By
five
o'clock on July 1st, we were drinking beers on the deck of the "Suzhou Hao" as
it sailed out of Yokohama, bound for Shanghai. The previous three days had
left us with mixed feelings about the beginning of our trip. We felt
relieved that we had managed to buy the two motorcycles that we wanted, and still
make the ferry for China on time, while also feeling somewhat anxious and
concerned that we had not had the opportunity to inspect and prepare
the bikes for the journey.
In our desperation to get loaded onto the ferry, we drove the bikes onto the ferry deck, tied them down with straps and after all that panic and exhaustion headed upstairs for a cold refreshing beer. We planned to return to the bikes later to do get the gear we needed for the trip and to try and give the bikes a bit of a service. We neglected to take from the bikes the essentials that we needed for the three day journey to Shanghai. Consequently, when the cargo hold was locked we found ourselves with only the free T-shirt we were given as we boarded, and our cameras. Once locked, the hold was strictly off limits to passengers for the whole of the journey, thereby keeping us from a much needed change of clothes. We had also hoped that the three day trip would give us ample opportunity to properly prepare the bikes for the journey ahead. As we had only seen our bikes for the few hours between buying them and then locking them in the cargo hold we were very disappointed that we had no access the bikes during the ferry
trip.
The three day ferry crossing was surprisingly pleasant. The
Chinese crew were very friendly and helpful. The crew and passengers played
table-tennis with each other while computerised route maps in the lounge plotted
our route. Sleeping on board was all in one large common room. There
were only a few separate sleeping rooms but as students we decided to slum it
with the hoi polloi. It was a large low ceilinged room, with wafer thin
mattresses for each person to lie on. We were the only westerners on board the ship and apart from a
friendly Mongolian businessman and a few Japanese tourists, the rest were all
Chinese labourers returning from Japan, armed with cash and presents for family
and friends back home.
We
left Japan on two Honda XL400V TransAlps, and carried over 60 kilograms of
luggage and spare parts each. Spare tyres, tubes, chains, brake pads,
cables and levers were considered the essential spares, along with tents,
sleeping bags, a huge amount of photographic equipment. Due to the lack of
any suitable local substitutes we also carried many litres of engine oil, chain
lube and brake fluid. Further, anticipated low grade fuel quality meant we
had to try and take as much octane booster as possible. We stocked up in
Tokyo with 4 litres each - we couldn't really carry any more - but we knew it
would never really be enough. The fact that we also had to carry clothes and
riding gear to deal with all weather conditions from a steamy Shanghai summer to
a sub-zero winter in Northern Europe meant that the bikes were very heavily
loaded for the majority of the trip. The motorcycles were totally standard
apart from Gearsack luggage racks attached with hose
clamps.
With the
bikes locked presumably safely in the ships hold, there was nothing for us to do
during the crossing of the East China Sea but revisit where we had come from 9
months ago. September 1993 was the genesis of the idea. A group of 6
adventure seeking friends were sitting around discussing what we would do next
Australian winter (July - August '94). James was keen to ride motorcycles
around Japan. Walter had just finished reading "Across the Red Unknown" (a
journey across Russia from Vladivostok to Moscow by 4WD by journalist George Negus done in 1991 - while the
last hardline Soviet coup was still going on) and he wanted to incorporate far
eastern Russia into the motorcycle plans, linked by a couple of boat trips
across the Sea of Japan. Within weeks these tentative discussions had
expanded taking into account the possibility of riding as far as Mongolia.
Western China then came into view and soon the old silk route trough Kazakhstan and Kirghizstan... and by this stage in the plans we began to realise it will be
easier to continue on to London than to turn back to Tokyo. As the plans
grew, the other potential team members dropped by the wayside. Some had
just begun jobs and could not envisage getting more than 4 weeks off.
Others were still at university and needed to be back by mid August.
Within 2 weeks of the idea's genesis, it was down to just James and Walter, the
two guys behind the initial concept, that were left and by then, the idea had
already grown into the Tokyo to London Project.
