Peking to Paris Read online

  Bernard eases Roxanne onto the soft shoulder so I can take a picture. While still trying to organize myself, the wind pulls a power move, nearly yanking the car door out of my hand. It takes my full body against the door to shut it. I scuttle around at crab level to photograph a supine velociraptor and then duck-waddle back to Roxanne. Any wind that can body slam a dinosaur on its side deserves, and gets, my respect.

  The closer we get to the border, the less Chinese the people look. To me, they look Mongolian, with ruddy cheeks and broad faces. Which of course, they are. So it’s fitting that on this, our last night in China, we sleep in a tourist yurt camp, where I learn that the local name for a yurt is ger. China’s a big country with the world’s largest population. This particular ger camp can sleep a modest 3,500 holiday revelers. It’s as if all of Chicago booked into the same motel. At first I’m baffled by what would draw so many to this place. Why come out to the windy grasslands to sleep on lumpy mattresses on the ground and to plow against gale force winds to reach a shower hut where you bathe with cold water in buckets? Clearly, Chinese holiday revelers enjoy playing rustic Mongolian herders, because the camp hosts tell us that during high season, the place is full. Then it strikes me this isn’t all that different from home, where playing at being a rustic cowboy has created a whole branch of the vacation industry. It’s not just in movies that Americans go to dude ranches to sleep under scratchy blankets, get saddle sores, sneeze from horse allergies, and eat too many beans for a week. Chinese and Americans have more in common than I thought.

  To the envy of many of the other crews, we’re assigned one of the “modern” gers, with a bed and a private bathroom. I’m shown a real ger by Ralph, who’s assigned to one for the night. It’s a one-room round felt tent, with bed rolls on a dirt floor, a wood burning stove, and showers in a shared bath house. “Would you perhaps like to trade?” he ventures. “Go for the authentic experience?

  “Thank you. Absolutely not,” is my unhesitating reply, before I discover that our concrete yurt facsimile, for all its sturdy walls and tiled floor, has no heating at all.

  In the parking lot before dinner we see our new friends Eduardo and Franklin. They stand next to their car, hands on hips, heads bowed in glum silence. The two are an odd-couple of a team, Eduardo a flamboyant irrepressible Argentine and Franklin his fastidious, playfully grumpy, American counterpart. Now Franklin’s ruing his decision to leave the car arrangements to Eduardo, because the rusty old 1937 Ford that Eduardo procured is in terrible shape. No doubt at time of purchase Eduardo was distracted from the corroded underbody and the decaying engine by the car’s newly reupholstered butter yellow leather seats and ivory soft top. It’s dashingly elegant unless you look close. What they tell us is that, earlier that afternoon, desperate to stem the tidal wave of oil leaking from their car, they had high hopes of making a repair in the back alleys of the dingy towns through which we’ve just driven. Somehow they persuaded a road guard that they needed help. Once he let them pass, an eager flock of pedestrians and pushcart peddlers escorted them to a backstreet repair stall.

  Franklin recounts how the mechanic spent hours deconstructing the Ford, welding bits and pieces here and there. Miracle of miracles, he somehow fixes it, and they go on their way splattering only droplets in their wake. The fix lasts for one hour, just long enough for them to reach the evening’s hotel. There, as if on cue, five quarts of oil scrounged from neighboring mechanic stalls splash unceremoniously onto the parking lot. As they tell us this, Franklin gives me a glum smile.

  “It’d cheer me up greatly if you two would join us for dinner,” he says. I’m beginning to realize that making dinner plans is part of the Rally ritual. The navigators want a chance to find out whether turning left at that railroad crossing after the third roundabout next to the small gas station was a personal error or a route book mistake. We also want the chance to say words other than “right” or “straight on,” not to mention simply speaking to someone other than the person we’ve been in a car with for hours. The drivers need to delve into mechanical problems with others who might be able to help, to share accumulated wisdom or, if nothing else, commiserate. Everyone wants to sit with someone else and get the benefit of their expertise and their sense of humor.

