20,000 Miles Across the Desert in a Porsche 911 Dakar
While many of the 2,500 Porsche 911 Dakars made will spend pampered lives in private collections one car has been driven just as it was designed – on an epic adventure from Vietnam to the Gobi Desert and back.
As soon as he got the keys to his silver Dakar, Vietnamese logistics company owner Nguyen Hoang Anh heard adventure calling. Six weeks later, after a 1,200-mile test run in his home country, he set out to fulfil a lifelong fantasy. In his diaries Anh reported: “I’ve been dreaming of driving an off-road sports car through the closest desert to Vietnam, the Gobi. Although “close” may be the wrong word. The dry zone extends across China and Mongolia. And the journey will cover more than 33,000 kilometers. And I don’t have much time either, as winter is fast approaching up there in the north.”
Accompanied by two friends in a support truck Anh headed to Laos and then into China, passing through landmarks like the Chaka Salt Lake and part of the notorious Karakoram Highway. “The pass is considered to be one of the most beautiful roads in China, and we enjoy the spectacular landscape with its precipitous slopes in dark-grey stone,” he noted. “The road will soon go into hibernation – so we’ve made it just in time. There is no path to happiness. Happiness is the path. I didn’t come up with that, but it fits perfectly with our journey, which has a single destination: the road we’re following.”
After almost a month on the road the 911 crossed into Mongolia and onwards into the Gobi Desert. “The beauty of the past few days has been intoxicating,” he wrote. “But these emotions are only intensified when we reach our destination, the Mongolian Gobi Desert, and see the challenges of our trip with our own eyes. I’ve underestimated the terrain, which has large, sharp stones that sliced two of our tires open. Fortunately, we have two spares with us. Despite all that, we manage to reach our intermediate destination, the home of the Kazakh Beken family, which practices the Mongolian tradition of eagle breeding deep in the mountains. I feel humbled when they show us the majestic animals. What an extraordinary sight. Eagles are revered in Mongolia – for their strength, their agility, and their loyalty. My 911 is my eagle, I think to myself with a slight grin.”
From the searing 38-degree Celsius temperatures of the Gobi and pushed onwards, back into China and found the mercury dropping to minus 20 degrees in the stunning Snow Town of Harbin. “We’re greeted by thick snowflakes as we reach the terrain in northern China again. We finally have the opportunity to drift with the 911 – but not for long. The roads are extremely icy, and it’s dangerous.”
The final leg of this incredible drive saw Anh return home to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, 75 days and some 20,000 mile since he left. “I’m overjoyed and elated by all the impressions and the 911 Dakar, which loves sand dunes just as much as it does frozen mountain lakes, snowy roads, demanding slopes, and empty highways. This vehicle has become incredibly close to my heart over those 75 days, and I want to travel the world with it.”
Photography Nguyen Hoang Anh and Jörg Eberl
While many of the 2,500 Porsche 911 Dakars made will spend pampered lives in private collections one car has been driven just as it was designed – on an epic adventure from Vietnam to the Gobi Desert and back.