Recently by David

Just had a call from Himalayan Kingdoms who've just had a call on the sat-phone from Steve to say that they've not been allowed into China and on to Kashgar today as planned. They may be allowed in on Monday but nothing is clear. I'd guess this is a reflection of the problems in Kashgar earlier in the week and the opening of the Olympics :- (

(and ironic seeming as I'm sat here watching the opening ceremony and wondering if they are all crowded into a bar in Kashgar watching it with the locals. )

And it doesn't look like there's much to do around Irketsham - and about 50 miles back to Sary Tash - which doesn't have much more. Perhaps they could knock off Pik Lenin whilst they're waiting!

Steve and Jeremy tried to email me a first set of photos, but uploaded the Hotel's publicity shots by mistake. Hopefully they'll have better luck next time!

Got a text from Deb today:

"Not been ale to get to any internet places since Prague due to driving times and breakdowns delaying the journey. But OK, if wet with torrential rain for the main part. Coming up to Russia."

Whilst we're waiting for them to stop long enough to find a cyber cafe I thought I'd try and keep a virtual blog of the trip, using Flickr photos identified by Google Earth to show what they should be seeing - if they are keeping to plan. Perhaps we ought to have a sweepstake as to how many times my photos match theirs!

The link will always be available on the right hand side of the page - just below the fold.

We drove from Birmingham to Wootton-under-Edge in the rain. We helped load the Landcruisers in the rain. They posed for the team photo in the rain. We said our goodbyes in the rain. They drove off in the rain. We drove back to Birmingham in the rain. Perhaps its to make up for the deserts they've got coming.

Test of Twitter feed.

For those who don't know it Twitter lets you get instant updates from people, blogs, news sources and other systems across the Internet. Just go to Twitter to learn more about it. The ROTW Twitter feed is at www.twitter.com/rotw2008.

Six of the team, plus families, met up in the Forest of Dean this weekend to get to know each other better, introduce the families, and check the vehicle packing and cooking skills. On Saturday everyone went for a walk down to Symonds Yat, and in the late afternoon 7 kids and parents went off to the local Go Ape to test their nerve on the high wires. Sunday was given over to trip and packing planning.

The Roof of the World Expedition involves a group of 8 friends and acquiantances taking two 4x4s overland from England to Mumbai via the Karakoram and the Himalayas. The team depart on 9th July, and hopefully return to the UK on 20th Sept. Hopefully they'll be using this blog to keep family and friends updated as and when they find Internet connectivity on their trip - making blog posts and uploading the odd photo. We 've also asked them to give us the lat/long of their posts as they make them so that we can automatically plot them on Google Maps and Google Earth (follow the Maps links on the top menu). The planned route is already up on both of these systems.

If you link in to this site please let us know at rotw@converj.com so that we can link back to you!

The team held their first planning weekend on 26/27 April in the Forest of Dean. The Saturday was given over to planning, whilst Sunday was spent on an Off-Road driving course learning how to drive the Toyota Landcruisers.