Leg 4 - Back in Hanoi

It's been too long since we last updated this. Today is Sunday. As below, we had hoped to be across the Lao border and into Thailand on our way to Singapore by now. However, we're back in Hanoi, since pretty much everything which could have gone wrong, went wrong.

We've also had some news which we've been sat on until Leg 3 were back in the UK. With them back in the middle of last week, we can tell a little bit more about what has been going on..

Firstly then - the news. As some people reading this will already know, Leg 3 rolled one of the Defenders in a fairly serious accident while they were in China. Nobody was hurt, although the car was damaged beyond repair in country. You can read more about the accident itself in the piece which Mel wrote for the Prometheus medical blog. As I say, thankfully nobody was hurt in the accident, but it has caused Leg 4 big, big problems in terms of being able to get the cars out of China and in to Vietnam.

The plan had been to pick up the cars from Leg 3 in Hanoi, and drive south through Vietnam, into Cambodia and out into Thailand. Elections in Cambodia had put the brakes on that route, since the dealer out there strongly advised us against going, so we had diverted the route to Laos anyway, but now we had to head for the Chinese border to pick the cars up, and try and sort out their entry into Vietnam. Cue a 14 hour(!), 300km minibus ride to a place called Lao Cai, although about 30 minutes of that was us trying to push the minibus out of a ditch at 3 o'Clock in the morning, as the driver had gone to sleep at the wheel (again though, nobody hurt, just very annoyed).

Initially, after Leg 3 completed the paperwork and police report in China, they continued for the border. We (Leg 4) discovered that without the 5 cars, it was unlikely that the other 4 cars would be allowed to exit the country (5 cars came in, 5 cars have to leave). We got the dealer to low loader the damaged car onwards towards the border - although behind the rest of Leg 3. When Leg 3 got to the border last weekend, it did look initially like the Chinese border guards might let the 4 cars exit on their own, but in the end they wouldn't, so Leg 3 came over on their own, and Ian and Rachel (who are Chinese residents) went back across to prep the cars and deal with the paperwork.

So we spent from last Saturday until Friday in Lao Cai, trying everything we could to get the cars across the border. Eventually on Friday night, we managed to get the cars into Vietnam (by then, the 5th car had turned up, 4 days later than the others, and the Chinese Customs wanted rid across the border). Of course, the damaged car caused us further problems, as it's also illegal to bring scrap into Vietnam (which is effectively what the damaged defender is - it had to be towed across the border). We've learned a couple of interesting things along the way..

• Up until last Friday, no Europeans had *ever* got any vehicles across the border at Lao Cai
• Vietnam doesn't recognise Carnets, or IDPs - since non-residents cannot drive on Vietnamese roads anyway
• Vietnamese 'omelette' is just fried eggs
• Malcolm has tried Chicken head(s)
• Mark can talk to Cats
• Steve *really* likes his Eggs.. possibly a little too much..

While we've been stuck in Lao Cai, some of the guys went to Sa Pa to see the local tourist items, which I'll update separately (I spent the day ill in bed and didn't go), and we played an unhealthy amount of knockout Wist(?).

Friday night came then, and we drove the cars 50m from no-mans land, and into Vietnam. We were told however that there is just no way we can drive them on Vietnamese soil, so the cars had to be loaded up onto transporters for the journey to the Laos border. Most of the team went on ahead to the Laos border at Dien Bien Phu, while Ian and Malcolm helped load the cars up. No sooner had the advanced party arrived at the border, that we discovered that the border crossing was closed, due to the road being washed away, and no longer where it should be. We had some breakfast, and talked about what to do next.

At this point, Pete and Charlie decided that they would rather actually enjoy some of the time they have left away, rather than spend it sitting around at a different border crossing. They left the rest of the team yesterday in Dien Bien Phu, and were last heard from late last night as they landed in Bangkok - Good luck guys, we'll miss you!

Ian, Malcolm and the cars had diverted for the next open border, which is about 1000km south, and drove from Lao Cai with the vehicles back to Hanoi to meet the rest of the team coming back in from Dien Bien Phu - which I think was the most frightening minibus trip which any of us have been on at all, ever. If you ever have the chance to drive the route from Dien Bien Phu back to Hanoi, i'd take it, because the scenery is just breathtaking. If you ever have the chance to be driven down the route (by say, some kind of nutter minibus driver), turn it down and fly out instead. In quite a lot of places in Vietnam, there is no road. Just a muddy track while they (re)build the road. That in itself wouldn't be so bad.. except the altimeter on my watch is saying 1400m above sea level, and I believe it, because we're about 2 foot away from a 1000 of those 1400m, straight down, while sliding around on the aforementioned muddy track, anyway, I digress..

So.. if I lost you back up there somewhere, in summary, we've spent most of the time so far in Lao Cai, not doing anything, other than waiting for damaged cars and customs to sort out paperwork. The cars are on trucks, heading south through Vietnam on their way to the Laos border, where we will catch them up tomorrow. It's very, very unlikely that the rest of the team will make it back to Singapore, just because we are so short on time, but those people who can spend the time will do their absolute best to get there.

We'll also be doing a lot of driving between the Laos border and Bangkok, so we might not get chance to update this until we run out of time - wish us luck!

Finally, a quick piece of video as the broken Defender gets loaded into a truck, for it's long trip home. See you soon!