Now that the motorized part of my travel is over, here is a short summary:
The first part from Luxembourg to Venice was a sort of prelude, a gift I wanted to make to myself. But the weather gods decided otherwise, and I drove for the first part in the cold and rain. But as soon as I passed the Alps, the weather improved, and I drove my Harley under a bright Italian sky to Marco Polo’s hometown.
As this great traveler left Venice by ship, I absolutely wanted to do the same, but I could not really get it the way I wanted. For quite a while I looked for a cargo ship to take me to Istanbul, but couldn’t find one to go directly to Istanbul. My time schedule was quite tight, and I could not afford to take several ships to get there, especially not knowing my exact date of arrival. For a while I tried to organize a sailing ship, but this also failed. So, together with Patrice, my wife and 4 friends I booked a cruise tour through the eastern Mediterranean Sea, which I left in Istanbul.
Here my little 15 years old Golf waited for me at the police station where I brought it 2 month before. Now the real travel started.
I knew it would be hard for my car, but it came much worse as I expected.
In Turkey: Front screen broken, air-conditioning broken, power-windows working improperly.
In Azerbaijan: front spoiler broken
First serious problem: On a very bad Azeri road my engine hit the ground and my sump started leaking. I could not repair until Tehran, so I filled up regularly, watching closely my oil temperature indicators.
In Tehran, Iran we repaired my air-conditioning, welded a new plug to my sump, and replaced my front brakes.
In Turkmenistan: Second serious problem: After driving for hours on a bad road, my left rear shock-absorber broke through its protection and entered inside my car. My poor Golf, its back almost sliding on the road, suffered some long 15 km until next town, where an Armenian artist-mechanic repaired everything.
In Tajikistan, on the worst roads of my whole trip, I first lost the right, and the left part of my spoiler. Then: Third serious alert. I got stuck on a muddy road. This time I really feared the journey would be over, but Chinese road workers flattened some 200 meters of the “road” with their Bulldozer, so I could continue. But my gear box was damaged from the many hits, and from now on I had problems switching between 3rd and 4th gear. Also my exhaust was badly damaged, and now the Golf had quite a sporty sound.
On top of this I had 5 flat tires.
Besides all this specific incidents, my car was dying slowly, but surely, rattling and squieking on every single part, but the 1.9 Liter Turbo Diesel worked perfectly till the last minute.
Up to now:
Motorcycle: 1199 km
Ship: 2413 km
Car: 10080 km a total of 13.692 km from Ell to Bishkek.
