The Silk Route Motorcaravan Club.Bulletin 96 (Part 2 of 2). |
2002, Mexico and Back.After San Francisco we took a new route south-eastwards towards Phoenix. Visited new parks: Joshua Tree, Petrified Park, the Chelly Canyon, Monument Valley and Mesa Verde with its Indian villages. We wondered what geological upheavals it had taken to shape those impressive landscapes. The Indian communities are very lively and control the local trade. One of the most powerful is the Navajo tribe who have a vast reserve and who manage several parks including Monument Valley. At Mesa Verde the ranger who takes people round and whose physique suggests Germanic ancestry described the life of 'his' cave-dwelling forebears, overlooking what the Americans have done to the Indian peoples. In this oversize country, everything is extra large - obese people, huge shopping centres, distances, lorries, motorcaravans which made our Jumper look Lilliputian. We were surprised by the number of pets in lorries and recreation vehicles. There are specially designated walking areas for them at parking lots and in many of the shopping centres there are pet parlours and pet toy shops. We then turned east to discover Mississippi and Louisiana, another dream of ours. Santa Fe, in New Mexico, was a bit of a disappointment. It is a lovely town with modern adobe architecture, a lot of tourists, very expensive, luxury goods for sale, but no more traces of the gold rush. It took miles and miles to cross Oklahoma and Arkansas to reach Memphis, Tennessee. A very well-made museum showed us the great river we were to travel along to its delta. We saw the agribusiness of the Arkansas plains and the Mississippi banks - rice, maize, cotton, sugar cane - the history of settlement in these parts, the war of Secession, the lovely planters' houses, blues and jazz. In South America the Spaniards virtually wiped out the Indians, but a strong race hardly ever disappears completely. In North America it took the combined forces of the Spaniards, the French, the English and European migrants to finish the Indians, but as the conquerors did not have enough labourers they ordered the India Company to bring them Blacks from Africa. These slaves were then to sing of their suffering in the blues. We are now in New Orleans where we'll spend a few days before returning to Texas and Houston before we leave. We have had an inspiring journey. We've met some very warm and friendly people. Although we've covered 16,000 km we only know a small part of this vast country. We shall be flying out on 10 June. Mail dated 31 May 2002. Having visited Mississippi and Louisiana, here we are in Houston. The huge Mississippi river was enchanting, as was the town of New Orleans with its echoes of jazz. We returned to Texas through plantations and Cajun country. After organising the re-embarkation we shall make a short tour round Texas while we wait to leave. Good wishes to all. Jo and Brigitte Aubry. |
South-East Asia. |
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While I was beginning to wonder whether I should send out a search party, Jean and Simone Moriot informed me in a long letter dated 20 May that everything is going well for them and even that they've been taking the plunge. To the detriment of long-distance travellers, Myanmar (once Burma) is still closed to our vehicles. You can get there by plane or, for the more adventurous, by dangerous tracks. For us this meant transferring the van by sea from Chennai (once Madras) in India, to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. The plane landed us in the futuristic airport of the Malay capital on 4 January 2002, and we fetched Camion on the 11th. After India - a testing experience - the hotel did us a power of good and we stayed until the 15th so that the local Iveco branch could do some work on the van. Our aim was to cover a loop along the west coast of Malaysia, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Kampuchea and back through Thailand to Malaysia. There we wanted to find a crossing to Indonesia. Climatic conditions were urging us to leave the Sunda isles in mid-June. We found the ultramodern city of Kuala Lumpur at the end of 75 km of luxurious motorway bordered by huge and magnificent plantations of palm trees. The country is the world leader in palm oil production. In a week's tour we enjoyed conditions of life now abandoned in India, and appreciated the friendliness of the people. Camping in the wild now became our daily practice and remained so until the end of our loop. The precious large trees are hardly able to protect the streets of the capital from the heat of the sun. To find fresher air you need to get out of town and into the hills. At 1500 metres, the