Be Part of the Adventure

East or West, North or South, Rich or Poor, a nap is bliss.

This entry written in Beijing.

In the last six months hardly a drop of rain has fallen, yet Beijing is so green and colourful in spring time…it makes me wonder where do these plants get their water from?

This entry written in Beijing.

Last night, a good Beijing friend who’s helped me get license plates for Miss Daisy, took me out for dinner at one of the Beijing “Roman Baths”. These are spas of sorts where tired people go for relaxation - food, massage, sauna, body scrub, showers, thermal baths, and, and, and a life show with singers, dancers, flame throwers, snake eaters, and what have you. All this I’ve seen before. (See http://www.ontheroadinchina.com/downloads/Up-Sale.001.pdf for a previous experience…available in English only,though.) So it felt all as intended…tremendously relaxing. But there was something new - tiny, green and pink, plastic clapping hands. As men and women lie in their massage chairs — their feet and head being worked on by masseurs — the life show proceeds. Now, the establishment does want the audience to clap, but for the spectators, lulled into near sleep by the soothing effects of the massage, raising both hands to clap to express their delight is just too great an effort. What to do? But of course: tiny, green and pink, plastic clapping hands. Shake them with one hand - note, with one hand only - shake them like, what?, in a motion sorta of like knocking on a door, and they clap by themselves. If this doesn’t tell me something about modern-day China city life, I don’t know what possibly could - is life so stressful that even the slightest effort after work - the raising of *both* hands to clap - is too painful to contemplate? That’s both funny and sad.

And watch the clapping hands right here -
production-1.wmv

This entry written in Beijing.

Wherever I take Miss Daisy, it’s always the same…she’s like a magnet…and so far she’s attracted only admirers…lets hope it stays that way…

This entry written in Beijing.

She doesn’t like Beijing traffic. When she goes for a jog on the open highway, she feels fresh and cool. But, heaven forbid, let her get stuck in Beijing traffic at temperatures topping 25c, and she just keeps running her fan. She’s used to miserably cold British weather. How will she cope with the deserts of Gansu in mid-July? I don’t even want to begin to think about it.

This written in Beijing.

Ever since I first had the idea of driving Miss Daisy through China, I have hoped that with her as a companion, I would easily meet people. She is like funky clothes. She makes me look interesting.

And now it is happening. One of you gives me a travel suggestion (我给Peter作导游.) on my blog. I reply with interest, he sends me his mobile number, we talk on the phone, and before we both know it, we have dinner together. Not only that, we have a lot in common - the industry we work in (well, I used to work in): I.T.; our hobbies: photography and driving; our religious believes: we don’t have any - although my new friend admits that when he narrowly escaped a car accident some time ago he came close to believing; our favourite drinks: Yunnan “rice wine” (米酒); and more, some of which his wife won’t let me share.

When I come home that evening, I can’t help but be amazed - how an idea, faintly perceived over two years ago, can turn into reality. All it seems to take is an inspiration and dogged pursuit. But there is also something else that feels real in a new way - the power of modern-day technology to connect people. C’mon, you say, what’s new. I know, I know, people’s lives have crossed in unexpected ways in the past. Of course. But there is something uncanny about the speed with which it can now happen. Hmmm, this makes me wonder, though…is all this modern gadgetry just about more speed? Is it just about instant gratification? What do you think? Anyway, I’ve made a new friend.

This entry written in Beijing.

For 25 years, I have not worked on cars. In fact, I’ve done very, very little manual labour. I’ve only worked with my brain, but not with my hands. (Unless typing on keyboards counts.) In the last six months, I’ve been working on getting Miss Daisy ready for the journey, and I find myself having dirty hands again at the end of the day. Brain - I hope - AND hands. I don’t know why, but it actually feels really good.

This entry written in Beijing.

