Trabant Trek hobbles through Bishkek

Back in Bishkek, I settled into the Nomad's Home Guesthouse which is reasonably well-managed and comfortable, if not overcrowded. Since my last visit, the guest house had received some wily invaders from Tajikistan -- that infamous group of ne'er-do-wells, the Trabant Trek clan. Actually, that's the professional face of the project, and the soft underbelly and dirty laundry is located here on Dan Murdoch's blog.


The Trabant Trek (TT) group is attempting to travel 15,000 miles from Germany to Cambodia in three Soviet-era plastic cars, Trabants or "Trabbies" as they are affectionately known. Their purpose: to raise $300,000 for charity and have fun traveling. At last notice, they were approximately 50% of the way through their travels and had achieved about 3% of the their fundraising goal. But like the plucky little cars that they drive, the TT folks are not going to give up until they are impounded or melted-down to make lawn furniture. Actually, they were arrested in Turkmenistan and held for two days in an abandoned parking lot for overstaying their visas, while a tribunal convened to decide their fate. Long story short, they were let off with a small fine.

In any event, when I met-up with the TT group, it seemed they were on their last legs. The group that I met was really only a fraction of the team, and in fact, two of the TT'ers had departed for home and the cars and other members of their party (including the mechanic and founder) were still broken-down in Tajikistan and out of communication for several days. However, it seems that since I left Bishkek, the group has been reunited and will ultimately somehow find their way to Cambodia.