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.

INDIA TO PAKISTAN

All our regular readers are expressing concern at the length of time I have remained silent. Well, here are the excuses. The day we left Bikaner, I was actually feeling fairly crook, and it was stinking hot. Thought it was the heat stress, dehydration etc. I was very lethargic, & felt slightly dizzy. We headed north towards Amritsar, had an overnight stop at a very forgettable place called Bathinda, where it was stinking hot, then to Amritsar, where it was still stinking hot. I just crashed out for two days, trying to recover. We had a look at the golden temple, the holiest place in all Sikhdom. I might as well have been looking at the seventh largest ball of string in the world, for all I cared at that stage. We also went to the border closing ceremony at Wagah, where the Indian & Paki armies do the silly walks, and taunt each other, while the crowds yell their heads off. It was a boiling hot yawn for me, but as long as they keep doing that & not shooting each other, I guess its OK. You may have gathered by now that I did not enjoy India, but we were both concerned that Pakistan would be even worse, so it was with some trepidation that we approached the same border post the next day.

After clearing the Indian side, where to their credit they actually checked the engine & VIN numbers against the Carnets believe it or not, we got to the Pakistani side. Surprise number 1, the immigration & customs building was brand new & squeaky clean, airport quality. Surprise number 2, the officials were friendly & efficient, & they checked the bikes against the carnet as well. Away we went, & while the first few kilometers were fairly grotty, the road wasn't bad. Lahore is quite close to the border, & we were there in no time. Surprise number 3, the traffic all drives on the left, stops at traffic lights, & obeys instructions from the traffic police. Surprise number 4. The streets were wide, & lined with trees, & it all looked fairly pleasant. We made it to the Holiday Inn, where the first thing I did was to arrange to see a doctor, because I was still feeling lousy. I got some magic tablets & improved almost immediately. All things considered, the outlook was improving!

Some things we did pick up on were that there is a sense of underlying tension in Lahore, with security measures being highly visible. The Holiday Inn had the usual external security measures, uniformed armed guards, etc, but there was also an airport type metal detector inside the front doors. One morning we noticed they were using mirrors to check underneath cars going into the underground car park. As this was where the bikes were parked, good thing I say!

Near the main Government buildings there were cops in full riot gear, dressed up like baseball catchers. This does get you thinking. And being a muslim country, the call to prayer booms out over the city six times a day, so you can't miss that either. When we left the Holiday Inn for Islamabad, the general manager had arranged to see us off out the front, with an official photographer, the whole bit! And we got a gift pack containing a Tshirt & cap. Although we could see no reason for this treatment, other than the fact that they may have thought we were deranged, we appreciated the gesture. We were starting to like Pakistan.

The mosque in Lahore. Typical Mughal architecture, & the inspiration for the Taj Mahal.

The 300km ride up to Islamabad was uneventful, other than we discovered that servos sell all sorts of stuff, just like home. Lunch was back on the agenda!! In India, they sell petrol, that's it. Not even engine oil, let alone a cold drink. We also noted there are servos that sell CNG only (thats compressed natural gas), the cars on the road appear to be mostly new, or at least in good nick, unlike India, where anything with wheels is out on the road. There are also quite a few fast food outlets with the usual suspects having an obvious presence. Here they don't worship cows, they eat them. Bewdy!!

Islamabad itself on first sight is vaguely reminiscent of Canberra. Its a planned city, set out on a grid system, & has wide tree lined avenues, & generally looks neat (if you don't look too hard), & there are no heaps of garbage everywhere, like you know where. OK thats all I'll say on that subject. While we waited for our Iranian Visas to be issued, we had a few days to kill, so we hired a car & driver & headed on up the Karakoram Highway (KKH). It was great to be able to relax & enjoy the views without the stress of staying alive, although we had to hustle a bit. We had a 15 hour day to start with.

We went up as far as the Batura Glacier , about 800km from Islamabad, and the scenery was sublime. WARNING: TECHNICAL CONTENT. For a Civil Engineer, there is a great deal of interest in the construction of the highway, only completed in 1978, and it is also interesting to observe large scale geology in action. The mountain ranges are still being formed by tectonic plates bashing into each other, you have glaciers dumping moraine into the valleys, (the debris is hundreds of meters deep in places) & then the rivers carving it up. And this is also the earthquake capital of the world. At one point you can see all three of the main ranges, the Himalayas, the Karakorums, and the Hindu Kush, and two of the main rivers, the Gilgit & the mighty Indus. The point is marked by a monument.They are in the process of building a hydro electric scheme on the Indus, which will change the country permanently, so see it yourself soon. In this vast natural landscape, one feels about as significant as a pebble!! Please enjoy the following photos taken along the KKH.