  Even though the organizers have ordered dinner for us each night, the thing to do seems to be to arrange ahead of time with whom you’ll be sitting. It’s another throwback to my teen years, this time to the Saturday night dating game, and as such it’s a distressing reminder of something at which I failed miserably. My keen pleasure at Franklin’s invitation is sad proof that I haven’t matured as much as I’d hoped since high school.

  I’m flattered that Franklin wants to dine with us. “We’d love to,” I tell him. “Maybe Bernard can come up with some ideas about your oil leak.”

  “No, no!” Eduardo interjects. “Too depressing. We will drink wine and talk about women!”

  That night Bernard and I discover that the legacy of a people accustomed to sleeping on mats on the floor is a mattress that is more a concrete slab wrapped in a bedsheet. I’m a side sleeper and soon my hip bones are burning from jutting into that unyielding pallet. I flail and flop around, trying to get comfortable. The temperature drops precipitously. Our only cover is a thin white sheet, which Bernard tugs to his side and I to mine, as we each try to enclose a small space warm enough to sleep. At 2 AM Bernard mumbles, “We have sleeping bags in the car.”

  “It’s good to know they’re safe,” is all I can offer, too tired from the day and too cold to go out to the car to get them.

  “These Chinese really are tough. Or crazy. Because being this cold is ridiculous.”

  “Are you sure there are no blankets in this?”

  “Positive. I checked before we went to dinner.” Bernard hugs me to him, and some time before dawn, we both doze off.

  The next morning, as I pull open drawers to make sure we’ve repacked everything, I discover two lovely fluffy blankets safely folded in the bedside dresser. My mental scorecard lights up again.

  Borders: Take One

  ERENHOT (BORDER)-

  SAYNSHAND (MONGOLIA)

  The official start of the P2P’s first day in Mongolia is delayed. Blearyeyed from our shivering sleepless night, we couldn’t be more thankful for the nit-picking of Chinese officialdom. There are three hundred people and their associated classic cars to clear through the Erenhot border, and these guys are taking their sweet time. They’ve never been asked to handle so many cars at once, let alone foreign makes they’ve never heard of, like Sunbeam, Itala, Brassier, La France, Alvis. All the drivers are ordered to stay with their cars while navigators crowd into the large immigration hall, car documents in hand. Ever so slowly, three small, officious men in oversized military peak caps scrutinize papers. They look very smart in their white shirts, creased khaki pants cinched overly tight at their slender waists. They squint at passports stamped with car authorizations, trot between their respective booths to get a second opinion, occasionally make eye contact to check that the person before them matches the image on the passport.

  I edge along, muttering pardon me’s and sorry’s till I find a place next to Sybil. “God am I glad to see you,” I tell her. “I hate these crowds, this shuffling along.”

  “I do, too,” she laughs, another thing we find we have in common. Since our introduction that night back in Beijing, we seek each other out most evenings to trade stories, opinions on the day’s events, and whatever gossip we’ve managed to pick up about other competitors, which isn’t much. As the queue inches forward, I tell her tidbits of my New York childhood, and we trade our hopes and worries about Mongolia. Already, in three short days, her olive skin is attractively tanned from open-air driving.

  She tells me about other rallies she’s done with Nick, and I reveal my worries about this one. Now that the easy stuff in China is over, I can feel my shoulder muscles contracting like rawhide on a rain-drenched saddle. We’re about to leave the co
mfort of easily identifiable landmarks like buildings, monuments, paved roads, and streets signs. All those whitegloved hands pointing directions will be staying behind, too. According to the route book, for the next eight days we’ll be using GPS waypoints, a set of numbers created by satellites, to find our way. Landmarks will be few and undistinguished, an occasional telegraph pole or a railroad track the only manmade objects to help us identify whether we’re going the right way. Wood poles and iron bars aren’t the most distinctive of features, especially when there are miles of them. All I can think is how in the world to differentiate the right pole or track from the wrong one, while trying to find my way through a wasteland of desert. That’s not all. We’ll be doing time trials in the Gobi, and while I understand the concept of them clearly by now, I still feel wet behind the ears as a navigator, not at all sure I want to test my skills and nascent confidence against the clock.

