Pakistan

Asalem Aleycom!

Thankfully, on the morning of our border crossing (after what was a very hot sticky night in the van!), we were joined by our friend Fred Flintstone again! If it wasn't for him taking us round all the different desks and pushing in for us, we would never have made it through! A truly honourable Iranian man. At nine thirty in the morning the temperature was already reaching the forties, and once again we were downing the cold water Fred insisted on buying us. About an hour and a half later we left Iran and entered Pakistan, where of course the whole process of customs and passport control began all over again. Our plan was to reach the city of Quetta (400 miles away) before dark, but by now it was already midday Pakistan time, so we were itching to get going. Customs was hilarious! We were welcomed by a very nice officer whith the words " Cup of tea and biscuits".... and then later when we'd been waiting for him to stamp our carnet for about 20mins.... "I am not wasting your time..." He reckoned we would get to Quetta by 6 o'clock no problem .. "very good roads!!" He then told us all about the muslim faith, while we drank very sweet tea. So at around one thirty we were off into Pakistan and the Boluchistan desert!

We very quickly found out what "good road" meant in Pakistan!! A good road may have some patches of tarmac, and at least one lane for both directions of traffic! On this particular 'very good road' there were places where large sand drifts had come right across the road burying it, and in one place it was impassable. At this place we had to divert off the road onto the desert to avoid it, trying not to get stuck in the sand by staying on the rocky bits. It was rather like one of the mazes you get on the back of a cereal packet! In some places large proportions of the road had been washed away, which was rather a shock when you are driving at 60mph, and all of a sudden have just a narrow 'bridge' of tarmac to cross with sharp drops on either side! There were also no road signs, and the main road quite often very deceptively turned into what looked like a quarry road dissapearing into the hills. The only indication of it being the correct way, was the amount of traffic using it.

I can't write anything about Pakistan without mentioning the trucks. Just the most spectacularly overly customised and decorated things you have ever seen. So colourful, with charms and chains hanging from them all around, and huge decorative wooden cabin surrounds that go up high above the height of the truck. At night they would look like Christmas trees for all the lights! Amazing, and must be why they go so slowly - apart from being horrendously overloaded!

So at around midnight, after a long hot day, no lunch and only having had Angel Delight and bannana for breakfast.. we arrived on the outskirts of the massive city of Quetta, with no city map, just a road name of the hotel we were aiming for. OOps!!...not ideal. We found ourselves driving around slum areas trying to find something that would give us an indication of where to go! Just as we entered the city there was a burst sewer that had pooled over the entire road, which we had to drive through like some kind of sheep dip! The smells were horrendous, but thanks to God we found the main road into the city centre, and somehow we managed to drive right into the area where the hotel was. and a friendly policeman then directed us to it just round the corner - incredible! So since it was 1am we showered and went to sleep in our van in the hotel car park without any dinner, but we'd made it!

We were advised the next day that we couldn't make it all the way to Multan as planned, because the road wasn't good. So we had to go to Sukkur, which was to the South rather than the East and was potentially going to mean staying an extra night in Pakistan! The road to Sukkur was actually not a bad road, and the scenery was quite stunning driving down beautiful mountain valleys next to bright rivers. A few miles out of Quetta we were joined by police escort who were to be with us for the rest of our travels through Pakistan. They said it was their duty to keep us safe! It was much more organised than in Iran; after every few miles one police car would stop where another was waiting to take us on. The only problem was they went at their own, very slow pace, and wouldn't let us stop for anything...hmmm. Even so we made it to Sukkur before dark. But...a very big but.. when we got there they didn't stop! They took us around the city and out the other side! We mananged to stop them to ask where on earth they were taking us because once again hadn't had anything to eat since two slices of toast at breakfast, and we needed to eat and sleep. In very broken English we were told that it was too dangerous for us to stay in the city and we needed to go 20km further to the police station where we could stay the night. That sounded good to us, but three hours later we were still driving in the dark! At each changeover we would stop them and ask them where we were going, and each time they would say, "No problem, 20 kms, just follow us!!!" We eventually found out that we were going to a small town called Sadiquabad, a good part of the way to Multan! Apparently the reason was because this town is just inside the Punjab district which is meant to be a safer area for westeners than Sindh province. If they had only told us this before it would've saved so much frustration. The problem was they were all so incredibly nice and friendly about everything, but so frustrating. The escort on last shift was a crack team of special service terrorist busting agents called "The Elite Punjab Police". Their logo on the side of a battered Toyota HiLux looked a bit like a childs fireworks display, but with bullets! They took us to "the best" hotel in Sadiquabad, which looked pretty grotty, and the owner obviously was not happy to risk having westerners there, judging by the very long conversation in Urdu between him and our 5 police escorts, after which we were told, "There is no place here!". We spoke to the man who was obviously the boss of our bodyguards, and told him that we were happy to sleep in our van in the police station but whatever happened we were very tired and hungry and it was late! so that said they took us to a restaurant where we had a Pakistani feast! It was great. We weren't conspicuous at all with five heavily armed special agents accompanying us! We had great conversation with them. After dinner they insisted we look at another "best hotel". Hmmm... after seeing it we managed to pursuade them that we would like to stay in our van at the police station, as it was like home!

So we arrived at the local police station and were welcomed like celebrities by all the bemused police officers there. Another man introduced himself as a journalist for a daily Pakistani news paper, and wanted to write an article about us and our journey! so we were grilled and had our picture taken, and now probably have a whole article written about us in the Pakistani press! Simon of course had to play a song on the guitar once that was discovered by a nosy policeman, and am sure it was enjoyed immensly by the prisoners who appeared at the bars of their cells to listen and look at what the commotion was. Then we went to bed, safe and sound.

