The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
Xilinhaote, China
November 27th-30th, 2007
By Dan Murdoch

TODAY we were meant to leave China.
But seeing as we are in a manic rush to get out of the country, we have travelled just 350km sideways in a week. We are still 4,500km from the border with Laos, a journey it would take a decent car a good few days to cross, but in Trabants….
As a marker, it took us nine days to drive 3,600km through Siberia with one major breakdown. So potentially we’re out of here by the December 10th? 11th? 12th?
I hope Chinese customs is understanding.

Fez is broken. On Wednesday the engine completely seized. Tony took a look and decided we had to change the whole thing out.
It’s not a big job- the engine is only 600cc, a two stroke that you would be more likely to find on a motorbike, it weighs about 40kg. Our guide (more on him later) found a kind man who let us use the back of his workshop for free.
We were told a trained Trabbi mechanic could change an engine in 20 minutes. It took Lovey and TP two hours, a job well done.
We set of for Beijing yesterday with high hopes of reaching the city. Fez started first time using a key. A big moment.
But after getting a fitful 40km in two hours, it was clear something was wrong. We towed all the way back to the workshop in Xilinhaote, where Tony announced that the new engine was broken and we don’t have the spare part.
What happened?
Well, it wasn’t a new engine, there’s no such thing as a new Trabant engine, it was second hand, like all our other spare parts. Maybe there is something seriously wrong with Fez and the little car tore up the new engine.
But there is also a chance that we have carted a broken motor 18,000km across the globe. Through mountains, deserts, swamps and cities we’ve lugged a 40kg dead weight.
This level of ineptitude is well within our collective capability.

So today Fez is being loaded onto a truck bound for Beijing. We hope to collect it tomorrow. From there we will either try and fix the thing, if we can find the parts, or ship it on towards the border and try and have some parts sent out from Hungary. Then we can get out of the country and do repairs in Laos, which doesn’t have such strict rules on foreign cars.

So, for now, we are down from the original four cars, to just two.
This reduces the number of people we can carry- we were toying with the idea of someone having to take public transport through China. But instead we’ve decided to throw all our belongings into Fez so they can be shipped, and the six of us (five trekkers plus our guide) will squeeze into the cars with the bare minimum of stuff.

About Edmund
Watching the slow mental collapse of our guide has been fascinating.
The poor chap, who claims to be called Edmund, although that doesn’t sound especially Chinese, is having his sanity attacked on three fronts. The horrendous car issues are taxing his patience, the looming and impossible exit date is the iceberg on his horizon, and his boss is giving him constant grief because we have yet to stump up the $6,500 we owe for his services (it’s the bank’s fault).
All of this is out of our hands, and we’re dealing with it pretty well (except OJ, whose outbursts of aggression have been getting worse: rock throwing, screaming, kicking out at the cars. He’s a teddy bear really).
But after four months of what OJ politely terms ‘this shit’, we’re used to it. It’s not the same for Eddie.
Old Edmund- 35, married, missing his kid- is a lovely man, who has been an invaluable guide and huge asset: patient and understanding.
But I can see him starting to crumble. The stress is showing although he remains patient and polite.
In the last few days he has taken to regularly consulting the Bible- a faded old St James version he carries around.
Searching for wisdom I imagine- but today I watched him reading from the back. The last bit of the Bible is the Book of Revelation, the fire and brimstone stuff: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Armageddon, the anti-Christ, 666.
I know we’re bad, but I don’t think the end of the world is in sight.

But maybe we are the Four Horsemen? Gunther, Fez, Ziggy, and Dante: Death, War, Famine and Pestilence.
Fez has waged a war against its engine. In Ziggy, OJ has eaten enough to cause minor famines across the globe. When Tony takes his shoes off Dante becomes horribly pestilent. And Gunther is dead.

For Fez at least, it feels like the final reckoning may be looming.

ADDED 21:00: We didn't make it. Try again tomorrow.

Ends
mrdanmurdoch@gmail.com
For more of Dan’s blogs visit: danmurdoch.blogspot.com or www.trabanttrek.org