Well done indeed
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Well done indeed
Good stuff FP get the photos up.
We arrived on Koh Lanta 3 days before the race for Tuk Tuk training. There were 24 teams in total from all around the world. A mix of British, American, Canadian, Dutch, Australian and 2 other expat teams, one from Dubai and one from Hong Kong.
As soon as I arrived in the car park where the test vehicles were parked the other British team were getting stuck in learning how to change a tire without any jacks or proper equipment so I got involved and started my mechanical learning curve on how to fix one of these little beasts.
The Machines were a version of the Indonesian Bemo with a 175cc motorbike engine. Complete nails and not up to the task of traveling over 2500km.
Here's the team. Left to Right - Chico the Fox (Oil changer and Modifications Expert), Nod (Navigator and Chief Camera Man) and Me (Driver).
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On the first night Nod had his camera bag stolen from our hotel room and spent most of the first 3 days drowning his sorrows. This also meant that the only thing we had left to take photo's and video with was an Iphone.
Here's me having a hard time figuring the gears out.
First go in a Tuk Tuk - YouTube
It turned out that the 5 speed 'H' pattern that was on the gear stick meant nothing. The gear knob had just been stolen from an old car. To change gear you had to just push forward 5 times to go up and pull back 5 times to go down. Motor bike style.
and here's Chico's first go.
Tuk Tuk Training - YouTube
One of the tasks set to us by Beer Chang was to try to take 1000 pics of people smiling to tie in with the Operation Smile Thailand charity. Here's a few to get us started.
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This is probably the smiling assassin that stole our camera bag.
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On the last night before the race there was a leaving party laid on for us. At the end of the party each team had to go to the front and pick their set of keys out of a bag. A friend of mine who is particularly lucky had come along to the party to see us off and so I asked him if he would pick the keys for us.
I asked him to try to get a number plate with the number '23' in it as that is my lucky number. He pulled out the set of keys SD 6523 and I knew we were going to have a good trip.:)
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Stunning stuff. Well done. FP
Mostly burds smiling then I suppose...?:)
We tried but in the end you'll see that it's mostly mechanics smiling as thats where we spent most of our days.:)Quote:
Originally Posted by Smug Farang Bore
Fantastic, well done FP and team. :bananaman:
awesome, keep posting.
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Fresh Prince
those Apple blokes have a lot to answer for
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Why do I think of this, when I see that photo ? :)
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Good Luck Fellas:)
Sunday March 11th, Day 1 :Part 1.
The plan for the day was to get as far as possible. We we hoping that we would make at least as far as Trang as they were likely to have decent hotels there.
Things didn't do to plan.
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Koh Lanta to Pak Meng Beach. About 100km and it took us 7 hours.:(
We over slept after a heavy night at the leaving party the night before and we thought that we'd miss the start line send off.
My Team as I found them.
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Probably the nicest rooms we were going to stay in for a while.
When we got there the start line was a bit of a fiasco and a lot of the teams Tuk Tuks hadn't even been delivered yet. Ours was there but it wouldn't start. I put this down to having no petrol so I walked what felt like 2km the gas station and filled up a water bottles worth. When I got back and put the gas in and it still didn't work.
It turned out it was the accelerator cable going into the carb. The pins weren't aligned correctly. Glad to learn that one early on.
We had 2 hours before the start to decorate the ride so we covered it in Beer Chang Stickers and it was time to hit the road.
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There will be a lot of pics of the back of my head.
We were one of the first teams to leave and on the first ferry over to the smaller island there was a team of Scotish lads. We had a chat with them and compared oil leaks. Our leak seemed to be about as bad as theirs but it still concerned me enough to stop at the first place that looked like a garage on the main land and have the oil topped up.
Whilst I was doing that Nod and Chico went on the hunt for some spanners at the local shop.
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When they found them they were surprised to see that the shop provided free dog turds with every spanner. Bonus!:)
By this point we hadn't traveled very far and when we stopped at a junction a few locals were pointing to the back of my engine and shouting "Naman!" at me. I quickly learned the thai word for oil and decided to stop again at the next garage to get it checked out.
They cleaned up the mess which made Chico really happy.
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Then I took a closer look and wasn't very impressed at all.
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A massive crack in the engine. Fantastic.
The guys in the garage botched it up with epoxy resin and wished us the best of luck. Then laughed their tits off when we said we were going to take it Jakarta. The whole stop took about 3 hours.
Looking at these pics again now I can see loads of bolts in the engine that were there when we started but absent later in the race.
So onto the open road.:)
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A nice mangrove.
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Everyone we passed had a massive grin on their faces.:)
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A quick stop to make sure the epoxy was holding strong.
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Nod, my drunk camera man agreeing that it's holding strong.
The car seemed to be running really well now and it looked like we were going to hit our target of Trang before dark. We'd past the other teams along the way and spirits we high.....:)
great stuff so far. a bit farked that the organisers gave you dodgy engines to start with.
That's all part of their style though. They wan't you to have problems, break down and get lost.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sir Wilson
I did feel sorry for 2 of the teams though. They never actually managed to get their cars off the start line and had to pay for them to be trucked on flat beds all the way to Butterworth. After a lot of complaining I think they got their money back.
OTTQuote:
Originally Posted by The Fresh Prince
.
.
Agreed but at the time they hadn't been given their money back. What was probably going through their heads was not wanting to loose the 1000 pounds deposit on the Tuk Tuk and the pre paid 300 pounds spent on getting the tuk tuk shipped to Medan.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sir Wilson
NO,
I mean the organisers, it's all well and good to have a tricky/technical/challenging course and have the tuk tuks with built in surprises but to have the fuckers not work at all is just fukking silly.
