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.

Moldova

Buna!

The Moldovan border looked deceptively calm when we arrived at it, and all was going well until we got to the last desk - Moldova customs, which was a man who insisted that we fill out all these forms (in Crillic Russian) that he knew we wouldn't understand just to be awkward I think. He wouldn't budge, so in the end we had to get one of the other gaurds to let us past the gate into the stalls on the Moldovan side, to find someone who spoke English and could help us with the forms. After two trips back and forth from Moldova to correct insatisfactory entries, the second time coming back with the ladies who were translating for us who also didn't understand what what he wanted from us, he smirked, put our forms in an empty drawer, stamped our label and waved us on...

Oh well, we're in Moldova now, and it looks very nice. The roads are cool, bumpy, but wide and deserted. We will see what Europes' poorest country has in store for us, but an hour in we get off the main road and settle down for the night. That can wait for tomorow!

Moldova is a captivatingly interesting place, poorer again than Ukraine, but still everyone seems to be very busy and working hard...that is apart from the people that work in offices and hotels who have nothing to do! Another interesting thing is that in every villiage that we went through, each house would have a bench infront of it by the road that the villagers would just sit on, chat, and watch the world (and gawp at us) go by. Every house also has a well outside it, and it's amazing to see all the different colours and styles that people have made their wells, from the very basic to the very elaborate with ornate houses built around them! Everywhere you look there are big beautiful horses pulling carts, working the fields, or just tethered at the side of the road chewing grass. A silly thing to say, but they are such a magnificant animal, so much better than oxen or donkeys which you might expect to see in its place. The pace of life seems slower here, and everything simpler, and they are very much less accustomed to seeing western tourists. Wherever you go where communication might be a problem, they normally manage to find someone in the village or family member who speaks English, and ropes them in to translating for us.

I think they knew we were traveling to India when we got to Moldova, as we have just driven through a town called 'Balti', and the word for 'Hello' in Moldovan is 'Buna'! Rhona got them mixed up and kept saying 'Balti' to everyone she met!

We went to visit a monastery overlooking a river that had been carved into the side of a rock cliff by Orthodox monks in the 13th Century. We were the only people there, and the lady in the exhibition centre, with whom French was our most common language, after showing us round all the archaelogical finds, told us to go on up to the monastery on the cliff. We didn't quite understand where she was telling us to go, so we just decided to head off in what we thought was the right direction, which took us down all these terrible dirt roads through villages and eventually up to the bell tower on the cliff (which is the only bit of the monastry you can see above ground apart from windows in the cliff face). When we got up there one of the kids from the village playing about the tower gave Rhona a bunch of soft grasses that he had been collecting - how sweet! The inside of the monastery was incredible, with sleeping quarters for about 12 monks, a chapel with ornate carvings and artwork, and a door out onto a rock balcony halfway down the cliff draped with rugs and candle stands. Incredible, and all hand carved out of solid rock!

We decided to take refuge that night in a nearby hotel with great views out towards the monastry. It certainly made us laugh; The hotel receptionist didn't speak any English or French, and infact didn't really say anything. She kept ushering us to the phone whenever she wanted to tell us something so that her daughter could translate, even when we'd just walked into the room. In all our other countries we've managed to get by using our lonely planet language guide, however there is no section for Moldova!! - not good! We managed to ask for a double room for the night (through her daughter translating on the phone), but turns out you don't get sheets and you have to ask for towels. We tried to order lunch, but eventually she just pointed a dirty finger at one thing on the menu, then shuffled into the kitchen to make it for us which turned out to be lovely chicken noodle soup with bread. When it came to ordering dinner, she once again pointed at something on the menu, and we got the same soup again! - oops!

For breakfast we were half expecting to get soup again, but she said 'omelete', and came out with 2 fried eggs, slices of cheese, and about a quarter of a sausage each, along with the same stale bread we had the night before, Lovely!

Off to Chisinou after that, which is where we sit now posting this blog, so you are completely up to date. Sorry about posting 3 countries at once (don't miss Slovakia and Ukraine below), but we obviously are not as skilled at finding internet spots as we thought we might be! Off to Romainia this afternoon, and yet another language to learn.

Orheiul Vechi night: 103464

Ukraine

Zdrastvuyte!

