Amsterdam - Odessa, the report

Or, 10000 kilometers, but no radio...

Yep, we had no radio or music whatsoever, but it did not matter. No, really. We talked or we slept, and the scenery changed often enough to keep us from getting too bored.

For our team we made some T-Shirts, sporting a picture of the battleship Potemkin (I leave it to the reader to find out what that has to do with our journey) on the front, the rally logo, our team-name and our sponsor on the back and the flags of the Netherlands and the Ukraine on the sleeves.

So, Thursday evening, 23rd of August 2007. Tom and myself were packing everything, talking about our strategies and having a small amount of butterflies. After all, in just a few hours we would be hurtling ourselves towards Odessa, with just some nightclubs and hotelbeds for pause.

We slept for a couple of hours and then it finally was Friday, the 24th of August. We had a hearty breakfast, packed the Lexus (we had a fridge in the car) and off we went to the Odessa Bar in Amsterdam.

Amsterdam - Prague

We arrived there third to last (last being Team Taxi Adriaan, who did not arrive at the start at all) and we parked the car in the prescribed way.

The start was a 'Le Mans' start, meaning we all had to run to the cars, start them and drive off. Being last in line was an advantage in that we did not have to run that far and we blasted away in fourth place.

We were off to Prague!

Before us were two Saabs and the other Lexus LS. At the first red light I thought that we would stop and that we would 'drag-race' through Amsterdam until we were out in the 'open highways'. Well, not so. The black LS slammed the accelerator and drove off, the Saabs following suit and of course we followed as well. It was me driving by the way.

In the first tunnel I overtook one of the Saabs and we were in third place. Our strategy was to follow the two others until Germany were we would overtake them.

At one point, it was the way to Amersfoort I believe, the LS took a different route so it was only the Saab and us. We drove behind them for a while, so as not to consume too much fuel; our LS was way thirstier than the Saab.

They tried to run away from us a couple of times, but in the sparse traffic it was child's play to catch up with them.

Then came the infamous German road-works... the Saab being much smaller could easily overtake most of the trucks in the narrow parts of the road. We tried to follow by having the co-driver stating the clearance; "30cm, 20cm, 10cm, waaaay too close!"

But in the end, that did not help; we just could not overtake as easily as they did, and so they lost us.

And we drove alone... that basically set the tone for the rest of the rally, as we never saw any other car on the legs, except for the last leg when we waited for them.

In Germany, we made a pit-stop and refueled the car in record-time, whilst switching drivers. The memory settings for steering-wheel, seats and mirrors were great time-savers.

Tommy drove off and made friends with Jerry...well, let's just say that a couple of Germans know a lot about box-driving and how an LS can escape from that...

Trying to make good the distance lost between us and the Saab, we drove quite aggressively. With that I mean that we accelerated and braked in a fashion that would have thrashed most cars; after our incident with the Germans we decided to be respectful and never 'annoy' or 'pester' other road-users.

After quite some time, around Leipzig I guess, we saw a Saab convertible in the distance... 'could that be them?' And it was them!

So we pounded the pedal to the metal and passed them by. We went at high-speed and finally we lost them.

We were in the lead when we drove into Czech Republic. As we followed the navigation set out by the TomTom software we got stuck multiple times in the traffic, but at last, we saw Prague.

Asking a local police officer for the specific bar we had to finish on we blasted over the main-street... to find we were in third place!

As it turns out, the other teams had taken alternative routes to Prague by switching TomTom maps early.

Well, the Saab Convertible had a deserved first place!

After almost all cars had come in, there was a car with mechanical failure, we went to the hotel to freshen up and prepare for dinner.

At dinner, most people were somewhat demure and silent, but the food was good. The restaurant had a gorgeous view on the river.

Next we were off to club Mishmash; lots of nice ladies and a VIP area to boot. It was a shame I had to leave early, as I was designated driver for the next day.

Back to the hotel and making everything in order for the next day; refueling, checking the maps etc., whilst Tom went out all night partying for the extra party-points.

The poor guy only 'saw' a hotelbed, he never slept upon one. He slept in the LS, through all of my antics....

Prague - L'viv

The next day I got up, checked that Tom was ok and I moved the car outside the parking lot of the hotel. I loaded up all of the luggage and went to the breakfast.

