See the full report from Mariam & Jono on the “Guest Section”
Mariam and her father will arrive in Beijing on June 8 after driving from London starting May 1
June 5-8 Waiting for the Rally
After Julia and Ludovic left, I had a few days in Beijing to wait for Mariam and her family to arrive with the car rally. I took a tour of the hutongs by rickshaw, met with Sunny who had been my tour guide, visited the Ming tombs and went to the Peking Opera.
My rickshaw driver was the receptionist’s “grandpa”! When I asked if the reception could arrange a tour for me, he whispered that he would guide me and his grandpa would drive. So the next morning they arrived with a fancy bicycle rickshaw with red velvet cover and tassles. They took me around all the alleys and we ended up in his home only a stone’s throw from the bell and drum towers (which used to tell people the time) where his grandmother invited me for lunch of rice and vegetables
They each have a room a few metres square with a bed, table and chair and a very few possessions. These are the Hutong Roofs as seen from the Drum Tower.
The Rally Arrives! June 8, 2000
I found out from the rally website that the cars would all be arriving at the Great Wall on Thursday June 8th at noon and that a bus was meeting the British Airways flight with other relatives and friends and driving directly there. I was determined to be there to meet them but Sunny warned me that if I couldn’t hook up with the official bus, they might close the roads and not let me in. So in the morning, I got a taxi to the airport to try and find the group. My taxi driver was a chatty man and I tried to explain that I was meeting friends so I want to be dropped off at arrivals not departures. He nodded knowingly and said “I love you”! Oh dear. Wrong message. But in the end I figured out that he was trying to ask if I was meeting my husband at the airport. The flight actually landed early and the incredibly efficient new Beijing airport retrieved their bags in no time, so they had left by the time I got there. I negotiated with a taxi to drive me the 50km or so to the Great Wall at Badaling.
When we arrived, the rally advance crew was just driving in.
I found Jono, Mariam’s husband who had driven from Tower Bridge to Kashkent with Mariam’s father, Aziz and had flown out from Dubai to meet everyone. Soon enough the cars started pouring in.
Mariam took over from Jono in Kashkent and drove the rest of the way to Beijing with Aziz and David, the mechanic.
Everyone, including the policemen wanted their photo taken with the heros!
We had just enough time to climb up the Great Wall.
And then we set off for Beijing in police-escorted convoy with me riding in the back of the Rover!
