CAITA Day 13 GRAND FINALE

Day 13, 26th Oct. The Grand Finale at Nanning

The last sector drive became an fuel economy test for us....

The drive to Nanning at 9am started with the same order as we arrived previously. We reported that we were down on fuel as we had a quarter tank left and estimated that we might do 150km before the next refueling stop. The convoy set off was cruising at 130 to 140km/h. At this speed, our fuel range would not make it to the refuel point. I tried to keep to a slower pace of 110kmh but was holding back the Police escort behind us, and the traffic was building up behind them! So a little drama has begun – we radioed to our group leader to inform them that we may have a run dry situation, and that we will try to slip-stream their Land Cruiser in order to maintain the convoy speed and yet get better fuel economy. They felt that it would not work but did not mind us tailgating. For safety reasons, we requested them to inform us when they are slowing down as we could not see ahead. With that, we tail-gated them so closely that we could not see their rear bumper. It worked! We could feel the reduction of wind resistance as we managed to cruise at 130kmh with a light feathering throttle. We drove in this manner for at least 40km, before reaching the refuel point without stalling.

The road into Nanning City was fully decorated and adorned with buntings stringers across the road lampposts. The middle island divider had flags of ASEAN nations. We felt welcomed even though we knew they are for the Leaders of the ASEAN Summit meeting from Nov 1st.
Nanning is a modern clean city with lots of new developments and wide streets. The size is similar to KL with population of 3 million.

At the Grand Lunch, we met with the Malaysian and Laos delegates, who flew in to join the Award Ceremony.
The rehearsal took place in an open park reserved for the Ceremony, within the City, after which, we check in at our hotel. Early dinner was served at 530pm as we had to return to the park by 730pm

The Award Ceremony
At the park, we had a really big surprise. The place was filled with people welcoming us. At the entrance, flag waving girls in colourful costumes, chanting “Welcome Welcome” “China Petroleum” More groups featuring dancers and local tribal musicians welcomed us, we were led by dancers to do the ‘bamboo dance’.
What a sight! We had to sign on a huge welcome banner. After we were seated, the VVIPs arrived. The Governor of QuanXi, the Mayor of Nanning, the Head of FASC (Fed of Automobile Sports of China), the Commissioner of Nanning Police, and the Sponsors etc.
On stage, we had the 100 strong Nanning Orchestra providing us their classical numbers
National and local TV plus the media covered the Event.
I exchanged T shirts with our convoy leader. I had a T shirt signed by our group members which I intend to have it framed.
Speeches and more speeches. The Award Ceremony started. We were awarded Best Team and given a plaque. The Grand Finale was the uncorking of sparkling wine Champaign and spraying on each other. Harold had some difficulties opening his bottle and was drenched was a result. The final dance was a dance ringed which everyone holding hands, danced round a bonfire. What a night!

We returned to the hotel and treated to a hot spa experience some 20km outside the city by Gouk Xiaohong, the Nanning Deputy Traffic Police Commisioner, who was in charge of safety and security in our group. We wre informed the Spa was recently opened, as a result, the road link to it was not ready. We had to drive over broken roads which reminded us of Cambodia.
The Spa covered a huge area with a car park for at least 200 cars. Inside, we were given swimming trunks. There were theme pools – flora scented pools, pools of different temperatures, pools of featuring different countries, Jacuzzi pools and last but not least, a shallow pool featuring skin nibbling fishes from Turkey – quite ticklish and unusual to see scores of fish, nibbling your feet. I just could stand the ticklish feeling. Quite fun

Next day, we had to drive the 2 cars, 180km to the BeiHai port to stuff them in a 40 foot container for shipment to SIN. There after, we flew to HongKong and Macau to some R&R before returning home

This is our last report on the event. We will post the pix as soon as we can Jpeg them to smaller pixel files and upload on these pages

THANK YOU

Thank you for reading, your kind wishes and encouragement, and following our blog report. It was really comforting to see your comments as it so rewarding to know someone is reading them and following our progress.