There we had something to eat I checked with the organization on how we were going to start. They all said something along the lines of 'yeah, after you have done the breathalyzer test, you can go, we don't flag' etc. It was obvious they had a collective hangover.

So after I had a perfect score on the breathalyzer, we thundered off... only to be held by the city... it took us nearly 45 minutes to get out of the city, onto the highway. That highway was something else! Way better than any German road, I could go almost flat-out in my LS. We made very very good progress, bettering the TomTom ETA by two hours.

Then we went through a mountainous range and we had to 'wait' a lot behind cars of locals, but still we managed to gain time on the ETA.

But at Wroclaw things went pearshaped... we came upon the worst traffic-jam ever, and we made the dumb decision to slowly ride it out. As it turns out, other teams went through the city and ended up in front of us.

Confident we were still first, we slowly inched forward and at the same time made good use of the car-fridge we had aboard.

During the whole of the rally, we never ran out of cold fresh water, which at high-speed is a must. Judgement errors because of a slight dehydration are common in aviation, so we thought it prudent to not take that risk whilst driving constantly over 220 km/h.

After the traffic-jam, we trundled on towards Przemyśl, which was the designated finish for that day. It will be made clear in a moment why.

Some 80 kilometers from the finish, we suddenly saw an Audi A4 and an Audi TT from the rally ahead of us, driving quite slowly. They had, just as other teams had, avoided the traffic-jam altogether.

We sneakily inched towards them and tried to find out why they were driving so slow. The reason became clear in a moment; a police car was driving amongst the other traffic.

Well, since we were in a rally, we took the chance and inched forward, slowly taking the lead. As soon as I lost the police-car in my rearview mirror I gunned it and started overtaking maneuvers that must have given Tom some gray hairs. Afterwards we heard from the other teams that they aged considerably as well, looking at my antics, whilst I felt quite comfortable in distances and speed.

Some hard work later we lost the other two teams totally and started to run for the finish.

When we arrived there, we came in third, after the other LS and the Saab that won the first day. It was a solid third place.

Tommy took a nap while waited for the other cars to arrive. We got the news that Taxi Adriaan had gotten involved in an accident but that there was no serious damage.

The Dutch Consul awaited us at Przemyśl, so that he could usher us past the looooong waiting line and speed up our entry into the Ukraine.

We drove together to the border and then we waited...

As you can see in the picture, the Sun was still above the horizon when we arrived at the border. It was well below and on its way to a new dawn before we finally had crossed the border; it had taken us 4 hours just to be processed!

Ah well, off to L'viv we went.

The chaotic scenes that accompanied the arrival and going to the dinner were quite characteristic of the organization; they were no project-leader material that I would hire.

After some reshuffling of cars and going to and fro we finally managed to get some dinner.

At the dinner, the results of the day were announced. And in a cowardly fashion, three teams, amongst which ours, were just not mentioned.

So we shouted what about us? We got the gruff answer 'you are disqualified'. And they wanted to leave it at that.

Well, there's some things wrong here.

First, if you call yourself a man, just come over and have a chat with the teams before trying to just 'announce it and run away'. Well, it turned out that when the girls got a bit over their hangover, they wanted to do a 'normal start' anyway, but we were on our way already.

Second, if they had any cojones, they would have come up to us and talked it over with the teams. I know women with more balls than the investmentbankersdrone et. al.

And finally, if they weren't just chicks-with-dicks, they would have proposed the 'penalty' (which was unjust in the first place) I finally came up with, in conjunction with the flagger.

However, not to be fazed, and because the other teams were great guys, we took this bullshit in our stride and went on with the festivities; Tom went on partying and I decided to follow strategy with Taxi Adriaan.

Together with Edwin, I roved around the city and we 'practiced' the starting run for the next day. This practice helped, as will be seen later.

We fueled our cars, bought maps and we put the cars outside the crowded parking lot of the hotel. This helped as well, as will be seen later.

So, I went to bed at 3.30 am. Waking up at around 7-ish to find Tom entering the hotel room. He was still partying and in high spirits.

L'viv - Kiev

We had a good breakfast and we waited for the organization to set up the start, since we did not want that childish stuff from the day before again.

We got flagged off and ran to our car, Tom holding half a pint of beer, we sat down and blasted off... into a one-way street against the traffic.

