Friday, September 04, 2009

FIRST DAY OF THE JOURNEY Part 4

First day of the journey: We finally arrived in Pingyao around midnight. It is the most preserved walled city in China that had never been destroyed or damaged. To reach it was a serious Challenge. But let start at the beginning. The day started with a bang, let me explain.
On October 1st, it will be the 60th anniversary of the People Republic of China. Our trip to Tibet is one of the rare if not the first car raid in this region. So the Chinese Government has decided to consider this raid as part of all the celebrations for this anniversary. So for our departure we had representatives from the City of Beijing, the French Embassy etc… and of course the media. Unexpectedly, Phoenix TV that is nationally distributed in the PRC decided to join our group as far as Tibet with six 4x4 vans to cover this event live. To make it more exiting, they added in the group six contestants for Miss TV China pageant. I love this trip. So we left Beijing for a long to eventless highway trip to Pingyao. We started as a group convoy and went through the six consecutive loops that circle Beijing. Of course the traffic is massive and all the cars got separated, then the highway was cut off from times to times and we found our self in the countryside without any idea where we were. Obviously we had no way to communicate with the people we could find and we had to seek the help of three consecutive police cars to lead us to the right path. (One took us the opposite way). Night came and it was even more difficult to navigate. That was the easiest stage; I wonder what going to be next. Love Dad

1 comment:

  1. nous sommes tous tellement heureux ici a voisins d'avoir de tes nouvelles. quel periple incroyable et ce cn'est que le debut.
    ici nous menons la vie de chateau chez pady et mady qui nous proposent une table gourmet et copieuse tous les jours.
    Laureline et sa petite famille sont chez andre aujourd'hui. demain nous allons tous chez nat.
    Lundi leti et moi serons de retour dans le france.
    bon voyage on pense tellement a toi notre doudou qui nous manque.
    clo clo

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