  When the hubbub in the waiting line gets too loud, officials shout at us to be quiet. At least we infer so from their harsh tone of voice and the frowns on their faces. When it comes to not speaking Mandarin, it turns out I’ve been in good company. The room grows still, but only briefly, and then the chatter and laughter build again, like an orchestra tuning for an overture. Normally I’m so impatient that if there’s even one person ahead of me in line I dissolve into twitches. Impatience could be called one of my chief features. Or more accurately, my greatest flaw. My reaction to knowing that the people in front of me will move to the next thing before I will is physical, a combination of jaw clenching, muscle tensing, and shallow breathing. My brain becomes undisciplined, unwilling to focus on a conversation, conniving instead on how I can right this unfairness by sneaking to the front. Would that I could say I do these things unconsciously, but I don’t. My intolerance shames me. With Sybil’s company, and no route book demanding attention, for the first time in my life I feel relaxed in a crowd. This is such a novel experience that I smile at the ceiling, marveling at what it feels like to be too happy while waiting in line. These couple of hours of companionable banter are more welcome to me than a hot shower at the end of a long day’s drive. Almost.

  Once clear of customs and reunited with Bernard, we drive across a strip of no man’s land and enter Zayman Uud, the Mongolian side of the border. This is a hallelujah moment, something I’ve been waiting for since we hosted those Mongolian scientists at our home the year before. I remember clearly how their delight matched mine when we realized how similar our home landscapes were. I look around, hoping for something familiar in the scenery. The best I can do is liken these surroundings to Sand Dunes National Park in southern Colorado. Even that is a stretch, as the terrain is hardscrabble and grave with no lovely rounded, fine dunes rising anywhere. The ground is parched, having received just that bit of moisture that tempts green things to grow into scraggly blades that wilt in a few days. For no reason at all, I held a hope that the landscape on the Mongolian side of the border would be different from what we’d just driven through in China. I wanted this to be true because already I longed for a landscape in which I could feel at home, a landscape that would welcome me, that would give me that same feeling of comfort that I get when I enter someone’s home and smell coffee and chocolate and cinnamon. I brush aside my disappointment, focusing instead of how good it feels to be reunited with Bernard. There are thousands of Mongolian miles ahead of me, and there’s no reason not to be confident that up ahead I’ll see countryside that reminds me of home.

  For the time being we bide our time in a sandy depression, a holding area where all teams have to wait until everyone has finished with the border formalities. Each Rally crew handles the mounting tension differently. I offer a “Bon appétit,” to the cheery blonde Finns, who have flipped open the table and storage cupboard cleverly built into the side of their butter yellow Packard Coupe. As I walk by, I see they’re snacking on tinned fish and sipping coffee. “Good luck,” they reply, raising their plastic mugs. The lithe raven-haired driver of a black Citroen arranges his lanky, T-shirted frame on the balloon fender of his car, crosses his arms, and takes a nap. I hang out, waiting for him to fully relax and then roll off. Yes, I’m that desperate for amusement. A few diehards work on their cars, reaching into toolboxes the size of a child’s lunchbox, roomy enough to hold two wrenches, a few screwdrivers, and a modest assortment of spare nuts and clips and still have room, if pressed, for a PB&J sandwich. Either they’re woefully underprepared, or we could make a killing selling some of the hundred pounds of tools, spares, and every size of nut or bolt we packed, for that special moment of need.

  Bernard and I are neither tired nor hungry nor inclined to inspect Roxanne’s engine parts one more time. All that’s left for us to do is pace. For once Bernard joins me in worrying. Through China we’ve been on paved road, a kindness on the organizer’s part that allowed everyone to test their car and make sure everything was working, or tight, or dust proof. Except for the unfortunate incident of the fan falling off, Roxanne has held up superbly, and after Bernard’s extemporaneous removal of her side panels, she’s stayed calm, cool, and collected.