The
appeal of the trip in the planning stages were Russia and China. Less than
2 years earlier, Mikhail Gorbachev had presided over the inevitable decline of
the Soviet Union, and the independent nation of Russia was reborn. China
too appeared to be opening up and a chance to make an historic journey through
two huge previously closed countries was too good to pass up. It also tied
in with personal circumnavigations the globe, as in 1991/92 I had hitch-hiked
around the US and Canada for 10 months, including coast to coast, and James had
driven across the US in a beat up VW Kombi van with 2 South African girls, also
coast to coast. Having both crossed America from Atlantic to Pacific
overland, a motorcycle crossing of Asia and Europe from the Pacific to the
Atlantic would complete an overland circumnavigation of the globe for both of
us. It all tied together neatly.
It had quickly become apparent that while we were off to a fantastic start dreaming this idea up,
there was no way we could even think of paying for it. We were both university students. Saving money was for old people, and we worked just enough to pay the bills and keep a bank balance of around $200 for spur of the
moment drinking expenses. Since the idea was rather fantastic (in the literal sense) for 1994, it
was decided by the Tokyo to London brainstrust that we should be sponsored. George Negus had been sponsored
for his "Across the Red Unknown" so why cant we get someone else to pay for it.
Sure he was Australia's best known journalist and we were a couple of
20-something students, but if you don't go for it, you will never get it.
That was start of another adventure entirely ... the adventure into the world of corporate sponsorship,
and one in which we had to feel our way right from the beginning. I
contacted the Media Studies department at my university and found a suitably
attractive tutor to question. Between her, James and myself, it soon
became clear that the answer to the question "How were we going to get the
sponsorship?" was to get the media into it. Once we had written media
interest, then we had a shot at getting sponsors. The sponsors would only
be in it if we gave them near guaranteed exposure, to their relevant target
markets.
A detailed 40 page synopsis
of the trip was prepared and distributed to motorcycle and travel media in
Australia and abroad. This was a mammoth project in itself. We had
to prepare a book basically, just to get the media interested. From there
we would need another 10 page sponsorship proposal to get the sponsors involved.
We gave ourselves a deadline of end of November '93 to get the 100 or so copies
of the synopsis out to the press, in order to give them time to respond.
Then we could beginning hitting the sponsors in January, hopefully armed with
loads of media interest. If we could nail down the sponsors by March '94,
we would be in good shape to leave in June '94, after exams.
But
there was more than money to worry about. Neither of us had a suitable
motorcycle. In fact neither of us had ANY motorcycle. But it gets
better ... James
had just ridden enough to pass his provisional licence, and I hadn't even done
that much. Motorcycle licensing was structured such that an
applicant had to hold a learners licence for a minimum of 6 months before
getting a open licence. That initial open licence was then in the form of
a provisional licence - meaning the rider was capped to riding bikes of 250 cc
and under for the first two years. If I needed to hold a learners permit
for 6 months before getting a licence, I needed to get that learner's permit
ASAP.The learners permit was a simple multiple choice test of 10 questions, in which I needed to get 10/10.
They
were the basic essential road rules. I had been driving for 8 years, so
didn't bother reading up on my road rules ... and I failed. 8/10. I
had to wait another week to sit the test again. This time 9/10. Time
was running out and I couldn't even get my learners permit. On the third
attempt (and after 3 weeks) it happened. 10/10, but it was now early
November. It would be early May before I could even apply to sit my riding
test - just one month before we departed.
We decided to get riding
practice in and the ideal part time job turned up. A courier company
delivering mail and small parcels needed riders.The bikes were little
Honda CT110s, but were heavily loaded both front and back, and dealing with handling
overloaded bikes would be very good practice. The other side effect of the
job was that we
got paid, and we needed to raise as much cash as possible before leaving.
Getting riding experience and money at the same time made was as good a
preparation as we were going to get.
All of this meant our
timetables were absolutely full. We were full time students, yet we were
also each working around 3-4 hours a day, every day on administration, document
preparation, planning etc for the journey and getting the media and sponsorship
organised. What gaps existed in this schedule were filled with working as
motorcycle couriers, earning cash and experience. Fortunately the courier
company had very flexible schedules and we could turn up and work pretty much as
it suited us.