Cameron Highlands, where both flowers and a famous tea are produced, were to become our night-time refuge on several occasions. On the 27 January we were in Thailand. We dawdled along the Gulf of Siam towards Bangkok. The sun made us lazy and the sea was too rough for bathing. The whole region specialises in shrimp production. Huge carefully oxygenated ponds of water stretch as far as you can see alongside the road. They provide a major resource to the national food industry. Krong Thep, the City of Angels (Bangkok) is the true spiritual, symbolic and physical heart of the nation. Its rich heritage of monuments pays homage to traditional splendour - the gilded arches and spires of the Grand Palace, the Emerald temple to Buddha and the temple at Wat Rachabophit with its splendid decoration and its subtle arrangement of pavilions and cloister. A trip in a dug-out with a 'long tail' on the river of the Kings and its little canals brought us the necessary touch of cool air. But it was the surrounding area, within a circle of 100 km, that we really enjoyed. In the middle of a mosaic of emerald green rice fields, the ruins of the former capital, Ayutthaya, are remarkable. Towards Nakkhan Pathon, Rose Garden offers relaxation in an astonishing country park, where a cultural centre gives a realistic idea of traditional Thai life. There is also the lively floating market at Sadvak near Ratcha Buri, which you have to visit by boat. Further to the west, the famous Bridge over the River Kwai, built by Second World War prisoners in barbaric conditions, was rebuilt for the film in... Ceylon. Further north, there is a diversity of natural life apart from the main product, rice. We enjoyed delicious strawberries and good white grapes sold alongside the road, and the taste of the tamarind fruit was an agreeable surprise. From various tourist spots, most of them temples, in national parks we hadn't known about, we reached the point on the banks of the Mekong where the borders of Lyanmar, Laos and Thailand meet. There is more good quality handicraft here than elsewhere. During the last part of the journey, we had a minor incident. After a week of choosing our camping places very carefully because of the rice-straw fires (brushwood and even forests get burned too), we ended up sleeping peacefully in the middle of a comfortable area of beaten earth when a cry of 'Fire' had us out of the place in no time - someone had set light to the place by burning domestic rubbish near his home. Through the Laotian border we reached Vientiane on 24 February. This modest town was dusty and disappointing, impossible to avoid for administrative reasons but without interest. All we remember of it is the Cote d'Azur, a restaurant run by a genuine Frenchman from Nice on the banks of the Mekong. Towards the north, the patchy highway runs through a picturesque landscape of hills. On the high plateaux, the local people are clothed in rags and tatters and live in hamlets of huts, confirming the popular and democratic republic of Laos as one of the poorest nations on earth. But the people are good natured. Even after 50 years of independence, Luang Prabang still retains a colonial atmosphere. It is a religious centre with extraordinary temples and morning processions of hundreds of Buddhist priests out begging, but it is also a rich marketplace for handicrafts. As a tourist town it has a romantic look as it sits on a piece of land almost surrounded by a branch of the Mekong. It would be unforgivable of us not to mention the Elephant, a restaurant of quality food and low prices, founded and run by Gilles, an enterprising Frenchman from Lorraine who was keen to please. On the high plateaux, the local people are clothed in rags and tatters and live in hamlets of huts, confirming the popular and democratic republic of Laos as one of the poorest nations on earth. But the people are good natured. Even after 50 years of independence, Luang Prabang still retains a colonial atmosphere. It is a religious centre with extraordinary temples and morning processions of hundreds of Buddhist priests out begging, but it is also a rich marketplace for handicrafts. As a tourist town it has a romantic look as it sits on a piece of land almost surrounded by a branch of the Mekong. It would be unforgivable of us not to mention the Elephant, a restaurant of quality food and low prices, founded and run by Gilles, an enterprising Frenchman from Lorraine who was keen to please. Can Camion be mended ? Will our brave travellers be able to continue on their way ? Find out in the next episode. |
And The USA - A Family Trip, Part 2. |