We would like to especially thank our sponsors: AA Singapore, Aztech System Ltd, KoMoCo Motors Pte Ltd, Singapore Machinery Co Pte Ltd, Stamford Tyres International Pte Ltd, Stamford Sports Wheels Company Ltd, and Vision Sphere Trading/Gary Engineering Services, who had helped us financially and in kind, to SMSA for inviting us to participate in the event, to Tan Teng Lip who very generously loan us his 1 year old Terracan, which hopefully will be returned in the same condition as we received it, to Doc Nick, Stan Lee, and Audrey Ying for lending us their comm equipment, to Paul Lincoln, who help to set up our blog page, to Roger Chang, for taking us to the Stamford Sports Wheels Factory, looking after us while we were in BKK and helping us for the event, to the CAITA Organizing Committee for standing by us during the very difficult Cambodia/Vietnam border crossing, and especially to Mr. Nguyen Duc Hieu, without whose help, we could not have pass through the Vietnam Customs to continue our journey. With our deepest appreaciation, Thank You All

YES IT WAS ONE HELL OF A TRIP (which will last a long time), (but when is the next?)

Cheers
William Lyou and Harold Netto, Car No 25 Hyundai Terracan

Leslie Chang and Ernest Chua, Car No 24 Subaru Forester

CAITA Day 12 BeiHai 'Well Earned Rest'

Day 12, 25th Oct. Free and easy in BeiHai, China

Got up at 9am today and feeling well rested. The breakfast- which had changed from ABF to CBF, rice porridge with condiments, yu-tiao and soya milk, beef noodle soup, hard boiled / fried eggs, bread, fruits and weak tea. Not bad, at least we can take our time to taste them all.
After the leisurely food intake, we headed to town to walk and have a look-see. The taxicab was a smallish 1.3 hatchback, and the cab driver was real expert in fuel economy driving – shifting gears before 2000 rpm, yet not labouring the engine. He took us to the largest shopping centre where we alighted.

I walked to the basement supermarket as I needed to get some fruits and guess what I saw on display in the meat section when I passed by:

A DOG!!! URGH. The poor thing was cleaned and shaved. Some parts was cut and sold

Cat meat are also sold here but didn’t see any. I will spare you the trauma by not show the pic of the dog meat but the POS display instead.

The shopping centre is typical like what we have, clean with wide aisles; prices are much higher than SIN for imported goods.

The gentleman next to me is Mr Nguyen Duc Hieu, a really humble guy, does not speak a word of English, but helped TEAM SIN cleared Vietnam Customs by signing as guarantor. Can't thank him enough!

I walked by a car wash outfit and had to show you a hand-held car blower drier. They even washed the carpet mat and then spun dry the mats

We headed back to the hotel for lunch as a meeting was scheduled in the afternoon.

A sumptuous lunch was served – fresh sea food – steam fish / prawns / flower crab, roast pork / Hainanese styled chicken, assorted vegetable dishes, and a soup. SHIOK

A post mortem meeting was conducted and chaired by the organising committee. They thanked everyone for the cooperation received, and apologised for the hardships which everyone had endured throughout the journey. They realised the driving time for each day was too long and thankful that no accidents occurred from it. The daily fried rice lunch box was not bad except that a vegetable dish should have been included. As it was their first such attempt to organise a drive of such a long distance covering 11000km, they have collected much data and are wiser from it.

The program for the next day is to complete the drive to Nanning City. After arrival, lunch will be served, followed by a rehearsal for the Award Ceremony in the evening. Wow. Everything is a big wayang here

Cheers

William and Harold

CAITA Day 11 HaLong~DongXing,CHINA ' We're Almost There'

Day 11, Oct.24th. Crossing over to China 400km

Today, our destination is to cross the border at Vietnam’s Mong Chai / China’s
Dong Xing Border Crossing