Well the border experience was quite something. We had a couple of hours drive before we arrived at it, so we were there at around 11am, and the queue was already starting to lengthen. There was an awful lot of waiting before we were ushered in to fill out lots of forms, to be interrogated (in Ukrainian) and have the van searched several times. We had numerous stamps grudgingly placed on a slip of paper by various different officers that we were shuffled between. It was quite a strain, as there was not a common word between us, and we just had to imagine how it must be for a Ukrainian to turn up at the British border control and expect them to speak Russian. Eventually after three and a half hours we were set free on the Ukrainian side of the border into the unknown. One thing we realised was that we were not sure if we had got the right insurance for driving a car in Ukraine (no one at the border spoke any English, and they said we had everything we needed; we weren't convinced...), and we were worried about being pulled over and taken to prison. To combat this we have adopted a 'police check avoidance procedure' which involves tailing a truck as we go through a police check, so that by the time the police see us it is too late to pull us over! ha ha! You laugh, but it has worked so far!

It seems to be another step poorer than Poland, but there is obviously a lot of hard work going on, and everyone has plantations in their gardens to grow veggies. It seems that everyone in the family from the youngest to the grannies contribute to the farming of crops and looking after the cows, goats, horses or chickens! Rhona particulary loves the horses used for pulling carts and for working the land. It felt a bit like going back in time.

The roads here are consistantly bad, no good bits, not many terrible bits, but just bad everywhere, which made going a bit slow. We arrived at L'viv by late afternoon, and drove straight into town. The entire city centre is cobbled, busy with crazy drivers, and ancient electric trams and busses. The old cobbles have been all but destroyed by the cars and lorries that drive over them, and the streets have been made into a big rumble strip, which shakes our van like a hungary baby's rattle. We decided that we didn't have enough time to explore the city fully that day, so we tried to find a hotel to stay in where we could park the van securely, and tour the city's old town (which we have been looking forward to for a while, and have come a long way to see) in the morning. This always takes a long time, Friday night aswell = no spaces anywhere. Eventually we pull up outside the fancy **** 'Hotel Spudnict' with a definate creak to the rear suspension from the battering it has just received from the cobbles. A bit more expensive and out of town than we were hoping for, but it was getting late, and we were getting hungary. We really went for it for dinner as well, the food is so different here and you want to try everything, lots of pickled meats, fishes and vegetables, marinate cabbage, and lots of garlic! The cooked meats were invariably Kiev-like in style. Still it cost us hardly anything.

Breakfast was another experience with raw fish, hams, salads, pancakes (filled with meat or cottage cheese), meat fritters, but it filled us up for our long day ahead of us. We started our tour proper of L'viv with the hour walk from our hotel into town, and then headed into the old town. We took photos galore, it is so picturesque with many stunning 12th-18th Centry buildings (mainly Catholic Churches), and narrow (cobbled of course) streets. A lot of the buildings are in a state of disrepair, but as soon as you go inside of one the detail is just stunning with incredible paintings all over the cielings and walls, ornamented golden pillars and cornices, and all different periods of archetecture. The city was very important during the 12-16th centuarys, being on both the main trade route to the west, and from Byzantium (Istanbul) to the north seas. There are a lot of outdoors cafe's one in which we enjoyed a sandwich for lunch, although I think we have decided that bread is not a Ukranian speciality!

After lunch we decided to get back to the van (we were starting to miss it!) and get a couple of hundred miles done towards Kamyanets-Podilskyy which is a fortress town built on a buttress of rock in the middle of a gorge towards the Moldova border. We get lost trying to get out of L'viv, but eventually head out in the right direction. Navigation is a nightmare here, as all the signs are in the cryllic alphabet, and the maps we had were in our (normal) alphabet, meaning that none of the names tied in together. You really have to get to grips with the cryllic if you come here! We nearly reached Kamyanets-Podilskyy when we decided to pull over for bed at another beautiful spot down a dirt lane in the middle of the Ukrainian countryside.

The following morning we arose to people walking past us on their way to church in their Sunday best, and made our way to Kamyanets-Podilskyy. This city has an old town that was built on a rock island in the middle of what seems to be a convergance of deep limestone gorges. You get to it by going over one of two dizzyingly high bridges Which you can bungee jump from if you like (and we saw people rock climbing on the cliffs which looked tempting). At the end of one of the bridges, there is an enormous (and still very complete) fairytale castle which you can look around, and go through all the tunnels in the walls, and under the ground. Very cool. This place is still very un-touristified compared to L'viv (which is meant to be the undiscovered treasure of the east), which was nice, and we enjoyed walking around the old towns' squares and streets. There were more multiple weddings here. I think we forgot to say that for the whole time we were in L'viv you could not get away from Brides in meruang dresses. It could be because we visited a lot of churches, but even in the central city square there were always a good handfull at any one time having their photos done. We inadvertantly gate crashed a couple of weddings whilst we were looking around some churches just as a bride happened to start walking down the aisle. We thought we were in a wedding comedy film. Shortly after lunch we headed off for the Moldova border an hour or so away.

l'viv night: 102978
kamyanets podilsky night: 103175
moldova night: 103343

day 9: 119 miles
day 10: 197 miles
Day 11: 168 miles

Still only about 16 degrees in the day and 6 ish over night.

