Fuel issues









 Last night, after the sensible crews retired to bed, the rebel rousers continued; finishing off the remains (like more than half) of the Balvenie and a few cleansing ales and joined the next door wedding party. It was a bit like in Semey 15 years ago when Chris and Rupert Marks did the same and won a tie for their dancing. No such tie was warded last night. Make up your own mind. 


We fettled the cars this morning, with a disappointing lack of sore heads. We endured some telling off from the hotel staff for misusing the gardener’s hosepipe to wash the cars. 


At the appointed hour, half the party went to the supermarket to purchase booze whilst half continued to fettle. We met up at the last garage in town. Blue Lagonda and Vauxhall set the pace realising quickly that we were alone. What to do? Carry on or return? The rear party has not only Chris but David too. What were we going to offer? Top Gear rules. 


Some time later Nigel started to suffer from a recurrent problem of furring-up plugs. Nigel decided to adjust his carburettors. This has been on the official ‘verboten’ list, on instruction from David (magic David, remember). We crawled up the pass to 3000m, black smoke spewing. There then came a message from Joe stating they were ahead of us. What? We gave chase. Turning off the main road onto corrugated grit road we searched for the yurt camp. The travel agent who had booked for us unhelpfully gave the wrong coordinates. We visited four yurt camps before returning to the only one we hadn’t asked. Of course they said. Welcome. 


The others joined us having experienced their own fuel issues and there then ensued a scene of hardcore mechanics. (Take note Walker; current non-mechanic Joe has been incredibly helpful). 


Dinner of Kygyr fare (surprisingly good) and several (many) bottles of Chilean wine and a lot of discussion about tomorrow’s travails when we enter China. It’s going to be a slog. 


Think like a cat has been refined to behave like a cat. I now understand. 


Btw. Full credit for photos in yesterday’s blog go to David. 



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