The street was very small and trolley buses drove in them. One was headed directly on a collision course with us. Tommy shouted: "Dude, that bus can not avoid us!"

I just said, "I know what I am doing" and yanked the steering wheel just meters before the bus. We thundered through a small alley and we got on the main road exiting L'viv.

The road to Kiev was horrible. At points it would be called 'gravelpit', 'mining hole' or just 'wasteland'... I really, really learned to know my car. Not just 'know', but I learned to 'KNOW' it. All the intimate details, when it wants to drift,when it wants to understeer, when the traction control wants to quit its job. Everything.

We raced with a minimum of 190 km/h over really really bad roads. At one point we even did a 'Dukes of Hazard' style jump, where all four wheels were way off the ground. As we crashed down Tom woke up and yelled: "What did we hit?" upon which I replied "Nothing, go back to sleep" and we raced on.

This leg of the rally had the perfect 'rally-feel' to it; we went past locals that were 'walking the cow' (I had to do an emergency braking with 230 km/h to 0, wow, I really really love my car, and I think the local was happy that the incoming maniac was driving a Lexus as well), past trucks, over gravel, over mud, over concrete, it was just great!

This was the trip my car was made for; I never had emotional attachments to machines or equipment, but on this road, I bonded with that 1.7 tons. I talked to it, coaxed, pleaded to it and even cheered it.

But, going fast also means attracting the attention of the local cops... and we got pulled for driving 80 km/h over the speedlimit (damn, I must have had really good brakes... ahem... we were going over 140 over the speedlimit when I saw the cops, who looked like the gendarme from the Louis de Funès movies, pointing a hairdryer with lcd display on us).

Tom got out, friendly laughing, with the spirit of 'hey guys, you got us, nice job' and he quickly paid them 100 Hrivna, the local currency. This amounts to a little under 17 euro's.

We waved goodbye and blasted off again.

Coming up to Kiev, we decided to enlist the help of a local taxi driver. Bad idea. The guy was clueless as to where we had to be. We came quite close, but in the end we had to find it ourselves. This chopped a ridiculous amount of time from our lead.

When we arrived there, there was nobody else there, not even the flagger. It meant we were there first!

We called the flagger and we told him the names of the girls at the bar as proof we really were there.

Then we started taking down notes on who finished after us. One of them was the other Lexus LS, but it had sustained damage during the trip. After a call to Lexus Kiev, a towtruck hauled it to the garage, where the engineers looked at it.

It did finish the whole of the rally, but it was crippled to the point where it was not a contender anymore. Too sad, it felt like losing a brother in a match.

We went to the hotel and freshened up. As part of the strategy we retrieved our passports as soon as possible.

Then we went to a steakhouse where another cock-up of the organization took place; a couple of guys of the organization told us that we we could not lose except in the case that we would not finish.

So Tom and I discussed this and we wanted to stay gentlemen and good sports, so we decided that we should not win the next leg of the rally.

Together with Edwin I made friends with the girl working on our floor (Edwin made a bit more friends with her than I did, little charmer :) ) and together we puzzled over the road to Odessa the next day.

After Edwin had his time with the girl, we went practicing the start and road to Odessa, which was basically easy and straightforward.

We fueled the car and Edwin, as a courtesy gesture, cleared the window of all the bugs we killed along the way, after which I parked the car outside the hotel parking lot again.

I went to sleep and noticed that Tom was at some time back earlier than normal, he even could sleep for a couple of hours. It turned out that the organization was nowhere to be found and although he wanted to party on, there was no one to party with. So he figured everyone had gone back to the hotel to sleep and therefore he decided to see if it was a good thing to really sleep in a hotel bed.

Ah well, the next day we had a good Russian style breakfast and we went to load up the car.

Funnily enough, everybody tried to scramble and get their car off the hotel lot before the start.

I arranged that a nice girl would flag us off for the last leg. I found that the organization in an attempt to relieve their frustrations, or some other childish idea,had covered our license plate. I duly removed the sticker and laughed about it.

Later I found that some sad fuck had reapplied the sticker over the license plate, but it did not matter anyway, since we never got stopped.

So, off we went!

Kiev - Odessa

Most cars took the obviously shortest road, but as I had tested that the day before, it was a slower start than the longer route, because they had to wait for large gaps in the morning traffic.

