what it must be like sharing the confined space of a vehicle with two other people, up to 12 hours a day, for 45 to 60 days. And enduring all this while traversing alien landscapes that range from desert to snowy mountains to mud, and coping with vehicle breakdowns or getting stuck in mud or sand, and, basically, facing many more trials and tribulations than most Malaysians endure in a lifetime.
Those who return for more are living proof of the adage “that which does not kill you, makes you stronger”.
When Petronas Adventure Team members say their motto is “no obstacle too difficult, no challenge too arduous”, believe it because they are not mere daydreamers. They do have dreams as well, though. There is always the next long trip to look forward to.

Next up: What type of car can withstand the rigours of a Petronas Adventure Team trek?