The Long Way Home

2010-06-20T01:15:00.001+05:30

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The Final Tally

2009-10-09T23:08:00.003+05:30

So, we're back! And, as promised, here are the long awaited and eagerly anticipated trip stats....

Miles: 10, 293
Miles in a car driven by someone else: 3,820
Miles in a car driven by me: 1,320
Miles in a big bus: 2,016
Miles in a minibus: 882
Miles on a train: 1,438
Miles on a boat: 877
Miles in an aeroplane: 140 *
Cheapest hotel: 500 Pakistani rupees in Passu (£3.80)
Most expensive hotel: €220 in Santorini
Countries: 24**
Border crossings: 29
Passport stamps: 49
Stressy moments when we realised they'd only stamped Trev's passport and not mine and we were now a day's journey from the border: 1
Best kebab: Ashgabat, Turkmenistan
Worst kebab: Goreme, Turkey
Trains missed: 1
Bouts of swine flu: 3 (at least)
Shaves: 2

*Important fact: this aeroplane trip didn't count as cheating for three reasons:
- it was too dangerous to go by bus; the Swat valley refugees were camped on the road
- it took us East, not West
- it was an internal flight, not a border crossing.
So there.

**Including made up ones

We're now back in the UK, staying at Trev's parents in Rochester. We've found a flat to rent and as long as credit checks and suchlike come back OK we'll hopefully be moving to Belsize Park on Wednesday. And it's been drizzling pretty much constantly since we got back. Nice.

As ever, photos to follow when Trev gets round to posting them. Don't hold your breath.

Gem.

There'll be bluebirds over....

2009-10-05T17:50:00.001+05:30

There'll be bluebirds over....

Et alors... La France

2009-10-03T19:19:00.001+05:30

Et alors... La France

The last week we've spent in France, driving from Nice to Avignon, then Biarritz, Bordeaux, La Rochelle and now Brittany, with a Michelin guide for company. Avignon was pretty, but the highlight was a fish soup. Biarritz excelled itself with Bayonne ham. In La Rochelle and Brittany we gorged on assiettes de fruits de mer.

In Bordeaux the food played second fiddle to the wines, and we spent a lovely day driving around the small vineyards trying and buying. I was driving so had to spit, but Trev was blotto by lunchtime. We filled up the boot to see us though the first month back in London. Or the first week, depending on how grim it is.

Until yesterday it was warm enough to be on the beach, so we spent lazy days finishing off our stock of English paperbacks, topping up the tans and admiring all the French breasts on display.

Now we're in Brittany at Trev's Mum and Dad's house, getting excited over English TV (Strictly Come Dancing proving to be the highlight), getting all our washing done and continuing to eat and drink excessively.

The plan is to stop overnight in Honfleur tomorrow, then we'll be back in Blighty Monday afternoon. Et alors, on est pres de termine. Really pres now!

Gem.

A tribute to Lisa Cordwell

2009-09-29T01:17:00.001+05:30

A tribute to Lisa Cordwell

Dear Lisa, you wanted a mention,
We hope this will make you content
But don't think it will bring much attention,
Our readers don't like to comment.

Italia - part 2

2009-09-28T22:42:00.001+05:30

Italia - part 2

From Venice we took the train to Rome, where we saw the Roman stuff and the Roman Catholic stuff, and Trev well and truly jumped on the Swine Flu Express. So he did a lot of laying in bed sweating and shivering and I did a lot of sitting in internet cafes trying to figure out if we went to a doctor they would just give him Tamiflu or decide to quarantine or deport. We also ate a lot of pizza with no cheese on, which may sound rubbish but is actually far superior to the cheesy variety.

Then it was on to Genoa, where it turned out that the largest aquarium in Europe had immense medicinal properties.

We also spent a day in the Cinque Terre national park; five beautiful villages linked by a hiking trail along the coast for the toughies and a train for those recovering from flu.

We said goodbye to Italy on the train through Monaco to Nice (does it count as a country visit even if we didn't get off?), where we wolfed down a quick Nicoise salad for lunch before setting off.

So now we have une voiture, une Guide Michelin, sept jours et un tres fort grasp of franglais. Vive la France!

Gem.

Italy - Part Uno

2009-09-22T23:02:00.001+05:30

We spent our first couple of days in Italy in Trieste, visiting Emma and Sandro. It was a fabulous weekend: perfect weather, good company and a ludicrously high 'eating and drinking time' to 'not eating and drinking time' ratio. Trieste highlights included seabass pasta, mussels, Pinot Grigio, veal, proscuttio with figs, Cabernet, pesto pasta (a la Sandro) and more Pinot Grigio. The skinny jeans have never been quite so skinny.

We then took the train to Venice, which was wonderful. Although I'd seen pictures, I didn't realise what a special place it would be. And although swarming with tourists around the main sights, it was surprisingly easy to escape into the backstreets and churches, which were beautiful. Taking the boat bus up the Grand Canal was probably my highlight; really fun and beautiful surroundings.

Sunday afternoon we bought tickets to explore the Biannale exhibition. Call me an uncultured heathen, but it was Shite. A real load of rubbish, perhaps made even more incomprehensible by this year's special focus on video art. Particular lowlights (in deteriorating order) included:
- the story of a speaking cat, narrated by a stuffed cat perched on top of some Ikea furniture (by Germany);
- the video of someone washing their hands (by the USA);
- the video of a man on a motorbike running over a kangaroo (Australia);
- the video of plasticine people removing their own arms to wipe their bums after a poo (by this time I'd lost interest of which country's pavillion we were in); and the piece de resistance...
- the gang banging shadow puppets.

Trev, apparently, quite liked the cat.

I thought the only decent exhibits were a series of drawings called 'Landscapes of the Future' by Russia and some gold thread that was lit up quite nicely.

The special award for the Least Shit Piece of Video Art went to Italy for a fireworks display that had been slowed right down and played backwards... but it wasn't exactly hotly contested.

Needless to say, I'm very glad we didn't spend €60 on an unlimited season access ticket!

The Peggy Gugenheim collection was, by contrast, very enjoyable. Perhaps it's only the filter of history and noone will remember or view this year's Biannale exhibits 50 years from now, or perhaps modern art in the mid-20th century was just less rubbish than in the early 21st. Either way, it was a very pleasant way to spend a couple of hours.

So we're enjoying Italy immensely, despite the prices (surprisingly astronomical, and made even worse by the current state of the pound) and the fact that you seem to only be able to buy knee-length socks rather than ankle socks (it's got cool enough to wear socks and shoes in the evenings and I guess uber-stylish Italian men couldn't risk an inch of leg showing between sock and trouser leg when they sit down). This is keeping me amused as Trev looks like he's wearing those stockings that Mum tries to make Dad wear on aeroplanes to stop DVT...

Ciao for now!

Gem

Balkans and beyond

2009-09-18T18:41:00.001+05:30

Balkans and beyond

Gemma says that I have to write a blog post. I've explained that this may not the best way of encouraging creativity. My protestations, alas, have come to nought. Besides, we've started this thing and kept it up until now - so I guess our reader(s) deserve some sort of denouement. Gemma has been seen adding up the distances we've travelled by various means of transport - so it should be a thrilling climax.

We've started spending more time thinking about getting home and everything that goes with it. We've been worrying about starting back at work, fighting with the company that is/should be shipping our stuff, and making lists; of tasks that need to be done for the wedding, possible areas of London to settle in and of trilobite specimens to look at if there is any free time before Christmas. All quite dreary. Luckily I was only responsible for one of these. I am very lucky to have such an organised fiancee.

In a further intervention, I've been reliably informed that I should be writing about where we've been and should stop being 'horrible'.

Since we last wrote, we've almost completed the balkans leg of our journey and are now on the bus from Rijeka in northern Croatia to Trieste. We'll spend a couple of nights there, visiting Emma, Sandro and new-ish baby Arturo. Its amazing how many new babies of friends there will be to meet when we get home... at least 5, without being thorough.

Anyway, from where we last wrote in Kotor we headed further North in Montenegro to Herceg Novi, mainly to catch the direct bus from there to Bosnia. We also got an afternoon on the beach and some nice clams for dinner.

We then spent a couple of nights in Sarajevo and a night in Mostar. The weather finally turned on us in Bosnia. This was a disappointed for Gemma, but I feel that overcast skies, grey light and light rain lend a more authentic atmosphere to eastern european cities. Ideally accompanied by pensioners selling unpaired shoes by the side of the road and musty cafes that only serve salted pork fat. I guess it reminds me of happy years living in east London... Other than the weather, Sarajevo was a big disappointment: the food was good, the city attractive and the people cheerful and friendly. There were at least a lot of bullet-holes.

Mostar was even prettier, and even more bullet-ridden. The town only has one real attraction, an old bridge. Our Europe Lonely Planet boldly translates the name of the bridge (Stari Most) as 'petrified moon', a reference to its 'slender and refined beauty'. I'm not sure where they find their writers from; everyone else translates it as 'old bridge'. I expected Mostar to be a bit of a disappointment, but it is a very good bridge.

The weather improved slightly when we got back to the coast at Dubrovnik. At least enough for a few hours of sunbathing each day. We splashed out a bit, rented an apartment overlooking the beautiful old city and ate oysters for the first time on the trip. We could have happily stayed for longer.

Finally, we travelled up the coast of Croatia by overnight ferry. It was much more comfortable than the 12+ hour bus would have been and no more expensive than bus tickets and a hotel room. We had a few hours on the beach in Rijeka when we got off the boat. It will probably be our last bit of sun for a while - the water was freezing and its now chucking it down as we cross the Slovenian border. Our plan after Trieste is to spend a couple of days in each of Venice (G's never been), Rome (I've never been) and Genoa (you should be able to guess why we're stopping there?), then head across France to rent a car and drive up the West coast (better than the East coast), to finish with a day or two at my parents' place in Brittany and a couple of days in Paris.

Pictures to follow...

T.

P.S. Neill - I don't have your new address, so Mum's got your postcard.

New pictures - Greece, Macedonia, Albania and Montenegro

2009-09-10T21:56:00.014+05:30

Here we go with some recent piccies....

Hiking on the Pelion Peninsula (Dad took this one):

Monestries perched on the mountain tops in Meteora, northern Greece:

A nice little church in Orhid, Macedonia:

Spot the non-mainstream flag.... Vivcani, Macedonia:

Waiting for snails for lunch in Vivcani:

Crap site number one in Tirana (a bell made out of bullet shells):

Kotor Old Town in Montenegro (really lovely):

Not (H)Ohrid at all...

2009-09-09T17:47:00.001+05:30

Not (H)Ohrid at all...

...in fact, our brief sojourn in Macedonia was pretty nice!

We caught a series of local buses and reached Ohrid at tea time. It was a pretty pleasant town, with pretty Balkan houses and churches on a hillside, but not a lot going on (except for an awful lot of pizza restaurants).

The following day we were excited to visit the village of Vivcani (mainly to boost the country count), close to Ohrid. Fed up with border battles in the 90s and cross about an attempt to divert their spring water to a nearby town, they declared themselves independent. The village shop now sells passports and local currency. The government have studiously ignored them. I'm not sure what we were expecting (barbed wire and stock plied weapons, maybe), but again, there was not much to see. We did have a very nice lunch, though, of homemade sausage and snails.

Yesterday we set off for Albania with a mental taxi driver, who kept us amused for the first hour, then just grated immensely. He had (apparently) driven both Liza Minelli and the Crown Princess of Japan, and we should have been very honoured to be in his car. We tuned out of most of his incessant chatter, but I thought his solution to the Macedonia name problem was pretty good: if Greece want Macedonia for themselves, they should let Macedonia be called Greece... Make the Greeks pick one name, but they can't have both!

Arriving in Tirana we took ourselves out on a walking tour of the main sights... of which there are very few! I don't know if our tolerance for Soviet-style concrete blocks has diminished post-Greece, or if Tirana is especially nondescript, but we were done pretty quickly. At least they have made an effort here, but painting the aforementioned blocks in a variety of bright coloured geometric patterns (think pink and purple concentric circles, yellow and blue stripes) isn't particularly effective at disguising them!

Dinner was in Blloku, the area surrounding Hoxha's old house, which used to be the homes of Communist Party officials, but is now streets full of boutiques, bars and trendy young things. Obviously, we fit right in.

This morning we decided to bail early on Tirana and head north to Montenegro. I think this is the right decision now we're getting close to the end of the trip and don't want to be wasting days, but it's made us think we haven't really given it a fair chance. Maybe we'll just have to come back. Trevor thinks we may as well fly as go so quickly (but he's just being grumpy and I am ignoring him).