Slovakia and Poland (again)

Ahoj!

Our Last night in Czech Rep was on quite a high altitude pass between Czech and Slovakia and was a cold one, about 2 or 3 Celcius I think, which for an unheated van is a bit chilly! I'm glad we took Mam's advice and took two blankets and a duvet instead of just one blanket! In the morning we willed ourselves out of bed, and headed across the border into Slovakia which is a very beautiful country. Even though it was raining heavily all day, you could really get a sense of the majesty of the highest mountain group in the Carpathians. This is where we are headed, the High Tatras, and we arrive at the resort town of 'Stary Smokavec' which is instantly apealling. It's a bit of an out-of-season ski resort, but has everything you could want, along with some beautiful old wooden buildings and and old-mixed-with-new feel. Slovakia already seems to be a bit more sophisticated, clean, and has finer scenery than Czech. We then settled down for the night on a side road with amazing views of the Tatras.

Our basic routine so far has been to wild camp for two nights, then find a camp site for the 3rd so we can use the showers, washing machine, fill up with water and empty the portaloo etc. It seems to work quite well, as the van recharges itself when we drive (which is quite a lot), and every night we can boil the kettle, charge the laptop etc to our hearts content. The only thing we can't do is run the fridge all night, so the milk gets a bit confused! That reminds me, milk is still very diffult to get hold of around here, ever since Germany, I don't know what the locals have with their wheatabix, but it sure aint cerstve polotucne!

On Wednesday we climbed up Slavkovsky Stit, which at 2452m is one of the highest mountains in the Tatras, and the highest you can climb without being obliged to hire a mountain guide (and without requiring technical climbing skills). What can I say but perfect mountaneering weather! It was glorious sunshine all day, and despite layers of suncream, we still managed to get ourselves burnt! We weren't quite ready for the epicness of this mountain, and we were walking for 9 hours before we got back to the van absloutely knackered! It started off quite hot through the forest at the bottom, then from halfway up we were wading through patches of waist deep snow, and the whole top was just capped in deep, crisp unbroken snow. We saw one other person (from a distance) for the whole day, other than that, the mountain was ours. It was good to get the crampons on, which Rhona particularly enjoyed as she "just sticks!". The views from the top were absolutely amazing, all jagged snowy peaks on one side and open space on the other. What a day! (but very tiring!). We found a very dubious campsite that night, had showers and went to bed exhausted.

We think it is quite amazing that since we left the UK, we have had quite a lot of rain(storms), infact it has been every day apart from the two days that we have been out treking, which have been spectacular sunshine all day. How about that!

We had a bit of a change of plan at this stage, and we decided that instead of going through Hungary, Romania, and then Bulgaria as origionally planned, it would be far more interesting if we missed out Hungary, and detoured east back into Poland, and into Ukraine, then down into Moldova, getting back on course in Romania again. It would add a little extra distance, but a lot more excitement!

So the following morning we headed off into Poland and towards the Ukraine border. This would be our first 'proper' border crossing, as so far we have just been driving through EU countries and you just drive over with out stopping. We've heard that it can be very tricky negotiating the Ukraine border, as the ex-Soviet regime has left behind a legacy of corruption, and you are certain to be harrassed for bribes at every corner(border crossings being the worst!). Moldova is similar, but we have been assured that the muderous separatists are in east Moldova, so we won't need to go there.

I think we will start eating out a bit more, as we had a big slap up lunch with drinks in a fancy hotel in Poland today and it cost us a grand total of £7.50. Great, and it's gonna get cheaper! I love a bargain!

So for now, end of day 8 we are stopped at a beautiful spot, up a steep windy road in south eastern Poland near to the Ukrainian border. Goodnight!

PS. We didn't sleep loads that night, it turns out that after this very popular spot is Used by couples to have long deep discussions, it is used by rowdy men in vans doing whatever they might want to do in a secluded spot in the middle of the night?

Slovakia dirt road mileage: 102662

smokovec night: 102672

poland night: 102859

day 7: 10 miles

day 8: 187 miles