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