Sunday March 11th, Day 1 :Part 2.
So everything was looking good to hit Trang before night fall and then when I was heading down a hill the Tuk Tuk started loosing speed but the revs were still going.
Bugger, the clutch had gone. We rolled down the hill and pulled up near to some houses. One of them looked like a garage work shop so we though we were in luck and one by one the locals started drifting over to take a look.
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They all had a good laugh at our crappy machine and poked around a bit but said we were out of luck because the guy from the garage behind us had taken the day off because it was Sunday.
Things seemed a bit desperate and we thought we were going to have to make use of the mosquito tents that we'd brought with us. Then a stroke of luck! The mechanic appeared to save the day.:)
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For a while he thought it was just the gear stick and adjusted that to make it harder for me to change gear but after a some hand gestures and clutch motions I managed to get across that it was the clutch.
He got right in there, took it apart, did a bit of magic and just before dusk he got it going like a dream with a nice tight clutch.
Here's an arty panoramic shot that Nod did with his camera. He gets better at this as the trip goes on.
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And the boys that got us back on the road. Cheers Lads.:)
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So back on the road we had to re-route to Pak Meng because it was only 53km away and the night was setting in. We'd been passed by the Dutch, the Aussies and the Brit girls whilst fixing the clutch.
As it went dark I turned on my lights to find that I only had one front head light and no tail lights so we taped our torches to the back and taped some CD's to it also to give a bit of reflection and strapped a head torch to the front so that on coming traffic could see us.
About 30km in and it was impossible to drive so we had to pull over. We were stood on the side of the road wondering what to do when a teenager came rushing over on his motorbike.
"Your Friend! Your Friend! They have big accident just here on road so I take them to hospital! They have Tuk Tuk same you and they roll it on this corner! Come quick I take you to hospital!" He ranted
I already had the shits up me from driving in the dark and this just scared the shit out of me even more.
We followed him to the hospital where there was a tuk tuk with a bit of a mangled front end and a smashed windscreen and one of the Dutch guys smoking a cigarette and laughing at his Tuk Tuk.
It turned out that they thought they were going to miss the turning and took the corner too fast, rolled it, but only the driver was hurt with a gash in his elbow. He got stitched up and was in good spirits so we left them and were on the road again.
We pulled into Pak Meng Beach at about 9pm and the place seemed pretty dead apart from the police having a drink at a bar on the way in. There was one more place with lights and people near the beach front so we pulled in there.
It turned out to be karaoke/knocking shop so we took a seat and ordered 3 pad krapao's and a couple of beers. The girls were all rough as boots so we didn't bother with the entertainment and sank a few more beers before going to find a room for the night.
When we left I turned on the front headlight and noticed that the small bag that we kept strapped to the inner roof of the tuk tuk was sitting in the road.
"Why's the important bag in the road?" I said
"Jesus fucking christ my other bags been nicked" Shouted Nod
And somebody had nicked Nods only remaining bag containing all his clothes and his laptop.:rofl: This was just too much for him so we found a room and those two went off to sleep.
I on the other hand couldn't let this lie, so I got all the endorsement paper work from the Asean Nations and headed off to where I'd seen the Police drinking earlier on.
I had a couple of beers with them and explained the situation. Two of them popped off and said they would be back before day light with the goods. There were basically no people on the streets that night so I had faith that they could narrow the thief down. And low and behold at 6am the 2 coppers came back with laptop in hand but they couldn't recover the bag or clothes.
That was good enough for me and as payment they wanted taking out for breakfast. It was well and truly light now so we headed off down the beach for a seafood chow down.
I got back to the room at about 8am very tired but pumped up for day 2 after getting Nods laptop back.:)
fookin cheap really.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Fresh Prince
Yep, gotta agree with that. They flew the mechanics over from Jakrata where they were built but I think the locals over here could have done a better job.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sir Wilson
I'll give a list of things on our car that didn't work later.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sir Wilson
Why the fuk would any one leave there bag of goodies with there lap top sitting in an open Tuk Tuk. ?????
Fuk me EH.
Anyway what the fuk. Have a nice trip and don't drive at night time as that's even more foking stupid.
Get killed for a frigging game mate.
Can you imagine this race taking place in the UK, with all the H&S ?
Great stuff though.
Don't worry about drivin in the dark tho TFP, that is where the Victors will come from. One giant step for mankind was done in the dark.
Balls out !!!!
^
Urm'
I'd say more than likely balls off and lights out when some massive fok off truck barrels straight over the mad fuks especially with that death machine having candles for lights .
Anyway, who gives a fuk as its all in the name of adventure. :rolleyes:
Boys will be celebrating FP's life at the " Pintsman " when he's been crushed to the size of a grape when head butted by an oncoming vehicle. :)
But he is home already after having won the frigging race (and probably thanks to a little bit of driving in the dark now and then)...
Keep it coming FP... enjoying this.
I like the way the police knew right away who had most likely nicked your gear... "Oh yeah.. that'll be the pesky village thief again..."
^ yes, most villages only have one nominated thief
as they have one demented alcoholic and one dribbling loony
The goodies weren't that good and the tuk tuk was in plain sight the whole time! We just took our eyes off it for a second.:)Quote:
Originally Posted by terry57
Wait up!!! I bloody made it!Quote:
Originally Posted by terry57
I'm trying, The office has had me working flat out all week but I'll try to get the rest of the pics up asap.:)Quote:
Originally Posted by rawlins
^
Fantastic adventure, well done and glad to see you actually got back home safely.
Driving the death machine at night though ??
Na, fuk that. :rolleyes: