Pakistan

So I uploaded my last blog cutting out the last couple of days of Iran thinking that nothing too exciting would happen! I was a little wrong! Firstly on the day we left Yazd I rode up front in the cab with Greg for the first time, which was great fun. He gave me lotsa little lessons about the truck and how it works and that. It was also nice to have the open road in front of us and as we were going through the desert that’s literally all it was...nothingness for miles and miles! We bopped away to a very eclectic mix of music including Michael Jackson, Kings of Lean, Don’t Stop Believing, Roxanne, Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow (slightly ironic while desert driving) and a bit of club music among lots of others! Probably the most exciting thing that happened on the drive day was the sand storm we went through. We had been noticing little mini twisters all day but then we saw a big haze ahead of us. And as we got closer we realised it was a sand storm. It was pretty cool, kinda like driving in fog but we could actually see the waves of sand drifting across the road.

We arrived at our campsite just outside the city of Bam at about 5 that evening after being on the road since 8 in the morning. We got the tents up and made a start on dinner. We were just finished up with dinner and sorting out all the lockers in the truck when the wind started to pick up a little...and then the sand came. The stupid storm had followed us and while it was enjoyable from the comfort of the truck, being out in it was less enjoyable! Firstly the sand in my eyes was ridiculous...and you’d think the headscarf would have come in handy for once and kept the dust outta my hair...but instead it was just as much of a nuisance as always and kept blowing off!! Then we noticed that all our tents were getting a battering and as we stood there wondering what the hell we were supposed to do I saw one of the tents take flight across the car park! I let a yell and me and Little Kev went running after it. Rachel’s tent was next to go for a little trip but if didn’t get very far, the pegs just popped out and then Greg’s tent looked like it was about to pop too. There were mad dashes from one tent to another with extra pegs and a mallet to put the extra guy ropes in...something most of us had stopped doing after the first week or two cause there was no need for them! I was very happy to see that my little tent stood up to the storm...even if everything in it did get covered in sand...after I had just swept it out and everything! None of us slept great that night purely because of the heat! It was so, so warm and in the tents it was even more uncomfortable!

When we got up the next morning we were driving through the gates of the compound we had camped in when the security guards pulled us over and told us to wait for our escort. The route we were taking to the Pakistan border is the Opium Trail that drug smugglers use and because of that we were getting a guard the whole way to Zahedan, our destination that day. We were waiting around for awhile for the police to arrive so got chatting to the security guards and they asked to take a picture with us. So we hopped off the bus and gathered in. It was weird, one of the guards stood beside me and put his arm around me! Something I was not expecting to happen considering how much we had been warned about male and female contact! He also told Rachel she could put her hand on his shoulder for the picture if she wanted to! After a few pictures were taken the guard that was on a motorbike let us sit on the bike and I also got to wear one of the guy’s hats too!! Was a very random start to the day! Eventually the escort arrived and we hit the road...only for the escort to leave us about 10 minutes later...which was kinda frustrating after we waited so long! We then had to pull over for petrol which was where we drew more attention from the police and Hamid had to give them all our details and we were told once again we were getting an escort. We learned at this stage that the night before there had been a lot of activity from drug smugglers and that was why the police were being so cautious. About 30-40 heavily armed vehicles (including air craft assault rifles on the roofs of the cars) had used the cover of the sandstorm to smuggle drugs through. The army opened fire and managed to stop only the last vehicle in the convoy...and on this vehicle alone they were carrying 160 kilos of drugs! Our escort lead us about 50 km and then pulled over to swap with police at the next station...and this time they got on the truck. So we had 2 Iranian army dudes sitting up the front seats of the truck with their rifles in their hands! We swapped guards again after awhile for some more truck companions. At the next stop there was a very odd occurrence! Keep in mind that we were in the middle of the desert with nothing for miles around...and then take in the fact that the heavens opened with the biggest hailstones I have ever seen!! It was so weird, one minute it was bone dry and the next everything was soaking and there was a river running down the middle of the road!! The desert is a strange place!! The escort from this stop was a vehicle again...with 2 guys riding in the front of a pickup and three more in the back with the rifles on their laps! In all we had 7 different escorts that day, swapping between cars and guys on the truck with us.

When we eventually arrived in Zahedan we got escorted through the town to a hotel where we were supposed to park up and camp for the night....when we got there though Rachel was told that they wanted $150 for us to park the truck in the car park...and for us all to sleep on the truck! So that changed plans slightly and we instead got brought to a police compound to camp...which was quite an experience. We ended up parking right outside the compound as it would have been a tight squeeze for the truck to fit through the gate! We gathered quite the crowd with a gang of kids gathering very quickly! A few of the group pitched their tents and some of us opted to sleep on the truck....I was in the latter group! Dinner that night was sandwiches as none of us were too bothered trying to get the kitchen set up with such a crowd around, plus just as we arrived in Zahedan it started spilling rain and cooking in the rain is never fun!!! It was an interesting evening with the army standing guards the whole night to make sure we were safe.

One thing I forgot to mention about Iran was Iran Tan. You’ve all heard of farmers tan and everyone gets the piss taken out of them for having one...well Iran Tan is even worse!! It’s where your hands, feet and face get a nice colour and the rest of you remains as pasty white as ever! I already had an issue with my hands as, as we were going through Europe the sun was out but it was still quite chilly so we all had our fleeces on. Which resulted in me getting tanned hands and from the wrist up I am white (looks like my hands are always dirty!!). Well being in Iran made it even worse and now my feet also have flip flop tan lines on them!! Quite the tan disaster...and it’s not sun shimmer so I can’t even just wash it off and start again!!!

Another thing that I read about Iran that amused me was how they smuggle drugs sometimes...they use camels!! The camels are literally trained to walk between two points, kind of like homing pigeons, and rewarded for going to the right place by food. Once the camels learn that they will be rewarded when they get to the destination, drugs are then surgically inserted into the camels humps and they are sent off on their walk. The Iranian government invests US$400 million every year in the war against drugs and even with 30,000 soldiers on the Afghan border, electric fences and desert pits still 85% of the drugs smuggled to Europe pass through Iran from Afghanistan and Pakistan. Over 30 years 3,300 soldiers have been killed in battles with heavily armed smugglers.

Anyway onto Pakistan!!

Next morning we were up early to head to the Pakistan border. Again we got escorted and when we got to the border we were ushered through the queues of trucks to the top! Last year the truck spent 4 hours getting through its stuff at the border so Rachel had been warning us of a long day of waiting around....we were just getting ourselves ready for the long wait...when the truck pulled off again after about 5 or 10 minutes! Much less hassle compared to last year for Greg and Rachel! It was then time for us people to go through our border stuff and again we all got ushered through the crowds of people waiting to leave Iran. The locals didn’t look particularly pleased at this group of white people being ushered past them all. Once we had been stamped out we got back on the truck and drove to the Pakistan side of the border. Again we were allowed skip the queues and get ourselves processed as quickly as possible. It was then time to bargain with the money changers and get rid of our Iranian Rials and get ourselves some Pakistani Rupees. Our first pee in Pakistan (and our second too in fact) was in a Pakistani prison! Right at the border in Taftan we were waiting for our escort and asked could we use the loo....we actually walked by cells with people in them which was very, very odd! When our escort did arrive it was one dude....one very old dude! He was with us for a good while til we got back to his town. It was actually pretty cool as we got to drive through a typical Pakistani country village. It was all mud houses and little kids running around in their traditional dress. Throughout the day we had a few escort changes, mostly one guy sitting on the truck with us. Our destination that night was Dalbandan to a hotel thankfully, as it had been one sweltering hot day on the truck for all of us so we knew a shower was at the end of the journey! When we arrived in Dalbandan we were looking around for the hotel when all of a sudden it just lit up right across the road from us! It was almost like they were looking out for us and knew how much we needed a shower so wanted to reveal themselves to us in a dramatic “Alleluia” moment!!! We got rooms sorted and I headed straight to the shower....a nice COLD shower! Then it was time to get some food, which was a lovely chicken dish in a spicy sauce...though truth be told, I probably would have eaten anything at that stage! Then it was time to go back to the sauna that was our room! I was sharing a room with Joe, Derek and Graham...there was no windows in the room and just an old fashioned fan in the centre of the room. Needless to say I did not sleep so well! It was absolutely stifling and I even got up in the middle of the night to have a cold shower...stood there for about 15 minutes...and as soon as I turned off the water the heat just enveloped me again! I dozed off a couple of times and managed to get a few hours in a row from about 4am! When we got up in the morning I had just gone into the bathroom for a shower...when the electricity went...so the shower wasn’t working and the fan turned itself off! The four of us were lying there in absolute stifling heat when a few of the others walked by....after pouncing on them we discovered that all the showers in their rooms were working!! So the four of us headed in 4 different directions for yet another cold shower! Then it was time to get back on the truck to head to Quetta.

There was a slight difference in the escort on our second day as instead of just one old dude sitting amongst us we now had a pickup truck either in front of, or behind us with anything from 3 to 5 guys in it! We stopped off in Nushki, a little village for lunch which was quite an experience. In the hotel in Dalbandan the staff (all men) dealt with the women on the trip (albeit with slightly less enthusiasm and speed than with the guys!!). In Nushki it was a totally different story! I went into one of the little shack huts to buy a cold drink and the guy didn’t even move off his chair to deal with me until one of the lads walked up beside me!! Another experience of Nushki was the armed guard when we went to pee! Our police dude walked with us while we went up over a dirt hill to do our business! Quite funny to walk back with a guy with a rifle over his shoulder walking behind us all!! When we got to just outside of Quetta we had to wait for our city escort which they told us would take about 15 minutes...an hour or so later we were still sitting there!! The guards at the security post were on the truck with us and taking pictures. Some of them try to be subtle about it, others just stick the phone in your face and then there is one or two who will ask can they take a picture! Eventually anyway the escort arrived and in we went to Quetta. It was interesting coming into the city at night and seeing life going on around us. The escort kept us moving though and we got to our hotel...only for the guards not to be satisfied as the truck would have to be parked on the street and they didn’t want that. So we had to move on to another hotel...which is where the fun started. The hotel they were bringing us to was a little outside the city centre...and just after a major road block. We got so far through the road block only to discover the truck wouldn’t fit through the space between the hut and the gate that was beside it! At this stage cars were piling up behind us, so the guards had to move all the road block to let the cars move by us so that we could reverse down a one way street and drive up the other side! This took a bit of time as the cars weren’t very accommodating and when we managed to clear the cars that were in the way any new cars that came, instead of waiting to let us pull out, would scoot in past us!! Eventually we got there though and got into the hotel. At this stage it was coming up to 11 o’clock so I forfeited food and just went straight to bed!!

