Our driving itinerary has been rejected by China. Lucky dad was well organised and didn’t leave things to the last week… The government is not very keen for tourists to wander around Western China’s mostly muslim Xinjiang province. Apparently there’s political turmoil that will make it unsafe.

This problem now seems to be solved. We have redrawn our itinerary. We miss out on Kashgar and Western China which is dissapointing, but we will now get to Kazakhstan via Mongolia and Russia. Hardly a second-best option.

Jack

Several people have assumed that the car is like a third character in this story. That it [she?] has a personality. The it [he?] needs a name.

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There just might be a day sometime soon where things do not go wrong. Just as the ‘to do’ list ought be getting shorter, it gets longer. Today I thought it a good opportunity to test the data kit on the satellite phone. It ought allow us to keep this site current even when we’re out of mobile phone range. A disc of software came with it. Easy enough - fire up the laptop, insert disc, follow prompts. Until it says “you are about to change your modem settings - click continue to proceed”. Or cancel. I cancelled.

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I dreamt of us leaving last night. We were getting in the car as dawn broke. Mum was there crying alongside a few blurred faces. Dad and I got into the car and I looked over my shoulder and squinted at everyone waving as we started driving off . I remember looking across at Dad and I woke up as he turned to me with a huge grin and said “Here we go…!”.

This trip has been like a tumour in Dad’s head for years. Benign, but there.

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For those who want to know more about choice and fitting out of our car.

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