NadiraRamli: Lucky Seven

I have been with AirAsia since 2008 and my job requires me to travel quite a bit. One of the countries I’ve often touched ground but never truly explored, is China. When AirAsia decided to sponsor one lucky employee on a trip of a lifetime to China by holding an internal competition at the end of May this year, it immediately grabbed my attention as this was no ordinary holiday. It was a chance to discover China’s leg of the silk road! I knew I had to take part even though winning chances might be slim. Little did I know that AirAsia would ultimately announce me to be the winner, which brings me to where I am right now, literally in the middle of nowhere in China.

The Planned Route

I attended a briefing by the organiser, 4x4WorldExplorer, and it was there that I met my first teammate, Nadya. We were told that we would be joining a convoy of ten cars who will kick-start their journey on the silk road in Turkey, Istanbul. We will be part of a second team who will fly to join the convoy in the China leg on August 7. Both Nadya and I will be sharing a car with two others, one of whom we knew was called Zain while the fourth person remained a mystery.

It was only when we arrived at KLIA on August 6, 10pm that I found out that the mystery person was Suzhen, who was also a winner who won a seat in the 4-wheel drive that will house us for the next month.

With all team members gathered, we were now prepared for our adventure. Little did we know that the beginning of our journey was going to be a challenging one even before we got on the road in China.

View from the sky

First, our 1.55am flight on China Eastern was delayed by an hour. While the wait was bearable, the next 17 hours was not. The journey itself to meet up with the convoy in Kashgar, Xinjiang, China was a stand-alone challenge. It was a complete hassle and at times confusion due to language barriers and multiple transits all along the way.

Thank God we had a personal translator in the form of Suzhen, who could speak Mandarin and navigate us in at least part of the journey. I shudder to think what would happen in the case of being lost in translation.

From Kuala Lumpur, we flew to Pudong, Shanghai where things were a little havoc due to the large airport and lousy directions provided by the airport personnel. Luckily, we managed to lug our huge amount of luggage to the right counter to continue on our transit to Urumqi, where we had to wait for our flight to Kashgar, our final destination by plane.

Arrival at Kashgar Airport

Fully expecting to be picked up by someone from the convoy upon arrival, we were instead greeted by the fact that they were actually three hours away (something which was proved to be wrong as they arrived seven hours later instead). On top of that, we had no idea where we were staying. Thanks to our personal translator, we managed to get the help of a friendly airport shuttle bus driver who confidently told us there were only two hotels in Kashgar (not really true, as we found out later).

Lady Luck decided to favour us right at the moment as an sms came through from a member of the convoy with the hotel name, saving us from the fate of enquiring all the hotels in Kashgar if we had a reservation with them.

To put a long story short, we FINALLY met up with them the next morning at breakfast, only to be introduced to the horror that is our car for the coming weeks.

The seventh car in the convoy, it had earned the nickname ‘Lucky Seven’ from the rest of the team by breaking down continuously in their first leg of the journey from Istanbul. Held together by an astonishing amount of duct tape, Lucky Seven had housed three guys and one girl. Being the majority in the car, the guys were not particularly attentive towards hygienic conditions, and I am being polite here.

Due to censorship purposes of the interior, we only took pictures of the outside of the car.

Fengshui being a big thing among the Chinese, must have really worked its magic here as a great change on Lucky Seven with its new occupants of three girls and a guy brought the car out of its drought of bad luck.

I knew. I KNEW that car must be cleaned inside and out for complete comfort on the road. Everything must be in its proper place and every spot must be clean. I had to bring change on this disaster that was Lucky Seven. My teammates responded positively to what I had in mind and we laboured the morning away scrubbing and cleaning till the car shone.