The roads on our second day were also quite interesting! We could see road works along the way...consisting mostly of old men or young boys doing hard manual labour, did see 3 rollers along the few 100k we did though so at least it’s not all manual labour! There were quite a few craters in the road along the way and we had a few bumps in the back.... with Donald’s head nearly going through the roof at one stage and the floorboards bouncing up! The best thing though about the Pakistan roads is the trucks! They are beautiful! As the drivers spend so much of their time travelling long haul they take as much pride in their trucks as their own home and they are just magnificent. They are painted in bright colours with loads of different designs and pictures and they put chains on them so the jingle as they drive and there is mirrors all over them. They also put flashing lights on them so they light up like disco balls at night! They are just spectacular and we all jump at our cameras when we see one coming...so expect quite a few pictures of them! It’s also interesting to see how much they load up the trucks! They pile things as high and wide as they can...and it’s not unusual to see one of two guys sitting on top of the load, in some cases they much be at least 16 or 17 foot high!!

Next morning we were on the road to head to Sukkur (yes, actually pronounced sucker!!). The temperature was unreal that day, hitting 52 degrees at one stage. You can imagine being stuck on a truck in that heat. We would open the window for some air only to feel like there was someone blowing a hairdryer in our faces! And it was impossibly sticky! No matter what I touched off I would start sweating...bend my elbow, elbow would leak...my feet just lying there on the ground doing nothing got a glisten on them after awhile...and you know that feeling where you stand up and think, Crap, did I just sit in a wet patch....well it took a couple of times for me to cop on after getting this sensation that I WAS the bloody wet patch!!! Considering it was a fairly long drive day I didn’t even notice the time going by as I was concentrating so much on NOT moving and trying to get myself as comfortable and cool as possible! We did stop in a lovely spot for lunch though. We were mountain driving that day and it was all rocks and cliffs that we were going past. We spotted a little river at one stage and Greg pulled over and we started making up a fruit salad...something that was totally welcome and helped cool us down a little in the heat! As we got closer to Sukkur the sun started to set and it was absolutely gorgeous. I just sat at the window watching it for ages. I’ve never seen a sunset like it! It was the first time I was actually able to look directly at the sun without it hurting my eyes, it was a perfect circle and such a rich gold just suspended in midair, absolutely amazing. Once we got to the hotel we got some lovely dinner...and god do they give big portions in Pakistan! I got chicken Biryani and it came out in a huge portion...but after skipping dinner the night before I had absolutely no problem in eating the whole thing!! Then it was bed time again after another day!

Sukkur to Bahawalpur was our next journey. That day we entered the Punjab region which meant our escort changed from normal police and army to the Punjabi Elite Force...otherwise known as No Fear!! Yes they actually have that printed on the back of their t-shirts!! And they meant business!! When we first swapped to them they asked Greg 3 questions; 1) Did we need lunch (no), 2) Did we need fuel (no), 3) What is your maximum speed (90k)!!! And with that they hopped in their truck and put their foot down!! They took no shit off anyone on the road! Our other escorts were great but these guys could get people to move in double time...and if the cars or trucks didn’t move out of the way quick enough, when they eventually did pull over or move out of the way the Elite Force would slow down and stare in at the driver giving him the biggest don’t f*** with us look ever!! That’s one thing that has been quite amusing on the Pakistani roads. You know the way at home if you hear a siren you start looking from which direction it is coming from and pull over or out of the way. Over here they are in no rush to get out of the way! They will continue to pull out in front of a sirening vehicle to try get past the car or truck in front of them! They don’t hurry up, especially the trucks; they just keep going at their merry little pace!! It’s actually quite funny and totally different to home! No one moves out of the way for anyone, especially the auto rickshaw drivers! They reckon cause they are small they don’t have to move or hurry up, they can just scoot along and keep up and everyone else should move for them!! We didn’t even notice the escort change overs with the No Fear guys, they did rolling takeovers so we never had to stop, we just kept moving constantly. We got to the hotel in Bahawalpur and again got a huge feed...after waiting nearly 2 hours for it!! We were all pretty famished by the time the food did actually come out at ten to ten!! So we ate and then slept...our usual routine for the week!!

Next morning it was time to go to Lahore. Again we had the No Fear guys escorting us and it was plain sailing all the way thankfully. There was a slight difference in the weather compared to the previous couple of days, it was quite hazy with dust and not quite so hot but very humid. We got a couple of specs of rain throughout the day and as we drove closer to Lahore the haze started to lift for a bit. But it was nice to be able to sit on the truck and not feel like I was in an oven for the day! We could tell the difference in the temperature straight away as we didn’t go through half as much water as we had the previous few days! It was also on the way to Lahore that I had my first balcony drive experience! We have a little balcony out the front on the truck and when we are on quietish roads if we want we can sit out there while we are driving...it was so much fun!! Because we were on our way into a city there was quite a lot of traffic around and they were puzzled when they saw the truck being escorted in and the fact they were all being all hooshed out of the way...and then they looked slightly bemused to see myself, Rhona and Sally sitting up at the front! I’ve never felt like royalty before but I can imagine that’s what it feels like with everyone waving and having to wave back!! The drive into the city was great; it was nice to see a city rather than just the little rural villages we had been going through. They had big fancy office blocks and rush hour traffic like you wouldn’t believe!! We got escorted right to the hotel...and had to negotiate doing a U turn in the middle of a massive junction that didn’t go down too well with the locals as we were getting in their way with our police escort stopping all the traffic! Once we were set up in the hotel it was then time for dinner...and again we got a massive feed. And we didn’t have to wait half as long as the previous day...and we ate it at a normal dinner time hour!! It was then time to get the laptop out and I got on Skype and managed to make a few surprise phone calls!

Next morning we all got up early enough to get some breakfast and discuss what to do for the day...the only problem was that half of the group had come down with a stomach bug and couldn’t move too far from the hotel. Luckily enough I was ok so didn’t have to suffer, and there was a few others that were feeling fine too. Some felt well enough to go out and explore the city and then there were the few poor bastards who couldn’t move out of the rooms as they needed a toilet within running distance. Those of us who felt up for it left the hotel at 10 to go find the Old City...we thought it would be a quick enough walk, half hour tops maybe...2 hours later we were still walking around in the hottest heat of the day! Eventually someone told us we were close but that it would be another 5k walk to get to the right entrance to the Old City...so we said screw that for a biscuit and hopped in a rickshaw! When we did get there it was totally worth it. Lahore Fort was gorgeous with lots of different parts of the palaces still standing and in pretty good shape. The Fort started being built in 1566 and had TWELVE massive gates! The Fort was built by the emperor at the time Jalaluddin Muhammad Akbar (how’s that for a name!!) but every succeeding emperor or ruling nation, including the British, added a pavilion, palace or gate of some sort to the Fort. There was a lot to see within the Fort including the Hall of Public Audience, the Hall of Private Audience,  sleeping chambers, royal kitchen, bathhouses, Ladies Courtyard, and by far the most impressive part, the Palace of Mirrors. Everything within the Fort was amazing and very well preserved but the Palace of Mirrors was immaculate. It was called this as the mosaic work was all done with tiny mirror tiles. So it looked as though it was made of silver but as I got closer I could see the reflection of everything. It was also from this palace that we got a lovely view of the Badshahi Mosque and the Independence Momument.

We also went to the Badshahi  Mosque, which was huge. It was built in 1674 in only 2 and a half years. It was the largest outdoor prayer area in the world. The 4 minarets in each corner are 54 metres high and 20 metres in circumference....so you can imagine that the place is pretty bloody massive!! It was pretty hot by the time we got to the Mosque and to go in we of course, had to take our shoes off. Luckily the clever Pakistani people had a carpet running around the edge of the prayer area so people could walk to the Mosque without burning the feet off themselves...but us tourists had to be awkward and wanted a picture in the idle of the courtyard standing in front of the Mosque....cue a quick dash and pose followed by a full pelt run back to the carpet!! Check out the picture I’m talking about and you will actually see that I’m hopping on the ground!!! The Mosque was beautiful though and the mosaic work on the inside was gorgeous though far less colourful than the other mosques we had visited. Usually they use blue, green or yellow tiles, whereas this one used white and silver which gave it a very simple but elegant feel.

By far the most amusing thing that day was how many pictures we were in! Our little group of 7 was quite the oddity and we had people coming up to us left right and centre asking to take our picture. Again some of them didn’t ask and subtly, or not so subtly, took pictures on camera phones, but a few came right over and asked...and once one did they all did!! I was standing at the stairs up to the Mosque waiting for the other guys when an old man came over and started talking to me...next thing I knew there was about 15 or 20 people standing around us looking at me! A group of school boys came up and called me Ma’am at another point in the day and asked to take my picture...and when we saw them again awhile later they asked again except this time they wanted to be in the picture with me! One other guy got a picture with me and when it was done he shook my hand to say thanks...except he didn’t let my hand go and got his friend to take a picture of us shaking hands too!! Another time in the Palace I was sitting at a pavilion in the shade waiting for the others to finish taking their pictures. There was no one around me when I sat down. Then there were a couple of people milling around and then the rest of my group arrived. We all sat for a minute or two in the shade talking and then looked up and saw the crowd we had drawn. They were circling us with cameras and sitting at the edge of our group getting their friends to take pictures of them sitting beside us!! It was quite amusing but got a bit creepy after awhile! I was kinda surprised that this was happening in Lahore. It didn’t surprise me in all the villages and small towns we went through but in my head I figured city people would probably be used to foreigners...but I was majorly wrong! We are just as much a rareity in the big cities as we are in the tiny rural villages!! The other really weird picture moment came when one of the guys who worked in the hotel knocked on the bedroom door with his camera phone in his hand and asked could he take a picture! Not exactly professionalism at its best!!

