TURKEY

I know I am way behind in posting photos, & I have some goodies, but I will put it right as soon as I can. We are currently in Goreme, central Turkey. We took a good couple of hours to cross the border, & that was with some preferential treatment. We both really enjoyed Iran. We found the people with whom we dealt, & numerous others we met in the street, to be exceptionally friendly, genuinely interested in us & Australia, and generally a savvy and cultured group of people, & very western oriented, quite at odds with the sort of diatribe from the top that gets all the publicity. Although as we were leaving, just before we entered the border zone, we noticed an American & an Israeli flag painted on the road. It took a second or two for the penny to drop, but the idea was that all the drivers could insult both countries by driving over the flags. Nice touch, & as I said, quite at odds with the courtesy & generosity we encountered. There is no shortage of pizza joints, burgers, coke , pepsi, Mack trucks, & the only cash they will take at banks is US dollars. So go figure!

Anyway, we crossed into Turkey, & immediately the standard of the roads fell away rapidly. Back to potholes & all kinds of bumps. But, we now have insurance cover again, & we can get BEER. We stayed at the nearest town to the border, Dogubeyazit, & escaped early next day. We decided to abandon our southerly route due to the internal security problems here, & instead headed north to Erzincan & Sivas, then to here. It was some solid riding, but the weather is cool, & its very pleasant riding. We cant remember the last time it was cool! We still ended up going through 4 army checkpoints. Once they see the Aussie passports, they just wave us through. It is becoming clear to us that Aussies are respected in Turkey for obvious historic reasons, & the history is important to both countries. More later.

Goreme is a fairly bizzare sort of place, in more ways than one. It is what is left after a large valley was eroded, but the remnants are a huge number of rock pinnacles, some of which have been hollowed out naturally, and some by human intervention. People have been living here since the year dot, but more recently, others have started converting the pinnacles into habitable structures. The hotel Kelebek where we stayed is part cave, part sandstone blocks. The whole place looks like Middle Earth as in The Hobbit, or even Bedrock from The Flintstones.
We then headed straight for the Mediterranean coast, and ended up at great little spot called Fethiye for 2 days, then moved on to another nice spot at Celcuk for another 2 days. We will check out the remnants of the Great Library of Ephesus, one of the ancient wonders of the world while we are here. Efes is how you refer to Ephesus in Turkish, and I note with interest that the main brand of beer in Turkey is Efes. Gotta love that! Matter of fact, I think Ill have one right now.

FURTHER INTO IRAN

From Shiraz, we changed the program slightly to give us more time to recover from the flogging we copped riding across the Baluchistan desert. We decided not to go to Yazd, & spent the extra time in Esfahan, which we both liked. It is a tidy & well maintained city, with tree lined streets, & lots of parks. The highlight was Imam Square, which is a huge open square, surrounded by a bazaar, and with a huge mosque at one end, (& another in the middle). Really very impressive. On the Friday night, we noticed that a favourite local pastime was to take a picnic tea down along the riverbank at dusk. There were thousands of family groups involved. Not a drunken yobbo in sight to spoil the family atmosphere. Maybe thats our problem! And next morning, no mess along the riverbanks. We then moved up to Tehran, we had been warned about the traffic, and it is pretty crazy, but not as bad as India.

We took the bikes in to the BMW dealership for some TLC. You should have seen the colour of the old oil, I reckon we must have cooked it properly!! Anyway the dealership is run by the legendary Mr Ali Nouriani, a man whose reputation precedes him amongst overland bikers. Mr Nouriani is a most kind & generous man, & he graciously extended many courtesies to us, for which we are very grateful, almost to the point of embarrassment. Tomorrow we leave for Tabriz, & then into Turkey. It will be reassuring to have insurance cover for the bikes again. Iran was the only country where no one would cover us. Mr Nouriani offered to sort that for us, but we figured that we just need to be ultra careful for another few days.

