DJ - Welcome to the update with Carl and Don reaching you today from Esfahan, Iran. It's Saturday evening as we report this update to you by satellite telephone. We're hoping that tonight's transmission by satellite will not have some of the interruptions that occurred in the report of yesterday. We're aware from people today that the quality of the satellite signal had some intermittent interference and there's nothing, we've discovered, that can be done about that. It has to do with atmospheric conditions, sometimes referred to as sunspots. So we'll carry on here on the satellite, reaching you all the way from the center of Iran by satellite telephony. We're using a satellite digital telephone because here in Iran in the hotels the telephone service is still an analog rotary dial service. I want to quickly comment that Iran has a state-of-the-art digital cellular telephone network which most professionals and young people rely on rather than the rotary dial national telephone network. The difficulty with using the rotary dial network is that we're unable to use the codes and the passwords that allow us to give this report to you on the toll free number and on the Internet, so we have to rely on the digital telephone to get these reports to you.

Well, we've discovered a place in the world where you can buy gasoline for 12 cents a gallon and if you want to drive to your nearest Iranian gas station, that's the price of gasoline here in this middle east country. Twelve cents a gallon for regular and 20 cents a gallon for premium gasoline.

The city of Esfahan, which we had the pleasure of learning about and experiencing today, is a very delightful place. I mentioned the population of 1.2 million people. It turns out that that is for the urban area. For the suburban area and the total metropolitan area, the population here is 5 million people. And it's a place that's right on the fringe of the Iranian desert. The average rainfall here is five inches.

Today we had the opportunity to meet and talk with local people and gain an understanding of their view of life in Iran and about the world in general. We visited some of the remarkable facilities, buildings, bridges, palaces and mosques that exist here. At one time Esfahan was the main city for this part of the world, Persia, and that dates back to the 15th and 16th centuries. Consequently, there are just some fabulous facilities here of historical importance. It's been a very refreshing day because we've gained a greater understanding of Iran and of how things are viewed from today's perspective. I want to report to our friend John Townsend in Fond du Lac, an officer of Giddings and Lewis, that we had an opportunity to meet with his long time friend from the University here and had a delightful several hour visit with that friend and his son, as they showed us some of the highlights of the community here, including a fascinating Christian Armenian Church with a museum of Indian artifacts. Quite an Armenian community here in Esfahan, along with a small Christian community and a small Jewish community. And all of this right in the midst of very intense Islamic Muslim community.

We're gaining our breath for a big push. The Motor Challenge from Peking to Paris now will be underway for five intense days as we travel 3,000 kilometers from Esfahan to Istanbul and the Garden Isles. Istanbul (Constantinople), where Eastern and Western civilizations bridge each other, is the center of an immense amount of history throughout the centuries.

We're joined on our report at this time by one of the competitors and participants in the Motor Challenge. A person who like so many of the competitors, has gone through an enormous amount of adversity and obstacles to get to where we are here, 10,000 kilometers from Peking. To be a woman and to do this requires some extra special considerations. Part of that is not just skill or intellect, but it has to do with being willing to accept the cultures in this part of the world. So we're asked Linda Dodwell of San Francisco to spend a few moments with us and to give us her impressions of spending the last two or three days here in the Islamic country of Iran from a woman's point of view. I'll preface this by saying that we've learned in talking to the local people, that the relationship between men and women here is described as "ugly". Ugly explains the friction and tension that exists as a result of the very strict discipline that is part of the Muslim tradition here. So being a woman and a visitor to this culture - well let's learn what it does to you from Linda. Linda is here to tell us her feelings and her observations.

