Tuk-Tuk to the Road. Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent
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Off: 28 May 2006, Bangkok,Thailand
Touch Down: 3 September 2006, Brighton, England
Average daily distance: 150 miles
Cruising speed: 60 mph
Full throttle: 70 mph
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 20 May 2006, 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, Ting Tong. 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 among the city’s bronchitic mêlée of traffic, we will wend our way north towards Laos, about 645 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 nearly three miles away. Today it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, 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.
About 200 miles from here we’ll cross the Friendship Bridge into Laos. With one country down, it’s a mere 11 850 miles to Blighty.
Random country facts: Laos has only about 50 written laws. Laos is the most bombed country in the history of modern warfare. DJs 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. We should 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 andYao hill peoples. The scenery here is said to be spectacular—limestone caves, waterfalls and dense jungle.
Another 150 miles up Route 13 and 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 up 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 Udomxai, one of the biggest settlements in northern Laos, before tukking the last 80 miles through the Luang Nam Tha 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.
Random country facts: ice-cream was invented in China around 2000 bc. China is the fourth largest country in the world.
On 10 June we’ll tuk into China. Due to Chinese laws regarding foreign drivers, we will be accompanied for the next 4375 miles by a Chinese government guide. Considering our Chinese language skills end at ‘nee hao’, this is probably a very good thing.
Our itinerary while we are in China is all prearranged by the China Sea International Travel Service (CSITS) in Beijing. The next 28 days will be spent travelling north via Kunming, Leshan, Chengdu and Lanzhou, 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 remote tribal villages.
At Lanzhou 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 myth and legend as Siberia for Stalinist Russia. Tukking due west, our route then takes us through Xinjiang, China’s remotest province, home of the Uighur 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 7 July.
Random country facts: Kazakhstan sells 400 000 barrels of oil a day. Kokpar, goat polo, is a popular sport here. The word ‘Kazakh’ means ‘free’ or ‘adventurer’.
The name ‘Kazakhstan’ instantly conjures images of endless steppes, exotic bazaars, nomadic ger villages…and Borat. At the beginning of July our three-wheeled posse 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 kumys (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 truck. 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 United Nations report, is sadly echoing the demise of the Aral Sea. Next it’s Karaghanda, famous for coal and gulags, and then Astana, its glass skyscrapers rising incongruously out of the treeless steppes.
In Astana we will have to make a decision: either go due north to Russia via Petropavlosk, or tuk north west via Kostanai. Apparently the roads aren’t great on either route so we’re hoping some good local knowledge will be able to point us in the right direction. Then it’s goodbye Kazakhstan and zdrastvuyte Russia.
Random country facts: around six 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 World 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 the world’s largest regions of continuous