tulaweb Posted July 6, 2013 Report Share Posted July 6, 2013 As some of you may recall my wife is Kalmyk which is of Mongolian decent and we are on the boards of several organizations related to her culture. I got an invitation to like a Facebook page at one of the accounts that I run for one of those foundations, which would have no reference to my Peugeot interest. Apparently there are some people driving a 204 and a 504 from Paris to Ulan Batur Mongolia to (I think) raise money for charity. It's all in French so I can't read it well and it doesn't seem to translate very well in Google Translate, so maybe someone here can tell me more about the details. I understand Kalmyk better than French. And we thought Mark and Rabin had quite a road trip. I suspect that some of the route these guys are taking would hardly qualify as a road. https://www.facebook.com/MongolieFever Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
norcal505 Posted July 6, 2013 Report Share Posted July 6, 2013 I love this stuff. Following their adventure! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrethx Posted July 7, 2013 Report Share Posted July 7, 2013 looks to be a "drive-a-thon" -- if some of you have ever heard of walk-a-thons or bike-a-thons, it's the same idea...supporters pledge a small amount for each km driven, and the proceeds go to fund the construction of a building at a children's school in myanmar. so far, they are about 40% towards their goal of 21k euros. they note that all of the money raised goes towards the project, none goes to the trip itself (which they are funding themselves). there are 5 friends in two cars (a 204 and a 404), at least one of them looks to be a competent mechanic so they have that going for them. they call themselves "peugeonautes." looks to be a fun project for a good cause! one of the problems with "machine translation" (i.e., babelfish or google translate) is that subtleties are frequently lost. for example, take the term boîte vitesse, which we have previously discussed in this forum...boîte is box, and vitesse is generally translated as speed, so put the two together and you get "speed box." in english, this refers to the transmission of a car. this can be confusing until you realize that vitesse can also be translated as "rate of speed" or "rate," so boîte vitesse can also be thought of as meaning "ratio box" or "gear box," which makes much more sense to english-trained ears. fortunately the translation sites get this one correct, but they don't tell you how they arrived at this translation so if you are following the original (target) text or if the sentence construction is a bit different, you can get confused in a hurry. there's all kinds of stuff like this throughout the french language...i've always been interested in cars and in the french language (because of my ethnic background), but i've only put the two together in recent years so there's been a bit of a steep learning curve wrt vocabulary. the french language can be confusing at times, even before you add in stuff like verlan... andré Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tulaweb Posted July 7, 2013 Author Report Share Posted July 7, 2013 I studied French in High School but did VERY poorly at it. Now 40 something years later it might as well be Greek to me. The machine translations are usually good enough to tell what's being talked about, if not all the nuisances, but I found this one to be particularly rough. One of my uses for the machine translation is the aforementioned Kalmyk. That is my wife's first language. She spoke if exclusively as a child but never learned to read or write it. It was written in a unique Mongolian script until 75 or 100 years ago but is now written in a Cyrillic script. When I run the Cyrillic version through a translator and tell it it's Russian. It transliterates the characters into "English" looking Latin characters that give a fairly good phonetic spelling of the Kalmyk. Except for the alphabet, Kalmyk and Russian languages are not at all related. Of course it can not translate any of the words into English but it yields something that can be read by someone who speaks Kalmyk and reads English. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrethx Posted July 7, 2013 Report Share Posted July 7, 2013 that's interesting, i did not know that other languages (besides russian) used cyrillic script. i took two years of russian in college but i didn't stick with it and forgot most of the vocabulary...as a result, i can still remember the cyrillic alphabet so i can read russian but i have no idea what i'm reading most of the time. oddly enough, understanding cyrillic is helpful when i am looking at greek websites (peugeots are very popular in greece!), since cyrillic and greek script are not dissimilar. my wife is a taiwanese-born naturalized US citizen; her family is native taiwanese, meaning that they were already there in 1949 when chiang kai-shek's people came over; my wife's family refers to them as the "chinese." ethnically, my wife's family came to taiwan many hundreds of years ago from the northern chinese coastal area...there are also aboriginal taiwanese who came to the island in prehistoric times, all of which has resulted in tumultuous politics on the island over the years. linguistically, the native taiwanese situation is similar to the kalmyk in that they don't have their own writing so they use chinese characters. as a result, they have a different pronunciation for each character...when my wife's family emigrated (she was 3 years old), they took the chinese pronunciation of their name since that was the path of least resistance. she frequently tells me that this is not her real name, though...i imagine you hear the same sort of thing... andré Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tulaweb Posted July 8, 2013 Author Report Share Posted July 8, 2013 Well it looks like the "peugeonautes" have made it to Lithuania after going through Poland. André Your wife's story brings to mind many stories relating to my wife. I'll pick one that's sort of car related (at the end) for this venue. My wife was born in a displaced persons camp in Germany where many Kalmyk people spent time after WWII looking for a country that would take them. She came to the US as a stateless person. She was just a baby at the time. Her name was spelled phonetically by the German hospital personnel on her birth certificate. When she started school in the US it was spelled differently on her school records. Her social security card spells it another way and her driver's license matches that spelling. Her US citizenship certificate matches her German birth certificate which, of all the spellings, is the least close to the pronunciation of her name either in Kalmyk or English. A few years ago New Jersey, and I think most other states tightened up the documentation requirements when renewing your drivers license. When her license came up for renewal, she went in with her old license, her social security card, her citizenship certificate, and various other documents. When she got to the counter the person said "I'll have to take this to my supervisor. I think it will be OK but I can't approve this because the spelling has to match". The supervisor said that she would have to come up with enough documents with the same spelling or she could not renew her license. My wife got angry and started telling him how stupid that was and he told her to leave. She got angrier still. I dragged her out just as the police were about to cuff her. I went home and looked up the new regulations and clearly he was right, and there was no exceptions allowed. So I told her that the next day we would go to a different DMV office and be there as soon as they opened. We would hope that the person checking her documents hadn't had their coffee yet, and wouldn't notice. If that didn't work, we would go to the next DMV office until we had tried every one in the state. I figured sooner or later we would get a state worker who wasn't paying attention. The first person in the morning passed us to her supervisor who referred us to her supervisor. He told us we would have to get her name changed on enough of the documents so that the spelling matched. This was going to require getting her name legally changed by a judge and then applying for a new citizenship certificate, which would take at least a year, probobly 3 or more. I said to him we would certainly do what ever was required, but was she really not going to be allowed to drive for the next several years, while that was in progress. He thought about that for a minute and then said "OK I'm going to approve this. I just have to decide which spelling to approve." My wife just about jumped over the counter telling him that he had to approve the spelling she preferred. I kicked her in the shin and pointed out that a misspelled drivers license was better than no drivers license. I then told the DMV supervisor "look this is the spelling that we'll eventually get on the documents, as well as the one that has always been on her drivers license. If you are considering which spelling, why not avoid changing the name on her driver's license, if we will only wind up changing it back." He thought for a moment and said OK. Once she had her new license we got her a passport with that spelling and that gave her enough documents with the preferred spelling that we didn't have to get the others changed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bean Posted July 8, 2013 Report Share Posted July 8, 2013 I'd Love to do some "adventure trips" in my 504 just like this, but I doubt I'd find anyone locally to do it with me! Santiego mentioned going to Argentina and driving back a newer Peugeot on FB - and that is something I've thought about MANY times. I've even mentioned it to my wife - but there was a distinct lack of enthusiasm on the idea. Another idea I've had was to drive it to Alaska - but still not as cool as drving it down to South America. Our road trip to PPIHC was cool, but not nearly as "adventureous" as these guys, but I guess it's not bad considering how little known Peugeot's are both in Canada and the US. Very cool discussion Andre and Dave - I enjoyed reading it! Rabin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tulaweb Posted July 8, 2013 Author Report Share Posted July 8, 2013 considering how little known Peugeot's are both in Canada and the US. I think Peugeots are fairly common in Russia. At least it seems like every time I Google a Peugeot part, I come up with more Russian sites than anything else, so they may not be as bad off for finding parts or mechanics as we would be driving across the US or Canada. Once they get to Mongolia I think all bets are off. I think they will find people (few and far