We started the day at 510am. The drive out of HaLong soon took us to a ferry
crossing. We could see a nice big bridge but was told it is not opened yet.
After the ferry crossing, we met with a very challenging mountain rd which was
very narrow and winding. Some sections opposite vehicles had to wait at a small
space by the side of the rd, to let us through. We passed through an area which
looked rather black and dirty reason being the area has coal mining as its
main activity. The traffic was a real challenge to overtake, as the day gets
brighter, more traffic was building up. It doesn’t help when the whole 25 cars
from our Rally actually fills up the tight conditions. Some of the media
vehicles blocked our path as they stopped to take pictures of the rally cars.
We were treated with amazing sights of the peaceful kampong areas. Lakes with
perfectly still water. The winding rd took us to 3000 plus meters above sea
levels before bring us down again. This section – I estimated to be 180km, can
be really tiring if under competition stress. We reach the Vietnam Mong Chai
Border Post at 905am. The Customs clearing formalities was swift and easy.
The Chinese side is equally swift. Due to the prearrangement of the Customs Permits, our cars were able to enter China easily. Suddenly we are in CHINA. WE DONE IT! We have reach China under our own power safe and sound. What a feeling of relief!
We were greeted by
the Dong Xing City’s Mayor and there were many many people - adults in lovely outfits, students waving flags. chanting WELCOME WELCOME, to greet and
welcome us – more to first group of 23 cars which started from Nan Ning 18days
earlier. We were garlanded with laurels, accompanied with the rousing sound of
the lion dance troupe. With the media formalities over, we were led to a
restaurant for a sumptuous lunch.
We headed to Bei Hai resort city for a short 2 night break. Along the way, we
stopped at the first Petrol China filling station. Again we were greeted with
school kids lining the entrance of the station. Petrol China being the major
sponsor of this Rally, put up a Welcome ceremony to welcomed all participants with flowers, speeches and more picture
takings. Our drive to Bei Hai was given escort from the Nanning Traffic Police.
200 km later we arrived at the Bei HAi Beach Hotel.
Dinner was at a hugh sea food restaurant which caters to large functions. A lot
of merry making, speeches, wine flowed and the Chinese were really happy that
the ordeal was over. The Grand Finale will be held on the 26th at the Finishing
Point.

After dinner, we were treated to an impromptu outdoor concert, with each group
contributing some stage item. We had fire works display as well. These people really knows how to put up a good show

Cheers
William and Harold

ps. This report was posted again, as I realised our blog did not get out from China.

CAITA -Day 10 Hue-HaLong 'Touch&Go'

Day 10, Monday Oct 23rd. Hue City To Ha Long Bay 750 km

Today our destination is Ha Long Bay. This sector seemed to be a straight
forward drive along the coastal HW1A. Judging from past days experience, if we could do just 75kmh average, it will be at least 10 hours drive.

We started at 730am leaving the hotel, the start time was delayed by half hour because the last group to arrived the night before was 230am, and needed every minute of sleep they could get. I think they skipped breakfast.

We took a short drive through tour to Hue Imperial Palace ground for picture taking. As our journey is expected to be long (time wise),
we could not spare the time to walk the Imperial grounds. After the photo
shoot at the Imperial entrance, we promptly departed the city and headed north in the direction of
Hanoi.
An unfortunate matter happened to our GPS because the tracer suddenly went on
the blink. We had to slow down to reset the unit to get it activated again and this has
caused the rest of the convoy to be slightly held back for a while. The traffic
at this hour was heavy, the road was laden with bicycles, motorcycles, light
and heavy goods vehicle. We had to drive very carefully after experiencing the
lack of road safety from the Vietnamese public. As the traffic was building up, Harold had to act as a lookout to give clearance for me to overtake on the left
hand side – the proper side. We kept a very small gap between the convoy leader’
s car, and as soon as they attempt an over taking maneuver, we were ready and
able to follow their progress through the heavy traffic.
One of our friends – Wybe Valkema, who happened to work in Hanoi, had been in touch to
arrange for a rest stop place to meet. Our progress had been painfully slow
inspite of our constant over taking the slow traffic – about 45km/h.
We had realized the mentality of the general Vietnamese rd user: when they
decided to cross the rd, they don’t lookout for traffic coming from behind. If
one forgets to honk at the pedestrian or bikey, they will immediately think
that there is no approaching traffic from behind them. We had one such incident
today. The St*^pid idiot just happen to cross our path, which surprised Harold
to execute an avoidance maneuver to clear the moving hazard. I had cold sweat
as it was a really close call.
Lesson learnt – KEEP HONKING when approaching the people. It worked. We hope
when we returned home, this habit will not stay with us.

