|
October
7th, 1999
This is
Nick Baggarly. Today we arrived in Beijing China!
The
Baggarly household woke up with quite a start this morning. I am not sure
if I slept at all due to last minute preparations, not to mention
last-minute Death Tank rounds. Keeping with the Baggarly tradition,
Chanda had to run to San Francisco early this morning to pick up her
passport. We were married earlier in the year, and her name had not been
changed on her passport. All the travel preparations had been made with
her new name, so an updated passport was mandatory to prevent any
problems. Preliminary investigation had led her to believe that only a
simple stamp was necessary to address these formalites, however, three
days ago when she attempted to take care of this, she was told that it
would take a minumum of three days to process the change. She's zoomed
off to the city and all Todd and I could do was hope that nothing would
go wrong on her way to the airport.
Before we
left the house I called our shipper to verify the vehicle shipping
arrangements. They assured me that the Land Rovers were en route but I
had a strange feeling that their information wasn't up to date. I also
was concerned because they never sent me an original bill of loading.
That's a critical document that proves I am the owner of the contents of
our container. Once again, they assured me that their agent would handle
everything.
We were
delivered to the airport by Ken Yarbery. On the way we stopped off at
Long's Drug Store to pick up some diamox, a drug that wards off the
effects of altitude sickness. We won't need this medication for today’s
flight (as long as there aren’t any sudden changes in cabin pressure).
Nope, we'll be taking it in about 15 days when we begin driving up the
Tibetan plateau. I suppose now would be a good time to thank John Russo,
the pharmacy manager, for providing this and other necessary medications
to our team at a significantly reduced cost. Thanks John! Extended
farewells and nervous anticipation dictated that each team member would
arrive with their significant others at the airport. This resulted in a
typical California experience with the six-member team arriving at the
San Francisco International Airport in five different vehicles. Todd and
I arrived together not because of our particular fondness for each other,
but it was just how the dice rolled that particular day. Our team was
sporting their official trip shirts that had been generously donated by
Chuck Charlie Hudson, a proud sponsor of this event. Team
AroundTheWorld1999 was ready to travel!
Everything
went well at the airport until we weighed the sausage. The sausage is our
code name for a snowboarding bag that's moonlighting as a gear bag. It is
long, it is heavy, and it looks like a sausage. Hence the name. We
brought it because it is durable and holds a lot of stuff so it was a
good choice. In fact, to us it was more valuable than ten bricks of gold
bullion, since it carried a great number of spare parts for the trip.
According to the airport's larger scales, it weighed in at 90 pounds,
which was beyond the 75-pound limit. We managed to circumvent the rules
by shuffling stuff from the sausage to some of our carry-on luggage. In
the process, we weighed each of our bags. With a global expedition, it’s
a good idea to pack light because we should be able to find whatever we
need. So we made a bet. Whoever has the heaviest pack has to buy the
first round at the next bar. Here are the results. Doug's pack weighed
32lbs, Todd came in at 35lbs, Nick at 38, Earle at 40lbs, Jeff at 44lbs,
and the winner … Chanda at 48! Moments later, while shuffling items in
the sausage, we learned that airlines frowned upon passengers who take
refined petroleum products aboard the airplane. Oops again, we brought
along an anti-freeze bottle filled with synthetic gear oil for the
overdrive. A gallon of it, to be exact. They kindly asked us to remove it
and we did.
After the
oil flap, we continued on through the gates and waited for our China Air
carrier to whisk us to the east. Once we made it through to the
international part of the airport we were able to purchase last-minute,
duty-free items. We upped our total of American cigarettes, as we had
heard these were heavily sought after items all over the world. I guess
we hoped to spread global goodwill, lending a blind's eye to world health
concerns. Kind of silly when you think about it, but you never know when
you need a favor in Lhasa … and a pack of Marlboro Reds can go a long way
in the bartering process. Soon thereafter, we found ourselves on the
airplane flying over the Pacific Ocean. It was a spectacular flight around
the Pacific Rim and there were even occasional views of glaciers.
Preparing
for his navigational duties, Earle broke out the laptop and GPS unit
while Todd manipulated the GPS antenna near the window of the plane in
order to get a bead on three satellites. (FAA regulations prohibit GPS
technology in use on planes, but apparently, it’s OK with the Chinese
government.) Eventually we were able to pinpoint our exact location and
airspeed. We were traveling well over 500 mph. We were surprised as we
looked down to see Artic snow-capped mountains. None of us imagined that
a trip to China would include this view, but for some mathematical or
navigational reason, the path from San Francisco to China is via Alaska,
Siberia and Korea. The team was kept entertained on the flight by movies
provided by China Air. Since the movies were in Chinese, every team
member had their own take on what the movie was about.
Finally we
arrived in China, shaking our heads in disbelief that we were in San Fran
the morning before and now we are in a completely different world.
Entering the country was uneventful until we had to decide what to do
with the satellite telephone. Do we declare it or not?? Do we risk
getting in trouble on the first day of the journey? Well, this is China,
and who knows whether we're being closely watched. So, we declared the
phone and, of course, the government officials took it and issued a claim
ticket for its return as soon as we could show them appropriate
authorization paperwork.
Todd went
out to the front of the airport where he met our Chinese host and tried
to explain the sat phone difficulties. In retrospect, I'm glad we
declared it. However, the damage had been done, and who knows how it will
turn out at this point. We were in China and that was accomplishment
enough. Though we were all tired from the flight, adrenaline was high
during the drive from the airport and to the hotel. We checked into the
Tian Tan Hotel, gringo central, and put our stuff down. We were
immediately taken to dinner by our Chinese hosts. We were all tired but
everything was so new and wonderful, so we complied. Although it was late
there was a lot going on in the city.
This is
only the beginning, and all of us are filled with anticipation. The
flying was the easy part. Moments after disembarking the plane, as we
walked down the long aisles in the Beijing airport, the realization of
what we were about to do hit me like a ton of bricks. I was a bit nervous
so I remembered of a quote from the VDE guide, written by Tom Shephard,
to set my expectations.
"Expedition
conditions are likely to be demanding. Extremes of temperature (hot and
cold), long periods of travel over rough, bleak, uninhabited terrain, and
repeated physical activity will be the background against which very high
standards of human reliability will be essential, manifested in care of
vehicles and equipment, the highest standards of cross-country driving
and general attention to detail in the discharge of often routine tasks.
If the expedition is to achieve its aims and the necessary harmony within
the team maintained, fitness, stamina, sense of humor, and above all, the
strongest motivation toward this kind of project will be essential in all
team members."
It's going
to be a long journey so I'd better get some sleep. This is Nick, signing
off. Goodnight.
|
