Dear All,
As many of you will know, Alex Catto and Julian Summer will be setting off to drive from London to Shanghai on March 10 We will be travelling in a Toyota Landcruiser Amazon.
Our route takes us first through Eastern Europe, over the snow-capped Carpathians in search of the elusive Count Dracula, onwards for a little light relief in Bulgaria, then from Sofia into Turkey to visit Gallipoli, Troy, Izmir and Ephesus on the east coast. We then drive the entire length of Turkey with a week side trip into Syria to visit Aleppo and Palmyra. We will spend some time in Cappadocia, a little time in Van (not eating chicken!!) and a brief visit to Mount Ararat to check out Noah’s Ark. Next we go through Iran towards Turkmenistan. In the event of problems with visas or otherwise, we will divert into Georgia and Azerbaijan, picking our way carefully around several small civil wars, and crash out in an expensive hotel in Baku while we wait for the ferry across the Caspian to Turkmenbashi.
We then drive the length of Turkmenistan mainly across the Turkum desert, before going to the famous silk-road cities of Bokhara and Samarkand in Uzbekistan. We do a couple of more ‘stans and enter China over the Torugart pass into Kashgar. From there it’s a mere 4000 Kilometers to the next edible meal in Shanghai, all with our “guide”sitting in the back seat chewing garlic. The car goes home on the boat and Alex flies back to arrive on his silver wedding anniversary (aaah!!).
You can follow the adventures of the Dynamic Duo as they climb mountains, ford rivers, battle hostile insects, and bicker continuously on www.alongthesilkroad.com complete with maps, photos and blog.
Alex and Julian are funding this entirely themselves, but it would seem an appropriate moment for everyone to put their hands into their pockets and dig deep for our two chosen charities, being The Royal Marsden Cancer Campaign and Islamic Relief. The Royal Marsden is a wonderful organisation that needs no introduction. Donations to The Royal Marsden can be made on www.justgiving.com/alex-jules. Islamic Relief is an organisation dedicated to bringing help of both a short and long-term nature to some of the poorest places on the planet. Current projects are, among others, helping the victims of the earthquake in Pakistan, bringing relief to the refugees in Darfur, and helping with homelessness and destitution in Iraq. You can find out more about them on www.islamic-relief.com.