between) who will always be eager to help but I suspect the resources will be almost nonexistent at least until they get to Ulan Bator (by the way Ulan Bator means "Red Warrior"in Mongolian including the Kalmyk dialect). There is a Mongolian film that has a scene that I love. I think it's "The Story of the Weeping Camel". This nomad family has a truck that is not running, but they do not want to leave it behind as they continue their seasonal migration. They have a Shaman come and perform a spiritual ritual on the truck. I forget if they got it running or not. I'm not absolutely sure it was in "The Story of the Weeping Camel" but it's never the less a great film if you ever come across it. Anyway I often think of that scene when working on my Peugeot. I carry a Buddhist blessing attached to the sun visor to keep it from misfortune. Seems to have worked so far. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tulaweb Posted July 8, 2013 Author Report Share Posted July 8, 2013 When they say Notre mission aujourd'hui retrouver les flexibles de frein pour notre 204 envoyés à Saint Petersbourg Am I correct that they are trying to get brake hoses for the 204 shipped ahead to them in Saint Petersburg, or are they trying to locate a source for them in Saint Petersburg? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike T Posted July 9, 2013 Report Share Posted July 9, 2013 They have apparently been sent and they are trying to pick them up.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tulaweb Posted July 13, 2013 Author Report Share Posted July 13, 2013 I think Peugeots are fairly common in Russia. At least it seems like every time I Google a Peugeot part, I come up with more Russian sites than anything else, Well the Silk Way Rally just passed through Kalmykia and there doesn't seem to be a Peugeot in the bunch ;-( http://www.silkwayrally.com/en/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tulaweb Posted July 15, 2013 Author Report Share Posted July 15, 2013 I couldn't quite understand what went on with their brakes but I gather they had some mechanical trouble. It seems that they have had them repaired and have now passed the Ural mountains that define the border between Europe and Asia. The last location I could identify was Chelyabinsk Russia, which is in south central Russia, just north of Kazakhstan. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrethx Posted July 15, 2013 Report Share Posted July 15, 2013 yes, it's not clear what the problem was...they say that the brake pads and the rotors were both scratched, maybe they got some debris between the pads and the rotors? i guess they must have had the rotors turned, probably why they needed a local mechanic with a shop... this says "Asia" in russian (A-Zh-I-Ya)... andré Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tulaweb Posted July 24, 2013 Author Report Share Posted July 24, 2013 I suspect that some of the route these guys are taking would hardly qualify as a road.https://www.facebook.com/MongolieFever Like I said! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tulaweb Posted July 24, 2013 Author Report Share Posted July 24, 2013 And we thought Mark and Rabin had quite a road trip.https://www.facebook.com/MongolieFever Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
parisoulan Posted July 25, 2013 Report Share Posted July 25, 2013 Hi sorry for my very poor english i m the leader of the paris oulan travel in 204 and 404 you can also follow us on www. putychestve.tumblr.com The 404 is a very strong car, without any mechanical problem. the 204 is not the same: many many problems (brakes, engine, carburator, etc.), but is still running. The russian mechanics are genius, using truck s parts to repare. Thanks for your interest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tulaweb Posted July 25, 2013 Author Report Share Posted July 25, 2013 Hisorry for my very poor english i m the leader of the paris oulan travel in 204 and 404 you can also follow us on www. putychestve.tumblr.com The 404 is a very strong car, without any mechanical problem. the 204 is not the same: many many problems (brakes, engine, carburator, etc.), but is still running. The russian mechanics are genius, using truck s parts to repare. Thanks for your interest I think your English is a lot better than my French, though we have some people here who Know French very well. I have been particularly interested because of my Wife's Mongolian heritage and my having driven Peugeots all my adult life. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bean Posted July 25, 2013 Report Share Posted July 25, 2013 Welcome to the forum! And thanks very much for taking the time to join and say hi. Your English is excellent, and your current journey is very inspiring! Looking forward to following progress the rest of your trip. Rabin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tulaweb Posted July 28, 2013 Author Report Share Posted July 28, 2013 It looks like they have arrived in, or at least near, Ulan Bator. I gather they are trading places with another group of people for the return trip. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tulaweb Posted August 27, 2013 Author Report Share Posted August 27, 2013 It apears that they have returned to Paris after 21,000KM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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