Sleep blog

I am rather aware that the blog hasn't been updated for a week... I will set about posting for each day shortly, but to put things in perspective I thought I'd start with a sleep blog.

Friday 18th July: Cars finally make it across the Lao Cai border (vietnam/china).
Minibus trip to Dien Bien Phu starting at 11.30pm, and ending in Dien Bien at 9am the next morning.
2 hours of sleep in 30 ish minute stints

Saturday 19th July: Arrive at hotel in Dien Bien.
2 hours of sleep before midday
Minibus to Son La - NO SLEEP WHATSOEVER!
Hotel at Son La
4 hours of sleep before onward minibus to Hanoi

Sunday 20th July: Minibus from Son La to Hanoi - no sleep
After meal with our Vietnamese fixer, 6 hours sleep before an early start to get a plane from Hanoi to Hue

Monday 21st July: Explore Hue, then minibus over to the Vietnam/Lao border. Spend most of the afternoon cooking in the minibus in the sun waiting for stuff to happen.
Eventually clear the vietnamese side at about 10pm, but can't get through the Laos side as it's shut. Stuck in no mans land - but have the cars.
Sleep in cars. Dash says 36 deg. Try to sleep, but just too hot - sitting in sweat. eventually give up at 1 in the morning and turn the ignition on for AC and get about 2 hours sleep in short stints.

Tuesday 22nd July: The start of a 24 hour day. Clearing the Lao border, steaming across Lao avoiding hitting all the waterbuffalo/dogs/ducks/geese/children on the road, to clear the Lao/Thai border 'just in time', and then carrying on to Bangkok. Short naps in the car when not driving, but had to give up driving at about 2am as a combination of tiredness, and hang ups from crashing the race car meant I couldn't actually walk in a straight line without thinking really hard about it and concentration had gone. Alex managed to stay awake for the final 3 hours through Bangkok.
Get to Bangkok at 5am, and have to be up for 11am for a local dealer photo shoot. Had to do some washing and hope it would dry, and the hotel was next to a building site, so only got about 3 hours sleep.

Wednesday 23rd July: Arrive in first hotel we could find at 12.30am, grabbed 5 hours sleep before back on the road again to get to the Thai/Malaysian border in time to make a dealer event at 1pm the next day.

Thursday 24th July: Manage to rearrange dealer event for following day but still imperative to get through Thai/Malaysian border asap as the paperwork had to be forwarded to the Malaysian/Singapore border in order for us to cross in on Saturday.
Take the opportunity to find an hotel with a pool, and get 8 whole hours sleep!

Friday 25th July: Now trying to catch up on sleep that was missed for the prior week, But have to send photos to the Singapore dealer in preparation for the final event on Saturday. Get 6 hours sleep

Saturday 26th July: We made it!
8 hours sleep.

Sunday 27th July:
Flight home. Still utterly knackered.