2011 - 12 Months of Great Driving

Welcome to the New Year with twelve months of great driving to look forward to.

Our first rally of 2011 is the Great Arc of India, ROARR’s ninth rally, from Cochin in the south to Moossorie in the Himalaya’s. Nothing less than the complete length of India! Cars are now on the ship crossing the Somalia Sea and with a bit of luck will arrive in Cochin middle of the month. Jim, ROARR’s route surveyor, arrives early to deal with shipping and customs and will have the cars waiting for us at the Taj hotel Cochin, ready for the adventure.

I have sent out the MG B to India, having had a near full restoration, and very much looking forward to driving her on this adventure for the month of February. Roll on the start on the 31st January.

With India behind Jim will be driving back to the UK in the Team Landy along the route of the Great Game Classic Car Rally in preparation for next August event. With Livy on permits and Tracy on visas, these difficult documents are slowly falling into place.

The Wakhan Valley, Afghanistan, is apparently the Kingdom in Rudyard Kipling’s book The Man Born to be King and is so crucial to the story of the Great Game.

But is the Wakhan Valley safe?

In the last few years I have travelled into a few of the world ‘hot spots’ and the experience between our Government / press propaganda and the reality is very different.

In 2008 both Karyn and I travelled the Karakorum highway from Islamabad to the China border with two Pakistan friends. In the days before the word Taliban was known this was a well trodden route. With the word Taliban used in the West as gun killing fanatics, in 10 days we saw no Westerners. We went deep into the North West Province, which is madness if you lack understanding and follow Foreign Office web site advice, deep into Taliban country and stayed in villages of the Taliban. Taliban is a certain Islamic religion, Hinafi to be precise, the Evangelists of Islam. There are 50 million Hinafi who live traditional lives, do not carry guns and have no war with the West and welcome travellers into their homes. As they are now called Taliban by the Western press, it puts fear into tourists and so they go no more.

My late loved mother-in-law went mad when Karyn told her we were driving across Iran. I was called irresponsible to say the least. To her, as she repeated the Western press, Iranians are Western haters determined to build a bomb to kill us all!  Well how can she be wrong - because that's what our free Western press says? Good stories don't make good headlines. Karyn did not want to go, but I insisted, kept my figures crossed and took her. 



We have never been so well treated anywhere as during the 10 days or so we crossed Iran. Every person we met tried to convince us they were not a nation of terrorists or hate the West, but love to see tourists and so opened their arms to us. Ignore the British Foreign Office web site - go to Iran, come on the Great Game, it is now Karyn’s favourite country!

Baluchistan is another hot spot I once crossed, and was called mad. The Balusha want independence from Islamabad not from the British. If you read the press this is a land of war. It is not, just as Ireland was not a land of war during the days of the IRA. 
Back to the Great Arc and we will be crossing Dacoits, (bandit) country. It is a word given to Naxalites (Maoists) who are the untouchables from society who have a gripe with the Indian Government as they feel no improvement and live in continuing poverty.  This is a growing problem for India as 300 M middle class get richer, 700 M see no difference and many get poorer. Of course any attacks by the ' growing poor' on the army and 
police, which is common, or on society ( they attack lorries) are conveniently called dacoits (bandits) by the Indian Government and press, rather than Naxalites, as this would be accepting they have a cause. 
 
We will be driving this area again in February. And the chai is excellent and never has a western tourist be touched.

Anyway, having been to a few places ill advised by the press or the Foreign Office I have never had any problems, except once with drunks at London’s Charring Cross Station. Maybe this danger is so common in the UK it is not newsworthy any more.

Back to Wakam Valley. It is unpopulated and many miles from the troubled lands of Afghanistan. See www.lonelyplanet.com/tajikistan/the-pamirs/the-wakhan-valley.

Jim is locating the Great Game forts, both Russian and British and we hope to visit at least one fort on our brief two day trip into the valley of the Pamir River of the Afghans.

Over Christmas I saw the new film The Long Walk. Fantastic film with wonderful cinematography showing many of the lands we will cross on the Great Game Rally. This film is the best advert to fire the imagination for this adventure.

Limited places remain on the event and I enclose both the story of the Great Game all along the lands we will cross and a provisional route schedule. Limited to 15 cars, some places remain, so do come along for this exciting driving adventure. Ring me to discuss.

Moving on.............

Our next event after the Great Game, and ROARR’s eleventh rally, will be Himalaya Rally in February 2011. This will be a ‘Club’ event, so sharing costs between us. Follow the same route as the Himalaya Rally of 2007, except from Calcutta to Udaipur onto Delhi, and adding in Bangladesh, as well Bhutan, Sikkim, Nepal and the hill stations of India.

First offers to those on the Great Game as their cars can stay in Calcutta for the winter and then will be ready for the Himalaya Rally in February / March 2012. We would travel as a small band of intrepid like minded drivers, about 8 cars in all, running the same route as the previous rally, supported only by Jim in the ROARR Land Rover. Costs shared, about £12,500 per car, less for Great Game participants as shipping already paid. Is this the perfect escape from next year’s winter weather? - Interested?

Enjoy a good year on the road.

All the best

Conrad