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After enjoying the end-of-year festivities with the family, we picked up our motorcaravan in the USA on 10 January to spend the winter under the warm Florida sun. The Everglades National Park is one of the few American parks regarded as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is a vast swamp which covers the southern tip of Florida. In fact it is a very slow-flowing river which comes out of lake Okeechobee in the north and joins the sea in the Gulf of Mexico. In some places it is as much as 80 km wide and its average depth is only 18 cm.. It offers shelter to various ecosystems, such as the leafy mounds and mangroves which allow a number of species of animals to subsist. It is also a home to insects, birds (more than 350 species) and snakes. It is the only place in the world where you can choose to be eaten by alligators or crocodiles. What a marvel! We were very impressed by Stark Valley, the Seminole Indian reservation at the north east of the Everglades. To visit this area you can use small amphibious vehicles which fly over the canals and/or all-terrain vehicles. To the south east we travelled across the Keys archipelago, a thousand small coral islands. The largest at Key Largo, Marathon, Kay West. Flippers and a mask allow you to admire the many varieties of coral, shells and shellfish. Owners of glass-bottomed boats offer mini-cruises, but at prohibitive prices and you see hardly anything ! Someone who lives in the region of Toulouse, centre of the European space and aeronautical industry, can hardly miss out on the chance to visit the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, with its NASA installations, a life-size replica of the Columbia, of a weather satellite and various rocket models, all enough to satisfy an enthusiast. But the chief attraction of the place is undoubtedly the Apoloo pavilion. The Apollo programme was stopped before its final phase and there are three rockets left of which one is exhibited here with a lunar module and a lunar vehicle. That was our lucky day. As we climbed the observation tower, we saw that one of the launching pads was operational and contained a rocket, but we never imagined that it was about to go. It was late in the afternoon that loudspeakers informed us that because of the Columbia launch the gates would be closing one hour later. So we were able to witness in person this grand unforgettable, but horribly rapid, spectacle - 20 seconds. Orlando, capital of north Florida is surrounded by a number of amusement parks, including the legendary Disney World, 12000 hectares, 4 theme parks - Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Disney's Animal, Disney-MGM-Studios. On the north-east coast, Saint Augustine is the oldest town in Florida. There you can visit the Casa Gonzalez Alvarez built of shell stone in 1708 on the site of the first house built of wood and palm leaves in 1565, destroyed by a fire in 1706. Around 40 late 18th early 19th century houses are grouped in the same street. Castillo san Marco, a historic monument since 1928, is a fort built by the Spanish in 1720 to defend the town against attack from the English and French, and more especially from pirates. A trip to the aeronautical base of Pensacola gave us a chance to see a plane being catapulted from an aircraft carrier and to admire the splendid collection of old airships in the museum. Our visit to Florida has ended (don't forget to tip the guide, please). We are carrying on towards the north. To be continued in the next edition. Jacky Baronio. |
Practical Information. |
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Dutch insurance. Whole world, from 1 to 12 months. USA-Canada.
To obtain an All Risks price, add the cost of your preferred option to the cost of option 4, e.g. for option 3, $2116 for 6 months, $3896 for 12. Central America, South America And Asia. All risks, for a $35000 vehicle, $1951 for 6 months, $3230 for 12. Because of the current political situation, Iran, Pakistan etc. (?) are not acceptable. For Mexico, only Mexican insurance bought at the border is valid. Assurantiekantoor Alessie. Telephone: +31 10 4555946, Fax: +31 10 4555559 48, Alessie@Alessie.com Note. Prices above are based on $1=1 Euro. This may present difficulties for foreign trade, but it makes understanding the costs much easier. |
New Members. |
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Bill Henley, 7 Drovers Way, Stoke Heath, Bromsgrove, Worcs B60 3PR. Telephone: +44 1527 873 906, Mobile: +44 7719 70839. T. Edwin and Anne Shore, 23 Chapel Street, Hagley, West Midland, DY9 ONL. Telephone: +44 1562 887 148. Gerard Litzon, 13 rue du temple, 31460 Caraman, France. Telephone: +33 5 62 185 254, E-Mail: gerardlitzon@aol.com. |
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