Day 40

9. June 2000, Rest Day in Beijing

Beijing has many cultural attractions on offer. The "Forbidden City", the former imperial palace, itself is a museum that could easily take two days to visit. Apart from the old sights in city, there is the modern Beijing to see and there is also the Chinese opera or the circus and if you are prepared to venture outside, you should visit the Great Wall. We did not have much time to do any of this (well, we saw the Great Wall on our way to Beijing) as we were working, preparing and recuperating but again, we promised ourselves to come back and visit. With an important, modern city like Beijing this is of course more likely than with some of the cities we have been to before.

Today, Sami and Ahmet drove our car to an airport 200 kms outside of Beijing where it will take an Antonov airplane to Anchorage. In the evening there is the prize-giving and the celebration for the "London to Peking" participants. There are many prizes in different categories so I will not try to list them but I hope that the winners are listed on the official website of the Rally Office.

Overall 1 hour 10 minutes penalty

The official results can be looked up on this website

Do from the Netherlands, living in Belgium, is preparing his Jaguar for the first flight in its life.

The car is being weighed.

Intermediate storage

The London to Peking celebration

Big Chinese media attention

  

Petrol gets sucked out of the tank, only a quarter should be left. Our brother-in-law Ahmet is supervising the operation.

Lining up

All these cups are waiting for happy winners

Karl's favourite shrimps feature prominently on the menu.