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August 02nd, 2010
Dispatch from the road: Rally London-Mongolia, Part 11
Ufa-Miass (Ural Mountains) 300 kilometers
Written by Michele Shapiro
“Dude, do you think they’ll have cocoa puffs?” Mikhail yells to Parag in the shower reminiscing about the breakfast the day before.
“Guys, best shower ever!” Parag declares.
The shower consisted of a shower head and a drain in the floor of the bathroom. The tiles were moldy, rusted and cracked. I had decided to forgo a shower that morning until Parag’s outburst. I threw on my flip flops that I had packed for such an occasion as this and went for it. The water was hot and remarkably powerful and while not exactly the best shower ever, it was more than satisfactory.
Before we leave town Mikhail needs to stop to get his eyeglasses fixed. I decide to run into the McDonalds to use the facilities and am surprised and a bit confused about the place.
It’s packed with young hip kids eating, hanging out, and working on their laptops. It looks like an upscale café from New York or Paris. Back in the car I report my findings and we are remorseful we didn’t stop there for breakfast.
We drive off and Parag spots another McDonalds down the road.
“Must. Have. Hashbrowns.” Parag pulls in. The boys dine on hashbrowns and mcmuffins and I have the best coffee I’ve had in a few days.
It’s a short drive today because we’ve decided to take a detour to stop at a little lake resort in the Ural Mountains. There’s promise of a Chinese medicine center with massages—that’s enough to gain consensus among our team.
There is a process to driving here. It is a never-ending game of leap frog. The roads consist of one lane heading each way and they are filled with slow-moving trucks. To make matters more difficult our car is right hand drive so if a large truck is in front of you it is impossible to see if traffic is coming in the other direction. If we stay behind the trucks there is no way we will make it to our destination so you must move past them. Long distance rally driving is not a passive endeavour.
The system works as follows: Move up behind a truck, veer a bit to the left and the co-pilot gives you the thumbs up or down on whether you can pass, if thumbs up then downshift, take a deep breath, hit the throttle, and go for a pass.
Like a baseball pitcher listening to a pitching coach sometimes the pitcher will take the advice of the coach and sometimes they will shake off the call, decide on their own pitch and throw down.
You notice quickly that the cars coming in the opposite direction do not slow down for you during a pass. Granted some passes are closer than others. Not to mention, you have to get used to the sensation of pushing the throttle to the floor while a car is heading straight for you. You get into a rhythm and after a while it doesn’t seem dangerous, although it always gets the heart racing.
At one point while I’m driving the road opens up into two lanes, a rare treat, with fewer trucks and smooth pavement. A Land Rover Freelancer jumps in front of me and chooses a steady pace of 75 mph, our cruising speed. I am able to leave leap frog behind and start a much more fun game I call car skiing.
Freelancer moves left to pass and I move left to pass. Freelancer moves back right around a truck and I follow right. We move together as if we’re skiing, left and right. We’re perfectly in sync and the skiing motion feels meditative.
After about an hour I see flashing yellow, he’s turned his blinker on. I am sad to see my playmate leave. He moves right toward the exit but slows down before exiting. I see my friend for the first time. We wave and smile and he disappears.
Signs begin to read “Miass” in Cyrillic and I just keep following them. Finding the town was the easy part now we need to locate the resort. We drive down a little path and view the beautiful lake shimmering in the sun.
A little patch of dirt lies before me and I’m rather excited to go off-road if even for less than a mile. The area reminds me of driving up to my lake house in Maine; huge fir trees, clean crisp air and wooden log cabins.
“Is that it?!” We ask like little kids. There are several resorts on the lake. Ours of course was the last one on the road.
Walking toward reception I notice lots of families, a small swimming beach, water-skiing, ATVs, jet skis, and signs for a disco.
“Oh my god, we’re in the Russian Catskills!” I exclaim, having visions of Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Gray giving me dance instructions in Russian.
Click Read More to find out about the Chinese massage at the Russian Catskills resort…
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August 01st, 2010
Dispatch from the road: Rally London-Mongolia, Part 10
Kazan-Ufa 550 kilometers
Written by Michele Shapiro
Sadly, at about 4:45 am Jen left us to head back to her life in the UK. I wake up and it’s a bit lonely without my female team mate. Guess I’m one of the boys now.