All
through December we were working on researching what we needed in terms of
paperwork. Visas were planned and organised for the appropriate countries
but driving through China was proving a stumbling block. Extensive work
began in December 1993 and would go on until April 1994 to get the permissions
we needed. Initially no-one supported our aim to ride unescorted through
China. It simply wasn't possible. Each Chinese tour operator
insisted we book accommodation through them and travel with an escort in a jeep.
We ran up against dead end after dead end. Eventually, hundreds of
expensive faxes later and in the obscure province of Inner Mongolia, we found an operator who said he could get us the permissions we
needed. Also at this time were extensive conversations with Tony Hill.
Tony had planned the logistics for 'Across the Red Unknown', and was one of the
few people we could find to brief us on road conditions across the former Soviet
Union.
By January
the expressions of interest started coming in from the media. Most were
non-committal, as neither James nor I had much in the way of writing experience,
and while I was a keen amateur photographer, and James was picking up
photography rapidly, neither had anything published before. But while the
media were
non-committal, they were very interested in the unique nature of the trip and
assured us that subject to us proving to be anything but disastrous writers and
photographers they would publish the story.
Late in January 2004 we had a breakthrough. By then we had over a dozen
expressions of media interest from around the globe coming in on our hired fax
machine. But one magazine, Australian Geographic, went a step further and
suggested sponsoring us as well. This was to be a key break for us.
Australian Geographic was set up by millionaire businessman Dick Smith who was
himself considerably more than just a dilettante adventurer. Dick Smith was the first
guy to fly a helicopter around the world in 1983 and in 1989 become the first
person to pilot an aeroplane round the world "vertically" via both the south and
north poles. His financial sponsorship of the Tokyo to London Project was
in itself a personal endorsement from one of the Australian business community's
most high profile and well respected figures. In the letters that went out
in late January to prospective sponsors, we invited them to join Dick Smith and
Australian Geographic as a sponsor. It was a lot easier than asking people
to back us without that. Dick went further and wrote us a letter of
introduction, expressing his strong support for this kind of "responsible risk
taking". Even to people who did not end up sponsoring us,
we got a genuine audience and felt a genuine willingness to participate thanks
to Dick's backing.
By
February, new sponsors were showing interest and James and I prepared to travel
for two weeks to Sydney and Melbourne, where the majority of Australian
businesses were based, and where the multi nationals in Australia had their
operations. It was to be a marketing roadshow detailing where we were with
the planning and what we could do for them, and what we wanted from them.
Several of the companies were potential financial sponsors, such as Coca Cola
and Mars, while others were potential product sponsors, such as the motorcycle
manufacturers. There were a number of motorcycles we thought we
could work with. From Suzuki there was the
"Dr
Big", the DR 800,
Kawasaki
KLR 650 Tengai,
Yamaha
Tenere, Honda's
NX650
Dominator and
XLV600
Transalp and finally we cast an eye over the new
BMW F650. We met with Suzuki, Kawasaki and Yamaha in Sydney and Honda
and BMW in Melbourne. Suzuki were not that into the idea and their bike
didn't really do it for us anyway, so that was an early out. Yamaha showed
some interest but it never got too far.That was a pity as the Tenere was one of our
early favourites. Kawasaki's Tengai was initially our early favourite
choice of bike - it was a touring version of Kawasaki's very reliable KLR 650 -
with a much bigger fuel tank. Kawasaki too showed some interest and were prepared to
discuss a few ideas - it was a start.
Down in Melbourne things went
even better, Honda really liked the idea, but their main bike in Australia in
this segment was the Dominator. The Dominator was the lightest of the
bikes we looked at but it was probably also the weakest. The rear subframe
was very light and it was hard to see it being up to the job of carrying our load
of luggage halfway round the world over rough roads. Honda Australia was
very helpful though and sent our proposals onto Honda Japan. BMW also took
a keen interest in the idea. The F650 was a brand new bike in the BMW
stable but was made in Italy by Aprilia and the BMW guys immediately though we
were barking up the wrong tree with that bike. Also new to the BMW stables
in 1994 was the revolutionary
R1100GS - the first of the beaked BMWs, and the Tokyo to London project
could be just what they needed to promote it. They sent the proposal on to
BMW Japan and BMW Worldwide in München, as they felt the Japanese and Global
marketing operations were the ones to get the most benefit out of a proposal
like this.
