China
Erenhot and Xilinhaote
November 23rd- 27th November.
By Dan Murdoch

“China is a big country, inhabited by many Chinese.”
Charles de Gaulle. Thanks Charlie.

CHINA.
China.
The name has been on our lips for so long. Normally spat out with disdain and preceded by a vehement expletive. The stringent conditions attached to taking cars across the country have made it an expensive hassle: $8,000 to cross and fixed entry and exit dates. It had been a worry for months.
But now we’re here.
Walking through the border was the best feeling I’ve had in weeks.
“We’re in China mate. China!” I said to OJ with a huge smile and we shook hands and hugged.
We were the last vehicle to arrive, screeching up as night fell and the border closed. The guards stayed open late to let us in, though customs was closed so the cars spent the night at the border. We walked into town to get a decent Chinese.
I felt like I floated along that walk into town.
I'm trying to put in perspective what we’ve achieved so far:
We’ve crossed blazing deserts like the Karakoum, freezing deserts like the Gobi, industrial cities in Russia and stunning cultural cities in Europe. We’ve done the Turkish summer and the Siberian winter, the icy Pamir Mountains and the dusty Carpathians. We’ve dealt with crooked cops, despotic regimes, withering bureaucracy, enough breakdowns to break a man and all at a gentle 50mph.
It’s taken four months to cross 18,000km.

Now it’s all south. The long Northern Route is over, things get warmer and cheaper, we’re heading in the right direction for the first time in months, and every day we get closer to our goal. Closer to the beach. That pina colada is gonna be awesome.
Just 6,00km to go.
Chinese roads are great. Chinese food is great, and living is cheap, even if getting into the country wasn’t. And once we crack China we’re in South East Asia- pretty much home.
This isn’t the final straight, but it is the last bend on the track, the third leg. We can do it.

But of course it wasn’t going to be that easy. Our new guide, a prerequisite for travelling with your own car in China, sprung on us the news that we wont be heading south. First we have to go 350km east to get Chinese driving licenses, only issued in the provincial capital of Xilinhaote. Extra mileage we hadn’t reckoned on. And he told us it’s going to get colder.
And our timing wasn’t great. We got in on a Thursday, got the cars through customs the following day. But government offices don’t open at weekends, so we will have to wait till Monday to get our new licenses.
All the time the clock is ticking. Our customs papers for the car expire on November 30th. There isn’t a hope in hell we’ll be out by then. But our guide spoke to a customs official and they predicted a few days leniency.
Maybe five of six days leniency. So in theory we can get to the border on the 6th December.
That gives us 12 days to get 4,500km on good roads. It’s feasible, but we probably wouldn’t see anything of China- a double disappointment considering how much we spent getting in here.
Even so, having just crossed the Gobi on dirt tracks, I felt confident these well-paved Chinese roads would float by.

Then the problems began.
Not the extreme but simple to diagnose problems like the sheered clutch, broken gearbox, the snapped suspension, the seized engine, the car on fire.
But the finikety, hard to diagnose problems.
At high revs Dante began to give up and shut down. At low revs Fez would stall. Neither car will start by itself, both need to be push started. Dante is quite easy to push start, a decent shove from a couple of people. But the brakes on Fez are on too tight, so it’s a bastard to get going, and even then it takes a few tries to make it turn over. It’s exhausting work, and sometimes you get Fez started just in time to see Dante stall. It was like spinning plates- just as you get one going another comes crashing down.
An exhausting nightmare. I haven’t done so much pushing since my rugby days.
I lost count of the amount of times I heard OJ shout: “FUCK. I’ve had it with this shit.”
I told him so and he said: “If I could, I would have quite by now. But I don’t have an option.”
That night he kicked out at Dante, breaking a gash in the panelling. The stress is getting to people.
In Fez roles are reversed. The passenger used to sleep while the driver dealt with all the problems, now the driver has to concentrate on keeping the engine running- he needs to be at the accelerator and choke constantly. So the passenger needs to get out and do all the push starting, refilling, repairing. That means no sleep, so 24 hour driving is out of the question.

The terrain is similar to the Gobi- but now it has long, straight, well lit roads running through it. We can cruise nicely at 70 kph. But I found it a little boring after the random adventure of crossing the desert.

We literally pushed the cars the final furlong to Xilinhaote, the provincial capital, arriving late on Monday night (November 26th).
The city has a little of the communist influence we saw in Russia- grand buildings and sweeping public squares. Slab-like construction.
But a lot of it is sexier, better finished with nicer lighting, more subtle textures, cleaner, neater.
They love the neon lights- plenty of public buildings are outlined in them and the lights change colour, shifting red, blue and yellow. Despite how that sounds it didn’t seem garish.
Food and board is cheap and high quality: $10 for a clean double room with ensuite and a TV (only state channels, no BBC). It’s $4 for a slap up meal with a couple of beers.