But anyway, we're on the bus heading North again, hoping to hit the MN coast by mid-afternoon.

Gems.

A proper post for a change

2009-09-06T17:15:00.000+05:30

A proper post for a change

Oh dear, the blog seems to have degenerated completely over the last few weeks. Looking back, its been downhill since my 'curry' post.

There's a couple of reasons for this. We've been doing more drinking than actually travelling, and we've arrived in proper touristy places. It seems horribly self-indulgent to write about places that many of you will have visited and probably explored rather more thoroughly than we've found ourselves capable of. Besides, is anyone really interested in what we're eating for dinner (expensive seafood), how tanned we're getting (very), where the nicest beaches have been for sunbathing (Krios on Paros, although the water was a bit chilly) and snorkelling (south coast of the Pelion peninsula, I saw an octopus) or our deliberations on whether to hire a white convertible Smart car or a quad bike to get around Santorini (we got the bus)?

Thought not.

Rest assured, we've been having a really nice time.

We're now on our way out of Greece and away from the coast for at least a few days. More specifically, we're travelling from Meteora in the western half of central Greece to Ohrid in Macedonia. It should be a fun day - we need to take 5 separate bus journeys between small provincial Greek towns to avoid a huge diversion via Thessaloniki. There is always a chance that one of the buses we're hoping to take won't exist and we'll get stuck somewhere. I really like not knowing where we'll end up, but it stresses Gem a bit.

I'm not planning to use Macedonia's interim official name 'Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia'. Greece has blocked the use of the name 'Macedonia', as part of Greece is also called Macedonia and they view it as a slavic attempt to appropriate part of greek heritage (essentially Alexander the Great and his transcontinental rampage). On the other hand, I'm not sure why the Macedonians (i.e. FYROMers) really care what name they have to put on the letterhead when they write to the UN, when everyone will continue to call the place Macedoina regardless. Of all international disputes, this has to be one of the most petty.

Meteora is a group of monasteries built on once inaccessible rocky pinnacles. The monks once had to climb ladders, get winched up and down in nets, cross rope bridges, swing on a trapeze and use all manner of Indiana Jones-esque contrivances to get to the shops. The views are spectacular, but I can't help feeling that some of the magic has gone now that they are accessible by road and Italian tour bus.

We said goodbye to Gem's parents this morning. They'd been with us for a week since we got to Athens. David's kindly been paying for most of our dinners and wine, which hasn't really helped blog quality. We successfully converted them to the card game that has been keeping us occupied, and our usual lights out at 9.30 after a cheap dinner and a beer have been replaced by staggering back up the hill at 11 after a marathon game and a few kilograms of house white. That is except last night, as the 'home made' wine didn't taste like it had followed any recognizable oenological process.

Our plan for the next week is to spend a day in Ohrid, then travel from there to Tirana. From Tirana we'll visit the world's newest country, Montenegro, for a couple more days at the seaside, most likely in Kotor.

T.

Santorini, Paros and Athens

2009-09-02T12:07:00.008+05:30

Here are some photos... (in reverse order)> Post to follow.

A quiz

2009-08-29T23:49:00.001+05:30

A quiz

At Jamie's request, here is a quiz for people called James Cotton. Anyone else is also welcome to enter, albeit at massively reduced probability of success:

1. At which textile company did Granddad Cotton work?

2. What is the name of the only object from Cameroon in the Cotton household?

3. What is the proper name of the red colour applied to London, Midland and Scottish railway passenger locomotives?

4. What was the name of the Cotton family house in Sri Lanka?

5. Are lungfish more closely related to salmon or cows?

6. Complete the sequence: Custard, Nugget, .......?

7. Name the wetland north of Heaton County Primary School.

8. What were the names of our two long-term drivers in Delhi?

9. Where was Neill found after his 'Big Night Out' in Cyprus? Where did Mum think he was?

10. Name 5 Cotton pet dogs.

11. How many houses in the East End has Trevor lived in?

12. What was the name of the shower company that Neill acted as a 'consultant' to aged 16?

13. What was the 3rd largest city in the Soviet Union?

14. Name 4 Atlas Brewery products.

15. Name 4 Atlas Brewery outlets.

16. Who has a 'slightly smaller sack'??

17. What is the full name of the hotel from the first visit to Tunisia?

18. Which is bigger: 'Red Devil' or 'Jack Dempsey'?

19, When Jamie kissed Natalie Baker behind the bikesheds was Trev betrayed by:
A) Natalie; or
B) Jamie

20. Ouzo or Raki?

We like ouzo...

