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Good morning and evening, followers of Clive and Ces.

This is Peter here, Clive´s ghost post writer in Switzerland.    Today was a double whammy.   Clive texted me to say that he and Ces were very well, but much too shattered to write a blog this evening (ie. Sat 11-Sep-2010).   He said that he´d write one while waiting (for hours and hours) at the Mongolian border.   I said "No sweat, I´ll create a placeholder".

Little did I know that my drive from Stelvio (for the annual Lotus gathering) to the Dolomites would leave me with an internet-free evening.   So apologies to those of you who couldn´t face a weekend without knowing the gory details of Clive´s P2P progress.

In consolation, Clive and Ces should be in Mongolia this evening.   With an emerging democracy, Mongolia will have no qualms about internet access.   But with an emerging infrastructure (especially in Clive and Ces´ yuert tent), access to the internet might be little more than aspirational.

Just as the teams in the P2P have to be resourceful (like the Australians who made one big-end shim from a Sprite can and another using the wafer thin aluminium from a cigarette packet), we ghost-post-writers also have to be resourceful.    So with the benefit the landlady´s laptop, but without any carrier pidgeon from Clive, I resorted to reading the official site´s daily reports.   In it, I discovered that Clive and Ces had a failed coil today in Mongolia, that their spare coil was a dud, but that the mobile support unit was able to get them going again.

More excitingly, I discovered that their yuert tent is within metres of a stop on the Trans-Siberian railway.   So next year, when Karen and I are scheduled to do the Trans-Sib, we´ll keep an eye out for discarded 1938 Chevy bits and pieces.

For those of you who like spinning your globes or opening your Times Altas across the dining table, I leave you with a map of their course on Day 1 (Beijing to the start at The Great Wall and then onto Daihai ... this was the day when timings were cancelled) and Day 2 (Daihai to Erenhot, both in China, for which we do not have the gory details).

Day 3 (Sunday 12th) runs from Erenhot China to Sainshand in Mongolia ... see map below.

Fingers crossed for an offical report from the front line tomorrow ..... ciao for now ... cos I gotta give the laptop back to the accommodating landlady.

Peter (on behalf of Clive and Ces)