When we were finished our little tourist thing we headed for lunch and then back to the hotel to chill out for the rest of the evening. The following morning myself, Rhona, Derek and Graham decided to make the most of the few hours we had and decided to head to the Bazaar. We got in an autorickshaw and got him to bring us to the Bazaar we wanted to see...only to get there and the dude looked at us and said here it is...but its closed until 10!! I asked him why he didn’t tell us that before we got in the tuk tuk...and got a big smile in return...cheeky bastard!! We decided to make the best of a bad situation though and walked around for awhile. It was a bit of an experience. It wasn’t like the other bazaars we were used to as it was made up of streets more so than indoor alleys. We saw a pile of chicken feet abandoned in a gutter...a goat in a doorway...and a lot of men in their shops making something that we never quite managed to work out what it was! They were basically holding what looked like an old sock filled to the brim with something that they were sweating off, then gathering whatever was oozing out of it and making flat little, brown, sticky things!! We headed back to the hotel then and got ready to once again head for another border!

Once again me, Rhona, Sally and Graham sat up the fron taking everything in and enjoying the breeze. We were close to the border when we had our only scare in Pakistan! Everyone knows that Pakistan can be a dangerous place and there are risks involved in going there...we had a very smooth ride the whole way through, with no problems of any kind. Our hearts did go a little when this incident occurred. We were driving along and the next thing there was a massive bang and a flash of light! We were still sitting up front at this stage and I immediately started to try to figure out what I was supposed to do! See I had seen exactly what had happened but the others had just heard that bang! A truck had been driving in front of us and it was pretty tall. It clipped an electrical cable and pulled it clean out of the transformer box. The box blew up, the cable did too so all I saw was the cable flash and then smoke, followed by the bang...and then it slowly started to drift down towards our truck! In my head I was thinking...electric cable coming straight for me...can’t go up can’t go down what do I do!! Luckily the cable dropped enough and it ran along the windscreen...though I don’t think Greg and Rachel enjoyed the experience too much as it was still sparking...and it left a scorch mark across the windscreen! So that was our excitement on our last day in Pakistan! We got to the border then with little other drama. We all had to pile off the truck at the border...we managed to convince the border security not to make us take ALL the bags off the truck for a check so they randomly selected 3 bags of the whole truck...one of which of course had to be mine!! Then it was back on the truck to drive a few yards to India...but that’s a story for next time!!

Observations about Pakistan...their roads are freakin mental!! It is a free for all and when it’s in a city it’s a whole different story! It’s not just cars, there’s trucks, buses, mini buses, auto rickshaws, motor bikes, donkey and carts, horse and carts, pedestrians!! I’d like to say it was a survival of the biggest or loudest like Iran but being in a big orange truck with a police escort didn’t mean that we always won! It’s basically a survival of the ballsiest...usually the rickshaw drivers! On the day we were in Lahore we got a rickshaw from the old city to KFC for lunch (yes we went to a western restaurant...we just needed normal food...especially with all the sick stomachs!! And it was a deaf KFC too so all the staff were speaking sign language which was kinda cool!!). Anyway there was 4 of us in one rickshaw and 3 in the other. Me and Bui were sitting in the back of one which meant we were sitting backwards looking out at the traffic behind us. The dude was MENTAL!!! I reckon he should have had his tuk tuk set up so that when he turned on the engine his horn automatically started cause the dude did not stop pressing on it!! We were weaving in between horses and carts and motorbikes and trucks and police jeeps!! He didn’t even stop for them or move out of their way, the way he saw it he had people to get somewhere and he was going to do it in the quickest time possible. We also provided some amusement for the locals as me and Bui had a few shocked looks on our face every now and then when we realised how close some of the other traffic was. The 2 drivers also stuck together so we got some pretty cool pictures of each other in the tuk tuks with a plethora of emotions on our faces!

Throughout the week we also saw amusing things across the country...such as carts being pulled by donkeys, then horses and mules (didn’t think I knew the difference between a donkey and mule but I did once I saw an actual mule!!). Then the carts were being pulled by big ass oxen (or water buffalo I’m not sure which!!) and the most unusual and amusing one was when we passed a cart being pulled by a camel!! We also saw herds of goats, horses, cattle, oxen (again could be buffalo!!) and camels being moved along the side of the road with their herders.

The food is really nice...it was nice not to have to choose between kebab, kebab and kebab for food!! The chicken Biryani is really nice. They also serve a lot of Chinese food which is nice, so we were able to get chicken fried rice and sweet and sour chicken, chowmein and a couple other things that people had been craving over the last couple weeks. The sizes they serve are massive though. It is definitely a culture of order your food and share it with everyone at the table! Like the Iranians they also have a big sweet tooth and love their bakeries and sweet shops...though we didn’t really get to try these out like we did in Iran cause we were on the truck so much!

They are also very friendly people and are completely mesmerised by foreigners and will just stand there staring at you. Most of them have English because of the history of the country so it’s good to be able to talk to them. And of course their favourite question is what do you think of the country. Which we inevitably answer that we love it and it is beautiful...and it’s not one word of a lie!

Just a word on the history of Pakistan, I didn’t realise this but it has only been an independent country since around 1940. Before that it was part of British India. Then they decided to make it independent but because of the mix of religions they basically drew a line down the territory and had one half with Muslims and the other half with Hindu. The only problem with this was that there was a Muslim population in the west and the east so India was in the middle of East Pakistan and West Pakistan. After a number of years they realised having one country split in the middle by another country, governed by different laws and rules and West Pakistan being ruled from far away wasn’t going to work. Which is why East Pakistan was then made an independent country, which is now Bangladesh!  This whole process was known as Partition and is something that Pakistanis are very proud of after becoming independent. There is still a lot of fighting in the Kashmir region as both India and Pakistan want to call it their own. I believe at the moment it is in India and is unlikely to change but it is a cause of unrest in the area. According to the Lonely Planet, people from Kashmir are so sick of the situation most of them would just prefer to come independent themselves to stop all the unrest.

And so that was Pakistan! Again a country that I will probably never be in again but definitely enjoyed the experience of it! Was great to see the country side and the different scenery such as the desert and then the contrasting mountains...but by far the most enlightening part of the trip was being in Lahore and getting to talk to locals....though I’m still not quite comfortable with the staring and picture taking!!

Ps...Dad this is just for you!! I was reading the Lonely Planet when I came across a phrase that I knew you would approve of and would justify a number of comments you have made in the past!! You know the way you love to use the word “festering” in relation to things that generally don’t fester in the terms that we think of the word in? Well when reading about Lahore they said “over the years Lahore has burgeoned into a bustling and increasingly polluted metropolis with festering undercurrents”. So there ya go...definitely something that made me think of you!! J xx

Iran

After our messy night in Dogy we got up with slightly groggy heads to we hit the road for Iran. As we arrived at the border myself and the rest of the girls had to get all our get up on us for the first time...and it was weird! We had a couple of hours wait at the border while they processed us all through and we really pissed off the locals as there was a massive queue forming behind us! Also got a taste of how low women are regarded when men wouldn’t even move an inch to the side to let me past to go to the bathroom! Not an easy lifestyle for the women who live it all their lives...although I supposed they wouldn’t know any different! Once we finally got all the visas sorted we drove on to Tabriz....and got our first blow out on the way! Everyone was having a nice nap when there was a loud bang and a slam on the breaks! So out we all piled to sit at the edge of a dusty road while the wheel got changed...quite a welcome to Iran...and it was Friday the 13^th too!! Was quite funny though to see us girls sitting there head to toe in black at the side of a deserty road!! When we arrived in Tabriz it was evening time and getting dark and it was an amazing way to experience our first glimpse of Iranian life! The Iranian’s are famous for their picnics and they were out in force when we arrived. They all have little tents to shelter in and they literally set them up anywhere they can...including the side of motorways and major junctions! The city was all lit up with colourful lights and people just seemed to be relaxing and enjoying life. As we were driving along we drove by a wedding procession. It’s weird, as we drove through different towns throughout the day the one thing that kept jumping out at all of us was the amount of wedding dress shops we kept seeing...and the dresses could easily have rivalled Big Fat Gypsy Wedding dresses!! So when we saw the wedding procession (which makes it sound grander than it was...literally the groom driving the car, bride beside him, some flowers on the boot and the bonnet and another car driving near to it with some crazy ass dude hanging out of the car with a video camera on his shoulder!!!) we were surprised (even thought we shouldn’t have been!!) to see the bride all covered up in an elaborate white cloak! I’m not sure why I was so surprised by this, I mean the women just aren’t allowed to show skin but I guess I thought on their wedding day the rules were different! But apparently not. Ok she wasn’t head to toe in black, it was head to toe in white...and I’m sure she felt very dressed up and pretty in her shiny, sequenced white cloak but it just seemed very odd to me! Apparently Iranian weddings last a few days and on the day of the actual ceremony once the service is done and the meal is finished, the men go off into one room and the women to another and this is when the bride gets to take off her cloak and show off her dress!! So this is what greeted us in Tabriz on our first day in Iran!

In Tabriz we were staying in a hotel....which meant beds! And the fact that we had a western loo in our room (something that usually gets us quite excited!!) got completely overshadowed by the fact that we had proper towels!!! No handy travel, quick drying towels.....proper out of the hot press warm towels!! It also turned out that Hamid (our Iranian chaperone) knew the owner of the hotel...so he gave us free water for our rooms (a lot of it!!) and told us he would send up fresh fruit. We then headed for some food (kebabs surprise bloody surprise!!!) then back to the hotel for a good nights sleep!

We had all been planning on having a lie in with no alarm clocks the next morning...only to be woken up by banging on our door just before 9am! As Joe was the only guy in our room and us girls were not appropriately dressed to open the door (shorts and t-shirts pyjamas minus a headscarf is not acceptable we imagined!!) we made him get up to open the door....only to find out that we were locked in our room!! Joe tried for ages and then I got up to have a go but gave in!! Rosie then got up and had a go but in the mean time the guy at the other side of the door had gone down to reception to get a spare key! So next thing we knew the door was open; Rosie was standing in the middle of the room in her pyjamas with an Iranian guy standing looking at her! She made a mad dash across the room (ala Phoebe in Friends...arms flailing everywhere) to hop under the covers while me and Dee had already ducked under and were in fits of giggles!! Once we calmed down we discovered that along with the free water and fruit the hotel also gave us free breakfast and it was the guy delivering it to our room!! So we had a great giggle at the beginning of our first proper day in Iran....the giggles renewed once we saw that with the bread and tea for breakfast we had also been supplied with butter, cheese and CARROT jam!! This sounded totally bizarre to us but I have actually become quite a fan of it!! It’s lovely on a slice of bread in the morning!