Have to say afew words about the Iranian monetary system. Its confusing. For a start, the exchange rate is 9,300 rials to the dollar. So you change $100 and have a roll of notes that would choke a camel. All the notes have oodles of zeros on them, and a small purchase sees you forking over notes for about a minute. On a large bill, like a hotel, we have broken the million rial mark.
To make matters worse, everyone just drops a zero, so when someone says a thing costs a hundred, they really mean a thousand. Got it? I have been here a week & I still haven't.
Petrol costs 4,000 rials a litre. Sounds expensive, doesnt it? Well its only40 cents. We will get our come uppance in Turkey where we hear its about $6/litre. That is real pain at the pump!
Photos and further commentary to follow asap.

IRAN

Greetings, Friends, One & All. We made it from Quetta to the border, & are currently in Shiraz (oh, if only that was the literal truth, I could drink a swimming pool full of it!!). The road from Quetta to the border was, contrary to expectations, quite good. The problem it seems is just who to listen to when you start asking about road conditions. However, it was very hot & dry, and the hotels we stayed in in Dalbandin & Taftan, on the Paki side of the border, were just vile. At Taftan we stayed at the PTDC guest house. The taps just trickled, the shower didnt work, the toilets didn't flush (someone else found that out before me!), & there was no airconditioning. This at the end of a long hot ride, two days in a row wears you down. The quote we got was 600 rupees for the room, but by next morning, the price had changed to 600 each. We knew the slimy little toad who claims to be the manager was getting into us, but figured there was not much we could do, considering our location. We met a Dutch couple a few days later, who said the same thing happened to them. Any way, next morning we fronted up at the border, only to be told we had a long wait. Finally, we made it through, but we were too buggered to go much further. This time, we had to have an army escort all the way to Zahedan, the nearest town of any size, & also from there to Bam. The section from Zahedan to Bam was a test of endurance, We could have done it in about 4 hours on our own, but with the escort, it took 8, because they stopped every few miles to change it. Invariably we had to wait, & there was no shade. This is the most barren, desolate part of the earth I have ever seen. Rocks & sand, & boiling hot wind, nothing else. It must be like the surface of Mercury!! The escort got my attention when they rocked up with a heavy calibre machine gun in the back of the Hilux, & the driver said " go, ....& dont stop".

Anyway we finally got to Bam, & to the legendary Akbars Guest House. Mr Akbar is truly one of nature's gentlemen, a man you could not possibly dislike. He is doing it tough after the big earthquake which destroyed most of Bam a few years ago, killing 26,000 people in the process, but is still open for business. One of the problems we had first up was getting petrol. You have to have a prepaid card, but we couldnt find anyone who spoke enough English to get it sorted for us. Next minute , we are in Mr Akbars car, we collected a VIP on the way, & we are in the Governor's office!! Talk about contacts! We ended up with some official fuel vouchers, but once we left this region, we found people willing to sell fuel for cash.

So, the section of road from Fort Munro to Quetta remains the worst of the trip, it is now behind us, security issues should be a thing of the past & we are in a more pleasant part of the country, & from here it should all be a steady improvement. I am hoping the few days rest we are having here will recharge the batteries. Iran is a surprise packet. We are clearly in the Middle East, & have left the Indian Subcontinent. People (males) are fairly westernised in terms of dress, the roads are excellent. You can buy Coke & 7UP, you can, obviously, use the web. The food is also quite different, but more of that later.