We came off the mark probably fifth or so, but because I had practiced that part the night before, I knew all the speedtraps and traffic conditions, so we quickly became leader of the pack.

Tom and I had decided that since on this straight route there would be no competition for us, we would hang around the leaders and we would give another team first place and second place, as long as we were third.

Suddenly we saw the girls in the Audi TT coming through the traffic. Fast. So we had to leave our intended first place candidates and chase the Audi.

That proved not to be a real problem... for some reason the Audi TT was somewhat of a slowpoke, despite its appearance; I could let it get away from me a couple of kilometers and then effortlessly get close to its bumper, playing like a cat plays with a mouse.

Well, after a while, they tried to get away by pulling into a gas station and then suddenly revving up again. After two 'false' departures from the road, they really went to get some fuel and we blasted past.

Tom and I calculated how long it would take for them to overtake us again while we were coasting at 120 km/h. Well, after 15 minutes they still were not with us, so we stopped to pick some flowers and rummage a bit in the trunk, empty the reserve fuel-tanks and have a sandwich.

Then we just started going again. After a while we saw a car coming up behind us and we thought it was the Audi TT. It was an Audi, but not the TT.

So we followed that. They really went at high-speed over the roads. 240 km/h was not uncommon. We wanted to signal them that they did not have to try to get away from us but they did not get our signaling and they did not let us get next to them.

At these speeds, Tom could not move his hand outside the window, so we could not signal them to slow down.

It provided for one really hairy moment, when we came to a roadwork's. Next to us there was a car and in front of us the signs. There was no way we could have stopped in time without crashing into the metal bars. So there was just one option and I am so incredibly glad that I drove exactly my car, because it still had some extra oompf left for a last-minute acceleration to swerve with just meters to spare on all sides in between the car on the right and the signs of the roadwork's.

After that Tom and I thought it was better to try and save the lives of the guys in the Audi A4 by hitting the brakes.

We drove for a while with a weird feeling in our stomachs, as we knew the roads would get bad later on. We just did not want to see a smoking wreck with those guys.

We relaxed when we came to the final traffic jam entering Odessa. At least here they could not have speeded too much.

As it turned out, the guys from the A4 thought we were signaling them because of Police, and so they veered off the road and hid in some bushes, 'Smokey and the Bandit' style!

Whilst coasting, I noticed a car with headlights on weaving and bobbing through the traffic in my rearview mirror.

It turned out to be the Audi TT. So we waited for them. And again they tried to get away from us, which was utterly futile.

Tom had taken up the habit of saying 'Da!' at lots of occasions, just because he liked the word. Well, at one point it was quite funny.

An expensive car rolled up next to us and Tom let down his window. The driver gestured wildly in directions and spoke Russian to him. Obviously asking if the road he wanted to take was the correct way to go. Tom just said 'Da' and the car rocketed away. We will never know if they got to their intended destination in time.

In the dense traffic in Odessa we drove next to the Audi TT, and we told them that we did not even want to win, but that we wanted to do the last bit together. So we followed them through Odessa to the finish, were a totally different team than we expected had won; the negotiation of the city-traffic was a very, very tough job indeed. Except for Taxi Adriaan, who even stopped to change into tuxedo's....

Whilst sitting at the bar I got the attention of a very short-skirted girl named Tanya. She wanted to show us how to get to the hotel, after we had some nasty business with an unpaid bill, worth about 600 euro's, and she got in the car next to me.

Well, to make a long story short, we eventually lost here when we turned left and she drove straight on in a car of another local whom she had chartered to lead us to the hotel.

In the hotel we met an old country-man of ours who was there in Ukraine to 'just walk'. A very friendly person.

We went for dinner, did the award ceremony and then we went to the night-club. I finally could get drunk!!!! And I finally could partyyyyy!!! Yay!

The night-club was a gorgeous open roofed affair. It looked like something out of a Star Wars movie. It was loaded with gorgeous babes, who, as I understood later, were available for a couple of hrivna, payable to some burly guys in black.

I could finally relax, all the tension and adrenaline of the last four days were going away. Together with Chielie I had a 'hookah' (a waterpipe), filled with champagne and cherry tobacco. I looked up at the clear sky, the stars and the moon.

It felt just awesome.