In Tabriz we headed first for the Bazaar so that myself and the girls could buy a tunic and lighter headscarf so that we didn’t look quite so depressed in our black get up! We then headed to check out the Blue Mosque (yes every city does seem to have one!!) before going back to the hotel for a lie down! Walking around Tabriz was quite odd! We got stared at so much being Westerners but the weirdest thing to deal with was how women were completely ignored! Locals were quite happy to stop the lads on the street and talk to them and ask where they were from and while this was happening me and the girls would be standing at the edge of our group having a chat amongst ourselves being completely ignored!! Even the women seemed to be looking down on us and giving us dirty looks like we were shit on their shoe...and saying we were shit on the womens’ shoes while they are shit on the mens’ shoes made us seem pretty worthless in the eyes of the Iranians!!We did get ONE smile off a girl and my, Rosie and Dee got quite excited about that because this girl positively beamed at us and made eye contact with us!!

Next day we headed off to Babek Fort. This part of the blog is for everyone but aimed a lot at Triona cause I both blame her and love her for it!! Triona has been sending me documents with information about the different countries and cities that I am going to, to give me an idea of what there is to do and what to expect. In the Iran document along the top of the Babek Castle information she said that it looked absolutely amazing....so I knew I had to do it!! When we arrived at the starting point for the walk it was cloudy and cold and I was dressed like a right eejit in a long berka type thing...not exactly hiking gear!! The Lonely Planet had said the walk was a strenuous 2.5 hours...but Andrew said that that was in “fat old people” terms! So we said sure we’d give it a go and after Triona saying it looked amazing I knew I had to go and have a look cause when else would I ever get the chance! So the walk started with steps up the side of the mountain...for about half an hour!! At which point the view was coming and going as the clouds moved over the mountain! When we got to the top of the steps we then had to follow a trail around the side of the mountain...slightly less taxing but seemed to go on forever. And then when we got to the end of the trail....we had a nice rocky hill to climb up!! At this point we were all fairly exhausted and hot....not helped by our ridiculous attire!! The clouds over the mountain was really thick at this stage at it was impossible to see in front or behind us! It was a case of looking for a silhouette in the mist and following them! After about 2 and a half hours we got to the top....or what we thought was the top...damn false summits!!! The “guide” we had managed to get ourselves...the local guy who ran the kebab shop we ate lunch in (affectionately nicknamed Goat Boy by us!!)...told us we had another little bit to go....so we walked on!! When we got through the rocks we saw where we had to go...even more uphill....so we trudged on...and in the end it was TOTALLY worth it! We had climbed so high that we were up past the clouds that had hindered us so much on the way up! The sun was shining and the sky was blue and the castle was at the very, very top of the mountain, perched right at the summit. We climbed on up the steps leading to the castle and walked around exploring it. We stayed up there for probably about an hour, taking pictures and taking in the views. It literally felt like we were on top of the world and was totally amazing to see. Was a good place to listen to some music and think of home, so you were all up there with me! When we were finished taking it all in we headed back down to where Goat Boy was waiting for us...only to discover we were going back down the mountain a different way to how we came up! It was a nice steep decent down a gully first, followed by a trek along a stream trying to pick out tracks! We came across some beautiful waterfalls and it was lovely to walk through the forest and valley but again we weren’t really dressed properly! (I should mention at this point that Hamid, who had come with us, told me he was the President of the mountain that day and I could take off the headscarf if I wanted to! I don’t think I’ve ever removed something so quickly in my life before! I whipped it off and shouted “liberation” at the top of the mountain...much to Hamid’s amusement!! Even though I was still in the berka, losing the headscarf made it seem like less hassle!). After the headscarf came off I felt slightly more relaxed and ended up with the berka tied around my waist, along with my coat and the first couple of buttons open...very unIranian!! We did get quite worried at one stage, as our group had become pretty spread out, we had an hour left in the walk...with just over an hours sunlight and the clouds were closing in again! But we all eventually made it down in one piece and were very glad to discover that dinner was ready for us when we got back! So we literally ate dinner, cleaned up and went to bed after the 6 hour walk we ended up doing!! So Triona even though it felt like I was going to die on the side of an Iranian mountain in the most ridiculous outfit ever, it was totally worth it to see the views and to experience the feeling of being in the clouds! So as much as I may have cursed you on the way up (and I did a LOT!!)...once I got above the clouds you were completely forgiven and given all credit for what I experienced up there J

Oh just to mention before we started our mountain walk we were driving to the drop off point when an Iranian film crew came looking for us! They were from Tabriz TV and were filming a documentary on small Iranian villages and that day happened to be in the same village as us....saw the big orange truck, got curious and came after us! They stayed with us at lunch, filming us and talking to us about what we were doing and what we thought of Iran. The funniest moment for me was when I got off the truck one of the guys looked at me and said “Oh, you’re Muslim”, I said no I’m Irish and he looked slightly confused. A few minutes the same guy came over and asked if I was Persian, again I explained I was Irish and he said I looked Persian...so after the Turkey incident and now this incident I’m beginning to think if I ever need to escape the law this is the right part of the world for me to come to as I seem to fit in and even manage to confuse the locals!!!

Next day we had a short drive day to a campsite on the Caspian Sea. We had all just got our tents set up when a dude appeared with a rifle!! We then had to stand around for awhile while we tried to negotiate to stay at the site without pissing off the locals! We achieved it in the end and they even started setting up lights for us....not knowing that as soon as we were finished with dinner we would all bit going to bed anyway!! It was lovely to fall asleep to the sound of the waves and there was an amazing moon so I sat in my tent for awhile with the door open, looking out at the view! Not often I will get to say a moon gazed by the Caspian Sea!!!

The next morning I had a very surreal experience as I awoke to the sound of cows mooing...for a few very confusing seconds I felt like I was waking up in Daars and felt a little pang in my heart! We got up anyway to see the local woman first bringing the calf to the cow to feed and then she sat down and milked the cow old school style...no fancy parlour Rory!! We got breakfast over and done with quickly and then headed off to our next destination. We didn’t get very far before we had to pull off the road as we were stuck in 4wheel drive. So Greg and a few of the lads spent an hour or so trying different things to unjam it. We got there in the end but not until after attracting a crowd. Two Iranian guys got talking to the lads and came on the truck to have a look...and then went and bought us a box of chocolates...such is the Iranian way! Once we were all fixed up we headed on for our next stop, the village of Masuleh. This pace was absolutely gorgeous and we were taken with it straight away! It has a population of only 1,500 and apparently is at least a millennium old. We were told by a few locals how their houses were 400 years old...and literally stay in the family for that long. The village is set into the side of the mountain and on such a steep gradient that the roof of one hose is the pathway on the level above it! The Bazaar was truly bizarre as there were steps and alleyways all over the place to take you up or down and it was impossible to go exactly where you wanted to go! I could see shops from one level that I wanted to go see...and it could take me about a half hour to get there between stumbling across other shops and just not being able to find my way to the right level!!

In Masuleh, we were once again tent free as we were doing home stays. This is the general type of accommodation offered in the village (there is 2 hotels). I enjoyed the home stay though, most of the houses have a self contained apartment in them and that is what they rent out to tourists. The family keeps themselves separate to us and we don’t see them or anything. Though I did see the little girl who lived there as she was playing on the porch when I went in one time and we also got locked out at one stage so rang the bell and an older son (a very tall dude!!) opened the door for us. They were just as curious about us and as we had to walk by their family room to go upstairs we would often see them looking out at us as we walked in and out. We had a rather relaxing couple of days in the village. Metti, the guy who organised our accommodation told us about a walk we could do to go up to a big waterfall. So on our second day Andrew, Dee, Little Kev, Bui and I headed off on the walk. You know how I said I had’nt regretted any of the walks I had done...yeah well this on e I did! We had a very rough map to go by and ended up quite obviously where we weren’t supposed to be! All throughout the trip Andrew has been our trek leader and up to now he has never got us in any trouble...that day he did it in bucket loads! At first we were on a nice but steep track...and then it got to the stage that there was no track...just a lot of thorny bushes!! However we kept going and after about 15 minutes of having thorns sticking into every part of us (for once I was glad I was covered head to toe with little skin exposed...I would seriously have cursed shorts and t=shirt azt that point!!) we asked Andrew, who had gone a little ahead if it got any easier. He replied that there was a couple of “challenging” bits ahead but that we would then be at the summit. The rest of us stood for a few minutes discussing our options...go back down the hill through the brambles...which wasn’t very appealing cause we knew how overgrown it was...or keep going up and hope that Andrew didn’t get us killed!! So we put a little more faith in him and kept going up....still not sure how much of a good idea it was. We literally ended up crawling on all fours with thorns and brambles stuck in our hair, clothes and bags! There was squeals and yelps coming from all of us...in between cursing Andrew!! We did eventually make it to the top with scratches and holes in our clothes! I have now affectionately termed this part of the trip the “Scramble in the Brambles”!! Once we did make it to the top we then had to figure out where to go! So we picked a direction and went that way! The hike did not get any easier! We were on a very narrow edge with a steep drop down to a rocky river bed!! And we got to a stage where we couldn’t go any further...so we had to go down the steep drop!! We thought we would be able to cross the river but on closer inspection it wasn’t going to be easy! I did a little recon further up the river (further ripping my clothes!!) and came back to report that we couldn’t go that way. We found a point to cross as long as the lads helped me and Dee with our short little legs to nop across a couple of rocks and not fall in and soak ourselves!. Then it was up the steep incline on the other side...at which point we came to the road that lead back down to the village! After a couple of hours “walking” we were only 10 minutes from the village and the truck had been in view pretty much the whole time!! We bumped into a few locals and showed them the map but it made no sense to them. So while the boys did their manly business with the locals me and Dee stood off to the side again and got quite obviously laughed at, at one point!! At this point we were all up for giving up but headed first to a rooftop to have some melon we had bought. There was a group of Iranian girls at the other side of the roof and they came over and offered us some food, so then we offered them back some melon. We then got a few pictures taken with them...which was quite funny as me and Dee were a sweaty mess after the walk with our clothes all ripped and these four girls were absolutely stunning looking!! When we were finished we headed back to the village to go for showers! Afterwards the other guys found Metti and he told them we had started in the wrong place so the guys gave it another go...I stayed where I was, freshly showered and went for some lunch and sat around chatting for the afternoon and got extremely relaxed. And that was pretty much how I spent my last few hours in Masuleh...sitting around relaxing, taking in the gorgeous scenery, watching the clouds closing in and walking around and getting lost in the Bazaar, it was amazing.

