Day 12 oh dear:(

Today we leave Thailand and cross the might Mekong into Laos.
The border crossing was a bit chaotic but H&H had help on hand and we managed to get all the paper work done, seemed to cost quite a bit but I was assured by the guy with a polce T shirt ( they can't even spell) that if I gave him $50 it would all be ok.

Julie was busy doing her form work and coming down some steps when crash, over she went and managed to tear the 5 metatarsal ligament in her leg. Result being she could not walk on stand on it.
Dr John was right on hand and bandaged her up and has being doing a wonderful job looking after
her ever since.
Laos is a very poor country (one of the 10 poorest countries in the world) and the roads certainly show
that. The ferry was apparently top of the range :)

We had to drive to a town called Oudomxay, the road was very scenic, very twisty and in reasonable condition. The hills were 2nd and some times 1st gear for poor Molly. 330 Klm into the trip there wasa stranger  than normal smell and a terrible crunching sound. Molly was broken. We came to a grinding

halt in the pouring rain. Broken car, broken wife and Peeing with rain and 45Klm from home.

I have mentioned how good the back up system is and now we were about to find out.
Along comes one of the land rovers, stopped, lots of shaking of heads, took  photos, and carried on their way. To be fair the brake down land rover was right behind them :) Molly was then towed 45
Klm to the hotel.
The problem was a ceased dynamo, there is nothing that can be done when that happens, the car won't
start and even if it did it would not run very far. End of rally :(

But, the guys at Gantspeed ( they built Molly) had suggested taking a spare dynamo just in case. We
Listened and had packed not only a spare dynamo but fitting instructions ( not that they were really needed)

That evening the mechanics ( more like 'God like beings' now) took the old dynamo out and fitted the new one. Turn the key and Molly is back in the rally.
Car fixed, Julie getting used to being waited on hand and foot and its stopped raining.
Smiling again :)
Onto day 13 :)

Day 11

Another rest day :)
Did not turn out to be quite as restful as we thought, sorted out the inside of Molly after 10 days rubbish had accumulated on my side of the car.
Had a Thai massage and stupidly said to the girl that she was not pushing hard enough.
We then had a sunset elephant ride, which was fantastic going up the hill. I then got talked into sitting on the elephants neck and steering it down what had now become the North face of the Iger.
I don't like horse riding, so what possessed my to agree to a 45 minute down hill ride on top of a 100' tall elephant will always be a mystery. Just to add a bit of spice to it, most of the journey was in the dark. Julie's encouragement ' your doing really well'  ' just hang on'  (to what?) and 'don't worry if you fall off he has been trained not to stand on you' were not a great comfort.

This is a truly a great trip, well organised and with a great team to get us through all this excitement and drama.

The sign on the land rover says it all.

No more elephant riding for me.
The next day is not so clever.

Day 10

Another early start, today we drive from Chiang Mai to the Golden Triangle. This route is along what is know as the ridge road or border road. The route runs right on the edge of Thailand and Burma. Distance of about 390 Klm with army check points all the way.
There are two stages today the first one is over 8.48 Klm at an average speed of 48 Klm. There were no rivers to cross, pot holes to drive over/ through, no elephants to avoid, so it was quite easy, we did very well only missing our time by 2 secs.
On this rally there are two other teams who have never been rallying before, now know as the Rally Virgins :) on today's stage we all came good coming second, third and fourth showing the professional how to do it. Well done Team Virgin :)

The second stage was 17.2 Klm, starting from the top of the world.
Before each stage the Clerk of the course checks them out to make sure the road still exists ( you think I am kidding) if the road is ok then the stage is included, if he thinks it too dangerous he cancels it, we still drive it, but at our own speed, not against the clock.
On this stage he decided the stage was too dangerous. What a good call. When we drove down it, it made all our other descents look tame. If the others hand been black runs this one was a Diamond black run. I think that if we had not had all of Julie's luggage in the back of the Porsche we would have tipped over and done forward rolls all the way down :)
Our over night stop was at a secluded little hotel, julie went out for a early evening walk and was a little surprised (actual it was a bloody big surprise)

She had no idea that the next day she would be riding Bhuci into the sunset.