With Chielie I went to visit the Black Sea, which was just behind the club... all nice, quiet and pretty. We went to the end of the pier and realized us just how lucky we were... getting there in such a good fun fashion, getting there alive, reminiscing on some hairy moments...

When we went back to the club we came across an old lady, on the path to the beach. She was dressed a bit like a crossing between a bag-lady and a babushka. I nudged Chielie to look at her.

This granny was raving and partying to the club-music like she was a 16 year old chick! Party on Gran!

We went back and when the club was almost closing we went back to the hotel, witnessing a rather fun spectacle where some english party-goers were hosed away from the entrance of the arcade to the clubs.

I have to say something about those clubs. At the beach they are wholly outrageous in their design; we had the ice-fortress, but there also was a whole boat on the dry, and something that looked like a Greek rock temple. All open-roofed.

The return-journey - Odessa

We had arranged to stay another night in our hotel, so we could sleep in. Somehow, we did not manage to well in that respect and we woke up somewhat early, but after breakfast from the hotel.

So we decided to have a look around and eat somewhere else. Our habit of having a hearty breakfast was not one we wanted to break.

We had just decided to take a 'western' kind of diner when Chielie rang (our phones worked perfectly all through the Ukraine, well, except when we were in the outback). He decided to join us for breakfast and came running.

He graciously paid for our breakfast, as a token gesture for the winners of the rally, and we went sightseeing.

The personal finish of the Pirates were the famous stairs from the move 'Battleship Potemkin' so we walked and asked directions.

We had a small diversion in the guise of a weapons shop. The medieval armor and swords were the most harmless things there. You could buy AK 47's at around 300 euro's and high-powered sniper rifles (for hunting birds???) at around 2000 euro's. They even sold guns that had to be towed around and that were heavier than what a lot of the Dutch army is using.

But when Chielie asked for a Taser, they said 'no sir, that is an illegal weapon in the Ukraine'. Go figure.

So we walked around taking snaps here and there and finally found the stairs. Well, so much for glory... the stairs were less impressive than thought and at the bottom there was a car dealer.

The good thing was, it had not been turned into a tourist trap, except for an old man who sold old Russian army medals.

We walked further and we noticed that most of the buildings were in an abysmal condition. We even risked our lives to take a picture.

We decided to walk to a main road and take a taxi back. Whilst doing that we crossed a bridge that was hung full of locks.

Each lock was engraved, painted or otherwise adorned with the names or initials of either loved ones, or married ones, or something. It was heartwarming to come upon such a local custom. Something that you will not find in any guidebook.

Back at the hotel we freshened up and together with Edwin and Chielie we sought a restaurant that had 'local' food. It would be our last real 'restaurant' meal before we entered Austria.

The meal was great, lots of little things to try and lots of new tastes.

Then we went back to the same club as the day before. I had a waterpipe again and I even danced quite some.

The next day, we got to breakfast in time, we cleaned up the car and we went into the unknown, little did we know how unknown the unkown would be...

The return-journey - Ukrainian outback

So, at breakfast we used the map a team lent us graciously and we plotted a course. Our idea was to go through the uncharted outback via Hungaria, Austria, Germany and then homeward.

"So, the waypoints would be Uman, Vinnyca and Ternopil, right?" "Right!"

We gave back the map and went on our way, in an utterly and unprecedented relaxedness. We drove a bit faster than we should, but that was due to being accustomed to speeds over 180 km/h

And ofcourse we got stopped... with well over 140 km/h too fast. Tom, who was driving, lowered the window and before the police officer had crossed the highway he yelled '20! Maximum!'

The police officer laughed and wanted to reply, but we made clear that he either took that or we would just drive on.

Well, he accepted and we paid the equivalent of 3 euro's for our driving violation.

Onwards we went! It did not really bother us. In fact, it would be a cool tale to tell later on. Time was on our side. Or so we thought.

For some reason the whole road from Odessa to Uman was plastered with police and we got used to the 'signalling' of the opposite lanes. We were never caught again.

So, from Uman we took a smaller, not too good road and started to Vinnyca. Stupidly enough, I activated TomTom Navigation with the Ukraine map.

It went all quite nicely until we came near Vinnyca. I saw the sign saying 15km and TomTom said, 'take a left'. So I took a left. And that is where it went all wrong. But we did not know that yet.