“Dude, they have cocoa puffs!” The boys eat their cereal contently but I decide to be a bit adventurous and try some of the local cuisine. I discover what looks like chocolate candy bars at the breakfast buffet.
“It’s cottage cheese covered in chocolate. Every Westerner I describe this to thinks it sounds disgusting but everyone who tries it loves it.” Mikhail informs me.
I bite in and the center is creamy and it has just a thin coating of chocolate covering it. Indeed, it is oddly good, but also very rich and one bite will do.
It’s one of those perfect days where the sun is shining high in the sky and the air blows cool as if from an outdoor air conditioner. In New York the streets would be packed with hipsters at outdoor cafes having brunch and drinking rose.
But today Parag and I are going to embark on a cultural tour and visit the town’s main mosque before leaving. Going to the mosque was the one thing Parag wanted to do on this visit so I agree to go with him.
We’re staying at Hotel Giuseppe and they make authentic pizza next door, so we dip in to place an order for the road. Parag manages to order and tell her we’ll be back to pick it up all by using sign language; it’s very impressive.
We enter through the enormous white limestone walls of the Kremlin. Peaking out over the top of a nearby building we spy the cobalt blue domes of the Kul Sharif Mosque. The sun is glistening off the domes and they look like giant cobalt jewels floating in the sky.
We enter the mosque and look around at the mammoth chandeliers dotting the ceiling.
“It’s simply majestic.” I say.
“That’s the perfect word for it.” We take a few seconds and each scan the room.
“So, should we go?” Parag asks.
I nod my head. This is what you call rally sightseeing.
It’s about 11:00 am and by rally standards this is a very late start. Mikhail and I are outside waiting for Parag to bring the car around and notice an old man not so subtly staring at us.
“Ciao, come stai,” he says.
“Ciao, tutto bene,” I say back, recalling my Italian from my college semester abroad in Florence.
Immediately we know who he is. We have just met Giuseppe, the owner of the hotel. He sees our vehicle and I’m not sure if he’s more impressed that we’re driving from London-Mongolia or that we’re taking one of his pizzas with us.
“Dude, this pizza is cold!” Mikhail complains.
“Oh don’t you worry comrade. I am so going to hook you up.”
Parag moves a blanket that had been covering the middle console that would heat up from the engine. He places the pizza box right on top.
“Hot pizza anyone? Coming up in 5 minutes!”
Our quick getaway out of town is interrupted by massive traffic.
Click Read More to find out about the team’s dining experience in Ufa…
Read MoreJuly 27th, 2010
Dispatch from the Road: Rally London-Mongolia, Part 9
In some ways, the story of team Ambulance to Mongolia began on a snowy Russian playground more than twenty years ago.
Kazan in those days was a hard-scrabble place. Despite its substantial scientific community (including many nuclear physicists), the city was in rough shape. Most people lived in cramped concrete block apartments that had fallen into disrepair, and gangs of petty criminals controlled the streets and fought each other, defied the police, and terrorized the locals.
So it was unfortunate that Misha’s snowball found the face of the son of a neighborhood gang leader. It was even more unfortunate that when the 18-year old older brother came looking to avenge his brother’s bloody lip, Misha fought him off with the nearest weapon at hand: a sled.
It was not until Misha saw the big guy a few days later with his jaw wired shut that he first sensed there could be adult-proportioned consequences for his child’s play. And there were: the gang leader issued an “attack” order for the scrawny 12 year-old, something that no one in Mikhail’s family took lightly. To keep him safe, they kept him home.
He missed the next six months of school.
“And there is the school.”
Mikhail pointed, and we turned appraising eyes towards a building glowing in the setting sun.
“Wow, it is strange to be back.”
Misha’s family left Kazan for the United States when he was 14, but his ties to the place remained strong. The city was the one stop he knew would be on our team’s route.
It was also the promise of visiting Kazan that had, in part, enticed Parag to join the team. The capital of the Republic of Tatarstan in Russia, Kazan has a history that goes back more than a thousand years yet touches on themes that seem eternally modern. In the 1550s, the city was sacked by Ivan the Terrible and its mostly Muslim residents persecuted; in 2005, it saw the completion of a mosque that is reported to be the largest in Europe outside of Istanbul.