Our long tiring day had advantages as the next day we managed to make it all the way to Lahore and so were back on target with our schedule. We managed to loose our police escort though as 60mph was too fast for them and they never found us again! They couldn't have been that worried! Once again we arrived at the city with no clue where to go. We spotted a nice looking hotel on the outskirts, with secure parking and decided to ask if we could park and use their facilities, which they weren't too keen about. We asked how much a room was for a night and they replied "$150..." which is just slightly over our budget (was a nice looking hotel). We started asking about other places, when they told us to take a seat whilst they had a little private chat amongst themselves. The boss who was a very young well turned out Pakistani man, returned to us and said ..."Well I don't know what you think but if you like I will give you a room for the night for $50 dollars, because you are English, and you are my honoured guests!!" So hey presto!! We spent the night in a five star hotel as guests of the owner - amazing!! One comment he made was, "how with such a threat of terrorism can you westeners travel around so openly?" What do you say to that? "Eh... we lost our police!!!"

Lahore is no distance from India, so the next day we arrived at the border early. Once again we found that music speaks louder than words, and we ended up entertaining the customs officers and workers with guitar and singing before their day started. We were entertained in return by two or three of them who performed some fantastic Pakistani singing with drum accompaniment, and of course a cup of chai! It worked wonders, as the border officers liked us and whizzed our documents through the process early! So On into India, and we really can't believe we have go this far already. We are certainly looking forward to slowing down and recovering a bit. Overall we really enjoyed our time in Pakistan, even though we didn't get a chance to see much of it. All the people are so friendly and smiley, and despite the police presence we actually felt very safe and very welcome. The countryside was so beautiful, although we didn't see the best part - the Karakoram Highway. It was also a shame as Pakistan is total Toyota country - about 2 out of 3 cars and vans were Toyotas! There were so many Hiaces like ours, all with different modifications and customisations. We (well Simon) would have loved to have spent a while here just loading the van up with all sorts of useful things. One person explained, after the standard riducule at our lack of air conditioning, how easy and cheap it was to fit over there, and we were very tempted. Our roof rack has also broken due to too much weight bouncing around in the Boluchistan desert, and we could have got a great one there.

So I think it is one of the countries we would most like to go back to, and maybe when things have settled down a bit we will be able to really enjoy it.

Max temperature: 47 degrees C

Total distance driven: around 7500 miles

Iran pt 2

Salam!
Well Shiraz was pretty rubbish. That is to say that we had a rubbish time in Shiraz. We started by spending over 2 hours in the hospital to get some anti-biotics for Rhona, even though She knew exactly what she needed. It was quite an experiance just not being able communicate with anyone, and trying to understand what we needed to do. Luckily, again an English speaking man called Muhammed who was visiting his brother in the hospital came to our help when sorting things out. He then took us out to an amazing ice-cream shop for ice-creams. Yummy, but he was meant to be showing us where the internet cafe was... The only Internet cafe that was open was painfully slow, and wouldn't let us onto our blog which was quite annoying. We did a lot of walking around in 35 degree sun heat aswell, as unlike Esfahan, the trees here are not very big and don't seem to cast much shade anywhere. We needed to get shopping, but were getting quite annoyed with being constantly ripped off, and not having the knowledge, confidance, or Arabic literacy to deal with it. Hot and bothered, we just wanted to drop it all and get back home to the campsite. There didn't seem to be much going for Shiraz, there is a big fort right in the central square which we didn't have time to look around, but the rest just seemed to be streets packed full of rather camp mens fashion shops.

We decided to stay a third night at the campsite to get our energy back from being pretty much non stop since we left UK, and to do a few things on the van. We went into the local town - Marv Dasht to try again to post the blog, but being a Friday obviously all the shops and the one internet cafe there were shut for prayers. Never mind, we managed to get some supplies and we will try the blog again in Yazd the next day. The last couple of days have definately been a bit of a low point, but we are putting that behind us and are looking forward to Yazd and onward. It was nice to meet other 'overlanders', and indeed quite surreal to think of ourselves as part of this elite group of people. It seems that whilst you are in Europe you are classed as campers, but once you've crossed into Iran you officially become an 'overlander'...! It is really exciting to hear where other people from different countries have been and are going to, and the stories that come out of it. We are a bit worried though as most other people we have seen are all in 4x4 Landrovers, Land Cruisers or even more hardcore vehicles. We are quite smug about the amount of extra space we have in our plumbers van compared to those cramped things though!

Yazd was very nice, but possibly the best bit about it was the hotel whose car park we slept in... Yazd is one of the oldest still inhabited cities in the world, and the 'Silk Road Hotel' is right slap bang in the middle of it. The buildings are all made of sun dried mud bricks, layered over with more mud, so are suprisingly cool inside. it's amazing to think that all these houses made of mud, amoung miles of narrow streets are so old! The hotel looked like a bit of a wreck from the outside, but through the door and along a passage takes you into the most amazing tiled courtyard with a fountain in the middle, plants, and sitting areas under the shade. Very relaxing. It is obviously a bit of a travellers hang out, as there were overlanders, backpackers, and travellers from all different countries staying there. It seems to be a place where people arrive at and then decide to stay for a while, and we can see why. We met more people who have similar positive stories about Pakistan so that was encouraging. The actual car park was a bit grotty though, hot, dusty, and no breeze. There was a very nice air conditioned roof top terrace with internet access though, so we stayed there most of the day.

We mentioned briefly earlier that we thought that the pollution here was bad, but it is actually quite a serious problem for Iran. No one walks anywhere here, anyone who's anyone has an old motorbike which they ride like lunatics around all the cities. Basically, because petrol is virtually free, the cost of motoring is the cost of an old bike and that's it. Cars, lorries and bikes never get serviced, so are horrifically dirty, and the result brings tears to your eyes. The brown smog with a sign saying 'Tehran' next to it was no joke!

For your comprehension we have compiled a brief list of Iranian driving rules (there aren't many):
1. Drive on the right hand side.

exceptions: Motorbikes - please drive on the left hand side

Reversing - it's fine to reverse down the wrong side of a dual carriageway if you need to

Convenience - If it will be quicker for you to drive on the left then do so

2. Beep your horn continually.

exceptions: ...

3. Whoever beeps their horn first has right of way. If both are at the same time, then whoever has the loudest horn has right of way.

exceptions: Lorries have right of way

Motorbikes have no rights, just drive as if they aren't there

4. A red light warns you that you no longer have a clear junction, you now have to push your way through cross traffic just like any usual junction.

5. Try not to let pedestrians out to cross the road, they are very slow and hold you up. If one does indicate intention to cross, then accelerate and swing towards them.

On a side line, but equally as important, Rhona wants everyone to know that she is too hot.

After Yazd we drove to Kerman, and stayed a night there in the car park of of fancy hotel, very pleasant. After Kerman we drove to Bam which was sadly all but destroyed by a tragic earthquake on boxing day 2003, that killed over 31,000 people. We found our way to 'Akbar Tourist Guest House' (with the help of a friendly taxi driver), and were very warmly welcomed with tea and dates. May have preffered ice cold water though as we are down to a mere 1150m altitude and it was 41 degrees outside. The hostel is being rebuilt as it was destroyed in the earthquake, during which 3 of the people who were staying here died, and the temporary rooms are rather basic. We are now in the zone that the foreign office advises against going to, as about 6 months ago a Japanese tourist was kidnapped from his hotel here, infact our hotel as it turns out, and as a result a lot of tourists have avoided the area. Our friendly host Akbar is very blase about it though, ironically as he picks up the phone to inform the police that we are here, and tells us that if we want to go anywhere we have to be escorted by them. We did want to go somewhere as it happens, the 'Arg-e Bam', which is an ancient citadel made entirely from mud. So once again Akbar got onto the phone to the police, and moments later, a battered old police car turned up with no less than 3 officers armed with AK47s! We squeezed in the back, barrels up our noses, at which point Rhona said, "Ooo, I've never been in a police car before, how exciting!", and they drove us to the citadel, walked around it with us, then gave us a quick drive around it before taking us home again! It was rather strange having armed shadows, but we imagined no one would bother trying to kidnap us!

The citadel was quite something, a sight definately rivalling Persepolis! We were very glad that we came out here. It dates back a couple of thousand years, but was also sadly rather flattened by the earthquake. What is left is still a vast complex city with cobbled streets, huge mud-brick walls, intricate houses with domed roofs and arched doorways. There is a fairytale castle in the middle on a jutting bastion of rock which is very dramatic. It has large gatehouses, towers, and steps, passages and rooms running up the rock all the way to the top still remaining. Around the city there are large piles of debris from when walls, houses and archways collapsed, which gives it a bit of an untouched feel, (added to by the fact that we (and our body gaurds) were the only people there). A long drawn out restoration is in progress which could take quite a while. We thought that it was quite an amazing sight as it was, and probably one of the most impressive ruins we have ever seen, but we have seen pictures of it before the earthquake looking so complete, as though it was just built yesterday, it must have been one of the most incredible sights in the world! What a tragedy to have lasted so long and then to be destroyed so quickly.

The following day was a day of utter frustration. We had to have a compulsory police escort all the way to the Pakistan border (about 300 miles), but what that entailed was a police car would lead us to the end of the road then stop us and call for another car to take us a bit further. This process happened 12 times, so there was quite a lot of waiting. Out of Bam city was into the Dasht-e Lut Desert, which at 10AM was 43 degrees C, and the police cars turned in to camouflage Toyota pickups with masked gunmen in the back. We wondered if we would be able to tell the difference between our army escort or the taliban if they started following us... There were some cool sand dunes though. Our plan was to get to the border and cross it that day, spend the night on the Pakistan side of the border, then get up early the next morning to cross the vast Baluchistan desert, arriving in Quetta late that evening. We knew the border closed at 5, so we gave ourselves pleanty of time and left at 7:45am to hopefully arrive at 2 or 3, but only about 50kms from the border, we were stopped for our last changeover, but this time we were kept waiting for 1 1/2 hours in the middle of the day before we were taken on. We arrived at 4:00 to find that the border was closed because it was some public holiday, and all week the border closes at 3:30 instead of 5 as usual, How annoying! Two bad concequences came out of this, the 1st one was that the border didn't open until 9 the next morning, allow 1 1/2 hours to get through it, then add 1 1/2 hours for entering Pakistan time zone, and we won't be able to set off until mid-day in Pakistan, which makes it a bit touch and go to get all the way to Quetta! The second was that Rhona had a phone interview from New Zealand at 9:00 that morning, but we decided that we would have to leave before that if we were to give ourselves a chance of getting through the border that day. Of course we were stopped in the middle of the desert by the police with no signal, and they wouldn't wait around for anything, so we couldn't get the call. We could have just left later and Rhona might have had a job. So very frustrated we waited in the intense desert heat and camped literally outside the passport control building with the dogs! We were joined at one stage by a very large Iranian truck driver who we thought looked like Fred Flintstone, he didn't speak a word of English, but just chatted away to us all evening which was very pleasant. He just wanted to look after us and kept buying us cold drinks, as he couldn't believe that we didn't have air con in our van. The following day he was to be of enourmous assistance to us.

So we leave Iran with mixed feelings, on the one hand, most of the people seem extremely friendly and welcoming, some are astoundingly generous and gracious, and some of the sights are quite spectacular. On the other hand, it is very hot, and bound by strict Islamic law. We saw an official sign by the border saying "We want nothing...except for the enforcement of Islamic law all around the world", and there is a definate heavyness carried by the people because of this. There are also pockets of people that seem to have quite an anti-western mind set, as one of our police escorts to the border told us in no uncertain sign language that English people are the same as Americans and they get shot around here! Nice! We have found the food here to be so-so, and really fed up with that...bread! Just get me a bowl of crunchy nut cornflakes with COLD milk!

So tomorow we are heading into Pakistan and probably the most worrying part of the trip for us. It is also our point of no return, as any point up until now we could turn tail and head back to UK, but once we have left Iran we won't be able to get back in, and there is no other way round. We will have to make it through the Baluchistan desert, and we can't say "I don't like Pakistan, I want to go home" if it gets a bit heavy, we have to get all the way to New Zealand!

Total distance: 6352 miles

Max temp: 44 degrees C

Iran part 1

Salam aleikom!

Our last night in Turkey was good, apart from the dodgy kebaps we were served at a nearby eatery. We had to turn down a friendly Kurds offer to go back to his house to drink chai all night, so that we could finish off the blog, and make all our arrangements for the next morning, when we headed off towards the Iran border. Our nights' sleep was slightly disturbed by the whining loud prayer call from the mosque next door at 3:30 in the morning. They always use the same awful horn speakers turned up full so that they just distort, but I think that is meant to be part of the sound they are going for. We just have to imagine that it's a Jimmy Hendrix solo sometimes!

We arrived at the border with a little tripidation, to a very long queue of lorries filling up our side of the dual carriageway, but some helpful standers-by directed us to drive up the other side of the dual carriageway right up to the gate where we were ushered to the front of the queue! Another man pulled up beside us and said "I am customs, I get you through very quick, no problem!", and he did, he took us to all the right people to stamp us out of Turkey. You seemed to have to know who the people are, as they were just milling around in plain clothes. He just got them to stamp our papers without looking! We would never have found our way otherwise! We were then ushered through the gate into Iran where all the formalities started again. But once again someone came to our rescue, a very friendly lady this time, and sorted out all our paperwork for us! Amazing, we were through in an hour and a half! It seems that whenever you don't know where to go or what to do, someone will see you and offer to help, We were trying to find a restaurant that evening, when someone just overheard us and showed us where it was.

We drove on to Tabriz, which has one of the oldest, biggest (and apparently most interesting) bazaars in Iran, and has 35km of streets all inside a 15th century building! I don't think we'll make it round the whole thing! We found a guesthouse for £4 a night, and put the van in a car park around the back. One great thing we've noticed here is that when you park your car in a car park, you pay an attendant who sits there all night and watches it, whereas in Britain (particularly in Hastings), you pay your parking fee, and the attendants couldn't give a stuff if your car got nicked, they just try to give you a penalty....it seems... The hotel as you can imagine for that price was a bit shabby and noisy but it did the job. We had a really great Persian feast in a small restaurant, where we sat on Persian rugs and cusions to eat, it was amazing food and very cheap.

Rhona has now converted to Islam and has to wear headscarfs all day, which is not very popular with her. Poor thing is dying of heat and suffocation! Silly rules!

Iranian driving is the worst we have yet encountered on this trip, the cities are just a complete free for all, with pedestrians just walking out into the middle of a four lane street, as that is the only way to cross the road. Iran has the highest road accident casualties in the world, and it is easy to see why, although we both agree that Kenya is probably slightly worse. We are enjoying the rediculously cheap diesel here of 1p a litre!! So to fill our tank, and our 3 jerry cans (equivaleant to another tank) costs us around £1! Petrol is a bit more, at a pricey 6p a litre. The prices are set by the government, so is the same everywhere. The only problem with this is there is no petrol station (or 5) on every corner as in all the other countries we have visited, infact diesel is very hard to get hold of here, we filled up once near the border, but he only allowed us 30 litres due to short supply, and we didn't see another station selling diesel for another 200 miles! Thankfully we got to one just before we ran out!

Tabriz was good fun, a highlight definately was getting a melon smoothie from one of the smoothie shops that lined a particular street. Simon was a bit sceptical seeing all these pots of freshly made bright green and orange fruit and veg smoothies, but it was cold, refreshing, tasty, and hit the spot perfectly. I wonder why they don't have more of these fantastic joints anywhere else? Another highlight was the bazaar. Our senses were awakened by all the smells and tastes of different foods and countless spices. There are large fruit and vegetable markets with all sorts of fresh produce. There was every kind of dried fruits and berries, nuts and seeds that you could imagine. The biggest difference we noticed between this one and the one in Istanbul, was the fact that in Turkey you would have about five people pulling you from all directions pestering you to buy something from them, whereas in Iran that was not apparent at all. People would just politely help you out if you showed the initial interest. Many people would just chat to us, and invite us back to their houses for dinner, and we had some interesting conversations with people. We get the impression that Iran is somewhere that you can't go anywhere fast for talking to people! I think we are spotted a mile off though. It was interesting to hear that one person told us how a lot of Iranian people find all the Islamic rules and regulations are choking them, and they feel like they are living in a prison here with no freedom.

The next morning we drove an hour down a very scenic road, only to find it was the wrong one! How annoying!! so we had to turn back and easliy found the right one. We visited a village called Masuleh, which is an old village built on a steep mountainside, with the houses all piled on top of each other. The cool thing about it is that the roof of one house is the street of the row above, so you are always walking on someone's muddy roof! These days it looks like its inhabitants live off tourism as it is unbelievably busy with Iranian tourists, and is packed with rows of shops.

We are beginning to feel that we need to be more careful about where we are sleeping now. This was confirmed when we were moved on by a friendly policeman who advised us that it is unsafe to park where there is no security. So from now on we will either be sleeping in hotels or in hotel car parks, if they let us.

