India-ASEAN rally pauses for ceremony<\/p>\n
Aye Aye Win,
\nAssociated Press\/Vientiane, Laos<\/p>\n
A caravan of about 60 mostly Indian-made cars reached Laos on
\nTuesday after meandering through jungles and mountains of
\nSoutheast Asia in an Asian car rally to promote the region's
\nlittle used byways for travel and freight.<\/p>\n
The four-by-four vehicles, which had set off from India on
\nNov. 22, crossed the Mekong River from Thailand over the
\nFriendship Bridge to arrive in the Laotian capital Vientiane
\nbefore heading off to Vietnam en route to Indonesia.<\/p>\n
A line of Laotian women in colorful traditional attire and
\nschoolchildren waving flags greeted the drivers, crossing the
\nregion in national teams from the 10-member Association of
\nSoutheast Asian Nations and India.<\/p>\n
\"All of you are pioneers in knitting our countries together,\"
\nIndian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in a speech to flag
\nthem off after their brief halt in Vientiane. Singh was here to
\nattend a summit of ASEAN and its partners.<\/p>\n
\"In future such overland travel will become commonplace, as it
\nwas centuries ago. But today there are considerable hurdles for
\noverland travel, and I am glad that this rally proves to the
\nworld at large that difficulties can be overcome,\" Singh said.<\/p>\n
The first ASEAN-India rally aims to promote the region's
\nexpanding road network and raise public awareness about relations
\nbetween South Asia and Southeast Asia. India and ASEAN plan to
\nwork toward a free trade area as part of New Delhi's \"Look East\"
\npolicy.<\/p>\n
The 20-day, nine-country rally that was flagged off by Singh
\nin the northeastern Indian city of Guwahati, will cover 8,000
\nkilometers (4,950 miles). It passed through Myanmar and Thailand
\nbefore crossing into Laos, from where they will go to Vietnam,
\nCambodia, Malaysia and Singapore before concluding at Batam,
\nIndonesia, on Dec. 11.<\/p>\n
\"All along the way we saw tremendous hospitality. It is very
\nexciting. It's very touching to see so many people coming out to
\ngreet us,\" said Chen Fei Wei, leader of the 12-member Singaporean
\nteam.<\/p>\n
Only two of ASEAN's 10 members, Brunei and the Philippines,
\nhave been left off the route, but all the countries have teams
\nentered in the rally, carrying nearly 250 entrants from all 10
\nASEAN countries.<\/p>\n
\"This is the first of its kind event,\" said Sunil Kant Munjal,
\npresident of Confederation of Indian Industry, which co-organized
\nthe event with India's External Affairs Ministry.<\/p>\n
\"We found much more complexities than we anticipated and the
\nresponse and reception of the people was also much more exciting
\nthat we anticipated,\" he said.<\/p>\n
Most participants used Indian-made cars such as Tata and
\nMahindra, provided by the Indian organizers. Drivers from oil-
\nrich Brunei brought their own Land Cruisers.<\/p>\n
\"We used our Land Cruisers because we don't know about the
\nperformance of the Indian cars. Our cars have 4.2 liter engine
\nwith inter-cooler turbo,\" said Salleh Abdul Rahman, leader of the
\nBrunei team.<\/p>",
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