PAKISTAN TO IRAN

Greetings Friends, We have finally obtained visas for Iran. We are currently in Quetta, out in the west of Pakistan, about 2 days ride from the Iranian border. We were glad to get out of Islamabad, where we indulged in various types of food that we hadn't seen in ages, like pizza, & steak. It was good to get back on the bikes after 2 weeks of not riding. We had some advice about where not to go, so we changed our planned route. We headed south generally following the Indus, to Mianwali, then down to Dera Ghazi Khan (DG Khan). We arrived at about 2pm, tired & hot, ready to find a hotel. Then the fun started. A very nice local chap, M. Arshad Khan, owner of a servo, took us to a hotel, (and all we did for him in return was to waste most of his Saturday afternoon) but apparently, foreigners are not allowed to stay in DGK, because of security issues, unless they have permission. We didn't. So we then sought out the local administrative big cheese & threw ourselves on his mercy. He was quite good about the whole thing, but it was too iffy. He ended up suggesting a hotel a good few k's back, & we were ok with that. We were on our way out when we got stopped by a cop next to a major intersection. He wanted to know what we were doing in DGK. Next minute there are people all over us, ogling us & the bikes in a way we had not seen since India. Eventually, a police jeep turned up, & we had an armed police escort out of town. We tried to explain that we wanted a nearby hotel, but we ended up being escorted all the way back to Multan, about 100 km back. Every 25 km or so, there was a new team of cops who picked us up. I was actually quite impressed with the way they put this thing together so quickly. At one stage we even had the local SWAT team as an escort, and they sat on about 80-100 kph, with lights flashing & horn blaring. We just tucked in behind the jeep & it was the easiest bit of riding we have done in Pakistan, only problem was we were heading in the exact opposite direction we needed to go. But it did make one feel important!!! We got taken to the Ramada in Multan. It was great, but it wasn't cheap, & we had to travel all the way back through DGK the following day, again with the police escort.


Out west, we can still pull a crowd, just by stopping!

On the way through a small town, there was a dope on a bicycle wobbling around the centre of the road, not taking much notice of the Swat teams approach. On the way past, a cop leaned out the jeep window, & gave the guy a solid clip around the ear! I spent the next couple of minutes chuckling. In another place, a tuk tuk driver cut Chris off, & a traffic cop appeared from nowhere & gave the driver a real hard belt on the side of the head for ignoring the motorcade. Pity the cops in Australia can't do that anymore, I say.

Anyway, this turned out to be a long day, as we had to get all the way to Lorelai, & had a 100km deficit to make up. Near Fort Munro we were held up while a rockfall was cleared up in the pass. A bit later on, my top box came loose. More delay. I had the brackets modified in Oz before we left, as I anticipated the box would cop a pummeling. The brackets were fine, but I had snapped one of the main mounting bolts. We strapped it up & continued, knowing the real rough stuff still lay ahead. Our enquiries as to the state of the roads had all indicated that the road to Lorelai was good. It wasn't! Almost the whole of it was being worked on, & there were numerous diversions. At one stage, we found ourselves on a sandhill, following a couple of tyre tracks, no sign of a road anywhere. During the next few hours, we copped the lot. Potholes, soft gravel, sand, powdery bulldust, mud, slippery gullies, even a dust storm, as if it wasn't hard enough. We passed through a gully in which a truck & a van were fairly hopelessly bogged, just after I took this photo, as it happens.

Its pretty desolate out here.

Through a small but very bustling town on the way to Lorelai , there was a bloke standing right in the middle of the road with his trousers down, & no underwear on. Dare not stop for a photo, but I'm guessing the guy is not getting the medication he needs!! We finally got to Lorelai & its fair to say it's a hole. We were looking for a guesthouse selected from the Lonely Planet, but couldn't find it. We soon ended up in the police station, and again soon pulled a crowd. Trouble was they were all cops or their kids, & there wasn't much we could do about it, but really we didn't mind, as the police have been terrific.

There is always a bunch of kids whose dads want them to sit on the bike. for a photo op. But I get to keep the photos!

After about 2 hours of being grilled (in a nice way, we were offered a cup of green tea) by the local Special Branch, they took us to the "best hotel in town". I can't imagine what the others must be like!! This joint cost us 300 rupees, thats $4.60, for the night. It had no air conditioning, a squat toilet which had no water trap (& therefore stank to high heaven), a blocked drain in the shower, so we were soon in ankle deep water. The bed linen was dirty. Anyway, we got there at about 8.30pm, showered & crashed, too tired to eat tea. This, after the Ramada! Next morning, as I went out the front door to start loading the bike, there were two cops with the ever popular AK47's waiting for us , to escort us out of town, without breakfast. I was beginning to take the security thing seriously, just call it a hunch.