We drove along the coast of the Caspian Sea which is 30m below sea level - the lowest we've been, on the way to the Alborz mountains just north of Tehran. Apparently the fisherman still cast their nets into the sea from the shore like in Biblical times, but we didn't see anyone doing this. We were very suprised that there was a lot of wasteland on the coast with no resorts, or even any obvious use. But then women aren't allowed on them anyway so what's the point? On arrival in the Alborz, we were planning on climbing Mount Damavand, the highest peak in Iran at 5670m. The village where the path starts is called Reyleh, but we again had trouble deciphering all the sguiggley Persian signs. We pulled up in a village to ask someone directions, and it turned out we were in the right place, and happened to pull up outside the Iran Mountain Federation base camp hostel! Lovely! The deal with the mountain is that you get a Landrover ride up to the 1st camp, then you hire a mule to carry your bags up the the second camp from where you walk to the summit. We just wanted a map to do it ourselves, but they didn't seem to have heard of maps, we hadn't planned long enough in advance to get one ourselves, and hiring a guide was too expensive, so we decided to just go for a days walk from the village instead. It is so beautiful here, lots of steep-sided valleys and cliffs.

The other side of the coin is that the traffic here is horrific, and we are finding the pollution quite difficult to cope with at times, especially on busy roads where there are just streams of filthy lorries belching out black smoke. Really takes the pleasure out of driving along stunning mountain passes and coastal roads. Being pulled over by the police is also becoming a daily annoyance, they just can't resist it. Even the one's that don't wave us down, we can see regretting it as we drive away.

We took a taxi to the bottom of the mountain, and walked up the path where you are meant to have a Land Rover take you up to camp 2, but we were sure our Matatu would have made it! After that we climbed a bit higher, and realised that we probably could have done the mountain on our own, but we didn't have the information we needed. The walk back was a slog, as we walked back along the road that the taxi had taken us up origionally, we were so hot and had run out of water. At one point though, a lorry coming the other way slowed down to say hello, and a boy in the front produced a large bottle of cold water and gave it to us! We were truly amazed at the thoughtfulness! Once we had got back, we decided to take down our roof box from the van; it held all our treking and climbing gear, but had strangely been drawing a lot of attention to us. Since we have taken it down we have not been pulled over by the police, and no one notices us until they see that the steering wheel is on the wrong side, and we are very white! We are very sorry to the lovely couple we bought it from, but it is now sitting in a yard in the Mount Damavand shelter 1 hut!

The road to Esfahan, our next stop was a long one, but the roads were good, fast motorways. Rather hot though, it got up to 40 degrees, and that's at 1200m altitude! Not looking forward to a day in the Baluchestan desert to get through southern Pakistan! We really felt like we were in the Middle East, driving through endless rolling semi-arid landscape. Just dust, rocks, the odd shrub, and a few jutting mountains all day.

The city streets in Iran really come alive in the evening, as many people have had their long mid-day siesta, the shops are open till late, and everyone is out and about. It is quite obviously more touristy here, as after not seeing another foreigner for our 6 days in Iran, all of a sudden there are 2 big fancy hotels full of retired Brits! Many people would stop to chat to us, and one newly wed couple Gheisar and Elham took us for a walk, and ended up inviting us back to their home. I don't think they were allowed to have visitors, as they sneaked us in past the security desk and up the stairs! They wanted to hear us play the guitar and sing, so we had brought the guitar along. They brought out trays of melons, fruits, tea and sweets, then as the power went out we serenaded them in the pitch dark! All very surreal, but it must have added to the atmosphere as they seemed to be impressed? Again we were really touched by the hospitality, and brings to mind our attitude in Britain when we see foreigners or people who seem lost. We also found out that public performance of music or dance is not allowed in Iran, infact when I got the guitar out of the car, Gheisar took it from me and hid it in a big sack so it would not be seen by anyone!

Esfahan is a truly beautiful city, with its lit up, ancient multi-arched bridges crossing the wide slow Zayandeh river, lined with tidy parks, to the hugely magnificant Imam Square (it's the second largest city square in the world), lined with historic architecture. We once again met up with Gheisar and Elham, and they took us for a tour of the cities most interesting sites. They also insisted on paying for us just to make us feel welcome in their country! It seems to be a very relaxed place, and is full of Esfahanis lying on the grass in the square, or sitting under the arches of the bridges on the river, just enjoying the location. We felt quite honoured to be there. We thought that it seemed incredible that among all this dry dry landscape, there should be such a green city with impressive water fountains on every roundabout, and men with thick hose pipeS watering tall trees, plants and grass lining every road. It was great to have the guides again as you get so much more out of a place, and you get a much better taste of the culture first hand.

Onward from Esfahan, and towards the revered city of Shiraz, takes us through more barren landscapes on more fast good roads. Very occaisionally the dust and shrubs would be broken by the most incredible gorges that would look like a mini lush paradise with thick vegetation, tall trees, and a bright green/blue river pooling and cascading over rocks. We made good time so decided to go and see the famous Persopolis on the way, before going to Shiraz to find cheap accomodation. As we drove towards it, we noticed a camp site! Shock horror!! Lets stay here! We have not seen a proper campsite since .. hmm .. Czech Republic! There was also a Landrover parked there with a tent, so it must be operational? Firstly we go to see Persepolis Which was built 2500 years ago by Darius I (the Great) as the most fantastic palace and city every built. 220 years later Alexander (the Greater - obviously) defeated them and destroyed the palace. What is left behind is still more complete that any other building anywhere near that old and is quite mind blowing. It is definately the most impressive sight we have seen so far. The complex is so expansive that you can stand in the middle and just see huge statues, pillars, doorways and walls decorated with such detailed and exquisite carvings in every direction, as far as you can see. Every enourmous piece of black rock used in any part of the complex, is covered in detailed carvings that tell stories, there is not a blank space anywhere, and many of the pillars and statues reach 30 or 40 meters into the sky! Really amazing! We check into the campsite which is suprisingly nice, and find the owners of the Landrover to be a couple from Kent doing almost exactly the same route as us!