Kazan is also emblematic of modern Russia: from its perch on the banks of the Volga (largest river in Europe!), Kazan and Tatarstan have fared well under the longer economic leash allowed the provinces by the current administration in Moscow (though a regional proposal a few years ago to switch from the Cyrillic to Latin alphabet was too much for the national government to take).
It is not the city that Mikhail’s family left in 1991. In fact, cleaned up and with its wide boulevards and pastel buildings, Kazan reminded us of a seaside town.
So all in all, a worthy destination. First, though, we had to get there.
It is about 650 kilometers—or, as I have come to think of them, “clicks”—from Vladimir to Kazan. We indulged in a quick photoshoot in front of Vladimir’s famous church (results to be posted soon) before setting off on what was a slog of a drive.
The roads we were on now were basic double-lane highways, with frequent potholes and only occasional passing lanes (and these almost always on uphill stretches). Most of our fellow travelers were tractor trailers, some pulling a double load. In a heavy ambulance without a lot of pickup (read: any at all), maintaining a good pace could be both difficult and stressful.
“I totally get the trucker diet,” I said, not for the first time on the trip. “It’s so much work wrestling this thing that you think you’re burning up more calories than you probably are—and that you deserve to eat anything you want, regardless!”
I remembered actually grunting as I slammed the ambulance into third gear driving through Poland. Parag had cocked an eyebrow at me from the passenger seat.
“Some things require a woman’s touch,” I told him. “This … is not one of them.”
Happily, Michele was also willing to throw her weight into the work. And I mean throw: with her slight 5’3 frame, even things like opening the back door and releasing the parking brake were going to take oomph. But after a day of watching us put the Land Rover through her paces, Michele was ready to roll, and she eased out of a gas station like a pro.
FIND OUT HOW THE REST OF THE DAY’S JOURNEY WENT…
Read MoreJuly 26th, 2010
Octogenarian Woman Speeds over 100 MPH to see Younger Lover
Judith Slade, 81, from Australia was caught driving 164 KPH (nearly 102 MPH).
The Australian Herald reported that she was arrested and when asked why she was speeding she said “she did not wish to be separated from her secret lover, with whom she had spent the weekend.” Her lover is also reported as being “almost half her age.”
Slade’s car was impounded and the police were trying to get her license revoked. They also imposed a 30 KPM (nearly 19MPH). limit for her. Slade responded with: “What difference would it make if they took my licence from me? I’ll just buy more cars and they can take them away, too. I could buy another one now just to fight this and cruise past the police station, and say, ‘Here I am’.”
Although we don’t advocated speeding, we kind of love this woman.
July 24th, 2010
Dispatch from the Road: Rally London-Mongolia, Part 8
Drive Like A Woman Editor-in-Chief, Michele Shapiro is setting off on a rally from London to Mongolia. She will be driving with Parag Khanna, Mikhail Zeldovich and Jen Mueller. Jen will be starting with the team in London and Michele will be meeting the team in Moscow and will switch places with Jen. The team will be driving a 1991 Land Rover Defender ambulance. Upon arrival in Mongolia the team will donate the ambulance to a local hospital. Drive Like A Woman will be posting dispatches from the journey.
Moscow-Vladimir:
-Written by Jen Mueller
“Dude, you have to slow down! That’s another cop! Oh, man, OK, now he’s flagging us down. Just … pull over.”
Michele and I looked up in interest as Parag brought the ambulance to a stop on the shoulder. Mikhail turned around in the passenger seat, eyes slightly wild.
“The first thing we try is nobody knows how to speak Russian, OK? We only speak English!”
“I think we can do that,” I agreed solemnly.
We watched the police officer slowly walk up to the ambulance. He came around to Mikhail’s side of the car, realized that the steering wheel was in the wrong place, approached Parag’s window, and said something.
“Hello,” said Parag.
“Здравствуйте,” said Mikhail.
Hello?
“What happened to not speaking Russian?” I asked in—keeping in character—English.
Mikhail shrugged. “He seems OK. Here, just show him your international driver’s license.”
Parag dug it out from the bag we passed up to him. The cop looked at it, said something else to Mikhail, handed the documents back to Parag, and walked off. We looked at Misha.
“What happened?”
TO FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENED CLICK READ MORE…
Read MoreJuly 23rd, 2010
Best Car Alarm—A Pink Vehicle
A study out of the Netherlands shows that bright colors tend to deter car thieves. The reason, the study concluded, is that people don’t want to buy bright colored cars and thus the color effects the resale value.
