THE gaunt expanse of the Gobi desert is littered with skeletons of camels and other animals. As of last week, there is another carcass lying there under the unforgiving sun - that of a Porsche Cayenne S Transsyberia.

The mangled heap of metal and plastic had started life as a gleaming piece of sleek, exquisite machinery.
Driven by the Canadian team of Nierop Kees and Laurance Yap, it had performed more than adequately in the Transsyberia Rally 2007 till it hit one of the many concealed ridges that line the hard-packed mud of that region of the Gobi.

The car became airborne and had the misfortune of doing so at a spot where the land just dropped away beneath it.
It came down to earth nose first, flipped four to five times and ended up on its side, with the engine and transmission lying almost 100m away, looking like a T-Rex had taken a few bites at its front end.

But I digress.

This story started on Aug 3, with 33 rally cars lined up under the picturesque shadow of the St Basil's Cathedral in Moscow's Red Square.

Piloted by two-man teams - there was a mixed team and a two-woman team too - the cars were about to embark on a 7,100km journey called the Transsyberia Rally 2007 which is organised by Schalber Events, a company set up by Mr Richard Schalber who took part in last year's event.

Beginning in the burgeoning Russian capital Moscow, a disconcerting mix of in-your-face affluence and old-school tradition, the route flowed east towards the harsh Siberian region and the Ural and Altai mountains.

Once it crossed the border into Mongolia, it would wind through the vast Gobi desert before homing in on the Mongolian capital of Ulaan Batar.

The distance was to be covered in a combination of Liaison and Special stages. The former comprised non-competitive transport sectors where the competitors just had to get from point to point, mostly on tarmac roads. The latter stage was made up of competitive sections on demanding off-road terrain to be covered in a specific time and route, and would count for the placings.

Singapore was represented by car No. 7, a Porsche Cayenne S Transsyberia driven by me and Singaporean Eddie Keng and sponsored by Porsche Asia Pacific, which is headquartered in Singapore.

We were part of a 24-car contingent from Porsche, which threatened to overwhelm the rest of the cars in the rally which included Toyotas, Suzukis and Mercedes-Benzes.

In May, Keng and I had spent four days familiarising ourselves with the car at the Porsche factory in Leipzig, Germany. We felt as though the car was an old friend. But we were apprehensive about the 14-day adventure that lay ahead.

Russian roulette

EQUIPPED with snorkels, winches, sand boards and GPS navigation systems, the cars were geared to take on the upcoming challenges: 7,100km of harsh terrain through Russia and Mongolia, with part of that distance being car-breaking Special Stages that called for measured speed, pinpoint navigation and razor-sharp driving.

As the journey progressed eastwards, the terrain became increasingly unforgiving.

If we thought Russia's Special Stages were bone-jolters - narrow and slippery tree-lined mud tracks that undulated like a roller-coaster and sprang nasty surprises like rickety log bridges barely wide enough to accommodate a car or, worse, waist-deep patches of water that saw many cars bogged down and requiring a tow - the Liaison Stages (where you have to get from place to place without a time cover) were equally demanding.

Russia's two-lane highways are rutted with deep grooves carved by overladen trucks. Any effort to overtake requires bouncing out of them, cutting into the face of oncoming traffic, gunning the engine to get past the vehicle in front and then tapping the brakes as you bounce back into the ruts on your side of the road.

On days when the Liaison Stage stretched over 900km, it became a little like the Gumball Rally - a crazy, no-rules-apply cross-country drive that originated in the United States where the aim is to get to your destination as fast as possible - with drivers and co-drivers trying to get to the night halt as soon as possible.

Of course, the local police tried to make as much money - in official and unofficial manners - from these exotic machines doing well over the speed limit.

Despite the third Special Stage in Russia being cancelled - rain made the demanding route charted by the off-road club of Ekaterinburg too demanding - it was a tired bunch of people who queued up at the Russian border on Aug 10.

But at least the convoy was complete, and damage to vehicles had been minor.

Mongolian mayhem

THINGS took a dramatic turn once the cars drove into Mongolia. This is a land of brutal road conditions. Tarmac is as rare as a chilled can of drink in the desert, and the dusty soil barely covers the hard rock that seems to layer the entire landscape.

If the drivers and co-drivers felt the jolts through their spinal columns, the vehicles took their share of the pain via shredded tyres and damaged undercarriages.

Let me try and paint this picture better: Imagine driving kilometres across a field of moss-covered basketball-sized rocks placed barely a tyre-width from each other.

Imagine driving on a track that is made of an inch of dried, dusty mud on hard unyielding rock - with fist-sized pieces of sharp-edged rock littered all over it and even bigger pieces waiting to devour your tyres if you veer even inches off the track.

Imagine some of these tracks having speed bump-like ripples on it - for kilometres.

This wasn't the adrenalin-pumping stuff that makes the highlights of the World Rally Championship. This was a journey that threatened to chew up even the most hardy off-road vehicle and spit it out in venomous disgust.

And to make matters worse, rally organiser Schalber had decided to test the survival skills of the humans too, by charting a routine that included camping outdoors throughout the Mongolian leg of the rally.

As we moved east, the hotels where we camped overnight became more spartan. And, by the seventh night, it was just tents and sleeping bags.

All murmurs of unhappiness over some of the more humble Russian hotels were soon forgotten as everyone struggled to pitch tents, find spots to go to the loo with some measure of privacy and ward off the cold with thermals, sleeping bags and, in some extreme cases, every jacket in the bag.

Mr Schalber's aim is noble: bring rallying back to its basics.

He noted that most rallies today, especially the Dakar (the other long-distance off-road trek which crosses the Sahara desert), have become too professional and beyond the reach - technologically and financially - of most people.

"What I want with this rally is to give the man on the street the chance to experience true off-road thrills with virtually an off-the-rack off-road vehicle, a not too exorbitant budget and some guts," he said.

Unfortunately not all the participants shared his love for the wilderness. Exhausted after hours of driving, most would have preferred the luxury of a soft bed and a hot shower. Sure, the camping stuff was fun for a few days. But nine continuous days of it was trying, even for the more ardent nature lovers.
But everyone survived - even the two men who were in that mangled Cayenne.

Both Kees and Yap walked away from that horrific crash with just severe bodyaches and, in the case of the latter, two stitches on his head. Even one-time race leaders Armin Schwarz and co-driver Oliver Hilger from Germany, who rolled their car in the Mongolian wilderness, were there at the finish line, shaken but not too stirred.

This is a rally for the hardy. It doesn't just test driving and navigation skills. It tests the endurance of man and machine. And then some.