2009-08-29T22:52:00.000+05:30

We like ouzo...

...we like Greece.

Ancient Romans and modern Greece

2009-08-27T21:28:00.002+05:30

From Istanbul we took the bus down the west coast of Turkey to the Roman city of Ephesus, which was stunning, but completely overrun by coach loads of cruise ship passengers. I quite like the idea of a cruise (getting to see lots of places without having to deal with buses, a backpack and packing up every couple of days) but you don't seem to be allowed on if you're under 70.

(All photos in Ephesus)

Then another bus took us to Marmaris. Described in the guidebook as a shrine to British package tours ("The only place in Turkey where standing in the middle of the main street in a bikini drinking a can of lager at midday won't raise eyebrows") we were obviously disappointed not to witness any such shenanigans.

After a very pleasant, if disappointingly sedate, lunch we took the high speed hydrofoil to Rhodes. Although this is our third entry into Europe in geographical terms, this time we won't be leaving again until the trip is done. Our arrival coincided with the departure of the easycruise boat from the harbour, so I guess there'll be limited Brits abroad antics here as well.

(Rhodes town)

After 24h in Greece, the most dramatic change is in our diet - whilst kebab is still most definitely on the menus, they have been usurped in our affections by grilled fish and calamaris. This is making me very happy.

Gems.

PS - we're not actually going to Ukraine. We were just wondering!

PPS - Trev says there aren't enough jokes in my blog posts. So here is one:

What do you call a man with no arms and no legs who swims across the English channel?

A clever dick!

Tonight's pondering

2009-08-27T01:12:00.001+05:30

Tonight's pondering

Why do we call it 'The Ukraine' and not 'Ukraine'?

We have an idea it might be related to either
A) what they call themselves (c.f. The Netherlands); or
B) relating to a geographical feature (c.f. The Congo)

but we don't know.

Anyone? (I think James, Trev thinks Jim)

Curry

2009-08-24T23:00:00.000+05:30

Curry

Approaching the end of a twelve and a half hour bus trip down the coast of Turkey. We're averaging a book and a half on the long buses. They also provide some good thinking time.

The further on we get, the more I think about home. I'm looking forward to a good British curry. A proper spicy one. None of that Indian rubbish.

To the left, to the left...

2009-08-24T12:36:00.002+05:30

(The alternative title to this blog post was 'Left, left, gulp', but we weren't sure if the language of Going Live is still an accepted means of communication.)

Anyway... Since leaving Georgia, we've done A LOT of westbound travel. First to Cappadoccia by overnight train (highly recommended - a compartment with just 2 beds and a minibar (!) and a lovely restaurant car). There, we stayed in the fairy chimneys (www.kelebekhotel.com - very cool rooms), hired bikes, visited an underground city (less cool than Terry Pratchett would have you believe) and lay by the pool.

(Goreme village)

(Inside a fairy chimney church)

(Cappadoccia)

(Our cool hotel room)

Randomly running into Chris Byrnes (of Delhi whisky fame) and his lovely lady friend resulted in an evening of rather over enthusiastically sampling the local raki.

Then on to Istanbul by bus and ferry, which was a huge shock to the system in terms of number of tourists (is there anyone left in Italy?) and the existence of a real backbackers' ghetto. Nevertheless, the city was great. The highlights were a trip up the Bosphorus to a fishing village for lunch (thanks, Jim, for the recommendation) and dinner on a terrace overlooking a strip of tavernas in the centre of town. Both excellent meals. The Blue Mosque, Aya Sofia and Topkapi Palace were pretty good too, but they'd have to go some to beat those grilled mussels!

