I decided to enter the Peking to Paris Motor Challenge five years ago.
My entry was refused, and three years ago I went to England to argue it face to face rather than give up.
Having got over one wall after another, we are now one year out.
The new route is announced
Here is the latest necessary information on where the Peking to Paris Motor Challenge stands as of the end of May 2022.
That was the letter from the organisers. (It is in English, so I have translated and summarised it.)
We are still working hard to make the eighth Peking to Paris Motor Challenge happen, planned for 2023(since moved to May 2024),but it is well known that we face serious problems to overcome.
First, Covid in China. Chinese vaccines are not required of foreign visitors, and against the good news of successful vaccine rollouts in many Western countries, the Chinese authorities require foreigners to quarantine for ten days in a designated hotel on arrival.
The second problem is a route change to avoid passing through Russia and detour instead through Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan is added to this great adventure. Southern Kazakhstan is very remote, rural and sandy, and should be enjoyable as an extension of Mongolia. Kazakhs and Mongolians are both very friendly people.
We have also had very good feedback from a first meeting with Ambassador Erlan Idrissov, the Kazakh ambassador to the United Kingdom.
This route requires crossing the Caspian, with Iran to the south. It is a beautiful country, but it carries serious risk.
The Caspian has been crossed before, and there are ships able to carry the number of cars needed to Baku in Azerbaijan. Crews fly ahead to Baku and wait for the cars to arrive by sea. Our “nomad” friends are able to provide support in Azerbaijan as well as at the campsites in Kazakhstan. After that we return to the original rally route through Georgia, Turkey, Greece, Italy and San Marino, and finally into France.
One difficult wall after another
My entry was refused repeatedly and finally accepted in 2020, in the thick of Covid, when everyone was saying it would not happen.
With the world in a pandemic, the 2022 running was indeed postponed to 2024, and I accepted that there was nothing to be done.
In 2021, halfway through the challenge, I was told I had a malignant cancer.
And then in 2022 came the Russia–Ukraine crisis. Our route ran straight into that war, and once again a great many people said, with one voice, that it could not go ahead.
Going after something you seriously want — quit and it is over
On the road of a challenge there is no winning or losing. Stop and it is over; give up and it is over. That is all I think, and I do not stop walking.
Of course there is nothing wrong with a calm, safe journey that takes no risks. But deciding to take on an outrageous adventure — that too can be the dream or the goal inside you.
However small your dream might look to someone else, dreams and goals are not large or small. The only questions are whether you want to take it on, and whether you seriously want it to happen.
World affairs are beyond anything I can do alone.
But the organisers, like me, refused to give up, and news of a route change arrived — so I set it down here as a step forward on a difficult road.