Celebrities go for gold at Asia rally
Zipping 4,000km through Asia in a celebrity rally sounds crazy – but Martin and Shirlie Kemp loved every minute of it (even when they rolled the car over in a paddy field!)
THE TV series Eight Go Rallying: The Road To Saigon, which is running on BBC2 on Sunday nights, follows four celebrity duos who join a classic car rally from Chiang Mai in Thailand to Saigon in Vietnam, covering 4,000km.
The reality TV show is part race, part travelogue and part the story of how famous people get along when invited to compete in a public event (not so much Love Island, more Murder On The Orient Express).
The main interest is in the interaction of the duos: with each other and also with the other pairs. There’s Noel Edmonds and his wife Liz; Martin Kemp (Spandau Ballet) and wife Shirlie (Wham!); chef Andi Oliver and her TV presenter daughter Miquita; and singer Tinchy Stryder and close friend Jordan Stephens (Rizzle Kicks).
Noel Edmonds stands out in the show – mainly due to his apparently insatiable Dick Dastardly desire to win at all costs – but also because of his intensely wacky world view.
But those with a fondness for Eighties pop will enjoy the participation of Martin and Shirlie. They seem to have survived the world of showbiz – and remained a totally normal couple. Yet such is fate that they ended up upside down in a Thai paddy field surrounded by a medical team. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ sobs Shirlie. ‘Oh, that’s rallying,’ responds Martin.
So what persuaded them to take part and what were the highlights?
Shirlie: It wasn’t the car and the driving that appealed. I have never been a ‘petrol-head’. What I loved was the prospect of seeing SouthEast Asia: I’d never been to Thailand, Vietnam or Cambodia, so the chance of discovering them in one 12-day journey grabbed me. It wasn’t the sort of holiday I’d been dreaming of – not something I’d have wanted to pay for as a holiday, but as a journey, it sounded incredible.
Martin: I was excited by the idea of the rally. I’d never been to Thailand, Cambodia or Vietnam either. I’m more into cars than Shirlie: I’ve been lucky enough to own nice cars and have an addiction to Porsche 911s. I’ve had about 15 of them.
A long drive seemed so much fun – but what really appealed was doing it with Shirlie – just the two of us together. The only time we ever argue is because of the satnav in the car. But on this journey: no satnav!
Shirlie: I knew we would get on. The only thing that worried me is that the journey would involve spending lots of time together – days and nights – with no real break. Our car was an old-fashioned Mini: a 1972 canary yellow Mini 1000. What surprised me was the number of cameras mounted all over the place. That was hard to get used to – it makes you very self-conscious.
Martin: The Mini is a small car and I’m over 6ft tall. We couldn’t have known it then but this would become a very big problem on our second day. When we had the… Shirlie: …the accident! Martin: During the rally, there are occasions, as in those Top Gear ‘adventures’, when participants are expected to undertake challenges to test their driving skill. One of these – on the second day – was a timed run around a paddy-field. One of the key things in the car was the trip meter, which told us how far we had travelled and which key obstacles were coming up and which direction we had to take.
Shirlie: Martin’s knee banged against the trip meter, resetting it to ‘zero’ and so suddenly we were lost, we had no idea where we were. At the time I was going very fast, and then suddenly all I could see was a tree right in front of us. I hastily took tree avoidance measures, which ended up with the car rolling over.
Martin: It was quite scary because there was me hanging upside down by the seat belts…
Shirlie: It was scary for Martin because his hand was trapped. And then the real saga began. After the crash the Mini was deemed unsafe to drive so we had to abandon it. There is a tradition in rallying, that teams who have broken down are allowed to find any vehicle they can to continue. We ended up with a 2010 Nissan Qashqai which Martin found a bit embarrassing.
Shirlie: Along the way we got to see the sort of things tourists don’t. There’s much more to Thailand and Vietnam than beautiful beaches. Doing this rally was a chance to see the real side of South-East Asia.
Martin: One of the main highlights was seeing Cambodia. Thailand and Vietnam are quite modern but in Cambodia you felt as if you you’d gone back 60 years; life came to a standstill during the Pol Pot Killing Fields era in the 1970s and took decades to recover after that.
Shirlie: Cambodia is a dangerous place to be on the road: traffic accidents are the leading cause of death in the country. But it has some extraordinary sights.
Martin: The temples of Angkor Wat there were stunning. Whether you’re a religious person or you’re not, it has something about it that makes you think.
Shirlie: My favourite bit was towards the end. I found the driving physically and mentally exhausting, so the day we got to the Vietnam coast, and had our first glimpse of the sea, was glorious. It felt as if we’d been in a tunnel of dark, dusty roads, and now we were out in the light. It was so uplifting.
I WAS HANGING UPSIDE DOWN BY THE SEAT BELTS
It hadn’t been any sort of luxury trip. It would have been nice to have stayed on for a few days.
Martin: On the rally, every day you were packing up and moving on. You’re getting up very early in the mornings, and you’re often filming till 10pm.
Shirlie: The evenings were the only time you had to meet up with the other drivers. These ‘proper’ rallydrivers, the official participants in the rally, were lovely.
Shirlie: People have asked us whether we had a musical playlist as we drove along. Spandau Ballet’s Gold or Wham!’s Club Tropicana.
Martin: But when you’re driving and playing music, that means you’re not talking – the producers wanted us to talk and talk.
Shirlie: Talking to each other was the hardest thing! We’ve been together a long time and we don’t need to chat non-stop. But when you’re in a reality show they expect you to act up for the cameras.
Martin: It was all such fun that it’s made us think about having another
PROUD: Martin and Shirlie; their Mini 1000 rally car; Angkor Wat temple in Cambodia; and their final destination – the Vietnamese coast, below long-distance driving holiday.
Shirlie: I wouldn’t mind doing a Route 66 or Trans-Canada journey.
Martin: We felt a huge sense of achievement completing the rally. Shirlie: I felt proud. Martin: And we had no preparation. That’s one of the pleasures of being in this business, things come at you out of the blue. This was a rare treat. We were able to drive and stop off wherever we wanted, visiting small roadside stalls and shacks to eat local food… it was brilliant.
Shirlie: It was a test and it felt as if we’d passed it.
Martin: One of the great experiences of our lives. A marvellous adventure. n Eight Go Rallying: The Road To Saigon is on BBC2 tonight at 9pm.