(Blue Mosque, Istanbul)

(Trev in the Harem at the Topkapi Palace)
(Inside the Aya Sofia)

It certainly feels like we're back in Europe: buses have timetables (which they stick to) and tickets (of which they only sell one per seat), restaurants have menus (even in English), ATMs are everywhere and we have a choice of English language paperbacks... All good things! On the flip-side, prices have skyrocketed, some of the sights have resembled a tourist circus and we had a couple of pretty inedible meals in Backpacker Central.

As ever, photos to follow when we're off the bus and somewhere with a decent connection.

Gem.

PS. Jamie - you can consider all offers of babysitting WITHDRAWN.

New pictures...

2009-08-20T21:31:00.004+05:30

We're now in Cappadocia, central Turkey. Famous for its unique wind and water eroded landscape and for cave churches, underground cities, and more or less anything else you can do with a chisel and a bit of patience. It's really touristy, which was a bit of a shock at first, but has become quite welcome - no more struggling with menus, no more cramped minibuses and no more playing hunt the ATM.

We've now uploaded some pictures from Georgia and here is a picture of a Turkish train, specially for Dad, who likes such things.

Arrived in Turkey!

2009-08-17T15:12:00.001+05:30

Arrived in Turkey!

(... that's the oblong shaped one connecting the bottom of Europe with Asia, T.J.)

More to follow when we've seen more than just the inside of a bus!

Arriving in Europe..

2009-08-16T20:43:00.003+05:30

We've now made it to Europe! Although only for 48 hours...

After a great birthday trip to northern Armenia we travelled back to Tblisi and then, after changing buses, up to the mountains in northern Georgia. The town of Kazbegi is only about 10 km from the Russia border (with North Ossetia) in dramatic rocky mountain scenery. It's a great place to see the number 1 Georgian scenic speciality - churches on top of big hills. It is also just on the northern side of the watershed of the Caucus mountains and so, technically, in Europe by most definitions. We had a great time walking and picnic-ing, although we got a bit bored of the only cafe in town and its two menu options!

[Gemma, church and mountain]

[Big fierce bird]

[View towards Russia: North Ossetia starts just at the bottom of the ridge on the back right]

Today we headed back to Asia for a while - at least until we repeat the 2 days in Europe trick in Istanbul.

We're now in Batumi on the Black Sea coast after a painful 9 hour minibus journey across Georgia. It's swarming with tourists, and seems like a nice town. However, we're only here overnight before crossing into Turkey tomorrow. The plan is to briefly head East to Erzurum to catch an overnight train across most of Turkey to Cappadocia. It's a bit of a shame to miss so much of Turkey, but we'll only pass the half-way point in terms of distance on the train tomorrow night and we're already 2 weeks past half-way time-wise. This is a bit worrying given that we have 8 countries left in our current plan (excluding the vatican..), so we're also spending a lot of time inconclusively debating whether we should change our route a bit.

T.

Birthday boy trip to Armenia

2009-08-13T18:01:00.000+05:30

Birthday boy trip to Armenia

Happy birthday, Trev!

We've popped over to Armenia for a couple of days and are staying in a fancy pants hotel in the Debed Canyon as a special treat. Lots of ruined monasteries on mountain tops to explore and a lovely room, pool and sauna to enjoy.

Back to Georgia tomorrow to finish exploring there...

T'bilisi

2009-08-12T20:43:00.002+05:30

Highly recommended, T'bilisi has been one of our favourite cities so far: excellent local wine at 2 quid a bottle, new and interesting food, attractive buildings and streets, beautiful frescos in churches, hip bars and restaurants, and cheap local tavernas... Wonderful! (Although, to be honest, a city that has both ATMs and Diet Coke readily available gets top ratings regardless.)

It's great to try some new food. We do still love kebabs, but we were starting to risk turning into one. Our favourites amongst Georgian dishes are the cheese pies with an egg on top (T) and the mushroom dumplings (G). Our favourites amongst Georgian wines are the reds and the whites.

Wayne Rooney is the footballer of choice amongst Georgian men. As it was explained to me yesterday, "David Beckham looks like a girl, this is very bad. Rooney looks like a bull, this is very good."

We have really enjoyed it, except for the fact that Trevor has been suffering from an ear infection and I have a rotten cold (pretty much Swine flu, I reckon), which Trev now seems to have caught too.

