November 2008 Archives

In March 2008, I joined a Dragoman truck to embark on an Overland journey from the UK to St Petersburg, via Central Asia, China, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan. (See the full route here.) Starting in Istanbul, and continuing every driving day since then, I have been recording the route that the Dragoman truck has taken, using my Garmin GPSmap60Cx GPS receiver. (For technical details of how this was done, see here.) I thus have a series of files, one for each day, that stores all the details of speed, position, and altitude as the truck moves about each driving day. Some trekking or walking maps are included as well. These files have now been processed to produce an online Google Map for each day, plus a detailed Route-Report that shows a number of graphs and useful statistics. The first set of maps, covering the route from Istanbul to Beijing, can be seen here. The second set of maps, covering the route from Beijing to Almaty, can be seen here. This page completes the journey, providing maps and route reports from Almaty to St Petersburg, and then staying with the truck as it transited to Dover.

To view the maps, click on the links below. The map will initially load with the Satellite view, as this seems to be more effective in an area that is little-mapped, even by Google, but you can also select a standard roadmap, or a hybrid view of the two, using the buttons in the top right of the screen. The amount of detail that the Satellite view will provide depends on Google's current satellite photos for that area. In the countryside this might just show a general view that identifies built-up and rural areas, whilst in bigger cities you can often zoom in to see individual buildings, and decide which exit we took from a carpark, or even where we parked in that carpark! The detail can often be astonishing. You can click-and-drag to move the map around, and zoom in and out using the +/- slider on the left of the screen.

The Route Reports are stored as PDF files, so to view them you will need a PDF reader installed on your computer. (Available free from Adobe.)

And so to the end of a truly memorable journey. Since we started at Calais on the 17th of March, the truck has driven exactly 38,138 Kms, or in other words, 23,836 Miles. Many thanks are due to drivers Toni, for UK to Beijing; Blair, for Beijing to Mongolia; Vernon, for Kazakstan to Calais; and a very big thanks to Jay, who drove the whole way with me, Calais to Calais.

Note: All route and stored position data are copyright 2008 Tim Makins and MapAbility.Com

Yes, thirteen was a good number to start the journey with. We even got back with most of the people still on board!

 The bad news first of all: driver Blair, and his girlfriend Dawn, who both joined in Beijing, had to leave the trip in Mongolia and fly home due to a death in the family. They were both missed very much. Blair was an excellent driver, and a great guy to be with. His laid back-yet-fully competent attitude is a great adition to any truck.

 Jay, who had been driving the truck since Dover, carried on by himself for a month or so until a new co-driver could be found, prepared, and flown out. This turned out to be Vernon, who hot-footed it from South America to join us in Almaty, Kazakhstan, where he seemed to spend a lot of the time making, and then getting stood up on, dates with the locals. Can nobody find him a wife quickly?!

 At the moment, typing away at an Internet Cafe in the backstreets of Old Delhi, I find it hard to write a 'we-went-there, we-saw-that' acount of the trip. That will probably come later, along with the second set of my photos. For now, I just wanted to chat about Dragoman itself - based on some ideas I was discussing with others. Someone asked me if I would use Dragoman again, and what I thought of the product/service that they offer these days.

Would I use them again ? The thing is, now that Exodus have left the Overlanding market and Encounter is merged in with Drago, even about to disappear we hear, few other players are left. Dragoman tend to have all the best routes for many parts of the world these days, so for certain Overland journeys there is no other choice.

Generally, I think they are good, very professional, and offer an excellent product. Complaints and moaning are common 'on the road', as with any company - its easy to lose a sense of proportion when you are in the midle of nowhere with a captive audience, but I think that generally speaking, if someone doesn't like what they got when they get there, its their fault for not reading the brochure closely enough! Everything is spelt out most carefully, if you want to read it. I guess its a bit like Internet Dating - one tends to concentrate on the exciting bits and ignore the small print. This is no fault of Dragomans, though! I liked my trip a lot - perhaps because, with 9 other Overland journeys under my belt, I knew what to expect and how to get the best out of it.

Having said that, Dragoman are certainly changing the face of Overlanding as we, the passengers who have been overlanding for many years, all know it. These days, its much more up-market, too much of the passenger's money spent on local guides and fancy hotels, not enough camping or 'meet-the-locals'. Mongolia was a very pleasant departure from this, but no longer the norm. In the 'old days', the trucks would set out with a general idea of where to go, and a sense of adventure to get them through. They might even have had a rough idea when they would arrive at their destination! Not any longer. I heard of one trip recently through India that had a local guide - just what IS the point in that, when India is well mapped, easy to navigate, and has plenty of locals who speak English?

Today's Overland Drivers are not being given the space or time to excel themselves - an on-board local guide just turns them into into driver/mechanics, not true adventure-leaders. For the passengers it means getting things pointed out, rather than discovering things for yourselves. OK, so without a guide it may take longer, and you may miss things, but surely the point of Overlanding is one of discovery, rather than just box-ticking? 

 Another issue that needs bring to the open is the speed that today's trucks go at. The trips cover too much ground too quickly. Why is this? Supposedly to cater for the supposed needs of a new breed of Overland customers, who have plenty of money, but little time. Customers who want to take a two-week vacation in some intensely exotic land, then fly back to their high-salary jobs. That's why the trips these days are split into short sections. The funny thing was that on the Beijing - St Petersburg leg, no one of the passengers fell into that description of their lifestyle. Its true there are not so many takers for the big journeys - on this truck only Jay and I completed the Calais-Calais circle in tis entirety. Its just a shame that the 'old breed' of Overlander are no longer catered for.

Will I go Overlanding again? I certainly hope so, and want to do a couple more Overlands at least:- Kathmandu to Hong Kong via Tibet with Drago, and an interesting route down the west coast of Africa that Oasis Overland are trying out. That one goes from Gibraltar to Cairo via Cape Town, and takes 40 weeks, BUT with the current problems in Angola and Congo this may have to wait for a couple of years.