Following TomTom for a while I thought "15 km, that can't be an hour or more, can it?" It could not and was not.

When TomTom said we should go straight down the worst gravel-path ever (the 'pebbles' were the size of oranges) and Tom said "Hey, don't break our Potemkin", we decided it was time to enlist the help of the locals.

The first local was an old woman, the kind you would think would work on a Kolchoz in the sixties. We lowered the window and called out at her.

She came up to the car, poked her head inside and looked around. We tried to show her the map but she looked at it as if we were trying to explain a Picasso to her... not saying a word at all.

After some time we just gave up and went up the gravel-path. We decided to backtrack. Then we backtracked on the backtracking because we had backtracked before and that did not pan out. We were lost.

Some time later, we found a local who not only spoke English, but who also wanted to help us out, or so it seems.

The place we wanted to go to was, according to that guy, 150 kilometers away. A 150 ???? Yup, 150 kilometers.

After some explaining, he started calling some people and he became a bit awkward. When we wanted to go, he suddenly offered to 'drive with us' and 'some friends of his knew the way'...

I thought this change in helpfulness was creepy, so I called Tom and we left in a speedy but not rushed manner.

The upshot of that was that we made it a habit to ask at just about every gas-station for directions, that helped us not to get lost again. Talking with hands and feet became a well trained skill.

We had lost a ridiculous amount of time and we tried to make up for it by gunning along, but the roads were so abysmal that 170 km/h was a physical limit.

Passing through towns and cities that gave us a 'timewarp' feeling; we saw stuff that belonged in the Soviet Era in the sixties.

So, to make up for the lost time, we drove on until the wee hours. We became extremely tired and could not see anything except the high-beams of the car.

We agreed to take the first bed we would find and went off the road when we saw a sign with a bed on it.

As soon as we stood still I could really feel how tired I was. Inside we found a sloppily dressed lady and we saw a price-list.

"How odd, the rooms go by the hour here, but hey, the 6-8 hour special is reasonably priced!"

Pointing towards the 6-8 hours we tried to make clear that we wanted a room. The lady looked weird at us and started talking louder and louder.

Then she took us to a room to show it. It had a bed, so the room was perfectly fine by me and Tom.

We went back to the counter and I paid her for two rooms. She looked weird at us again, and we made the V-sign signifying that we wanted two rooms.

She shrugged and guided us upstairs to our rooms. Along the way we passed a very scantily clad lady, who was looking weird at us.

When I finally was alone in my room, I noticed something funny; on the ceiling, there were mirrors. Not everywhere, but just above the little rug, above the table and above the bed.

Ah well, it matched the 'erotic art' on the wall and next to the bed, but sleep was the number one thing here, and I was out in a few seconds.

The next day, after 7 hours had passed, I was awakened rudely by someone banging on the door yelling 'time!'.

I did not remember asking for a wake-up call, but anyway, I got up and went downstairs for a coffee and Tom.

When Tom came down he said 'Hey, we slept in a brothel or something!', and he was right. The ladies probably were miffed at us because we had taken 7 hours away from possible income, but we did not really care.

It was a new day, we had slept well and we were off again, trying to find the Hungarian border.

The car being of the 'thirsty' kind had us refueling somewhere in the gorgeous mountainous Carpathian area.

Some puppet started filling up the tank and I wanted to go in and change some cash so I could refill my 0.6 liter mug with coffee from the coffee vending machine outside.

As I walked in I noticed an orthodox priest standing at the counter. When he noticed me his eyes lit up and he started looking upwards and then he came up to me.

His babbling in the Russian tongue was not a thing that I could understand, so I smiled friendly at him and tried to change my cash.

But he touched my hair, he hugged me and he gestured that he was happy that I am a burly guy, so I smiled friendly at him.

I introduced myself and Tom and we think he introduced himself as 'Abbil', but that could also have been the Russian word for 'priest' or 'friendly old guy'.

Abbil went outside with me to watch me refill my mug with coffee. But since I can not really decipher cyrillic, the first cup was something that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike the coffee I wanted.

I gave Abbil his first Cappuchino from a vending machine. Then I refilled my mug with the next choice, which was artificially sweetened coffee. But hey, it was black.

