by Paul Archer
An inspiring story told with lashings of energy and humour.
Ranulph Fiennes
This is the trip I would take if I were younger, braver and lightly but certifiably out of my mind.
Bill Bryson
What do you do after leaving university? Get a boring office job – or drive a black cab 43,000 miles around the world? Ernest Hemingway said always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. These lads did and raised 20 K whilst smashing two world records. Brilliant.
Andy Parsons
High adventure filled with hilarity and mischief – it goes to show what can happen when you combine some serious guts and a daft idea.
Levison Wood
IT'S ON THE METER
Copyright © Paul Archer and Johno Ellison, 2016
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced by any means, nor transmitted, nor translated into a machine language, without the written permission of the publishers.
Paul Archer and Johno Ellison have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Condition of Sale
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
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eISBN: 978-1-78372-766-7
Substantial discounts on bulk quantities of Summersdale books are available to corporations, professional associations and other organisations. For details contact Nicky Douglas by telephone: +44 (0) 1243 756902, fax: +44 (0) 1243 786300 or email: [email protected].
CONTENTS
Map
A Note from the Authors
Preface
Chapter 1 – Never Plan an Expedition in a Pub
Chapter 2 – Hard Hearted Hannah
Chapter 3 – No U-turns
Chapter 4 – The Horny Dutch Cat
Chapter 5 – Dude, Where's My Cab?
Chapter 6 – Herbs and Hippies
Chapter 7 – The Hipster Elves
Chapter 8 – To the East
Chapter 9 – 'Russian Tradition!'
Chapter 10 – 'To International Friendship'
Chapter 11 – Moscow Prison Blues
Chapter 12 – The City of Ruin
Chapter 13 – Naked Country!
Chapter 14 – Metal Monday Morning
Chapter 15 – The Green Card
Chapter 16 – Galmajuice
Chapter 17 – Stepantsky-whatever
Chapter 18 – Turn Right to Certain Death
Chapter 19 – Guerrilla Camping
Chapter 20 – Special Brew in a Dry State
Chapter 21 – Global Positioning Meltdown
Chapter 22 – Our Friends, the Secret Police
Chapter 23 – Leaving a Dying Man in the Desert
Chapter 24 – Deported from Iran
Chapter 25 – Armed Escort
Chapter 26 – Police Chases in the Wild, Wild East
Chapter 27 – Kidnap!
Chapter 28 – No Tension
Chapter 29 – Unavoidable Facts about Life in India
Chapter 30 – Missing Persons
Chapter 31 – Bond, Hindi Bond
Chapter 32 – Leigh's Lists
Chapter 33 – Climbing Everest
Chapter 34 – Thank You, Hello and Diesel
Chapter 35 – Record-breaking Highs
Chapter 36 – The Abduction of Fred Jin
Chapter 37 – Volleyball Diplomacy
Chapter 38 – In the Tubing
Chapter 39 – Laosy Medical Care
Chapter 40 – There and Back Again?
Chapter 41 – How to Nail a Business Deal
Chapter 42 – The Swansea Massive
Chapter 43 – Quarantine
Chapter 44 – Always Tip Your Mechanic Well
Chapter 45 – The End Is Not Nigh
Chapter 46 – Chimichangas, Forties and Wrenches
Chapter 47 – 'Your Guyses Taxi is Sick'
Chapter 48 – Porn Stars and Burgers
Chapter 49 – The Most Heavily Armed Magazine in the World
Chapter 50 – Coleslaw Wrestling in the US of A
Chapter 51 – How to Rack up a $100,000 Taxi Fare
Chapter 52 – The Little Town of Bethlehem
Chapter 53 – Trouble at the Border
Chapter 54 – The 'Filthy Rave Club' – Take Two
Chapter 55 – Homeward Bound
Afterword
Appendix – The Cheers Guide
Acknowledgements
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHORS
This is a story about three of us, by two of us. Throughout the book Johno will be writing in a font like this, and Paul in a font like this.
Writing a book with two voices has been a challenge. Three voices proved beyond our abilities, so our third member, Leigh, is mostly absent from the writing (except for the afterword) but his contribution to the adventure was just as important as ours, if not greater.
This is a story about what happens when three lads in their early 20s go on an adventure in an old banger. It was not noble, it was not smart and should probably be viewed as a series of stories outlining how one should not travel the world, but (unfortunately) all of the events detailed in the book are true. However, some names have been changed to protect people we met along the way.
PREFACE
The soldiers looked unsure of themselves. It seemed unlikely that they had ever been in this situation before.
'JUST LET US OVER THE BORDER, YOU FUU…!'