Terraced plots, with ox drawn plough.

Typical shots of the road. Note, no guard rails.

Typical glacial moraine

Sediment eroded by the river

The Cathedral Peaks near Passu

Public transport on the KKH....hang on.

The peak of Mt Rakaposhi, taken from our hotel balcony.

On the way up, we were stopped at a village by an angry looking mob who had blocked the road, and set fire to a pile of tyres. A bit of a worry, I thought. The driver made some inquiries, & it turned out this mob was protesting about the lack of mobile phone coverage in the region! We waited about 45 minutes, then it was all over, & we went on our way. I also reckon I saw Osama bin Whatsit about three hundred times while we were up there. He looked a lot like this guy.

But if ObL really is hiding out in this region, they are never going to find him, let alone mount any sort of successful military operation. There is a long history of unsuccessful military ventures in this part of the world, & its easy to see why. The logistics are a nightmare. Historically, and even now, the inhabitants mind their own business, & fiercely defend their own turf. In many of the valleys, they don't even particularly want to be part of Pakistan, but they'll take the phone towers. In fact, as this is part of the old Silk Route, there is a strong sense of action based on mutual benefit. In other words, we will trade with you if you have something we want, otherwise bugger off.

Our next move is to head west to Quetta, & then to the Iranian border. It will take us a week to get to Iran, and this section may well be the toughest part of the whole trip. We will be in Iran for two weeks. So, don't worry, butI may not be able to blog again for another 3 weeks. Till then.

STOP PRESS: At 1 pm this afternoon, Monday 2 July, Chris & I had just left a cafe over the road from our lodgings, when we heard a seriously loud explosion, followed by a heavy plume of smoke, & not too far away either. Jesus H Christ, do you reckon that might have been a bomb?? It was indeed, in fact a car bomb outside the Danish Embassy, & it was only about 1.5 km away! I'd like to go now, thanks.

INDIA, CONTINUED

After Agra, we pushed further west to Jaipur, the capital of the state of Rajasthan. Shane Warne is the captain of the Rajasthan Royals, the 20/20 cricket side. We didnt see him, but he sent Chris a lurid sms (just kidding). We spent the first day visiting the palaces & the observatory in the old section of the city. The next day we went to the Amber Fort, just outside the town, & it was fairly impressive.Jaipur is surrounded by hills, & there are several forts on the ridges to defend the city. That night we were back in the hotel when we were told that several bombs had gone off in the old city. Timing is everything. We are quite OK, & are still more concerned with the traffic.

THE PALACE OF THE WINDS.



THE HILLS FORMING THE BACKDROP TO THE CITY.

TYPICAL STREET SCENE, PUBLIC TRANSPORT.

THE WATER PALACE

AS USUAL, THE HOTEL STAFF LOVED TO LINE UP FOR A PHOTO WITH THE TWO CRAZY GUYS. THIS IS THE CREW FROM THE HOLIDAY INN, JAIPUR.

We then headed out further west into the desert, to Bikaner. We rode for six kours in a heavy sandstorm, & the wind was so hot I thought someone had left the front door of Hell open. Were glad to arrive. We had booked into the Laxmi Niwas Palace, the former home of the Maharajah of Bikaner, which is now a hotel. And what a hotel! There are more staff than guests at the moment, & we got it for a ridiculously cheap price. The bathroom is bigger than the hotel room we had in Singapore.

THE SMALLER OF THE TWO INTERNAL COURTYARDS WHERE THE MEALS ARE SERVED.

The Maharajah was quite an operator, and was a well respected historical figure in India. Among other things, he was an army General, & a signatory to the Treaty of Versailles, which ended WW1, & represented India in discussions on Independence. Numerous Royals have stayed here, from George V, Earl Mountbatten, Edward V111, & so on, and the walls are lined with photos. Naturally, they shot most of the wildlife into extinction, & a lot of it is still on display in the bar.

THE TROPHY BAR. THIS IS OUR KIND OF BAR!!

Tomorrow we go north to Ganganagar. This is a whistlestop, & will be a big comedown from the Palace. Bye for Now.