We were up early the next morning to hit the road for Esfahan. We had another small delay when we stopped for a pee stop and discovered that we had an oil leak. Once that was fixed though we drove on. It was at this stage that we all really started to notice the landscape changing. We had all expected Iran to be flat and barren and all deserty but up to that point we had been up in the mountains which were full of forests and green as far as we could see. But that day as I looked out the window we went from green fields to desert for as far as we could see. As Esfahan was too far away to travel to in one day we got to do a desert camp somewhere in the middle of Iran. It was possibly one of my favourite nights so far! 5 of us abandoned the idea of tents and slept on the roof of the truck! We set up the roll mats, chucked our sleeping bags up and that was us done! While dinner was being cooked a few of us starting playing a game of Frisbee and then we had the brainwave of having a game of rounders, because we were out in the middle of nowhere Hamid told us it was oj to take off our headscarves and all the crap, so for the first time in a week in the baking sun I had my headscarf off, the trousers rolled up and only a vest top on me! All the lads too full advantage too and whipped their t=shirts off...partly because of the heat and partly just because it was in Iran and totally illegal!! The game of rounders was great fun and I even managed to get a home run!! While we were all sitting down for dinner lightening started in about 5 different places around us. It was amazing to sit and watch it and see how much the sky was lighting up. We sat around chatting for awhile and then it was time to go to bed...so we climbed up onto the truck and settled ourselves in! The sky was so clear and we lay there looking at the stars for awhile and then the most amazing moon came up. It was so big and brilliantly orange. It was weird to wake up a few times during the night and to see how the moon was changing position. We woke up the next morning to the sound of the cook group getting breakfast ready, and it was perfect timing as we got a lovely sunrise view from the roof.

Once breakfast was over and we were all packed up we headed off for Esfahan. When we got there we sorted out hostel rooms and then headed for food. The heat was unreal at this stage so when we were finished with lunch we all ended up going back to the hostel and just have a nap! We got up then to head to out for dinner. We went to a rooftop restauarant at a hotel...and it was lovely. After a couple of weeks of living off kebabs in dodgy looking joints it felt like we were really treating ourselves! The lads even managed to have steaks, something that had been missing from their diet since Europe really!! The view from the rooftop was lovely and it was nice to just sit there and relax for awhile taking in a new city. When we were finished dinner we headed to Iman Square to have a wander around. Esfahanis are a huge fan of picnics like all Iranians and the Square was magical. Iman Square is the second largest square in the world (after Tiananman Square in Beijing for those of you who are curious!!) and it was filled with hundreds of families out spending time together. We all got some ice-cream and wandered around the Square (in actually fact a rectangle!!) taking it all in. There was kids everywhere playing ball games and roller blading and little horse and carts that you could hire for a jaunt around the Square. It was also while we were walking around that we got stopped by the tourist police. At first we thought we were in trouble but they were just curious as to where we were from and got even more curious when they realised we were all from different countries! They asked us all about the trip and we showed them the itinerary and a picture of the truck, one of them even said he would give up his uniform and join us if we needed a handsome escort! Another thing they said was that it was good to see tourists out smiling and taking time out. They had asked us if we were with a group and when we said yes they asked did we have down time. When we said yes they said it was nice to see that because usually tourists are on a strict schedule and are always running around to get to the next thing! The tourist police had a little hut and told us if we needed anything or just wanted to call in for a chat we were always welcome, and so off they want and we stood there in awe once again at how nice the people were! As we walked around so many people said hello to us, including us girls and asked us how we were.

Next day we got up early enough to have breakfast before we headed down to Iman Square to meet Syed, a guy who owns a carpet shop on the Square but who has been working with the company for a number of years when the groups go through. When we got to his shop we all piled in, sitting on the piles of carpets and were immediately provided with tea...and lots of it! Syed then changed our money for us...literally dealing in millions with the exchange rate and we all had rather large wads of cash in our wallets when we were finished. Once all that was done he then took us on a tour of the Bazaar Bozorg. It was actually really cool to have someone to show us around as usually when we go to bazaars we just end up getting lost!! He first took us to the best teahouse in Esfahan which was just off a caravanseri in the Bazaar. The carvanseri we were in was 400 years old and the purpose of them was for people to come and park up their caravan and rest their horses. While they were there they could sell their goods and make some money before they continued on their journey on the Silk Road. The tea house was really cute and cluttered. The ceiling was filled with chandeliers and light shades and the walls were covered in paintings and pictures. People could go in there for tea and shisha and just relax...and of course they had a mixed section and a men only section!! When we were finished there he then brought us to a tilers shop. The tiler knew we were coming and was ready to give us a little demonstration. Years ago they used to use handmade tiles that were about half an inch thick but nowadays they use factory produced tiles. They first draw out the design and then etch it onto the tiles lightly. They use natural ink that comes from grinding down rocks from different regions that produce different colours. When the rock is ground down they mix it with water to make it into a workable ink. Then they start to paint the tiles. Once the tile is finished it is then fired for about 7 hours to seal it and this also helps to bring out the colours of the ink. This process means that the colours on the tiles never fade and keep their vivid colour for years, which is the reason why so many of the mosques we have see have managed to keep their splendour. It was really interesting to see how the process worked. We then moved on to the carpet part of the Bazaar where again we learned all about how the Persian carpets are made. Syed brought us to the design shop first where we saw a guy busy at work on a magnificent looking carpet design. When the design is done it is then made up. The carpets aren’t made in shops, they are generally made at home by people as they can take anywhere up to 3 years to make! When they are finished they are then brought to the carpet preparation shops where the ends are tied off, giving the carpet its tassels and then they are pinned down and stretched out as they are often not perfect measurements due to the fact they are handmade in a house. Once all that is done the most bizarre part of the process happens when the carpets get flamed! They literally take a big massive blow torch to the back of the carpets and run the flame over it! We found out that this helps to seal the carpet and also proves that it is a genuine handmade carpet as a factory produced one would just go up in flames apparently!

After our carpet lesson we wandered around for a little longer with Syed bringing us to more carvanseris, some of which were amazing and much more upscale than the first one he brought us to...amazing that even hundreds of years ago they had different classes of accommodation!! We also went into a spice mill which I loved! The first thing that hits you is the different smells and aromas. The mill is a huge chank of rock that has been used for 400 years. It was a pretty massive heavy rock the day we saw it and Syed told us that it was absolutely huge when they first started using it but that over the years it had worn down. As we were standing there the guy who worked at the mill appeared out of somewhere and started giving us tastes of the different spices and getting us to guess what they were. I got the first couple but when we started getting them right he started bringing out harder ones...ending with ground dried lemon which they provide on tables over here along with the salt and pepper! It was really cool to see this and see the old school way of doing things and how they still exist today. That was the end of our little tour then with Syed and myself and the girls did a bit of shopping to get a new tunic. We then headed back to the hostel to meet up with the boys and attempt a walk that was in the Lonely Planet. And attempt we did...and failed miserably!! We managed to follow the first part of the walk but the road names were different to what the book said and eventually we found ourselves in the middle of what looked like the homeless part of Esfahan! It was really dusty as it was right beside a building site but there were old people lying about all over the place, sheltering in tiny little shelters they had made out of cardboard and that. It was very odd and we got some stares walking through it! When we got to the other side of it we were standing around trying to figure out what to do and where the hell we were when an old m an who spoke a bit of English walked by and took pity on us. We asked him how to get back to the Bazaar and he literally walked the whole way there with us, which took probably about 20 minutes or so. Once we were back where we knew we all grabbed an ice cream to try cool down and headed back to the hostel to get out of the searing heat. On our way back to the hostel we got stopped again by the tourist police right by their hut and got invited in for a chat. So there we were sat in the middle of Iman Square having a chat with the police in their little hut! The guy that day was telling us he had just finished college and was doing his mandatory 18 months service. In Iran when a boy turns 18 he has to sign on for 18 months but if he is in college then he can complete his studies and then do his service. We were telling the guy about our trip and he was saying he would love to do it but cant do anything he wants to do until he was finished his 18 months. From what he was saying you could tell he hated the fact he couldn’t do something with his degree straight away or move away. Though by the looks of it his life didn’t seem to be too stressful with the tourist police!

That evening we all went down to Iman Square to have a picnic outside of Syed’s shop and to join in with the locals. We found a pizza place and were very relieved to be able to eat something other than kebab and bloody rice!! So we sat around talking for a couple of hours drinking tea and watching all the goings on in the Square.  It was really nice just to sit there and experience what Esfahanis experience day to day.

Next day we had a fairly slow start with everyone just chilling out. Nobody really did anything until it was time to go get lunch, and even then we took the easy option and went to the restaurant we went to on the first day that was just down the road from the hostel. As much as we were glad to finally get some really hot weather it stopped us doing a lot of things during the day cause it was too warm to walk around...and it didn’t help that we couldn’t wear shorts and t-shirts!! I did have a lovely lunch that day thought trying and Iranian dish called Tachin of chicken or something along those lines! It was basically half a chicken roast and stuffed inside a (rather large) boiled and friend rice cake! It was amazing! Really, really tasty and the rice cake was lovely too! Later that evening when it had cooled down slightly a few of us headed back to the Square. The boys wanted to go shopping so while they did that myself and Dee went to visit Iman Mosque on the Square. It was absolutely beautiful...and truly massive. Me and Dee were getting frustrated at how our cameras just couldn’t capture the enormity of it, or how beautiful the tile work was, and after visiting the tile shop the day before it made me appreciate the work that went into it all the more. Building of the mosque began in 1611 and it took 25 years to complete it. The Mosque is unique in that it has a double dome. The interior dome is 36 metres high and the exterior one 51 metres. Because of the dome within a dome there is an echo in the Mosque and if you tap your foot on the slab of black slate right in the centre of the room you can hear it echoing a number of times. Apparently in the dead of night with no other sounds you can hear it 17 times, though during the day the most people usually get is 7 or 8 echoes. It was cool to hear it though and added even more to the magnificence of the place.

