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Tukking awful


Ants and Jo

Taxi for two from Bangkok to Brighton? Ants Bolingbroke-Kent and Jo Huxter aim to cross 12 countries by tuk-tuk, and raise £50,000 for Mind.
Entry: 7
Date: 12/06/2006

Things take a sudden downward turn for the girls as they encounter more rocks and potholes, as well as the force of Chinese bureaucracy.

Juang Ha Hotel, Simao. Yunnan Province. China

Ants writes...

China it seems, has been sent to test us. The last two days have been challenging. When we left Laos we felt sure that we had just conquered the worst roads we would encounter in our entire tukathon. The gleaming tarmac of the last 10km to the Chinese border seemed an omen of things to come. How wrong we were. As soon as we were over the border the roads once again deteriorated, this time there was a total absence of solid surface and what was supposed to be a road was in fact a filthy quagmire. 

We were scheduled to drive 200km that night to Jinghong, but instead we only made it 60 km to Mengla. Yesterday was even worse. The 140km to Jinhong took us an excruciating six hours. By lunchtime Sam, our guide, a non-smoker for the last three years, was cracking into a packet of cigarettes. By mid afternoon, the packet was nearly empty and a stream of English expletives was emerging from his normally clean mouth.

It's hard to describe how bad the roads are in Yunnan. They make Laos' Route 13 seem like the M25. Not only that but we have had to fight with literally hundreds of vast construction lorries, all of us after the narrow sliver of passable road on each stretch. I was so frustrated yesterday I wanted to jump out and pummel the potholes with my bare fists in fury, shout, scream and stamp my feet. Not that this would have achieved anything. But it might have made us feel better.

By the time we arrived in Jinghong we were filthy, tired, hungry and in need of a mechanic. Ting Tong's leaking front suspension had got worse and Anuwat advised us to get the front shocks replaced.

"We were ordered to turn round and go to the police station, where no end of persuading, pleading and stubbornness could change their minds."

So rather than having the relaxed evening we were desperately in need of, we spent seven hours sitting on the pavement outside a mechanic's, Ting Tong resting her muddy haunches on jacks, whilst five men battled with fitting her new suspension. At 1.30am they finally won the battle and we tukked back to our hotel, safe in the knowledge that this morning we would be cruising along the expressway to Kunming.

But oh no, such was not to be. Our arrival at the shiny new toll gates of the Kunming expressway was met with shaking heads and a flurry of men in uniform. We were ordered to turn round and go to the police station, where no end of persuading, pleading and stubbornness could change their minds. Three-wheelers and the Chinese expressways are mutually exclusive concepts and it seems nothing we could say was going to change that. Dejectedly, we turned round and turned onto the old road. What should have taken us one hour today took us six...

The implications of not being allowed on the expressway are massive. We have 28 days to travel 4000 miles across China, and our $9,600 itinerary was arranged by the CSITS on the premise that we would be speeding along throughout on these perfect new roads. The alternatives are old, disused, windy mountain roads, littered with rocks and potholes. Enough to make any tuk tuk turn a funny shade of green. Of course we are not going to accept this without a fight and we are trying to mobilize the powers that be to give us special dispensation. But China is the worst place in which to attempt any bending of bureaucracy and we could be facing up to double our planned tuk across China. Unbelievable. This makes both our Kazakh and Russian visas invalid and causes a whole host of problems. Jo and I have both been devising plans to give Ting Tong an extra wheel.

Sam is now not only smoking but has developed a gall bladder problem and a total loss of appetite. But then again, we never thought this would be a glitch-free adventure, and Jo and I are both determined to succeed. The more challenges we face, the more determined we become.

Just to top things off, our satellite modem refuses to work, as does our mobile phone. But at least Sam is a total dude and China is an endlessly fascinating, utterly weird place.


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