According to the study, 80% of cars stolen were black, blue or silver/gray. The study looked at cars stolen in the Netherlands during 2004-2008. Out of 109 pink cars none were stolen.
The question we are left asking—why are there 109 pink cars in the Netherlands?
July 22nd, 2010
Dispatch from the Road: London-Mongolia, Part 7
Drive Like A Woman Editor-in-Chief, Michele Shapiro is setting off on a rally from London to Mongolia. She will be driving with Parag Khanna, Mikhail Zeldovich and Jen Mueller. Jen will be starting with the team in London and Michele will be meeting the team in Moscow and will switch places with Jen. The team will be driving a 1991 Land Rover Defender ambulance. Upon arrival in Mongolia the team will donate the ambulance to a local hospital. Drive Like A Woman will be posting dispatches from the journey.
Rest day in Moscow:
-Written by Jen Mueller
“Oh, crap! Parag, it’s after 8!”
I had woken up, looked at my Blackberry, and lain back down before even registering what I had seen.
“Uh oh. I’ll email Misha,” said a groggy Parag.
The last thing that Mikhail had said when we left his apartment the night before was, “OK, I’ll see you at the ambulance at 8:30. Make sure you set your alarm.”
Shoot, shoot, shoot.
David, our host, was in the shower; I was meant to have asked him to call a cab. I began throwing on clothes. Parag stumbled into the kitchen and packed me a quick breakfast. We had both slept fitfully through a Moscow heat wave, and I felt like the haze had entered my brain.
Misha sounded just a touch under frantic when he called a few minutes later. I was still waiting for the cab that had finally been ordered. “Jen, you were supposed to be here already! Look, you’re going to have to go out and flag a taxi down on the street, OK? Just hurry!”
Luckily I had the address written out in Cyrillic. I ran downstairs and waved my arms at oncoming traffic.
Our first day in Moscow had passed in a fog of sleep and work. Parag and I were crashing with Misha’s friend David, an American expat who described himself as having been in Moscow too long to return to civilized society. And then he changed the bed sheets and found us clean towels for us.
In the evening, we had gone to the charming garret apartment that Misha shares with his fiancée Amanda, also an American expat. We climbed out on their roof and looked past the onion domes of the nearby Cathedral of Christ the Savior to the more distant turrets of St. Basil’s Cathedral on Red Square. The sunset made it unbelievably scenic. After a while, we clambered back inside to enjoy some traditional yuppie fare: pan-Asian take-out. (Sushi!)
We also reviewed the plan for the following day.
“I don’t want to be Jinxomatic here, but the ambulance hasn’t broken down in two days,” Parag noted.
“Right, but this is the last point where we can definitely find someone familiar with Land Rovers,” Mikhail said. “My friends know a garage that can look at it.”
We agreed that a check-up made sense. Because Parag had to get registered in the morning (an annoyance for travelers staying more than three business days in Russia and a cash cow for the government), Misha and I were in charge of this expedition.
Mikhail did not give me much grief for my late arrival; the sweltering traffic was punishment enough. It took us well over an hour to reach our destination across town.
Our mission had become a local family project. The secured lot where we were parking our car for free is owned by Misha’s friend Andre. (On a side note, it also happens to be attached to a factory that used to make antiballistic missiles and, before that, bicycles). On the other side of town, Andre’s sons Nick and Anton, both undergrads at the University of Miami, were waiting on a busy street corner to direct us to the garage. They had spent much of the two previous days running around Moscow looking for parts that we still needed, and now they were staring at the Land Rover as if it were a fictional creation sprung to life.
“Thank you guys so much for all your help,” I said as they moved around to Misha’s window.
Anton shrugged with a smile. “It’s not a problem. It’s for the kids in Mongolia, you know?”
The Land Rover was a star attraction at the garage— along with Nick and Anton, about a half a dozen men gathered round, alternately taking pictures, peering under the hood, and speaking earnestly in Russian to Mikhail, who was getting a crash course in car repair.
At some point, Mikhail glanced at his Blackberry.
“Whoa, I have a half a dozen messages from Parag.”
Parag was having quite the adventure himself…
CLICK READ MORE TO FIND OUT ABOUT PARAG’S ADVENTURE AND THE TEAMS NIGHT OUT IN MOSCOW…
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