School life must be quite tough here- we drove past some student cyclist with their red plastic seat for their classroom. (see pic)

The coastal road was quite scenic however, it soon disappeared when the road turned inland.

Wybe later sms us that he could’nt make it due to work meeting. We were really
disappointed.

The rain came, initially was quite moderate. I cautioned every car to have their headlights on and joked about the rain was mild when compared with the heavy rain on the MAL N/S Highway. Suddenly, as if the rain-gods heard me, it poured so heavily, blinding us at speeds of only 40kmh with wipers working at turbo speed. I said too soon. Sorry I muttered under my breath - you win.

We eventually reached the Ha Long P&T Hotel at 8pm
This was another sector that we arrived in the night, which meant we had no
chance to see the city in daylight. After dinner, we were informed that we have
to start very early at 5am the next day for the China border crossing, What a
tiring day again. The drive so far is wearing us out, but the splendid sights
of the ever changing scenery is rewarding in itself. Tired but happy

We were so tired that we decided to rest instead of writing the blog.

Sorry to keep you guys waiting….
Cheers
William and Harold

ps this report was sent while we were in China and re-posted as I noticed that it was not sent out of China. Maybe due to security system. William

CAITA Day 9 Trang-Hue:'An Unexpected Detour'

Day 9. Sunday Oct. 22nd

Today, Our destination was Hue City 600km

We started off at 6am and expecting the drive to be smooth and easy going....
About 30km out of town, we came across a whole lot of queeing lorries parked by the road side, apparently, the coastal road was not passable to heavy vehicles, and they were waiting for authorisation to take a extended 250km detour. After a while, we met up with the first convoy, - our’s being the third, and was told of a major rd diversion because of a collapsed bridge. This diversion added another 250km to our run to Hue, it meant that we are expected to be on the road for at least 10 hours. Our detour took us inland for 30km westerly and then north for about 250 and thereafter 170km easterly to rejoin the coastal HW1. The progress was painfully slow, averaging 60km/h through narrow and busy B roads. As we were not given any road map, we could only see where our heading was thro the GPS’s tracer. Our pda did not have the map software for both Cambodia and Vietnam, however, what we could see was the tracer direction and distances as recorded on the pda. This section of the drive was very interesting as we drove up narrow and winding mountain rd. This was where we longed to breakaway from the group and play. But we have to behave as not to upset anyone. There were several occasions where we had to take evasive actions to avoid colliding with the general road users as we encountered a young cyclist cutting across our path, in spite of our honking regularly. The locals here are not taught about road safety, the typical behavior is to behave like the cows– if the car honk, just keep going the direction w/out looking back and they will avoid you. Yes we nearly collided with a cow when it decided to wander across the rd 50m ahead of us. Scary! We passed a m/cyclist transporting a fridge! (see photo)
The accompanying tourist guide was not confident of the inland route that he got out of the lead car several times to ask for direction. It was quite worrying. We eventually got our little fun when the convoy leader slowed and asked our cars to lead while they stopped to do a “song and dance” – a Chinese Team’s way of saying -to visit a toilet. We finally got on to rejoin the main coastal HW1 at 2pm – yes after 8hrs, and have another 400km to go.
On the HW1, we could make up some time but the traffic was building up towards the evening. The scenic view of the coastal rd was rewarding for our tiring eyes, we drove through a 6km tunnel near Hue, which was quite spectacular.
We eventually reached our hotel at 845pm. A total of 14.75hrs on the road! What a day!! Guess what? We are the first group to arrive. I understand later the last group came in 3 hrs later. I was so tired that I crashed on the bed for 3 hrs before getting up at 1am to write this report. Tomorrow, we start at 7am for another gruel ling run to Ha Long Bay – about 700km.

Leslie’s car mate are doing well

Cheers
William & Harold at HUE
0200hrs