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.

Click here to read Part 1.

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…

“We’re good to go, he was actually pretty cool.”

“That’s it?”

“Yep.  But dude,” he said, turning to Parag, “watch the speed limit!”

“Our first encounter with the Russian police!” Parag celebrated as we merged back into traffic.  “Jen, make sure that makes into the blog!”

It was our first day together as a full team.  Sadly, the next day would be our last day together.  When Misha first recruited me to be a driver, it was as a pinch-hitter for the London-to-Moscow leg of the journey.  The original third team member, Sebastian, was meant to join the team in Moscow, and the fourth place in the ambulance was to be taken by a documentary filmmaker.

When work commitments prevented Sebastian from participating, Parag had recruited Michele.  And then two weeks before the launch, our filmmaker had dropped out, leaving an extra space in the ambulance.

Misha had raised the possibility of me continuing on from Moscow the day we picked up the ambulance in Doncaster.  I was ruing that the other three would get to experience the “real” adventures on the journey east of Moscow (not foreseeing the adventures that awaited us in Europe).

“You know, you could come,” he said.  “There’s room now, and with my foot it would be great to have another driver.”

I grimaced.  It was tempting, but I had already been in Europe for a week; at some point my employer would notice my absence.

“You could at least come as far as Kazan,” he proposed.  “We should be there by next Sunday night.  You could catch a flight back to Moscow from there and just miss one extra day of work.  And you’d get to see my home town!”

I considered it.  Thanks to a generous friend, I was to return home on an airline employee “friends and family” ticket.  The downside was that I would be flying standby; the upside was that the ticket was freely changeable.

A few days later, I floated the idea in an email to some of my colleagues.  Did they need me back on the Monday?

“Drive on, Sisterfriend,” came the reply.

And so I did.

Kazan is nearly 600 miles east of Moscow.  We drove less than a third of that distance on Saturday, stopping at the historical town Suzdal before continuing to the neighboring city of Vladimir and our hotel for the night.

First, though, we stopped at a roadside café for lunch.  Michele was battling jet lag without the aid of either water or caffeine, so hydration was the first thing on our minds as we rolled into the neat little dining room.

“What do you mean, they don’t have water?  How can a restaurant not have bottled water?”

But no amount of telling Mikhail to ask again did any good.  We each selected a Coke product from the well-stocked cooler and sat down (a bit huffily, I confess) to have the menu read to us. 

The distance was not long, but the roads were full of trucks and traffic lights; it took several hours (and frequent deployment of the clutch) to reach the twin cities that we were heading for.

With its many traditional churches and expansive monasteries—we visited one that had the feel of a small college campus—Suzdal seemed more like a historical artifact (think Williamsburg) than a living town.  An accordionist played as we wandered the streets, which were full of horse-drawn carriages carrying tourists and costumed merchants selling local honey wine and handicrafts.

I would like to say that we were immune to their charms—and maybe the presence of another woman tipped the scales somewhat—but suddenly Misha was stopping to buy wine and Michele and I were modeling hats for each other.

“Um, I’m going to go and get the car,” Parag said.

The last stretch to Vladimir was complicated only by our lack of a detailed map (and, cough, our difficulty in spotting the traffic lights at certain intersections).  Our hotel for the night was clean, modern and well-located; by well-located, of course, I mean that it was a short walk to The Tavern, the restaurant Lonely Planet recommended.

“Ask for an English language menu,” Misha instructed as I went in from our patio seats in search of a server.

I nodded without holding out much hope.  Mikhail’s faith in the penetration of the English language in his home country was proving more idealized than justified.

But I tried, using my best Czech/English combination.  “Menu?  English?  Anglisky?”

Misha sighed when I presented him with a multi-page menu in Russian.  I could see him thinking this was going to be a long few weeks.

“So what do they have?” I asked, grinning wickedly.

(Kidding!  Though the next day at a gritty truck stop Michele did ask, deadpan, for an egg white omelet.  The look on Misha’s face was worth the price of admission.)

Back at the hotel, we gathered in the common room.  Mikhail pulled out a map.  I pulled out what remained of my collection of French liquors.  We each selected a flavor and laboriously picked away the wax seal and wrestled with the cork.  Finally, bottles opened, we clinked and made eye contact.

“OK, now let’s figure out distances and make an itinerary,” Misha said, spreading the atlas on the table.

Leaning in, we put our heads together and focused.