At this point I want to say a few words about the Pakistani people we have met. From my perspective, they are very welcoming, generous & friendly. A couple of days back, we had people buy us drinks no less than six times, & no one would take any money. One bloke invited us into his shop (he sold mobile phones), sat us down in front of an air conditioner, & brought out two glasses of tea, laced with salt & lemon, different, but quite a tonic. We have learned to say the Pakistani greeting A-salaam alai koom (loosely translated as "go in peace" or something similar), & it goes down really well. Once you say it, you get the double handed shake, & usually a big smile, although that may be due to my Pakistani accent! Sometimes people who had a bit of English would come straight up & ask right out what religion we were, which we found amusing. Out on the road, a bloke came up to us on little scooter, & said how honoured he was that we should choose to visit his country. This been our experience the whole way through Pakistan. But unfortunately, out west we have been attracting some long stares, not all of them friendly, and you just start to feel uneasy, especially when the cops don't want to let us out of their sight. From here, we just want to make Iran asap.

Yesterday, we headed for Quetta, soon entering a mountain pass where it was at least cooler. Before too long, we were back in amongst the roadworks, and we covered at least another 100km of unsealed road, but it was not as bad as the previous day. Nevertheless, I spent a lot of time standing on the pegs, & my legs were getting fairly sore. The Fastway footpegs I fitted are superb, wide & comfortable & very solid. In fact, the bike handled the road conditions beautifully. We had a booking at the Serena Hotel in Quetta, back to our usual standard (9,000 rupees a night), and are resting today. When we leave here, we have two nights at what we expect will be very dodgy accomodation, and two days of hard physical riding to reach Iran. This is the section of road which we expect will be the worst of the whole trip. Then a whole lot of new issues to deal with. For a start, Iran will be the first country on our trip where the traffic drives on the right. There are no ATMs, we have to change US dollars at a bank. Vouchers are required to buy fuel. And our itinerary for Iran is also fairly tough, with some big mileage days. Anyway, we will manage. And just quietly, I am dying for a beer. We have been dry for three weeks, with another two to go. Its a record for me!

ISLAMABAD

Here is the latest following the car bomb blast at the Danish embassy here yesterday (Monday 2 June). As I said yesterday, we were outside, & facing the direction of the blast. We heard it go off, & we saw the plume of smoke that followed a few seconds later. We knew almost immediately that it was not normal, & it was surprisingly close, only 1.5 km away apparently. Within 10 minutes it was on local TV, & by mid afternoon it was all over the media thru CNN, BBC etc. I found the whole thing pretty disturbing, I must say, & didn't sleep too well last night.

The reason we are still in Islamabad is that we are awaiting our Iranian visas, which has been an ongoing saga all on its own. Islamabad has a secure Diplomatic Enclave containing most of the foreign embassies. Evidently the Danish embassy is outside that area, & is located in a residential street, so it was easy for the bomber to just drive straight up to it.

Late last night we got an email from our intermediary in Iran notifying us that the Iranian visa application had the OK from Tehran, & was ready for collection from the local embassy. We are not even sure that they will give it to us straight away, it may take another day or so to process here. We were apprehensive about going to the embassy, but had no choice, so we took a taxi to the Enclave. There were police & army absolutely all over the place, including machine gun emplacements with sandbags, the whole bit. All the guys with weapons had large ammo pouches on as well. We knew then that this was not going to be a quick process. It turns out that you can only get so close to this area in a car anyway. You get dropped off at a special bus station, & go through an identity check & a body frisk before you get on the bus which then takes you on a tour of the Enclave, & you get off when the guy calls out your particular embassy. Sort of like a very down market version of Florida's Disney World!! After going through all this crap, we finally got to the Iranian Embassy only to be told by a pair of eyes & nostrils poking through a small hatch that it was closed today, because of a holiday (in Iran, if you don't mind), so we have to go do it all over again tomorrow. I am beginning to despair of ever getting the ******* visa at all. However, we are on the brink, & will soon be heading west into bandit territory. Hope to be in touch when we get to the other side.