This weekend, I had to come back to Hong Kong to run some last minute errands. Before closing the door of our apartment this morning, I let me eyes wander slowly over the familiar space and the belongings of our home since I won’t be back for quite some time: this morning I am leaving Hong Kong for Beijing to get ready for my adventure.

My flight is delayed by an hour because of a heavy downpour. At last, we take off from Hong Kong International Airport in a westerly direction. I am fidgety in my window seat. I much prefer the aisle since flying in and out of Hong Kong has become routine. But it is just as well that chance has dealt me a window seat since today is different: I won’t be back for at least four months. I have not looked out over Hong Kong for a very long time. Looking out of the window, a sudden surge of emotions – a mixture of familiarity and nostalgia – surprises me. How beautiful the scraggy, lush emerald hills of Lantau island are. (Darn it, my phone is stored in the over-head locker!) I’ve hiked across most of the peaks I see, exhausting myself during the ascents and bouncing happily into the valleys. Soon after take-off, I see Tai-O, the village that either makes a welcome lunch destination, even though more often than not it smells badly of fish, or a destination at which I contentedly board the No. 1 Lantau bus back to Tong Chung. We climb higher still and the Big Buddha comes into view. I’ve hiked by it many times, but never felt inspired to take a closer look because it is an anthill of tourists. Still, it is a landmark that tells me I am in Hong Kong, and so I let my yes rest upon it. From this distance, no tourists can be seen, only the majestic, solemn statue of the smiling Buddha. A few minutes further on, the flight controllers do me a favour: they program a flight path that makes the airplane turn left. With that, I spot a valley that is my favourite hiking spot in Hong Kong. It sports several bluish-white water falls and two serene pools which have more than once refreshed me on scorching summer days. When drenched with sweat and worn out from a long walk, eating a home-made sandwich while dipping my feet in the green cool of these pools feels like paradise. Right then and there, I always now that Hong Kong still is the Pearl of the Orient.

Suddenly we pierce a thin lawyer of clouds, long-hanging remnants of the morning’s storm, and with that my view of Hong Kong disappears. I will miss it.

This entry written in Beijing.

Do I belong into an asylum for the insane rather than on the road? This is a question I ponder on occasion because I wonder: who in their right mind would spend twenty six months preparing for a journey of just over three months?

It doesn’t help that ever since Miss Daisy hit the ground in Beijing – after having being flown business class into China – she’s been giving me nothing but problems. The catalogue of repairs we had to make is, if not quite endless, far too long: a broken steering wheel column, a damaged timing belt, initially falling short of Beijing’s emissions standards, a failed headlight, a broken turn indicator, faulty ignition coils, a leaking clutch master cylinder, one rear view mirror falling apart, the gear box leaking oil. The list goes on.

I am now just over two weeks from starting the journey and I wonder as well – will I ever get to the end of journey, back to Beijing in the middle of August? Will I even make it to the half-way point, the source of the Yangtze? Could it be I don’t even get from Beijing to Shanghai, the actual starting point? What do you think? Is there a bookie among you to start taking bets?

And so I dread the next thing going wrong. Wouldn’t you? But, in fact, I am wrong to see everything going wrong as a problem. First, this is an adventure, after all….and what kind of an adventure would it be if everything as smoothly as Swiss railways used to? Secondly, all the troubles I’ve seen have been blessings in disguise – in the course of righting all the wrongs I’ve built a support network of probably 30 people ranging across the U.K., Germany, and China. Not only that, the car is in better shape than ever, and I understand it rather well. If all had gone smoothly, I’d start the journey in two weeks’ time with the car about to fail in a million ways and me not having a person to turn to.

And there’s still more. The support I’ve received from so many people has reinforced my own determination to do the journey and write the book.
In all this lies a moral that when I hit road blocks, it is a must to say to myself: “Who knows what it’s good for?��? Because if I just keep going, in the end it will have been worthwhile.
Or am I just a fool?

This entry written in Beijing.

“The only thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve is the fear of failure.” - Paolo Coelho in The Alchemist

This entry written in Beijing.