Also in
Sydney, we had a chance to meet and chat with Dick Smith. Dick had
recently flown low level over Mongolia on his adventure from the North to the
South Pole. Dick said we should really try and incorporate Mongolia as it
looked a truly beautiful wilderness from the air. It would later prove to be great
advice.
Meanwhile
marketing efforts were paying off on other fronts. Both Coca-Cola and Mars
decided that with both of them opening up new markets in China and the former
Soviet Union, a
couple of mad adventurers passing through on motorcycle would be just what was
needed to give the branding a wild, fun boost and we agreed to visit Mars
offices in Shanghai, Beijing and Moscow and do some press conferences there.
Coca Cola was firmly focused on Eastern Europe and we agreed to travel through
Belarus in exchange for their sponsorship.Agfa film came in and offered
us all the professional slide film we asked for, 400 rolls of 36 shot film, in
several exposures, though the bulk was 50 ASA film. Nikon Australia also
liked the idea and offered us some equipment free and the rest at cost price.
It was all coming together ... we still had nothing nailed down for the bikes,
or Airline tickets to Tokyo and back home from London but we had reached a
critical mass and sponsorship seemed to be getting easier.
Soon after returning to Brisbane, the main television news network in Australia contacted
us for a short Sunday evening "human interest" addition to the evening news.
It was to be a little 2-3 minute segment coming after the weather. We
still had no bikes and quickly borrowed a couple from a local dealer to do the
shoot. Incredibly it took 4 hours to shoot the 3 minute segment but
again that little segment on the country's biggest network was another shot in
the arm. McLeod accessories, who is the Australian distributor of a wide
variety of motorcycle products offered us Shoei Helmets, Sidi boots and Dririder
riding gear. Gearsack, an Australia bike luggage manufacturer offered us
racks, tank bags, saddle bags and a back bag each. Mountain Designs, an
top end Australian outdoor equipment manufacturer chipped in with a tent,
sleeping bags, and water filter. The sponsors kept rolling in.... Dunlop
Australia had sent the idea to Dunlop in Japan who loved the idea and offered us
3 front tyres and 3 rear tyres each - 12 tyres in all - and a dozen heavy duty
inner tubes. Stagg Leather, a bespoke leather riding jacket manufacturer
in Australia offered us custom fitted kangaroo leather jackets each.
By the end of March 94, with 3 months to departure, we had everything we needed to make the
trip work, except a couple of motorcycles and airline tickets. In a way
this was ironic as at the beginning of the process we thought cash sponsorship
would be tough, and getting airline seats and motorcycles would be relatively
easy. On the airline front, Singapore Airlines and Qantas were both
showing interest, but were not quite at the point of committing two seats to
Japan and two seats back from London. On the bike front we were down to
Honda and BMW, and communicating by fax to Japan and Germany. BMW were
particularly interested. The fly in the ointment for BMW was that neither
of us had a track record of either doing anything like this nor getting stories
published. They came up with a compromise. They would sell us the
bikes in Japan at factory prices (US$ 7,000 each) and buy them back on the
successful completion of the project, at the same price. This served to
protect BMW in case it all went wrong and we didn't make it. It also
suited them as they were in the process of building a huge new glass BMW
showroom in the middle of Tokyo and the idea was to hang the Tokyo to London
bikes up in that showroom as evidence of their prowess.
It was a nice offer and once which effectively gave us two of BMWs brand new R1100 GS bikes
without risk to BMW, but while still showing their obvious interest in the
project by sponsoring us and by effectively giving us the bikes. Unfortunately, it still meant we had to come up with a loan of
US$ 14,000 to be our "deposit". Here was the catch
for us. There was no way we would be able to come up with a loan of that
size and take on the risk of that amount. If we had the bikes stolen in
Russia, then we were down US$14,000. It was a great pity not to able to
run the Tokyo to London Project on sponsored BMW bikes, backed by BMW Japan and
BMW Worldwide. It was close, but no cigar. That security that BMW needed
effectively meant we had to look elsewhere.