When we were finished in the Mosque we were standing outside when a guy came over to talk to us and asked if we were with “the big truck” we said yes and he said he had been talking to Greg and Rosie earlier that day. He invited us into his carpet shop for some tea and as we had a few minutes before we had to meet the boys we went in. He gave us a little lesson in interpreting the carpets. There are 2 types of Persian carpets, classical and nomadic. The classical are the ones that get designed before they are woven while the nomadic ones do not have a design and come from the weavers head as they go along. Each nomadic carpet tells a story with a lot of symbolism woven into it bringing good luck and warding off bad health and that. Again really interesting to hear all this, although I think the dude thought he was going to make a sale at the end of it!! Luckily a large group walked into the shop and we seized the opportunity and said goodbye. Then as we walked swiftly up the Square so as not to be late we got stopped byt yet another old dude on a bike asking us where we were from. It turned out this guy was a tour guide called Ali, he used to be a geology teacher but was retired and as they retire young he had plenty of energy left so he decided to become a tour guide (life history much!!). anyway we chatted with him for a few more minutes and then finally made it to Syed’s shop where we met the others. When we got there we were given more tea and then Rhona and Rachel arrived, followed by Brian and Ollie (an English guy who was staying in our hostel who was biking from South East Asia to Turkey), followed shortly after by Darren and Derek! So once again Syed’s shop was fairly full!! While Rhona agonized over which carpet to buy the rest of us popped ourselves out on the grass again and ended up having another picnic that night! While we were sitting their Rachel asked if I had seen the bridge and when I said no her face said I was missing out...so once again the fear kicked in and I went and asked Syed how to get to the bridge. It turns out there was 2 main ones along the river and both were a 20 minute walk from the Square. So me, Joe, Rhona and Peter decided we would walk to 20 minutes to the first one, then walk along the river bank to the next one and then back up to the hostel. Well, Syed’s 20 minutes is a lot different to ours! It took us close to an hour to walk to the first bridge which was the Khaju Bridge. The bridge was built in 1650 and is the nicest bridge in Esfahan, and according to Syed, in all of Iran. It is 110 metres long and is 2 levels, the bottom half of which was used for regulating the water flow. It was beautiful and wonderfully lit up at night. The only disappointment was the fact that due to a 15 year water shortage the river is dammed up and so there is no actual water on the river bed! We then headed upstream (can I say that if there was no water present??!!) to Chubi Bridge which was built in 1665 and is 150 metres long with 21 arches along it. The third bridge we came across was a new bridge that was contructed for car traffic but they had it lit up blue so I called it the Blue Bridge. There was a slight bit of water pooled around this bridge so there was a nice photo with the lights reflected in it, which was about the best thing I can say about this bridge! Then we got to the last bridge we wanted to see, the Si-O-Seh Bridge, or the Bridge of 33 Arches. This bridge is 298 metres long and was built between 1599 and 1602. The bridge also served as a dam and is still used today for this purpose. When they get good rainfall over a period of time, they open up the dam to allow some of the water through to the other bridges...but this hasn’t happened in a number of years. The 4 of us then headed back up to the hostel, after the walk that was supposed to take us about an hour took just over 2!! But it was totally worth it and we all enjoyed the walk as once again there was loads of people sitting out with friends in the little parked area that was all along the river bank.  I was glad in the end I got to see a good bit of Esfahan even if it was all in the last few hours of the last day. It is truly a beautiful city and really enchanting. Myself and Rhona were saying to each other that it was our favourite place so far but we weren’t able to say why! I can’t honestly say there was one thing that made me fall in love with it, it’s almost like the city just puts a spell on you! The people are so friendly that you can’t help but feel completely welcome and they are so helpful. They invite you to their house for tea at the drop of a hat and just want to see how foreigners perceive them and most importantly give foreigners something good to say about them and Iran so that people know it’s not what they imagine it to be. I also never drank so much tea in my whole life...which isn’t hard considering I never drank tea! Luckily they serve it in teeny little glass cups so I can manage to drink it...once I drop a couple of sugar cubes in first!! The people are so kind and polite that you feel you can’t say no to them when they offer you something...for example when I was buying a headscarf I was offered what looked like a maggot!! My face must have been a picture cause the guy laughed and said it was a mulberry picked straight from the tree! So I tried it and it was lovely...and really refreshing! So Esfahan is definitely one to put on the list people! Off the beaten track but totally worth it!

We left Esfahan early the next morning to head for Persepolis....some ancient ruins just north of Shiraz. Work began on building the city in 518BC...so they are freakin old!! We got to the ruins at about 3.30 and it was nearly still too hot to walk around! But we ambled along with the Lonely Planet under our arms and had a walk around. It is a pretty impressive site to see. Its not nearly as big as Ephesus was, but we were very glad of that. Everything was really close together and it was amazing to see how well some of the things were preserved considering how old they were. As we were walking around a couple of Iranian guys stopped to talk to us and started walking with us and asked if we had time to go for coffee, we genuinely didn’t have time as we had to meet the truck at 5.30 but we were glad to have the excuse after the guy asked Rosie what she thought of the government. We had been warned that we might be asked this question and to just reply that we didn’t really know much about it so didn’t have an opinion. Rosie tried this and they guy asked again a coyuple more times so we started to amble off in a different direction and said we didn’t have time to sit down for tea. Sometimes I felt bad refusing to go for tea when the people are being so friendly but I’d rather that then got stuck listening to a lecture about the Iranian government for an hour or two! We had a bush camp that night then on a farm just up the road from Persepolis. It was all very dusty but it was comfortable and we all just wanted to relax out of the heat for awhile so were glad of the shade of the trees! A few of the workers stayed with us and one guy, Hassan, even had some dinner with us! He declared his love for Kev and then later told me I had beautiful eyes and face and voice...and then called me either a monkey or a mannequin!!! Gotta love the Iranians!!

We were up again early the next day to head to Shiraz to drop off the people who were flying over Pakistan. It was very odd driving off without 9 people when we got there. We dropped them to their hostel and then we all stood on the street saying goodbye! We kinda drew a crowd as well firstly we were in a big orange truck! Secondly we were foreigners but mostly because at first we were all saying bye and then after a couple minutes we all just sadi screw this and started giving each other hugs! I know they will only be gone for 2 weeks but we have lived in each other’s pockets for 8 weeks now so it will be weird to not see them every day. And it was very odd when the truck drove off and there were only 11 of us in it! It felt very, very empty and we now suddenly have loads of space! We probably won’t be able to cop when the others join us again!! Once we had said our goodbyes and took a few photos we headed off on the road to Yazd. We kind of had to double back on ourselves to go back up north but we got some lovely scenery again and it was nice to sit back and relax.

Our hostel in Yazd was lovely....and air conditioned which always makes it more appealing...another thing that helped was the western toilets and the normal towels!!! We spent our first night chilling at the hostel and having dinner...meatballs and chips....NOT chicken or rice!!! Nice change to the diet!!! We had a lie in the next morning...didn’t get up and shower until 10!! First time since the trip started that we did that!! Then we went in the hunt of some food and had a wander around the city. It was really hot but not as bad as Esfahan so it was bearable to walk around in the early afternoon. We got back to the hostel then and managed to get (illegal) access to Facebook and Skype which we all got very excited about. Then some of us headed out to attempt another Lonely Planet walk around the city. We cheated slightly as the walk came right by our hostel so instead of starting at the start point we started there and skipped the first little bit...but I had already seen the couple of mosques that we chopped out during my morning walk so I didn’t mind so much! We had fun on the walk, we waited until about half 5 to head off so that we weren’t walking in the really hot weather, which actually turned out to be a good idea as the sun setting cast a lovely orange glow over the city and as the walls of the city are all made from mud it looked amazing. We saw the Jameh Mosque (which was just up the road from the hostel...and unfortunately covered in scaffolding), Khan-e Lari, which is a 150 year old preserved house with lovely stained glass windows and was a nice glimpse of what life was like foe a well off family in the Qajar-era. We then moved on to Alexander’s Prison and the Tomb of the 12 Imams. We then walked on and came across another couple of sites, which we weren’t sure what their purpose was but they were pretty! Once we were finished our walk we came back to the hostel and waited around for about half an hour before we headed back into town to the Amir Chakhmaq Square to go to a thing called Zurkhaneh. When we were in Esfahan myself and Dee got talking to a tour guide who told us to go to this thing called Zurkhaneh. We didn’t get the chance to go in Esfahan so when I found out it was also in Yazd I knew I had to go. So a few of us popped down to check it out. It’s hard to explain exactly what it is. It’s held in a gym and means “house of strength”. A group of men stand around in a sunken pit and perform a series of ritualised feats of strength, while the leader pounds on a drum and sings and chants songs and recites poetry. The men do push ups and swing around wooden batons (only way I can describe them!) and then start spinning around really fast. There were times when I though they guys were about to start break dancing! At first there was just one guy doing it and just after he finished two little kids came in. Then the first guy joined back in and then one other big burly guy joined in. It was really cool to see and like I said, hard to explain but I’m glad I got to see another bit of Iranian culture...strange as it may have been!

Yazd itself is slightly different to Esfahan and we had to wear our headscarves in the hostel. When I was walking around I also felt slightly out of place. In Esfahan there was a big range of what the women wore, from full chadors to just a long coat over jeans. In Yazd I noticed straight away that every female other than young kids was in full chador...so me walking down the street in a purple tunic and headscarf made me stand out even more!! So that was slightly odd! But I’m getting used to just ignoring these things so I still enjoyed the little walk around...and getting slightly lost in land after endless lane of mud walled alleys!!

Other observations of Iran...the driving is horrific!! The Lonely Planet said “while traffic in major cities rarely goes fast enough to cause a serious accident, never underestimate the possibility of dying a horrible death while crossing the road. Vehicles never stop at pedestrian crossings. You will quickly realise you have little alternative to stepping out in front of the traffic and hoping that the drivers will slow down”. And never have the Lonely Planet written a truer word!! They advise that until you get the confidence to just walk to follow an Iranian as the cross the road...and to have them car side!! Which we did...and in the absence of an Iranian we sent one of the lads car side, figuring that the Iranians probably wouldn’t be too bothered about hitting a woman!! The driving is absolutely crazy though...and it is literally survival of the biggest! The bigger your vehicle the more that others will give way to you...so being in our big orange truck gave us a serious advantage!! 

The food in Iran was also OK...yes I was seriously sick of kebabs...not helped by the fact we had spent 3 weeks in Turkey eating kebabs there too!! But every now and then we managed to find something other than kebabs, like a hot dog, falafel or pizza and then in our last hostel meatballs and curries. I quite liked the Iranian breakfast of bread (not like our bread) and egg and fruit. I was also very taken with carrot jam after my first impression being that it was going to be the weirdest thing ever!! I also tried a bit of camel stew in Yazd which wasn’t so bad! The Iranians seem to serve rice with everything, just like the Turkish serve bread with everything! It’s lovely basmati rice usually but holy crap they give a massive portion!! They also have a serious sweet tooth with bakeries everywhere selling everything from break to cakes and biscuits. And they also have major sweet shops basically in a pic’n’mix type set up! Some of the pastries and biscuits are lovely and their cakes are quite tasty too! We enjoyed a little selection of pic’n’mix on one of our picnics in Esfahan and the sweets were quite nice...similar to what we would have at home but less jellies and more chocolate based. We did manage to find a shop that sold Haribo jellies in Masuleh so we stocked up on those....you know me and my jellies!! So once again not starving in Iran despite my worst fears before the trip!

