When it is obvious that the goals cannot

 be reached, don't adjust the goals,

adjust the action steps.

Confucius

 

The Route

In November 2008 the planned route for this trip was entirely overland, which obviously included Pakistan. However owing to the current situation in Pakistan, we have amended our plans.

The original route ran from the Taj Mahal to Amritsar/Lahore, and then across Pakistan to Iran.  The next leg would have taken us from Turkey to Europe and finally to London.  This has now become a two stage journey.

Today the plan is to collect the cars in Amritsar (staying the night in the Golden Temple), and drive the three or four days required to Mumbai, still via the Taj,  We will then leave the cars at Mumbai to be shipped across the Indian Ocean to Dubai. We will rejoin the cars two or three weeks later in UAE, and cross the Arabian Gulf to Iran to pick up our original route to Europe.

We will be travelling as cheaply and as quickly as possible in these 'City' cars, finding the cheapest accommodation we can en route and eating 'street' food. Surely this is the whole point of making the journey in 'Cheapest car in the world'?  We will, of course, also be travelling as safely as possible.

Time and distance.... Originally we hoped to complete the 7000 mile journey in 12 days. With our revised plans the  first part of the journey will take about 4 days; whilst the second leg will take 10 days.  The distances either way  will be about the same. Unfortunately we are unable to use Multimap to give us the route!  The good thing about doing the journey in two hits is that we will get to know the limitations of the cars themselves, before going too far out into the unknown.

We had thought about using a back-up Jeep but we have now decided to go solely in the Nanos. Three cars between 7 people,  plus our equipment,  plus some fuel cans! Speaking of fuel, the Nano has a 3 gallon tank and a range of about 150 miles, so spare fuel is a must, if only to speed up our transit time. We will take some spares for the cars with us, plus a little survival equipment - best to be prepared! 

The Nano has 12 inch wheels so hopefully we will not knock the bottoms out of the cars. With a top speed of about 65 miles per hour in favourable weather conditions, we might be a little slow on some of the mountain stretches.  However, no doubt we will have a few lorries and coaches in front of us and since overtaking is not likely to be an option we should at least keep up with the general flow. Night time driving will not be possible until we get to Europe.  East of Istanbul we will no doubt encounter some interesting forms of transport which we will be able to see during the day, but at night they might surprise us, something we will surely want to avoid!

We will afford ourselves a little luxury by going via Paris (plenty photo opportunities here) to meet our long suffering better halves for a night on the town, before journeying on to Dieppe and crossing to Newhaven; driving through Brighton (and the Pavilion); and ending our journey in Trafalgar Square with dinner at the India Club in The Strand.

That is the plan, and that is the challenge! 

Distances and Route Maps

Amritsar to Mumbai container port = 2106 km

Bander Abbas to Tabriz via Tehran = 1930 km

Iran/Turkey Border to Istanbul = 1627 km

Istanbul to Paris  = 3239 km

Paris to Dieppe = 237 km

Newhaven to London = 112 km