The nearest soldier jumped backwards, out of reach of the screaming red-faced Australian who lunged out of my car window. The others, less intimidated by the yelling, jostled forward cradling their AK-47s.
How did I end up here? Sitting in a 20-year-old London taxi in the middle of the Baluchistan desert, on the Iran–Pakistan border, with a raging Aussie hitchhiker who was trying to start a fist fight with a bunch of armed conscripts.
Oh, yeah, that's right, I listened to my idiot friend, Paul. But where was he now? He was long gone.
I closed my eyes and tried to zone out from the chaos for a moment.
When I opened them the view hadn't changed. I was still staring out through the filthy cracked windscreen at the rolls of barbed wire that marked the all-important border, our holy grail.
Sweat dripped off my scraggy beard.
I eyed the gauges on the dashboard wearily; the temperature seemed to be holding steady, but the fuel gauge was barely at halfway. Getting across this border relied heavily on this beatenup, jetlagged taxi not packing up. Beyond this lay 350 miles of Taliban-controlled desert, baking with 50-degree heat. My two best friends were hundreds of miles away and I had been left to navigate this desolate landscape, with its recent spate of kidnappings, drug smuggling and banditry, with a passenger who seemed hell-bent on getting us arrested, or worse.
The Aussie started afresh: 'I'M GONNA KILL YOU, YOU LITTLE FUU…'
How the hell did I end up here?
Three years earlier and thousands of miles away, a different black cab raced along the rainy Birmingham expressway:
'Been busy tonight?'
How many times had this guy been made to suffer that question?
I didn't actually care about the answer and he knew it. I was pretty su
re he didn't care either, yet the awkward charade played out in its usual way. He replied with the standardised formula that he used when other punters slurred the very same question through the pay hole in the plastic barrier: a non-engaging comment on the traffic, a reference to which club had chucked out the most people, a generic moan about recent roadworks.
'Cool,' I replied, returning to my intoxicated thoughts, only just managing to stop myself from asking him what time his shift would end.
I was dressed up like a Thunderbird. The reason for this escapes me, but I took comfort in the fact that everyone else at the party had also been in fancy dress. I had been just on the right side of tipsy until I'd been roped into that round of shots, and now I was firmly in the 'I reckon that tree is climbable' reckless and excitable stage of inebriation.
The yellow felt of my Thunderbird boots had turned black from the sweat and beer and vomit and blood and dirt and blue alcopop on the club floor. None of these constituents were actually black, yet they had somehow mixed together to form a black slime. I pondered this great unanswerable question for a handful of seconds, until my thoughts returned to how long the taxi was taking to get me home, where my warm bed – and tomorrow's hangover – awaited me. The fare was getting expensive; incredibly so.
I had been discussing earlier that night with my best friend Leigh what to do after we graduated. Ideas began to surface as the beer flowed; he wanted to have a driving adventure somewhere – as 'travelling around the world with a plane ticket that stops in just six places is for pussies' – and I thought that sounded fun.
The taxi driver and I were pootling along the expressway five minutes later and I began to wonder about the longest ever taxi ride. Maybe there was a world record? That would be a world record worth having! Not quite as noble as the fastest 100 m sprint, perhaps, or some of the Arctic adventures or mountain climbing ones… but definitely better than having the world's longest fingernails or spending the longest time in a bathtub of baked beans—
'HOW MUCH!?'
We'd finally pulled up outside my student house and it appeared as though I was in the process of being mugged. I considered contacting Guinness to tell them that I had just broken the world record for the most expensive taxi ride ever.
Once I got inside, I heard Greg snoring in his room and Johno's room was locked. When Johno's room is locked, it's best not to think about what he's doing – let alone disturb him – so I went into the kitchen to raid the fridge.
Living with Paul was sometimes a challenge. He has one of those uniquely loud voices that seem to pierce through all other sounds. A few times over the past year Paul had arrived back home later than me with friends in tow. As they sat up in our squalid living room putting the world to rights, I could hear a low murmur from them all… apart from Paul, whose entire side of the conversation was clearly audible even from the floor above me.
However, tonight was different. There seemed to be a different voice booming down the stairs and through my door. In my sleepiness I wasn't quite sure that I was hearing things right. The voice was saying:
'… living in groups can lead to particular problems…'
I sat up in bed and strained my ears to catch some more of the stranger's conversation.
'… instead of laying eggs…'
Eggs? I shivered as I pulled on my tatty dressing gown. I'd have to investigate.
'… pull it through its mother's fur towards the pouch on her belly…'
I wearily opened my door and climbed the stairs. What was going on up there?