Honda too came to similar conclusions .... in the end they offered us bikes at factory
prices out of Japan (US$ 5,000 each), after earlier hinting at heavily
subsidised bikes. It was a tough blow, but with one month to go to
departure, we realised we were going to have to buy second hand bikes in Japan.
And it was looking like we were going to have to buy our own airfares too.
Cash was at a premium. The cash we had received from Dick Smith, Mars and
Coca Cola had partly gone towards office equipment hire, printing costs, postage
costs, hundreds of faxes to Japan, Germany, England, Russia, China ... and faxes
to China and Russia at that time were in the vicinity of $4 a page. What
was left, about AU$ 2,500 each was to be fuel and living expenses for 6 months.
Suddenly we needed an additional AU$ 7,000 each with one month to go.
Piggy
banks were raided, we worked overtime, with so much achieved already and with
only a month to go, suddenly the whole trip was in jeopardy. The sums
didn't add up. We could scrape up another AU$ 2,000 each before we
left he country, but even then we had a black hole of around AU$ 10,000 to fill
or everything was off. In desperation we hit the bank. Student loans
department. $5,000 each, and we need a decision fast. With only 2
weeks to go, the approval came though, and we could relax. The Tokyo to
London Project was finally 'all systems go'. Singapore Airlines came in
with a late offer to carry as much luggage as we needed. This would
actually save us a fortune as we carried over 60kgs each on the flights to
Tokyo.
Also just
in time, the motorcycle licences. Driving tests were done, passes were
achieved. International driving permits were issued on the spot. At
least that part of the planning had worked out.We had hoped to be able to make a video of the Tokyo to London project but we had been
unable to secure the interests of Canon or Sony as a sponsor, and they were the
only two makers of camcorder equipment in 1994 of suitable quality.
Camcorders were prohibitively expensive for poor students like us and it was
with reluctance that we had to forego making a video documentary of the Tokyo to London
Project.
Ideally a
trip across the Eurasian landmass should start in May. As students, our exams went on
well into mid June. Two months before departure the exam timetables came
out. James was badly hit. His final exam was on June 28th 1994
We were not going to be able to get underway until July! That was really
straining our initial plans and despite not wanting to admit it to each other,
some parts of the initial plans were going to have to be cut out. Most
vulnerable was western China. Travelling through Xinjiang, seeing the
oasis towns of the Taklimakan and even riding across the Khunjerab pass were in
the initial plans but all that looked very doubtful now that we set off 8 weeks
later than would be ideal. Time was at a premium and as James sat his
final exam, James' flatmate and I packed the car full of our luggage.
James emerged from the exam room straight into the pre-packed car and we were rushed
to the airport to catch the Singapore Airlines flight to Singapore and then on
to Tokyo.
The arrival in Tokyo was difficult. Retrieving the dozen assorted pieces of luggage
and getting them through customs was all one thing; taking them on the train to
Tokyo and then on another train to the suburb of Kawasaki was something else.
We arrived at our Tokyo Base Camp around 9am on the 29th of June. We had the rest of
that day, a full day the day after that, and then in the afternoon of the
following day, July 1st, the ferry to China left and we needed to be on it, with
the whole Tokyo to London show. That little bit of time, one full day and
two half days, was an insane rush to find 2 second hand motorbikes, work out how
to attach our Gearsack racks to the motorbike, buy oils and spares, work out the
best way to pack it all and get the show on the road. Needless to say, we
didn't sleep much in Tokyo.
For reference, currencies are quoted in local units. Many of these rates have
changed dramatically since 1994. But at the times we were passing though
the countries, these were the approximate exchange rates:
1 USD = 6 Chinese Yuan
1 USD = 400 Mongolian Togrogs
1 USD = 2400 Russian Rubles
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