Call Sign December 2002 - Page 18 - TONY'S TXII TRIP FROM BEIJING TO LONDON

DaC driver Tony Arnold (F03) has flown to China along with an LTI TXII to take part in a momentous three month taxi drive from Beijing back to London. The trip is being filmed by Pearson Broadband for a TV series to be shown on Chinese television during the lead-up to the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008. At the end of last month's exclusive report from Tony, he was crossing the China - Russian border crossing of Manzhouli. Then we worryingly lost contact with him...

Tony with video producer Kate and another member of the team at Lake Baikal. Vikor's Russian taxi is in the background

Manzhouli to Helsinki
After leaving Manzhouli (China), which was extremely cold, we were just 3 km from the Russian border. Our travelling party were extremely sceptical about how the Russians would react, firstly on seeing a London Taxi and then from a personal point of view, a hard nosed, hard-core taxi driver all the way from sunny London, wanting to cross their border!
   True to form, they would only allow the travelling party through and after much debate, checking, counter checking and personal searching, they refused to allow the taxi and the van carrying our luggage, through the checkpoint.
   There was little we could do. My back-up man John Rula and his Chinese counterpart had to drive the taxi back to Beijing and make arrangement's for the vehicle to be delivered to meet us on the other side of Russia. After 25 years of driving a black cab, I was really heartbroken, but knew that our vehicle was in very capable hands and I looked forward to seeing it later. My sincere thanks to John Rula for making that personal sacrifice. What a top bloke he is.
   Just yards over the Russian border I made a phone call to an acquaintance of mine with military background of some years ago and he came up trumps. Within an hour of the phone call, a Russian licensed taxi and people carrier came to our plight and sped us on our way to Chita, a 500 km drive over what I can only describe as a constant battle with unplanned speed humps! Our Russian taxi driver Vickor was 6 ft 7, blonde, blue-eyed and had 8 front teeth missing. My what a handsome hunk he was! We were reaching speeds of over 130 km an hour and my Chinese meal from September 2 started to stir within my bowls! We spent two gloriously boring days in this old industrial town. Genghis Khan was born in Chita, but I don't think he stayed too long...!

Tony's TX11 on what used to be the west German side of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin

   After our diplomatic stay, we left for Ulan Ude, the most beautifully scenic road route that I have ever seen. We passed alongside Lake Baikal, the world's deepest lake holding 28% of the Earth's fresh water. It's said that if every river in the world could empty their contents into Lake Baikal, then it would take 1 year to fill. We even saw two whales swimming there. Just totally awe-inspiring!
   The locals like to eat dumplings and brown bread, so my apologies for looking fat on the pictures. Is it any wonder, eating that stuff constantly! We remained there for three night and two days, very calming and very placid.
   Then it was a further 250 km drive before arriving in Irkutsk, which is home to the notorious outcasts of Russia's former political glories and indeed there are still some very dodgy goings-on here! I was propositioned by several beautiful Russian ladies of the night - they obviously all wore dark sun glasses, held white canes and were led by Labradors! But I had to repel their advances due to my lack of "bottle". From there, due to various co-ordination and Russian taxi problems, we were forced to fly on to Moscow. Now there's a place...

Tony's chest represents the closest DaC has ever been to the Arctic Circle!

We arrived to find constant road checks with stop and search happening almost every 10minutes. Are we at war and someone's forgotten to tell us? The City is very cold, the food is cold and the hot water is cold. Yes, you guessed it, even the toilet paper is bloody cold! I'm just gobsmacked and I have to say that I do not

like this place one iota. After spending three nights and four days in Moscow, a fairly luxurious (by Russian standards) 650km coach ride to St. Petersburg some 700 Km away took us by surprise. What a beautiful city and the people are so friendly. This leaves Moscow standing. But now it's off to Finland to pick up our baby - the TXII.
The First TXII on the Arctic Circle!
The train journey to Helsinki took 5 hours and the lovely sight of our TXII and John Rula met us on arrival. We spent three days in a luxurious 4 star hotel kindly arranged by the Finish
Tourist Board who sponsored us for the remainder of our stay in Finland. Our host for the tour
in front of us was Kaarina Pelkonen, a very well known and knowledgeable woman in her
own country and without her it would have been far more difficult.
We did a complete tour of Helsinki and what a beautiful city it is with its trams, big squares with beautiful churches and harbour full of sailing vessels of every description.
Whilst staying in Finland we travelled north to the Arctic Circle and a place called Rovaniembi, were we visited the real Santa Clause and Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer. It was most enchanting. It was nice to talk to such a well-educated and travelled person. We visited his elf toy factory and I gave my order to the head elf for my Xmas present - tall, blonde and good looking - just like me!
Believe it or not, Santa wants to buy a red Fairway taxi to run around when it stops snowing. He said he wanted to give his reindeer a rest after delivering all those presents on Xmas eve. And guess what? He saw me wearing my fleece-lined Dial-a-Cab jacket and asked me if I knew Tom Whitbread! Can you believe it! Apparently he has done work for Tom's charity, Dial-a-Dream.
We then stopped off at Turku, Tempere and Hameenlinna on the way back to Helsinki. On our final day in Helsinki we did a very successful PR drive and I received almost God-like worship from people waiving to me as I drove the cab around. It was a wonderfully proud feeling - although by now I'm beginning to get used to it...!
That same evening we travelled in a super luxury yacht/hotel, which must be the epitamy of boat travel. It swanned its way towards Stockholm, a 14 hour beautiful overnight voyage. Oh my God, was I awake! Such stunning scenery on route I now know how the Royal family must have felt when they had to give up the Royal ship Britannia. Our LTI TXII was transported in the hold of the boat.
We stayed in Stockholm for a short while before driving through Denmark - with a PR stop in Copenhagen - and into Germany arriving at the city of Hamburg where we had an overnight stop before going on to Berlin. This City has much new architecture and a lot of the old, but the combination of the two gives it a beauty that perhaps was rather unexpected. Our TXII also raised quite a few eyebrows, perhaps they are still smarting from the 5 - 1 drubbing we gave them prior to the World Cup!
Next stop was Hanover. Historically, this City has one of the most important connections to the UK of any city in the world. The head of the House of Hanover in 1714 succeeded to the British throne as George 1, but it's the stop after this that I'm really looking forward to - Amsterdam, and with a bit of luck, Sundays football match at the Ajax stadium.
Then it's through to France with some more PR in Paris before arriving back at Trafalgar Square on November 28.
Let me close this month by saying that the TXII is running beautifully and I can't think that many other types of small vehicle could undertake a trip of this nature. Also, I've been a London taxi driver for 25 years and there have been times when I have thought that enough is enough and maybe it's time for a change. This trip has changed all that. Seeing the way people from China through to Europe have looked at the TXII and knowing what it represents has given me not just a buzz, but a tremendous amount of pride and made me realise what an incredible job we as London taxi drivers do.
A final coming-home report next issue and in the meantime, may I wish everyone at DaC a Merry Xmas and

Happy Chanukah.
Tony Arnold (F03)