'… last season's joeys are now fast approaching independence.'
I didn't expect the sight that greeted me as I opened the living-room door.
There sat my best friend and housemate, a 20-year-old man, dressed as John Tracy, wolfing down a pizza and glued to a David Attenborough documentary on kangaroos.
I wasn't particularly patient.
'What the hell are you doing, can't you turn it down it a bit?'
His eyes didn't leave the screen.
'Sorry dude, someone's lost the remote… but check out these kangaroos – they're amazing! Did you know the babies live in their pouches until they're nine months old?'
'I really don't care, Paul, I was asleep.'
'Mate!' he said, suddenly turning to face me, 'let's drive a taxi to Australia!'
So, naturally, I did what anyone would do when confronted with a drunken Thunderbird asking them to drive halfway around the world at two o'clock on a Tuesday morning.
I told him to stop being so fucking stupid and to go to bed.
CHAPTER 1
NEVER PLAN AN EXPEDITION IN A PUB
Paul was the first person I ever met at university, and in the three years we were there he had constantly been coming up with crazy ideas and then failing to follow through with them. I had quickly learned that it was much easier just to say yes and wait for him to forget about the schemes than to argue why it wasn't a sensible idea to waterski across the North Sea or turn up to lectures wearing 1950s fancy dress.
So when I sleepily reminded Paul the next morning of his barely coherent ramblings about driving a taxi to Australia, I immediately regretted my schoolboy error. My heart sank as I saw his eyes widen in recollection of the plan and then grow bright with the possibilities. I braced myself for an afternoon's verbal assault.
It had already been a hard day for me. I had checked Facebook a couple of hundred times, caught up with my daily episode of Neighbours, made some toast, looked out of the window and played a bit of PlayStation; I was rapidly running out of things to do.
I glanced over at the dusty engineering textbook lying on my desk. Surely things weren't so desperate that I was actually considering doing university work? I tried to think of an alternative but my mind came up blank. I started to reach for the book. Just as my fate was about to be sealed, Paul burst into my room wearing his threadbare, stained dressing gown, bowl of cereal in hand.
'So this taxi idea,' he started, plonking himself down on my bed, 'you in?'
Although there was no way I was getting involved in such a foolish idea I decided to humour Paul a little and ran through all the reasons he wouldn't be able to complete the journey. Somehow through his sheer enthusiasm he managed to counter my every argument.
'How are you going to afford this?'
'I dunno, we'll get sponsors or something.'
'Right, OK. When are you going to have time to do this?'
'We'll do it after our graduation, that gives us two years to plan.'
'Where the hell are you going to get a black cab from?'
'Auto Trader, classifieds, eBay, ask cabbies when we get rides back from nights out; there's loads of places.'
'Wait a minute…' I thought I finally had him, '… you don't know anything at all about cars.'
He faltered for the first time, then quickly recovered. 'Leigh!' he gushed, beaming. 'Leigh says he knows how to fix cars and has wanted to do something like this for ages! Come on it'll be well funny.'
I knew he would never go through with it and I had to say something drastic to get him out of my room so I could go back to watching 'Greatest Fails of the Year' on YouTube.
'Alright,' I sighed, 'I'm in. Now leave me alone, I've got an essay to write.'
Only slightly perturbed by Johno not instantly jumping up, pledging his dedication to the project and then celebrating the genius of my idea with a nice cup of tea, I decided to call Leigh. Although not the hardiest of travellers (his most adventurous journey to date was teaching chubby American kids how to climb walls at Camp America), he was a great mate and he could fix cars.
He answered the phone in his dulcet Midlands tones.
'Alright, Dickhead.'
'Alright, good night last night?'
'Yeah great, or I think it was anyway… whose idea was it to do the shots?'
'Dunno. So… err… remember you said you want to go on an adventure? D'ya fancy driving a black cab to Australia when we gradua
te?'
'Yeah, alright.'
'Sweet.'
'Cool, see you in a bit.'
'See ya… oh Leigh, you said you can fix cars last night, didn't you?'
'Yeah, no problem.'
He hung up. I had a teammate for this adventure – and one who could fix a car at that.
Or at least claimed he could.
Leigh had also once claimed he could snowboard as well, but after one rather painful day resulting in a broken thumb, it emerged that he'd never actually been snowboarding, he was just pretty sure he'd be able to do it.
I put my doubts about his engineering prowess aside – he had said yes in about one second flat, as though a mate calling you up after a night out and asking if you fancied driving to the other side of the world in an iconic form of London transport was a regular occurrence.