And that pretty much sums up my time in Iran. I’m sure I’ve left some stuff out...and we are here for another couple of days but then in Pakistan so no internet so I said I’d update everyone when I got the chance!! So until next time when I have stories of Pakistan to tell I will say goodbye!!

The last leg of Turkey!

Our campsite in Goreme was really nice and when we got there we found out we could stay in a cave if we wanted to rather than our tents. We went to investigate the cave and found that it was more of a basement that had one original cave wall...but as it meant not being in our tents for a night we said we would give it a go!! It was pretty cold when we arrived so any chance to avoid the tents was a welcome one! Our only option for something to do that night was to head into town to a bar called Fat Boys for a few drinks and a couple of games of pool (I know terrible that that was our ONLY option!!). We ended up having a good night and I even managed to pot a couple of balls when we played a pool game so go me! When we got back to the “cave” we found that there was only a few of us sleeping there...one of which was Brian, one of our snorers. So the lads came up with the idea of soundproofing him and used the spare mattresses to build a little fort around him! Was quite hilarious and a wonder that he didn’t wake up while the construction was happening! It seemed to work though and we didn’t hear him snore too often!

Next morning we got up to head for a walk in the Meskender Valley...we didn’t quite go the way we were supposed to go and ended up wandering around the valley not finding any of the things we were expecting to encounter along the way. But it was still amazing. The valleys are all quite rocky and it surprised me that there were so many little farm type things in them. It seemed like people grabbed any land that was flat enough to plant stuff on to make a living. We climbed to the top of a couple of the larger rock mountain things and even got to explore a little in one of the cave houses. We then went for a walk down into Goreme itself to have a wander around. Our campsite was at the top of a rather steep hill so it was a slight bit of a challenge, especially after spending the morning hiking. But the downhill trek wasn’t as bad a s the uphill with my legs starting to feel the burn as soon as the road started to get a little steeper! Once we got back to the campsite though we just relaxed for awhile before getting ourselves ready for a BBQ down at Fat Boys...me and the girls even straightened our hair for the occasion!! We ended up having a great night and after 4 weeks of travelling and having slight withdrawal symptoms for going out dancing we finally found ourselves in a club! There had been quite a crowd in Fat Boys including a group of 4 who were driving from London to Sydney in a London taxi car and a group of Canadian cyclists. We spent some time chatting to them all and managed to fit an obscene amount of people into a small decking area for a shisha. There were legs and arms all over the place and when one person moved it inevitably disturbed about 4 other people in the process!! So after a “moderate” amount of alcohol had been consumed we found out about a cave  club around the corner....there was no stopping me and Dee once we heard about that and we hopped up to head for a dance. And dance we did! I believe we got back home at about 4.30 in the morning...which doesn’t seem that bad except that I had to be up for breakfast group at 7.30! when my alarm went off and I popped my head out of my tent I was greeted with a rather unusual scene....about 15 hotair balloons floating in a flawlessly blue sky! I didn’t quite believe my eyes so popped my head back into the tent for the camera to take a picture to remind myself later on!!

We were going on a bus tour that day and it was a very odd experience to not be in our truck...and even stranger to look over and see Greg our driver sitting in one of the seats with us! The tour guide took us to a number of different places around Goreme including Pigeon Valley (literally where pigeon nest and they go and collect their crap for fertiliser!!), an underground city, which went 8 storeys down. It was amazing to see it, they only had 10% of the city open to the public and what we saw was huge so it was nearly impossible to comprehend how big it was and how the people who built it managed it. The guide told us people could generally only live underground for 3 months...and I’d well believe him! The size of the tunnels and having to crouch down so much was really uncomfortable and the lack of light was weird too. They had ventilation shafts every now and then but I couldn’t imagine living there at all. The tour guide next took us to see the Fairy Chimneys. These are...well hard to explain to be honest!!! Its like towers of rock that have been eroded over time into cone shapes but the rock that was at the top was a harder type so it didn’t erode, leading to a narrow bit of rock supporting a table like rock balancing on top...see hard to explain! Cool to look at though and we all took a bit of time out to just sit in the sun and look at them and out over the valleys taking in the views. At this stage we were all getting fairly tired and slightly losing the will to get off the bus at every stop we were brought to. It got to the stage where one or two of us would get off, take the obligatory picture and then get back on the bus! We got back to the campsite at about 5.30....I had to start cooking dinner at 6 so I grabbed a quick 20 minute nap before getting up again! Was fairly shattered at this stage so once cook group was finished (and we had all seen an amazing sunset from the campsite during dinner) I headed straight to bed!!

Next morning some of the group were up at the crack of dawn to get a hot air balloon ride over the Cappadocia Valley. The guys who did it said it was absolutely amazing and the pictures look pretty cool. Once we were all back at camp it was time to hit the road and say goodbye to Goreme. Our first of 3 bushcamps took us to a place called Suleyman (or something along those lines!!). As we were setting up our tents an army guy with a big gun walked by, looked a little curious and then left us along! The campsite was quite nice and we gave some amusement to the locals...and them to us when we saw one guy out walking his cow! As is normal with bush camps we all headed to bed early enough as there was nothing else for us to do really! Next day we hit the road again to head to Nemrut Dagi. This is a mountain that a king used as a memorial, tomb type thing to his wife. The roads were majorly sketchy...extremely narrow and especially steep...quite the challenge in a massive truck! When we did get to the top of the mountain (2,150m high) we parked precariously in the steep car park. I’ve never experienced what it is like to be drunk when I am totally sober...but that day we all experienced it! We were walking as normal to get off the truck but as it was at such an angle we were falling all over the place! A very odd experience it has to be said!! We had a bit of a climb from the car park then to the top of the mountain to see the sun set. It was nice to see the view from the top but a big cloud came and ruined the sunset just a little! When we got back down myself and Dee went to the cafeteria to have a drink...but mostly to just be out of the wind and cold!!  We were just beginning to wonder where everyone was when Rhona came in and said the Big Kev had slipped on some ice and was on his way to hospital with a possible broken ankle! We all hoped it was just a bad sprain but then word filtered back that he had broken his leg. It was also in the cafeteria that I was told I looked Turkish and had a Turkish face!! So apparently I fitted in! I also had my first truck sleep that night as I wasn’t bothered pitching my tent in the wind...was actually quite comfortable!!

We were supposed to get up early the next day to walk up the mountain again for sunrise...but when we all woke up it was spilling rain so didn’t bother! We hit the road as soon as we could and took the perilous journey back down the mountain and onto some flatter ground! We were headed in the direction of Lake Van and stopped about 100k short of it after Chris (who was navigator that day) spotted a lovely camping spot just beside a little river. And that was where the fun started. I got my tent pitched fairly quickly and the Greg was looking for a volunteer to do the fire. So I said I was free. I really didn’t think through the fact that it was in the high 20s anyway temperature wise when I decided I should build a fire! But up I hopped onto the roof of the truck to get wood out of the lockers. Then once the fire was lit I had to stand by and add wood, poke and prod it! After awhile the fire looked good so I was relieved of my duties. The truck shower had been set up for the first time on the trip as it had been very warm on the truck that day so I went ot the tent to get ready for a shower. The truck shower is basically a shower hose dropped into a bucket of water with a small pump of some kind that makes it seem like a real shower...and as it is solar powered and it was scorching that day the water was actually warm!! When I came out of my tent dressed in bikini top and shorts it took me a couple minutes to realise we had been joined by a couple of the locals who seemed a bit curious about the whole set up we had! We were close enough to the Iranian border at this stage for the whole women being covered up thing to start kicking in...so someone walking around in shorts and a bikini top would not be a usual thing for the locals!!! We asked them to move around to the other side of the truck while I had my shower but they said no! So we then had to take out the shower tent and put that up. One of the guys very kindly offered his help...which I found slightly ironic as if he hadn’t of been there we wouldn’t have had to bother with the tent at all!! Eventually we got the tent up and in I hopped...only for one of the sneaky little bastards to go around the other side of the truck and look through the gap!! Brian and Joe had been standing guard outside so I let a yell and one of them went and moved him!! So it was quite the experience and gave me a little glimpse of what life was going to be like in Iran once we go there!! We had another few visitors that night from the local town. Obviously word had spread that there was a party down by the river and a taxi with a few lads and a few bottles of beers turned up! They opened the doors of the taxi and started playing music and basically standing around watching us! After an hour or so they must have got bored and they left leaving us in peace. It was at this point that Greg and Rachel sat us down for a family meeting and explained to us what life in Iran was going to be like....and it sounded pretty scary! From that night on we all had to buddy up...no going to the loo alone at night, keep tents pitched close together, when we got to Iran us girls aren’t allowed out on our own! It all seemed very intense and after the shower experience I was slightly apprehensive!

Next day we headed off early to get to Dogybiscuit (not the actually spelling of the town but close enough to it!!). we stopped at Lake Van for a picnic and got swamped by a load of sheep and goats as we sat there! When we got to the campsite in Dogy, Rachel told us that we could sleep in little huts rather than our tents if we wanted to! The huts were raised platforms with bright yellow tarp to make the walls and ceiling. Of course us being us decided hell yes we would sleep in the...another excuse not to pitch tents and to say we slept somewhere new!! We were having a BBQ that night in celebration of Andrew and Dave’s birthdays so we were in for a good night. We also had to get rid of all the alcohol off the truck as we were going to Iran the next day....so an epic party ensued! We played Three Man again...and its safe to say I do not remember much of the night! Usually pictures bring back the memories the next day....even that did not help me piece together the night!! So I can only imagine that it was a great night with laughter and fun all round!!