Day 9

We are sorry that the blog is behind what is actually happening but the Internet connection in our hotels is pretty poor and for some reason does not like blogs, Facebook is ok.
Anyway yesterday we incurred a 17 second penalty, but we are still in 5 th place, which is quite amazing, Julie is now a seasoned navigator, and getting quite stroppy if I don't drive fast enough ( how cool is that ?)
We were 4th but one of the other competitors took the time keeper out for an evening of culture at the ' Ladyboys are Us' bar and some how they are now 4th :)

Today is a rest day and we have been round the temples and markets. The temples are all set in there own ornamental gardens and have a fantastic feeling of  peace and quiet.
In the evening was a most incredible storm, luckily we were in a bar and managed to stay dry but all the lights went off which made the journey home fun.

Another reason the blog is a bit behind is that we have had two major disasters, more to come.
The hotels we are staying at have been fab, and the H&H team brilliant. Over the next few days we come to call on their expertise quite a lot ( I should be a suspense writer)
Looking forward to tomorrow where we drive from Chaing Mai up to the Golden Triangle.

Day 7

It's called the Tiger Rally and has lived up to its name. Yesterday morning we visited the Tiger Temple at 7.00 just after the Tigers had been fed. These are wild tigers being looked after by volunteers to try and save the Thailand Tiger from poachers and big game hunters.

It's an amazing place and humans are encourage ( in more ways than one) to interact with the Tigers big and small. These guys in the photo below are having quite a fight in the water and then a few minutes later Julie and I are stroking one of the biggest. 

One of team put his hand in the wrong place and trust me these are very fast and very powerful cats. They say they should be able to stick his arm back on :)

Moving onto yesterday's test, this was about 19 Klm long up a narrow mountain road, with trucks, cars coaches etc all deciding to use it. Remember what I said about pulling out in front of purple cars, well, it really came into play on this run. We had to average 49 kph, we managed that till the last 50 yes and did not see that the finish line had been moved :( ended up finishing some 17 sec over our time.

However others also had problems and after the 1st week of the rally we have moved UP to 4th which is quite incredible and we are finding hard to believe.

Molly now has proper petrol and is running fine. There should be some great footage of us overtaking a double length truck on a blind bend with a sheer drop on MY side. 

Adrenalin running at 100%, fantastic run followed by some of the most breath taking scenery you could imagine.

Day 6 evening

Just had the results for today's competition, and Molly has won her first ever rally stage. This is down to 100 percent luck :) well perhaps the navigator had something to do with it and of course some amazing driving skills :)
We think we should stop now while we are ahead :) this result lifts us to 5 th overall. The teams in front all do 4 or  5 rally's a year all over the world. We can not believe how well the £10 we  'leant' to the time keeper has paid off :)
Just about to start day 7, lets hope mollys fuel problems are gone now she has cooled down.

Day 6

Hi,   Sorry we have been off air but Internet access is not as good as we had hoped for and for the technical among you Apple and Google systems don't like each other, chuck in the fact that the commands are in Thai :)
Today we started at 5.00 and visited a Tiger Temple, have now fed a baby tiger and played with a full grown 10 year old one, julie wanted to bring a some home for Heather, Becky and Gill :)
We have competed in 3 more very hard test up and down mountain roads with no traffic and some very hard times to match. One car tried a bit to hard and missed a bend completely. Pleased to say the pulled it out of the bushes and it has carried on.
Molly managed all of the test but the last down hill section was a bit hairy with boiled brakes ( shows we were trying)
The results will be out later tonight. Julie has done an amazing job, by the time we had finished the 3 stage she had nearly lost her voice shouting at me.
We have driven 650 Klm today, all along the Burma border, quite stunning.
Over the last 150 Klm Molly suffered from severe petrol starvation. We think this was due to the extreme heat, the very long fast drive and some dodgy Thai petrol. Hopefully she will be ok tomorrow, only 350 Klm tomorrow and only 1 test stage.
We are both very  tired but a glass of wine should fix that.
The mechanics are doing an amazing job keeping some of the other cars going. The only vehicle to be trailered in has been one of their own land rovers :)
Just going to have a look on the Internet to find a car for the round the world rally in 2015 :)
Diner beckons.
On to day 7