The next morning we went to the Chinese version of the DVLA so they could do checks on all our cars and then issue Chinese driving licenses.
The fact that we’re towing Fez to a car inspection is not lost on anyone. The engine is completely seized. Tony had a look and decided we need to replace the entire engine. The theory is that a trained Trabant mechanic can change the engine in 20 minutes. That means we’ll probably get it done in a few days.

The car park is full of people, and suddenly we’re back at the zoo, the latest prime exhibits wheeled out for the punters.
Welcome to the Trabbi Road Show- Come And Stare.
The locals are swarming. They have no shame- happy to stick heads into cabins and have a good look around.
I get my computer out to write this, and the swarm migrates from the open bonnet, where stumpy China men watch Tony and spit, to the driver’s window so they can stare over my shoulder.
I look to my left now and there is a sea of faces- more people than have been to some of my gigs (www.myspace.com/goldroom J).
I am 99% sure none of them can read English, so I don’t know what they’re looking at.
I throw them a dummy, putting my computer away and watching the crowd disperse then reform at the engine. A few seconds later I get the laptop out and they return, the onlookers. They’re like zombies, no motion flickers across their faces, few words are exchanged, they just stare.
They have definitely seen a computer before- they’re all over the place. Have they seen a Mac? Maybe not. But still, I'm word processing- hardly a riveting display of the power of the Macintosh.
A couple of guys are actually sticking their heads through the window into the cab. It’s amazing. I can’t believe it.

Two days ago, at a two bit town on route to Xilinhaote a guy walked into my room at the guesthouse. He just smiled at me and nodded.
“Hi,” I said.
Then he just walked around looking at our stuff. We had computers, cameras, tapes, hard drives, phones- loads of stuff. It felt like he was scoping it out, made me really uncomfortable. I was in my pants, which also made me a little uncomfortable, so I put my trousers back on.
He pushed open a plastic bag and peered inside at all our tapes. The clincher was him bending down as I put my trousers on. He reached out and started stroking one of my socks. He looked up at me and said something which sounded like approval and smile.
“Good, good, so you like my socks. Great.”
Very strange behaviour.
I put all the valuables in the other room and locked up before going to see the others.

Back here, in the carpark of the car licensing authority in Xilinhaote, the heads in my window have turned and they’re just staring right at me. Their faces are about a foot away and they seem happy checking me out.
If I weren’t so used to it I’d get pissed off. I can’t help but snigger. Carlos just caught wind of it and burst out laughing.
Back at the zoo.
Someone tries to open the passenger door- he tugs on it a few times. He doesn’t realise its broken, he was genuinely going to just open it up while I'm sitting in here. I look at him and he just stares straight back, looking a little desperate, like he’s trying to get to the front of the line at an Ikea sale.
The braver folk, or the jokers, take it turns to come up to my window and shout their best ‘hello’ through it. Then they either retreat laughing, or realise there is no follow up.
I hand a flier out of the window and it is devoured by the pack, who swarm around it like piranhas to a carcass.
There is a ring of men and women around the car with their phones up taking pictures. I suspect this is as close as I will get to being a popstar.
Finally they start to ebb away, and the band disperses. A crowd attracts a crowd, and there’s now just a much more manageable couple of people.


Our guide approaches us.
“There is a problem,” he says, “We have driven here without the proper licenses. We should have got the papers at the border. Now we must pay a fine. 1,000 Yuan per car.”
We’ve paid our tour company a lot to get us though the country, and this is their fuck up, so no one is too bothered by $135 per car. Lovey: “We’ll just knock $405 off the money we pay Wayne (our agent).”
But we go to meet ‘the leader’ and argue the case anyway. He is understanding and agrees to wave the fee.
I'm really getting to like this country.
I got a lift back from the Chinese police. Hopefully that’ll be my only trip in a Chinese police car. I’ve now been in police cars in Azerbaijan (luxurious), Georgia (budget), Kyrgyzstan (a disgrace, I had to pay for the gas), China (average) and good old blighty (very friendly).

The delay means our cars wont get processed today (Tuesday November 27th), and will have to sit at the office as they are still not road legal. So we cannot change out the engine tonight.
Driving at night is a dodgy option- it gets so cold that Dante doesn’t run properly. So we can change the engine after finishing processing tomorrow. That means we are probably here for another day.
Getting out of China by the sixth seems less and less likely.

Ends
mrdanmurdoch@gmail.com