  Mongolia’s dirt tracks promise a whole new story. Given that her fan was jostled loose on a smooth road, all manner of things could fall apart once we get onto truly rough track. I picture the steadfast, hardworking Roxanne with her doors, fenders, and hood flying off left and right, leaving Bernard and me exposed in our seats, riding along on the bare chassis. I have other worries now, too. As we’re moving into wilder territory, open country with no villages to provide civilized landmarks like streets and bridges, I realize that my earlier navigational anxiety was mere self-indulgence. In a city there’s always someone you can ask for directions, even if your question is conveyed in sign language. If you’re completely lost, you can even pay a taxi to guide you. Who’s going to be around to help if I get us lost in a featureless expanse of sand?

  After several hours, all the cars have arrived. We notice some drivers revving their engines. Car 1, a 1907 Itala, splutters and burps to the start table. This titan of an ancient car is my standard bearer. It has an engine bigger than a Formula 1 Ferrari except that, at its maximum of 45hp, it puts out about as much power as a snowblower. It’s a carapace on wheels, fenders and running boards bristling with chains, levers, and other mechanical bits that newer cars hide beneath the hood or under the body. It is so heavy and complex to drive I have to believe that, if they can do it in that car, we can handle Roxanne. The driver and his wife, a quiet pair, have dressed the part. Each wears a skull-fitting leather helmet, goggles, kneehigh lace-up leather boots, a long duster for chilly mornings, and a scarf wrapped around their necks, ready to pull over their noses if the dust gets bad. They’re signed off, and, with a faster series of pops and bangs, they head toward the desert. From there, the starter’s white flag drops once a minute, releasing one car after another into the wilds beyond.

  The eighty-four minutes we have to wait feel like an endless age as we’re each gnawed at by the sharp teeth of uncertainty. So deep are we in our respective reveries that we’re startled to see Car 70 at the starting desk. “Quick Bernard, we have to get in line,” I shout. We jump from daydream to action, racing through a last-minute check to make sure nothing’s left behind. I slide into the car, grab my time card, click the 4-point harness closed. “Do you have the route book ready?” Bernard yells, his voice rising with the strain and excitement of the moment.

  “Of course I do. I’m the navigator. No worries,” I lie.

  Bernard turns on the ignition. Kathunk. He tries again. A third time. Roxanne won’t start. For a moment I think she’s refusing to go into the Gobi. But no. Roxanne wouldn’t do that to us now. Something’s surely wrong, but there’s no time to find out. We have to take our place in line or lose it. That means we’d be relegated to the end of the line, starting only after every other car had left. That wouldn’t be the end of the world, but with the many penalty minutes we’d be assessed, it’d probably be the end of Be
rnard’s quest for Gold. Adrenalin sending sparks through my body, I jump out and lay a shoulder into a fender alongside Bernard, feet searching for purchase in the light sand as we struggle to get Roxanne up the incline to the starter’s table. Other crews whose departure comes much later lend muscle to push us up the slope. Roxanne weighs as much as a small Panzer tank, and I put every ounce of effort I have into moving her, fueled by desperation and the knowledge that the calories I burn would be the equivalent of one full Nautilus circuit at the gym. There’s the thought as well that it would be rather disturbing for all the people at home who have told me they’ll be reading the daily Rally reports to wake up and see “Rally crew squashed when car rolls over them.”

  “Our engine’s quit!” I shout to the marshals. “What do we do?” I am one unhappy navigator. Here I’d just begun to feel confident about the time control procedures and now I don’t even have a car for them to time.

  “Just roll ’er on through,” is the nonchalant reply. “As long as she crosses the line, you’ll be noted as taking your start on time.” This seems a bit lackadaisical to me. Here I thought the Rally was about cars moving, not cars being moved. Never mind old assumptions. It’s their rules, not mine, and right now I’m glad the rules bend in my favor.