Dan Murdoch - Trabant Trek: Crossing The World In A Plastic Car

Title Page

TRABANT TREK

Crossing the World in a Plastic Car

by

Dan Murdoch

Publisher Information

First published in 2009 by

Signal Books Limited

36 Minster Road

Oxford

OX4 1LY

www.signalbooks.co.uk

Digital Edition converted and distributed in 2011 by

Andrews UK Limited

www.andrewsuk.com

Dan Murdoch, 2009

The right of Dan Murdoch to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988.

All rights reserved. The whole of this work, including all text and illustrations, is protected by copyright. No parts of this work may be loaded, stored, manipulated, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information, storage and retrieval system without prior written permission from the publisher, on behalf of the copyright owner.

Production: Devdan Sen

Cover Design: Baseline Arts

Cover Images: Dan Murdoch; istockphoto.com

Photographs: all photographs Dan Murdoch

Dedication

To the Trekkers: Anthony Perez, Brady Erickson, Carlos Gey, John Drury, John Lovejoy, Marlena Witczak, Megan Calvert and Zsofi Somlai.

To the Trabants: Dante, Fez and Ziggy.

To the charities: Mith Samlanh and MLop Tapang.

And to the hundreds of people who helped us along the way.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to my family for putting me up, and putting up with me - my folks, Chris and Carol, and John and Tessa, and my grandparents, Lynn, Val and Pam.

Thanks to Claire for her support and affection and Dave for his encouragement. Id also like to take this opportunity to unacknowledged Ben Chamberlain and Amit Tyagi.

Fat lot of help you two were.

Authors Note

Every Story has a beginning, but for each of the foolhardy souls that took on Trabant Trek, the beginning was different. Come to think of it, although we shared so many experiences, each of us had a different middle and ending as well.

To try and cover all of these would probably result in a terrifying mess and so I have little choice but to stick firmly to my side of the story. If it wavers from the recollections of the rest of the gang then I apologise.

You should know that this book started as a blog, scribbled in notebooks and on scraps, and then written up in cafs, bars and garages on the road. It is nigh on impossible to type in a Trabant - too cramped, too dark, too bumpy. The words and pictures were painstakingly uploaded using some of the worlds most scattered and least rapid internet connections. Theres nothing quite like the frustration of spending three hours trying to upload a couple of sentences on a steam-powered Uzbek PC running Windows 1905.

When I got home I rewrote the whole thing, checked the facts and sculpted the blogs, notes and memories into the work of epic importance you hold in your hands.

I hope you like it.

Dan Murdoch

July 2008

Introduction

Q) Why is the Trabant the quietest car in the world to drive?

A) Because your knees cover your ears.

Why?

Even though hed pulled us over, the policeman looked more confused than angry. He approached our convoy slowly in the snow, scratching his head and shining his torch along the faded, peeling panelling of the cars. The beam reached my face, making me blink away.

Where are you from? he asked in Russian.

England.

Where are you going?

Cambodia.

Kaamboodyaa? He rolled the word out, making it sound unfamiliar.

Cam-bo-dia.

Ahhh Cambodia, he repeated, understanding the name, but not the answer.

Why?

Why? That was difficult.

The policeman shrugged and held up his camera phone, Photo?

The Email

I remember getting the email. Autumn 2006. Id returned home late after a few post-deadline drinks, and sat on my bed with a laptop. The message was from John Lovejoy. The subject line read: Europe to Cambodia by Trabant.

Team USA

John Christian Lovejoy was a man of the world. Born in California, but raised at US Army bases in Germany, he had travelled extensively and boasted of friends across the globe. Tall, handsome, with a thick mop of curly hair and an occasional beard, he was a real charmer with a handy knack for getting people onside and a shameless approach to milking acquaintances.

His favourite word was fuck. Used mostly for emphasis, it could be a noun, adjective, preposition, verb or anything he desired. As in: What the fuck? Lets get the fuck back to that fucking place and get a fucking burger. I mean fuck. With that fucking sauce. Fuck me, man. Its fucking rad and its fucking cheap. Its like what? Fucking two dollars?

To maintain some sense of decency I have omitted many of these superfluous curses from his quotes. Sorry, Lovey.

I first met Lovejoy with his friend Anthony Perez in 2002 in the sticky Thai jungle somewhere north of Chang Mai. Along with my travel buddy, Mr Al, Id headed out on an organised trek into the bush. Wed noticed the two Americans when the group gathered earlier that day, but it took until a rest stop at a waterfall to make conversation. Mr Al and I had brought with us a bottle of the filthy local Mekong whisky; a vicious brown poison that cost next to nothing and doubled up as nail varnish remover. It was disgusting neat and, looking around for some inspiration, I noticed the Americans sipping from a bottle of Coke. From this whisky and Coke a partnership was born, and we bonded over three days of sweaty walks and cool waterfalls.

I was 19 at the time; Lovey, as Lovejoy was known, and Tony were a few years older. The pair knew each other from Washington DC, where they lived and worked, and had an easy rapport.

You know, Tony would tell me years later, Loveys the only person Ive travelled with where I can just go John, Im going to go and do my own thing for a few weeks now. Ill catch you later and hell be absolutely fine with it.

Tony was half-Mexican, half-Italian but very American. Shorter than Lovey, but compact and dark, he liked to sport a Mohican and a moustache, which made him look a little Mongolian. The four of us got on well and when we waved our goodbyes I jokingly said Id see them further on down the trail. Three weeks later and I was on the back of a Vietnamese moped, speeding through Ho Chi Minh City trying to flag down a bus to Cambodia. We were close up behind it, my driver honking manically and trying to get the bus to stop, when a rear window slid open and the dark head of Tony Perez popped out.

Dan? he said with a smile.

Tony, I shouted over the traffic.

Hows it going? he asked, cool as you like.

Yeah great er Im trying to get on that bus.

He looked around, dragged it out for a second, then grinned: Ill get them to stop.

It turned out that Tony and I were heading the same way. We met Lovey in Phnom Penh, then continued to Siem Riep for a few days at Angkor Wat and the chance to consult a mystical shaman known as Burnhard Yungkermann.

One morning we decided to head into the jungle to visit the old temple of Bang Milia. I was tasked with hiring a moped for Tony, but rather than use a hire company I opted to borrow a scooter from a man in a bar, using Tonys passport as a deposit. The recklessness of this manoeuvre only became clear the following day when I went to return the scooter but couldnt find the man with the passport.