We have been collecting our thoughts about south eastern Iran and Pakistan, and how and if we are to tackle crossing it. We have had varying reports from different people; the south east of Iran, and particularly Zahedan, near the Pakistan border is well renown for its part in the serious drug trade from Afganistan, and is a place that many Iranians would say was very dangerous and should be avoided, or that great care should be taken; we have also heard about kidnappings and hijakings in the area. Pakistan again brings a suprised and silent response from many people that we have told we are going there. Everything on the FCO website, safe travel website, Pakistan Embassy?!, and the British Embassy in Iran says simply "Don't go there", so we are a little apprehensive about that. The other side of the coin is that we have met several other travellers who are doing the same route as us through Pakistan to India, and have been told that the British Embassy has recorded quite a large volume of travelers currently crossing this area trouble free. The way to do it would be to cross it (2 days driving), from 'Bam' in the safe part of Iran, spending one night in the Pakistan border police compound, and getting all the way to Quetta the next day. We would also be phoning the British Embassy in Pakistan for advice and to register with them before we go. We are not altogether ready to give up on our goal, and these amazing words below have been quite an encouragement to us:

The Lord is my Shepherd, I have everything I need.

He lets me rest in green meadows, he leads me beside peaceful streams.

He renews my strength. He guides me along right paths, bringing honour to His name.

Even when I walk through the dark valley of death, I will not be afraid, for you are close beside me,

Your rod and your staff protect and comfort me.

You prepare a feast for me in the presence of my enemies.

You welcome me as a guest, anointing my head with oil. My cup overflows with blessings.

Surely Your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life,

And I will live in the house of the Lord forever.

Psalm 23

PS. Since this writing this, and repeated failed attempts to post it, we have heard from a couple who have just been through Pakistan coming the other direction, and have said that it was quite pleasant, with no troubles at all, so the plan is to go for it as above. We could also go in convoy with the other Landrover if we felt that we needed to.

Max temperature: 40

Diesel 1p a litre

total miles driven: 5000 (ish)

Turkey

Merhaba!

Well another 20 minute border crossing which is great, overall very organised and friendly, we give 10/10 to Turkey! The roads here are another step up, all motorways and fancy dual carriageways which we are not used to, so we decide to keep driving and try and get to a campsite marked on our map in Istanbul...We had been on the road a long time aleady, and we eventually arrived at Istanbul around 9 in the evening. Then began the process of finding the campsite which was just not apparent anywhere, and no matter what we did we couldn't find it. So at around 11 o'clock after driving up and down the streets of the suburb of Birkakoy, Istanbul, we pulled up on a bit of wasteland behind a derelict fuel station near to what looked like a "homeless glow" and went to sleep in a bit of a grump. The following morning we realised that the "homeless glow" was infact a geese coup, and we were sort of by a park by the sea. There were a couple of police cars down the other end, but they just seemed to be hanging out with some other guys having breakfast. We had breakfast ourselves - fried eggs, mmmm, cleared up and pulled away, but the police saw us and pulled us over. We anxiously said: "oh great, what's going to happen now", but when we pulled up to him he said, "Yes yes! You come in I make you Turkish food! Speciallity!!". We said that was very nice of him, and tried to explain that we were trying to find the camping ground, and he shot off to make some loud phone calls then ushered us around the corner to a guy who was a mobile mechanic and was fixing someone's tyre, but he spoke a bit of English. He said to us, "Istanbul campsite; closed 10 years ago, Atakoy campsite; closed 2 years ago, Birkakoy campsite; closed 5 years ago, but there is one place, they have water.. and parking security...100 meters that way!". Off we trundle, and literally 100 meters further down the road, we come to a gate through which there was a completely derelict, overgrown and as good as bombed lodge chalet place, with a man who said " yes yes, camping no problem, security no problem" and took us down the lanes of this once-was resort to a place where there were about 4 other motor homes parked on a large flat patch of concrete with vegetation sprouting from every crack. He showed us the bathroom which was the broken in door of the nearest chalet which had a...toilet...and a sink with a plastic bowl that you had to fill up to flush the loo as the flush didn't work. "Well we've found the campsite" we said, and realised that at this point we were literally over one wall from the place were we had kipped the night before!!

So we handwashed some clothes and got them up on a line, then headed into town with a chatty taxi driver in a battered old Dacia. We've been excitedly monitoring the "old banger of choice" in each country we have been through, as I (Simon) think that you would all be interested to know that in Czech Rep and Slovakia it's the Skoda 130, in Poland it's the Fiat 500, in Ukraine and Moldova it's the Soviet Lada, and in Romania and Bulgaria it's the Dacia 1310. I wish I'd managed to get photos of the 'pimped' up versions of these classics!

Now Istanbul is a city of 20 million, it is huge, and pretty mind blowing. The history is incredible as the city has been the capital of the eastern Roman Empire, and of the Ottoman empire, and was one of the most glorious cities in the world between around 500-1500AD. Many of the old buildings from this era remain, and we saw the immense Topkapi Palace and its luxurious Harem, which along with its grounds take up a very large proportion of the central area of Istanbul. We saw the Blue Mosque, which makes you dizzy looking up at the cieling due to the size of the space, and detail of the tiling. We didn't bother going to see Aya Sofya which was a church built in 537AD, then converted into a mosque in the 15th Century, then made a museum in the 1930's. It is meant to be one of the worlds most glorious buildings. I think we were a bit glorioused out by that point!

