What the....!

No wonder he crashed it, look at the length of that bloody trailer! And fellow truckers also take note of that absurd rear overhang. Eurgh!

More tyre troubles...

One of my tires decided that 40 plus temperatures and hours of 90kmh across desert wasn't the job it signed up for, and quit, scattering rubber all over the Quetta-Sukkur highway. All hands to the deck for this one, we didn't want to hang around in bandit country for long!

Continuing troubles, we're getting out of here!

During our 2 day stay in Quetta, a rather miserable city which is riddled with high ranking Taliban members, we recieved news of bombs in Lahore and Peshawar. Our bosses back home and the Pakistan tourist office both told us the best thing to do would be to get out of Pakistan using a more southerly route than we had planned. We left Quetta under armed escort again, which ranged in firepower from 2 pickup trucks full of AK47 carrying police, to a dozy bloke nodding off next to me in the cab, to a shotgun carrying farmer on the back of someone elses moped! There were, of course, long waits between checkpoints while we were waiting for an escort to even bother turning up....

Pakistan - Taliban!

After a horrendous battle trying to get out of Iran (don't ask, I've no idea what the problem was!) we only made it 3km into Pakistan before we had to stop for the night. Due to the continuing problems with tribal Taliban members in this lawless part of Pakistan, travelling with an armed escort was necessary, and bush camping or night time driving an absolute no-no. Instead, we were allowed to stay in the customs yard, and await an escort for the following day (and that was an awfully long wait!) which would take us 350km to Dalbandin, the next safe place to stop. Luckily, to pass the time the local cricket team turned up and challenged us to a tournament using a tennis ball wrapped in gaffer tape, a cardboard box to serve as stumps, and a wooden plank (bat) complete with rusty nail poking out one end.

Last few days in Iran

As we headed farther East beyond Yadz and into tribal areas, we tended to avoid stopping and just kept on driving as long as my bladder could handle it. This photo shows our last Iranian bush camp, where we drove into the desert to avoid being seen from the road. Soon, as we got c close to the Palistan border, we were placed under armed escort and taken to a police station, where we spent the night under guard, aiming to cross over the following day.

Desert driving

In between cities this is my view of Iran at the moment. Mile upon mile, with the odd mud hut village to relieve the monotony.

Yadz

Beautiful oasis town in Eastern Iran, with a heavily Islamic flavour. Sadly, I'm probably most likely to remember the goverment inspector who came to our hotel to check all the ladies were wearing their headscarves and covering themselves up. He was an utter creep, and a sad example of the religious biggotry currently blighting an otherwise lovely country.

Esfahan

Famous for Khomeini square, the second largest in the world. With its beautiful architecture and intricate moasaic mosques, Esfahan is definately one of the highlights of Iran. Unfortunately for me, however, its also the last chance saloon for getting spare parts and sundries for the truck. East of Iran theres bugger all in the way of european trucks and so I had two solid days devoted to making sure my baby was ready for the next leg of the journey. Incidently we didn't stick around for the anit-western demonstration....

Seeside at the Caspian Sea

Although technically its not a sea, and its probably not much fun visiting any sort of sea wearing all this clobber, required for the ladies in Iran unfortunately.

Tabriz

No photo for this one sadly as my camera is kaput.
Drove into Tabriz and immiedately got lost. We stopped at a taxi rank with a view to getting a taxi to take us to a hotel and follow in the truck but no-one seemed to understand. In the end a someone who spoke a bit of English stopped offered to show me a hotel that would be perfect for us. Lucinda got in the back and he joined me in the cab, shouting "left" or "right" every now and then. He guided me to a residential area, and I was just about to explain that we probably needed a bigger a hotel, when the cab door opened and a young Iranian girl jumped in. "This is my niece, she speaks good English" said the man. An hour or so later we were outside our hotel. Fantastic!

Iran: the trouble begins!

What a nightmare Iran has turned out to be! In fact we had difficulties just leaving turkey. The sfaff at the entry border 3 weeks ago had accidently stamped my passport to take the truck out 3 days previous to our actual exit date, causing all sorts of hassel. I was led from office to office by a "helpful" official and eentually given a 166YTL fine, about 80 Euros. It turned out the "official" was in actual face just a hawker, and when I refused to pay him for his frankly useless services he spat in my face. Lovely.
Then there was getting into Iran: customs, registration, passports, visas.... it took 6 hours. There was no way we were going to make it to Tabriz as planned, so I took a dirt road into the desert and we camped for the night. In the morning however the weight of the truck partially collapsed oart of the track and we had to dig our way out.

Batman!

This one needs no explanation other than we did a considerable detour just to get this shot.

Mount Ararat and "Doggy Biscuit"

Further east still until we reached to frontier town of Docubyazit, or "Doggy Biscuit" as it is affectinately known by western travellers. We stayed two nights in Docubyazit in order to make preparations for the dreaded Iranian border crossing. This was also our last chance to get rid of any alcohol stashed away on the truck so needles to say, there was a bit of a party that night...

Nemrut Dagi, and a dodgy ferry ride

We've pushed on to Nerut Dagi, on the Eastern side of Turkey. Here the ancient carved stone statues are a popular attraction to anyone who can face the incredibly steep road up to the top - so steep in fact that it took well over an hour to drive just 15km! We watched the sun set then settled down for an uneasy night in hurrican force winds.

The following day we pushed further east, a drive which involved a 20 minute ferry ride on a boat that can best be described as "nearing retirement". It felt like it was about to sink when I drove our 20 ton truck on board!

Another Scania workshop, and a dubious bush-camp

Turkey was going to be our last chance to get any work done on the truck to "Western" standards. I decided to make an unplanned visit to the last known Scania dealer to get the brakes checked and got rather more than I bargained for. They did the work for free, laid on a minibus to take the passengers into town and threw in a buffet lunch as well. Thanks Aydin if you are reading this, we're very grateful!

After that we pushed on to Karanmanmaras, but the delay had put us a long way behind schedule and we couldn't find anywhere to camp. Finally, I decided to pull of the road first place I could. In the darkness what we didn't reallise was that we were camped on an army tank firing range! Good job it was the weekend, our big orange truck would have made for pretty good target practice!

Cappadocia

Here we are in Cappadocia, famous for its stunning sandstone scenery. Over millions of years the wind has eroded the rock in to strange eerie shapes, and many of the passengers went on balloon rides to get a better view.