Day 1: Set-up in Moscow

Laurance Yap

SPECIAL TO THE STAR

With technical inspection on Wednesday, the three North American Porsche teams (Rod Millen/Richard Kelsey, Paul Dallenbach/Jeff Zwart, Kees Nierop/Myself) spent the day doing a bit of sightseeing in Moscow as well as tracking down pieces on our list of spare parts we'd like to have - just in case.

This is not the work of a moment in Moscow, which may now be a city with all of the modern conveniences (and several McDonald's) but in which bureaucracy still rules.

It took us almost two hours to rent a Volkswagen Transporter van to shuttle us around the city, thanks to a car-rental office which still ran on paper, carbon copies and credit card authorizations called in over the phone.

Laurance Yap on Moscow's Red Square

Going over to the vehicle and doing the requisite walk-around also took ages: while the van we rented was almost brand-new, almost every body panel had been scratched or dinged and, in a very strange twist, it had Ford wheel covers.

Subsequently, we spent an hour at an auto parts store in the suburbs sourcing a miniature tool kit which we'll use to attach our Cayenne's snorkel for water crossings and another hour at the famous Globus bookstore going through their collection of maps of Russia.

Tomorrow, we'll spend the day familiarizing ourselves with the city's serpentine ring road network and playing with the Garmin GPS navigation system that will guide us through the no-road stretches in Mongolia.

More videos from Wheels.ca and our partners