Overall I really enjoyed Turkey. We were here for 3 weeks and saw so much. We saw city life in Istanbul, got to experience Anzac Day, got to enjoy a bit of sun holiday resort lifestyle, take in the scenery of Turkey, which was not what I expected it to be. Enjoyed Turkish food and traditions. Had a stag party and a wedding! Saw ruin after ruin...and got a bit sick of them. Ate kebab after kebab...and got seriously sick of them!! But Turkey is amazing. There is so much more to it than a 2 week sun holiday in Bodrum or any of those places! To people who want to go to Turkey, go off the beaten track...stay in a treehouse in Olympos with the beach just down the road, or a little hut in Oludinez with a gorgeous beach out your front door and a full resort town  a 5 minute walk away...gives you the best of both worlds! I can honestly say I don’t think I will ever go to any current popular resort in Turkey as I have seen what else the country has to offer!! I think you can all probably tell I loved Turkey and will miss it! But am very excited to head off to a new country and see what other adventures and cultures are to come!

More of Turkey

So I finished off the last blog by mentioning the wedding...and when we arrived at our campsite in Oludinez it was all hands on deck to get the ball rolling for the celebrations! First thing to do was get the fire burning to get the lamb on the spit roast...so some of us started gathering the wood logs for the fire...which is how I required bruise number two for the day!! I was on top of a huge pile of logs chucking them down to everyone else when the pile shifted a little and in a bid to save myself ending up under a pile of logs a dropped one on my knee!! (Bruise number one was suffered about 3 hours earlier when in my stupidity I walked into the padlock latch when I was getting back on the truck!! So in the space of 3 hours I gave myself 2 whopper bruises...just as the weather got good enough to whip the shorts out of the bottom of the bag!! Brilliant timing!!) Anyway once the logs were all down at the fire it was time then to start decorating the truck. Let me tell you when we park up the truck we tend to gather a crowd anyway....but that day was a different story as we were putting tinsel and streamers and balloons all over the place!!! Once the truck was prettified, myself and Dee hit the lagoon at our campsite! After our hike up the gorge that day and the sweaty work of gathering the fire wood and then decorating the truck we were in need of some refreshment...and instead of heading first for the showers we hit the beautiful cool waters of the lagoon. Once we were refreshed it was then time to finish off the costume making and then start getting everyone into the costumes!! Of course there was also the nail painting and make up to apply to the bridal party...and as the bridal party and mother of the bride and the mad aunt were mostly filled by the guys on the trip me and the girls took a small bit of cruel pleasure in painting on a hideous pink nail varnish and pink lipstick! Once all that was done it was time to kick off the party!!

The wedding was absolutely amazing!! The costumes turned out to be a great laugh and I have to say Big Kev made the best Big Fat Gypsy Wedding style bride ever!!! We went through the nuptials....complete with a kiss and first dance (to you make me feel like a natural woman...Big Kev’s choice of course!!)  and then we headed down to the campfire to tuck into the lamb. I am not a huge fan of lamb as it is but oh my god a freshly cooked full lamb off a spit roast is absolutely amazing!! We also have a very special punch made up....which was blamed the next day for a lot of the sore heads! The next day was mostly a lazy day spent lying on the beach for the first half of the day and then lounging in the bar reading and having a few cocktails! The following day was our boat trip which we were all looking forward to...and for the first hour or so it was great. We had sun beds on the top deck to get ourselves comfy in to soak in the sun...and then the clouds arrived...and then the rain arrived!! So it ended up being a day of lying on the sun beds covered up as much as possible and being as still as possible hoping that the wind would just roll over us!!

It was in Oludinez that I had my first bout of proper homesickness! Every now and then up until then I would get the odd pang of homesickness...usually when I heard a song that reminded me of something back home but this time round it was full blown missing home syndrome!! Took me a couple days to snap out of it but after a few well timed Skype calls and a sunny drive day where I discovered some hidden music on my Ipod I managed to smile (and sing!!) my way out of it! So thanks to the relevant parties for their help in kicking my ass into shape and making me snap out of it!! J

The next day then was a lovely drive to Kas. Once again our campsite was lovely and we had a nice sundeck right on the beach. I didn’t sleep much that night as my tent was pitched on a slight hill...so I woke up on a number of occasions down the bottom of my tent...I would wriggle back up but wake up again not long after that! So at 6.30 the next morning I gave it up as a lost cause, grabbed my sleeping bag and camera and went down to the decking to watch the sun rise....really not a bad day to start a day!! We had a little wander around Kas for lunch but mostly spent the day relaxing...something we have all become very good at during the Turkey leg of the trip!! Kas is a beautiful place...its set up for tourists but unlike Oludinez has not yet lost any of its charm and is still very much a quaint town that hasn’t yet been tainted by neon signs and tacky bars! We ate in a lovely seafood restaurant in the marina...and the woman who owned us gave us a ridiculous amount of free food! That’s actually one thing I’ve noticed about Turkey...they love their bloody bread! As soon as you have ordered food a big basket of bread (sometimes 2 or 3) are popped on the table with all types of tasty things to dip it into! As much as you try not to eat it afraid to ruin the dinner you have just ordered you can’t help but rip off a bit of bread and start tasting the different things! By the time dinner does come half the time you’re so full of bread you can’t actually enjoy it properly! I will be glad when we leave that part of Turkey behind!!

Next day it was on to our second tree house stop in Olympos! We grabbed our stuff off the truck and then made ourselves comfortable on the raised seating (more like lying!!) areas! And the Happy Cappys started to flow!! And flowed until 2am! Was a really fun night just chilling out and nice again to have a bed rather than a tent to go to! Our second day in Olympos we spent exploring the ruins of Olympos for the morning. Yes I know, more ruins! But I have to say I quite enjoyed these ones! Unlike Ephesus they were all over grown and leafy and we got to explore our way through them! I really enjoyed it and also the little hike up to the ruins of the castle! It was totally worth hiking in the heat for the view we got...and also as we got to see how tantalising the sea was. We stayed up there for a little bit and then headed back down to have a dip in the sea. It was amazing! We paddled around for awhile and then headed back to lie out for awhile! The heat was amazing! I finally got the weather that I had been hearing I had been missing back home! We headed back up to the hostel then and settled ourselves in to our seats again for the evening!

Next morning we had a 6am start for a long truck day! I managed to get through 5 and a half movies that day, Zombieland, Resident Evil, Legion, Megamind and Just Go With It and the end of The Lovely Bones (a shite movie!!!). It was a pretty long day on the truck and we had to stop at a Scania garage for about 3 hours to get a bit of work done on the truck! So we all sat in one of their boardrooms for the few hours (movie time!!) snacking on junk food as none of us had been clever enough to grab lunch stuff when we stopped at a supermarket earlier that morning (that’s what a 6am start will do to ya!!). Once our truck was fixed it was back on the road to do the final stretch to the Ilhara Valley where we were camping that night! I managed to get some sleep at this stage but I was slightly disoriented when I woke up and it was dark!! The sky was also beautiful and was lighting up with flashes of lightening...which we were driving towards! When we got closer to where we were camping we had a small town to drive through...and it was a tight squeeze to get the truck through it! I could have hopped onto the roofs of a couple of houses if I had been that way inclined!!! The campsite was very good to us and even though we only arrived there at 9.30 in the evening they started cooking us a lovely dinner so we didn’t have to get the truck kitchen out and start cooking. When we did arrive we had to get the tents up which was amusing anyway as it was pitch black and all we had was the light from our torches. However I turned around at one stage to pick up the mallet to notice a group of Turkish lads standing there, getting a great laugh out of me pitching my tent! Not sure what was quite so amusing...whether it was a girl pitching a tent...or the fact I was in shorts and flip flips at 10 at night when it was getting pretty chilly!! Didn’t sleep much again that night as we had a farm full of animals keeping us awake for the night! There was a gaggle of extremely loud ducks...anda  donkey hanging about somewhere, a couple of cats, the obligatory rooster and hens and then a massive dog scrap in the middle of the night! It was absolutely awful...a gang of dogs attacked another one and I hope I never have to hear that sound again! I would much rather listen to our snorers for the rest of the trip than have to go through that again! We have had quite a bit of amusement out of animals at different campsites! At the place in Oludinez we had a rooster that couldn’t quite grasp the concept of doing his cockadoodledo thing at dawn and we got it several times throughout the night instead...and what made it worse was that this particular rooster sounded slightly asthmatic! Amusing the first couple of times and then just downright annoying when you’re trying to sleep! The bets are on now as to what creature from the animal kingdom is going to be the next to keep us awake at night!!

After our long drive day we were up the next day to go on a hike through the Ilhara Valley. It is absolutely amazing! People literally built their houses in the cliffs! The churches were all at great heights too and we had a bit of fun climbing up to them (we weren’t as stupid as we were in Olympos and wore our walking shoes instead of our flip flops! We just about got away with it in Olympos but the Valley would not have been quite so forgiving!!). When we first arrived at the valley it of course started to rain so we all whipped out the rain jackets and started off at a pace which suggested we just wanted to get to the end and get back on the truck! But when we got to the first detour on the track to the first (of MANY!!) churches we said we’d go up and give it a go...and it was totally worth it!! There was still murals and paintings on the ceilings and walls and we could see where they had the tomb section of the church too. After we climbed around a little and explored we headed back down to the trail and started to enjoy it a little more, detouring up to different ruins and finding huge caves and caverns where people had lived. Truly amazing to think that people actually loved there and functioned out of cave houses!! It was also at the Ihlara Valley that some of our people got lost for the first time! Two of the gang walked a little too far and missed the turn off to where the truck was parked! But thanks to the power of mobile phones and roaming (thank you meteor!!) we managed to get in touch with them and find out that they had doubled back and would be back soon! Of course there was a bit of slagging but we had to take it easy as one of the “misadventurers” had taken a little tumble and the dettol had to be whipped out! Once we were all back together we hit the road once more for our next stop, Goreme. And that is where this blog ends as I can’t tell you much about Goreme at the moment as we have only just arrived!! First impressions though....more cave houses...a lot more of them!! Can’t wait to explore!!

To keep you all updated on the food front...I’m doing really well!! Everyone is encouraging me on my quest to try new things....meaning they don’t let me away with much and I have to try pretty much anything that I’m offered! Really quite enjoying it though...in Kas I tried some of Dee’s calamari...which was actually lovely! In the hostel at Olympos they provided our food and the first night was some lovely rice and pasta dishes with chicken. The second night was a veggy meal...which was yum! There was stuffed peppers, couscous, some kind of roast vegetable dish, fried spinach patties and cheese and pepper pastry rolls! So as you can all see I’m not starving...quite the opposite in fact! So thanks to the people who started me on my try new things kick back home!!!