We had overpriced kebaps for lunch, and went for a walk which found us in the Grand Bazaar which is like a mini city in itself. It's all inside an old building but has countless narrow streets, containing some 4000 shops. You can get really amazing (very expensive) rugs, jewellery, clothes, well everything really, and you just have fun haggling your way through it. Rhona learnt the word for "how much" in Turkish, but didn't realise that saying it would invoke a response in Turkish, which we of course didn't understand so had to ask again in English! That's the point when they probably double the price!

We decided to walk back to our campsite from town as it was all along the seafront through parks and promenades and looked quite pleasant. Quite a big thing in parks here is to have an outdoor gym, which is where you expect to see swings and round'a'bouts, you would infact get all these excercise machines, so you could watch mainly ladies in burkas doing all sorts of squats and thrusts! we thought it was amazing that the machines weren't vandalised as they would be in Britain. Another big thing here is fishing, and fishermen line the coast casting their rods. Another big big thing is Istanbul, and it took us 2 1/2 hours to walk home, so another late night for us.

The next morning we were very late heading off towards the east of Turkey. We caught up with our blog entries, sorted some things out around the van and were entertained by a lovely German family who were also using the 'parking site'. We had problems with the water supply! Big problems, which meant that the toilets which were pretty bad anyway were filling up with all sorts of nasties!! We also had a very full porta-loo to empty somehow and with no running water, that was starting to look to bad to be true! - However a few hours later some workers managed to resume the water supply, which helped a little bit but still pretty dire I would say!! But that said we headed off happily at about midday, hoping to get close to Ankara that evening. We arrived at a place called KIzIlcahamam, which was marked on the map as a "Thermal Resort" and a "place of special tourist interest", which we thought would be an ideal place to spend a night. There was also a campsite marked there. We thought it might be some kind of hot springs or something - cool. Alas, it was beginging to become apparent that our days of campsites with all the utilities we needed were probably over! After searching once again for the campsite marked on our map, we again ended up wild camping! So again no shower, we were very smelly but in a beautiful spot high up in the Turkish hills. Rhona was hoping that her hair would start cleaning itself as is apparently meant to happen..hmm... Perhaps a nice cheap hotel would have to be the next stop! And a nice Hotel was the next stop in the city of Sivas after another long drive the next day! We watched the scenery change countless times, from the beautiful forested hilly terrain, to the more barren and rocky, red soil/dust to white! Turkey is amazingly vast with long distances between large busy cities. Outside the cities the roads, (a lot of which is dual carriagway) that we have been travelling on, have been almost deserted.

The 'cheap hotel' part of the plan once again didn't quite work out. It wasn't incredibly expensive but was about £30 rather than the £10 which we were hoping for and fitted in with our budget! We keep reading about cheap hotels but never seem to be able to find them. Never mind it was extremely nice and we and all our clothes ended up sqeaky clean. We tried out the Turkish cuisine again which is extremely bread based but very tasty. For lunch it was a 'Simit' which is a ring of quite heavy bread covered in seaseme seeds..lovely.. and then of course kebaps for dinner...yummy!

The further you drive east in Turkey, the scenery becomes more and more dramatic, and as we continued on past Sivas, the mountains all around were beginning to be snowcapped, then just white with jagged rocky outcrops. The gorges became deeper, the cliff faces sheerer, and the rivers more turbulent. The van had to cope with a lot of strenuous driving, as we climbed mountain pass after mountain pass before twisting back down to the valleys on the other side. At the tops of the passes at around 2200 meters, the temperature would drop as low as 4 deg, and in the valleys (no lower than 1600m) it was never more than 15 deg. The scenery has been so stunning, and we know that our little camera just isn't up to representing the sheer vastness and beauty of what we have seen. Still, I think that those images will be with us forever. I don't know if it was the constant steep hills, or some poor quality diesel, but our van seems to be belching out thick black smoke now. Hmm, well all the other vans and lorries do so it can't be that bad; maybe we'll blend in a bit more? We got just past Erzurum that night before pulling over. We worked out that we are just about 300 miles from Iraq at this point, but that's ok. There are also quite a lot of army vehicles around which is quite worrying. We're alright here, but apparently a bit further south-east, the empty mountain terrain is used for hideouts by terrorists, so we won't go there!

Turkey has been our favorite country so far, although it seems that each country that we go to is better than the last! It would be really great to have a lot more time here, as there are so many interesting things to see and mountains to climb!

Past Erzurum, the scenery continued to astound us to a greater degree than the day before, and as we've just used all our best words on the last paragraph, we really don't know how to describe it any more, apart from to just say "WOW"! We have also seen the people get poorer as we've gone east, from the very affluent Istanbul, to the east where there are nomadic tribes sheparding their flocks and living in tents. The villages are tiny and remote, normally consisting of a few falling-down stone buildings, and mud out-houses clinging to the mountainside. We have continued to feel welcomed here, and every Turkish person we come across seems to want to speak or just smile to us.

It was only a few hours drive from Erzurum to Dogubayazit where we made our next stop, so we were there before lunch. It is a frontier town, being a mere 35km from the Iranian border which we plan to go through tomorow!! Yikes, can't believe were here already! We found a cheap hotel again, as it would be a good base to do some internet stuff that needs done, and sort out all the paperwork for the crossing. Our room has stunning views of Mount Ararat and a great panoramic communal area on the top floor, which makes up for it being very basic and luminous green! The streets of the town are narrow and packed with shops, so we decided to go explore. We found a bakery, and bought a Peda bread that we just saw come out of the oven for 20p, and tried to eat it for lunch, but couldn't even get half way it was so big!