Linda - Thank you Don for inviting me this evening. It's a real pleasure to be part of the telecommunication situation that a couple people are involved in. It's very impressive and rather reassuring to know that we are in contact with the United States and others. At times it does feel a little estranged here and from a woman's point of view, I can tell you it is very different. We've had to face all the cultures in one form or another. In my case, not only am I a woman driver, but my co-driver is also a woman. There are only two cars in all of the Rally that have that situation. The other car is a Volvo from Great Britain. Often we are on our own and quite a surprise to all of the locals - Chinese, Nepalese, Indians and the Pakistanis - when we drive by and especially when we get out of the car we cause quite a commotion. As you can well image. Iran itself has added a little bit of an issue for all of the women, not only the drivers, but all of the spouses and girlfriends tagging along, in that we, of course, are required to dress accordingly. That requires our hair to be completely covered and we are to wear shapeless outfits to the ankles and wrists and we are also required to wear socks. This, of course, in a warm country is a problem from the beginning. It's been quite warm and to have the extra layers has been a problem. Most of all is the fact that we're not use to being told how the dress and we have no choice in the matter here. I guess another part of it is the fact that everybody is sort of a policeman in reminding you that your scarf has fallen or that maybe your hair is showing. Not just people of authority, but everyday folks, including the women, are really good at policing each other. And we're all looking forward to it ending. It's a shame because the people themselves are quite wonderful. I've had some marvelous conversations with the people here when walking around. I've noticed when we are leaving the hotel on the Rally itself we often get groups of women giving us a little bit more of a cheer than some of the others. It seems to me as if they're saying, well somebody is out there doing things that we all know we can do and unfortunately are not allowed to. Many of us have either brought outfits with us or purchased them along the way to conform to and respect the Iranian culture. However, our clothing still sets us aside because we have all decided to wear rather bright colors, floral prints from India, Nepal or Pakistan and it turns out that Iranian women are usually dressed in black from head to toe. So as much as we are trying to go along with the code, we still stand out. I can tell from the way women look at us and the shock in their faces that this is most unusual and they're having a hard time getting use to it, seeing a bunch of us walking around. So we're looking forward to getting across the border and taking the scarves off for the last time and sometimes, that can't happen soon enough.

DJ - Well Linda, I would add that as we were driving around with our host here in Esfahan today, he pointed out a police car with two women in it who had been picked up by the local authorities because something wasn't exactly right with their dress. So it is quite a serious matter and we've been told that people are taken to the police station on the first offense. On the second offense they're taken to court and eventually if someone doesn't comply, they face very severe and very real punishment. Now we want to also ask you about your feelings about having gotten this far in the competition. I can recall a few instances in the last month where your car had real serious mechanical problems. How did you do it? How did you get through those problems? Were they more or less than what you thought they might be?

Linda - Well it all started in and around Day 13, which we thought was rather ironic. The 13th day was our worst day. Up until then the only problem we were having was a little bit of a leak in the shock and front left wheel and we were, while driving, extremely mindful of it and watching it closely. Unfortunately, in the morning drive on that particular day we faced a terribly dusty road. And the combination of the cars in front of us, as well as cars passing us, caused total blindness at times. That was very disconcerting. Jenny and I were both trying to decide at that point whether we should pull back or in fact try to pass the person who was causing the immediate dust storm and in doing so, we didn't realize we were coming into part of a village, which we couldn't see. We drove over and on top of a culvert and it collapsed and in doing so it destroyed the wheel on our left side. And within seconds we found ourselves off the road and a corner of the car buried into a mud wall right in the middle of this little village. It was, luckily, a soft landing and of course we have the four point seat belt so that was a nice reassuring feeling to know that those things work. We got out to access ourselves and to reassure ourselves that we were OK and fine and after a couple of hugs and deep breaths, we tried to evaluate what happened. Jenny's first reaction was that we were finished, we were out of the race and we might as well get use to it and try to figure out how we were going to get us and the car home from there. While we were waiting for the support group to come along, I knew they were quite a ways behind us, we decided that maybe we could get the car out. By this time, a group of about 30 or 40 of the local Tibetans gathered who were quite amazed at this whole scene and saw us as an interesting show. We got our shovels out and started to dig away to look at the damage when the locals promptly decided that maybe they should take part in helping us. With sign language, they encouraged me to get back in the car, put the car in reverse and they effectively pushed the car out of the mud wall and within a couple of minutes with the actual lifting of it in unison, pulled the car around so that we had room to work. It was an amazing sight to see because they were obviously enjoying themselves. They thought this was great fun. We have the wheel off to look at it. We then took that tire off and had it ready for when the crew came along. When the crew came, within about 15 minutes, they had a part that was bent off, straightened it and put it back on the car and we were off and running much to our amazement. I think we even managed to reach our maximum time that day. It did bend again once more again that day because we had awful, horrible roads that day, but we went into camp and with the gracious help of about four or five fellow participants we were able to get up and running the next morning.

DJ - Well Linda, our batteries are running low here on the satellite and we're going to have to finish up so congratulations to you and Jenny Obert for reaching Iran and we look forward to the rest of the journey as we continue on to Paris.

The '54 Packard has new leaf springs and is looking good and we're feeling real good about the rest of our journey. For Carl and I, we've traveled 15,000 kilometers from our beginning in Times Square in New York City and right now we're in Iran and getting ready to carry on for the next five days, with our next major destination, Istanbul. We'll finish up as the satellite feed tells us we're about out of power and we want all of our family and friends to know that we're doing fine and our visit to Iran is really quite astonishing, quite amazing and we look forward to telling you more about it. So long until tomorrow from Carl and Don in Iran.