On September 1, 1955 we took off from London. Two weeks later we were in Istanbul and heading to the Asian shore. By the time we had driven across 500 miles of desert from Damascus to Baghdad, the expedition had been on the road for nearly two months.
As undergraduates we had no money, no cars, no nothing. How about putting together an expedition to drive to Singapore? Crazy? Maybe. But why not?
It would be one of the longest of all overland journeys: halfway round the world, from the English Channel to Singapore.
On arrival to Pakistan’s cultural capital Lahore, an English-language newspaper heralded the expedition as “As a boat race on wheels”.
Next stop Delhi, then down the famous Grand Trunk Road to Calcutta. This was where the nursery slopes ended and the expedition really began.
While we had always planned to hit northern Burma in the driest month of the dry season, that year’s dry season had been the driest for at least a decade. It seemed that the gods who looked after Land Rovers and all those who travel in them were listening to our prayers.
Through Bangkok, Malaya and from there to Singapore. Six months, six days and nearly 16,000 miles, we pulled up and switched off, people clapped and cheered, flash bulbs popped, reporters buzzed out. We had arrived.
from Land Rover Owner