There is quite a heavy military presence here, ever since around Erzurum, every village, town, and even remote hotel has a small company defending it. In Dogubayazit (or Dog Biscuit as the travellers call it) there are large garrisons with tanks, guns, towers, and lookouts on the hills. We are also in the part of Turkey that is inhabited mainly by Kurds rather than Turks. The Kurdish people are a historic people group that have lived in an area that covers parts of Turkey, Northern Syria, iran, and Iraq for centuries, but their identity has always been denied and repressed by their respective governments, with sharp dealings being dealt to anyone who suggested that they should be recognised as a separate tribe, with separate language and culture.

Anyway, after lunch we decided to go and visit the Ishak Pasa Palace, which was built between 1685 and 1784 up on a crag on a nearby mountain, and was very cool. The stone carvings adorning all the doorways, arches, windows and fireplaces was quite something, and its position high up in the crags made it truly spectacular. There was also a mosque, that was built before the palace, but it had been renovated for use, and looked rather like a small methodist hall on the inside! Further up the cliff was a proper fort built into the sheer rock face. This was the best bit, as you could climb up to it, and clamber along some exposed ledges to walk along the walls. There are plans to refurbish it, but until then it is quite a ruin, and you can just explore it at your own leisure. Rhona had a bit of trouble getting up some of the steeper parts, but luckily there were plenty of young Turkish men available to help her out...

Day 15 (Bulgaria to Istanbul): 436 miles

Day 16 (Istanbul): 100 meters

Day 17 (Istanbul to Kazilcahamam): 266 miles

Day 18 (Kazilcahamam to Sivas): 360 miles

Day 19 (Sivas to Erzurum): 314 miles

Day 20 (Erzurum to Dogubayazit): 164 miles

Max temp Istanbul: 29 deg C

Max temp Eastern Turkey: 16 deg C

Min Temp Eastern Turkey: 4 deg C

Total miles travelled so far: 3796 miles

Diesel in Turkey is more expensive than UK: £1.30/litre !!! No wonder the roads are deserted!

Romania and Bulgaria

Buna!

The border crossing into Romania was a lot quicker than the other two we have encountered, although it must be an inherant characteristic of border gaurds to be blunt and aggressive. They tend to just shout at you in their language which they must know you don't understand whenever you give them the wrong bit of paper or something.

Romania has even more horses I think than Moldova, and is green, hilly and beautiful. There are large parts of Romania that are very mountainous, but unfortuanately we can't really go there as we are running behind on schedule if we want to get through Iran before it gets too hot, and to India and Nepal before the serious rainy season start there. So we are going to speed up a bit now and try and get through Romania and Bulgaria quite quickly.

We have had the feeling so far that our presence hasn't been all that welcome in the places that we have been, as people tend to just stare at us and not say anything when we try and talk to them. I think we just need to get to know them a bit better though, and once you've got past the "who on earth are you and what are you driving" stage then they are fine. Rhona asked a passing scowling man with a horse and cart if she could take his picture, and all of a sudden he just chuckled and got his horses into a fine pose for her saying in Romanian something like: "you want a picture of me, I'm nothing compared to what you look like!". And we all laughed!

We spent one very pleasant night in Romania, with baked beans, corned beef and rice on the menu (hmm lovely...maybe should've stopped at that restaurant we saw after all!!). One little stray dog also enjoyed the shelter under our van..so much so we had to chase him away in the morning for fear of running him over - he was very cute, we would've taken him with us if we could. The next day we spent driving along the coast and over the border into Bulgaria; our easiest border crossing yet! All the guards spoke English and we were through within 10mins!! Whoopee! At one point just as we were going south of Braila in Romania, the road on the map crossed a very large river which we assumed would be a bridge or something, but we were treated to a very exciting ferry crossing! The ferry was just like a raft about 50cms from the water surface with an engine! All the cars and vans packed on to it overhanging at the edges, then we chugged across. Definately a highlight. Luckily it was a calm river, I wouldn't fancy it much otherwise!

We would've definately liked to have spent more time in Romania than we were able too. Some of the scenery we drove through was beautiful and I think there is a definate cultural richness that we would have liked to tap into a bit more. (I guess that is a common feeling for all the countries we've been through so far and I guess we're just getting a taster of each for now). Ukraine, Moldova and Romania have really made us think about our lifestyle and question "why" do we have the oppourtunity and resources to be able to go and travel the world when people are slaving away in fields all day just to be able to feed themselves? We have both experienced living in Kenya amidst terrible poverty, but somehow the fact that these are people with the same colour of skin as us, and are a lot closer geographically, has 'struck a chord', so to speak! The nice thing, and perhaps a big difference to what we experienced in parts of Africa, is that people seem to be living very happily, in the rural areas especially. In fact the simplicity of their lifestyle is very appealing although hard work!

So Bulgaria then; well we only had one night here as well (as we were already behind schedule from previous flirtations with Ukraine and Moldova), and we wanted to push through to Turkey the next day. It looks like Bulgaria is going supersonic, just buildings going up everywhere, hotel monstrosities starting to line the coastal areas. Property prices here are soaring as foreigners (Brits) are buying up the villas and houses, and roadside billboards display things like "Brits in Bulgaria" and "Luxury Apartments from 35,000 Euro" (in English of course). The roads here (well the coastal one that we took) are the best since, well Germany, although that's probably just because they are all new.

That said, we can really see why; Bulgaria is possibly the most beautiful country we have been to so far, its' forested mountains are bigger than the Carpathians, the Black Sea is glittering turquoise, the beaches are white and numerous of all sizes and busyness, they have lots of wildlife (we saw wild buffalo by the side of the road, and there are also many bears), and I think I would live here if I could! So I think there is still time - go and buy a house in Bulgaria!!

We are posting this from Sivas in Eastern Turkey, we've really burnt it through the last few days and hope to enter Iran on Wednesday, so we'll post up the Turkey installment then, which will be extremely exciting! Until then, all the best.