We took pictures with Abbil and he started kissing my feet, and then the feet of Tom. When we backed out with the car, he started blessing the car.

I must say it helped... the distance traveled bore no more relation to the speed we were traveling at. And we were going downhill all the time. That held on until waaaaay into Germany. Annoying as that was, it helped to conserve fuel immensely.

Thank you Abbil, and I really do hope you have a good life, wherever you are.

In the late afternoon we finally reached the border. But there was a queue before the border which was ridiculously long.

We looked at each other and decided to play 'badass'. Ignoring all the other traffic we drove until there was no 'extra right lane' anymore and we parked behind a truck.

A soldier quickly ran up to us and started gesturing that we should turn around and go waaaaay back.

Tom gestured that we would do no such thing and meanwhile I was on the phone. I looked very angrily at the soldier for him disturbing me, who was wearing a machine gun, and started talking about his registration number.

He quickly covered that number and walked away.

After some time, some other soldiers came and stared at us. We glared at them and they went away.

When some more time had passed, the soldiers came to us with a purposeful demeanor...

'Aw damn, game's up' we thought. But not so! The soldiers gestured and shouted a lot, but not at us. They made extra room for us, so we could park in the right line, nicely at the front of the queue.

Cool, so playing 'badass' had payed off :)

It still took us 8 hours to cross the border, but I hate to think how long it would have taken us had we been nice boys.

The Ukrainian border guys wanted to search the car, but when I aggressively yanked out the ducttape that was holding everything in place in the trunk, they were finished pretty quickly.

At the Hungarian border we were just waved through at the sight of our European passports.

The return journey - Hungaria, Austria, Germany, Netherlands

Originally, our plan was to stay a day in Budapest, a day in Vienna and then head off home, but since we had lost so much time in the Ukrainian outback, we decided on breakfast in Budapest, lunch in Vienna and dinner in Germany somewhere.

Coming on to the Hungarian highways was like coming home! Perfectly kept smooth rides. Mostly well lit and very well signed.

EU money does count for something I guess.

We were pushing on for Budapest, but we simply could not make it. It became too late again and we decided to follow the 'bed' signs again.

Arriving in a nice little village in the middle of the night, we started looking for a hotel. But since everything was dark, we did not see very well.

We asked a police officer who was doing a 'crash site' investigation if he knew a hotel that was open. He very kindly took the time to describe the route and wished us a good night.

So friendly!

The hotel was nice, clean and we each had three beds to our disposal. We slept like babies.

Breakfast was perfect, in nice weather with extremely friendly (not the 'plastic friendly' variety either, it was the genuine real thing) service.

Going for Budapest. We arrived there and of course we took a wrong turn somewhere.

We got to see something of the city by driving behind a hot young woman whom Tom had asked for the way. She could drive!

When we were almost out of Budapest, we saw signs of a mega-traffic-jam because of a freshly occurred accident.

So we backed up on the highway (following the example set by locals) and Tom directed me to follow a truck that had the name of the place next on our route on it.

That was a perfect plan, since we wholly circumvented the traffic-jam and we could roll on, to Vienna!

I had called an uncle in Germany if we could crash at their house, because the trip to the Netherlands would have been too long to do in one stretch. Sure we could. Thanks uncle Manfred!

We had lunch at some Autogrill, because the car wanted something to drink. Two ridiculously large schnitzels which came with some arty plates we could take home. Which I forgot when I paid for gifts...

Downhill, all the way to Hanau, it went.

We slept well at my uncle's house and had a good hearty breakfast.

The last stretch was pretty uneventful except that we somehow got in a convoy of Lamborghini's. One of them wanted to play, and while a Lambo has higher top speeds, the torque it has at around 80 is less than that of my car. So we discouraged him quickly.

I dropped off Tom at his home and went back to my own.

Conclusion

This was indeed among the best vacations ever! The comraderie, the fun, the adventure. I would like to thank the other teams for making it such a spectacle, and I would like to thank the organization for the effort they put in so we could just play and bicker and have fun.

Lexus sent me a large bouquet of flowers and I sent them some pictures. They were appropriately arrogant in their conversation with me;

"We had no doubt that the car would perform just fine, and we are sure you were the most rested and relaxed team at each finish!"

Well, they were right. And they can be sure it will have to perform just as well (maybe better) next time around.