[Happy, smiling, paranoid nutjob; Stalin Museum, Gori]

[Trev in Stalin's armchair, Stalin Museum, Gori]
Yesterday we took the bus to Gori (where Stalin was born and where today there is a pretty good, if somewhat one-sided, museum about him) and then on to Mtskheta, where Christianity was established in Georgia, which features a huge cathedral and a couple of pretty older churches, all being enthusiastically prayed in by Georgians in their Sunday best.

One the way back to T'bilisi we were amused by a road sign on the highway: a very modern LED type sign, about 5m high, featuring an illuminated picture of a Russian tank (easily identified by the flag on the gun barrel) with a No Entry symbol over it. Just in case they were thinking of trying!

Gems

In defence of Azerbaijan...

2009-08-10T17:19:00.002+05:30

...they have really good caviar.

Gemma.

Azerbaijan

2009-08-10T16:06:00.004+05:30

Lttle visited and not particularly interesting, Azerbaijan is a byword for international obscurity. We didn't feel the need to stay long - a couple of days in Baku to recover from the ferry, and then a couple of days in Seki in the foothills of the Caucasus on the way over the border into Georgia. Both were pleasant enough. Azerbaijan is rapidly getting richer, due to oil and gas under the Caspian and as a result Baku is a bit of a boom town - lots of new cars on the roads, more luxury-brand shops than Mumbai and Delhi put together and building sites engulfing much of the sea front promenade. In 1910 Baku sopplied half the world's oil, and there are some nice buildings in the 'old town' from this earlier oil boom and a very few that are older, but most of the modern stuff is fairly ugly. Its hard to see how any amount of beautification is going to disguise the sprawling oil terminals that form the backdrop to any view of Baku.

Oil money also means that the country is not very good value. This is severely exacerbated by the size of the kebabs, which have shrunk from a decent meal in Central Asia to four withered dry chunks of meat. Prawn kebabs, in particular, are not recommended.

Seki is reputed to be one of the most attractive towns in the country and was passably pretty, but nothing really exciting. We spent the day walking up the valley to a village with an old church and then had a picnic dinner in our guesthouse overlooking the town. The landscape and architecture has definitely got more of a European feel now, and we had our first rain for a long long time.

Fun facts about Azerbaijan:

1. It pretends to have a distinct alphabet, but it differs from the roman alphabet only in having a back-to-front and upside-down 'e'.

2. There are no famous Azeri people.

I think Azerbaijan suffered a bit from being the second country in a row that we were only in because they are in the way between countries we actually wanted to visit and from my nasty ear infection, that finally seems to be clearing up after a week. We're now in Tbilisi, which has a lot more going for it, trying to decide whether to head up to the mountains or down to Armenia for my birthday on Thursday. I have decided to shave for the first time since we left Delhi to mark the occassion.

Uzbekistan and Turmenistan posts now updated with photos...

2009-08-05T17:31:00.002+05:30

...but if you're not a fan of blue tiles, I probably wouldn't bother looking!

Turkmen(tal)istan

2009-08-04T17:35:00.002+05:30

40 points to Gemma for another witty blog title!

Although, it was actually much less mental than we expected. Almost disappointingly so...

We got through the border no problem due to our guide and after looking round Konye-Urgench (disappointing after Bukhara and Khiva, but interesting as it was full of Turkmen pilgrims, rather than Japanese tourists with cameras outweighing body mass), we drove into the Karakum desert. There was some serious offroad dune driving, which was a bit scary, but we finally made it to Darvaza around 8pm, where we opened the beers, pitched camp and barbecued. Great fun!

The Darvaza gas craters are one of the strangest things we've seen. The result of Soviet gas exploration in the middle of the desert gone wrong, there are now three big explosion holes in the desert floor (around 30m diameter), which were leaking gas. The shepherds thought the best way to get rid of the smell was to light one, so now it burns constantly, and the other two contain bubbling water and mud. The flames are especially impressive at night, when it was hard not to imagine a gateway to hell...

We left early in the morning before the tents got too hot and set off for Ashgabat, the capital. Anyone on a tourist visa in Turkmenistan has to be accompanied at all times by an official guide, except in Ashgabat, so we had a couple of days un-guided time and dutifully spent most of it lying by the pool! We did explore the city, which was full of gold statues of the President Niyazov (the first president of Turkmenistan, who died 2 years ago) including one that comically rotates so that he is always facing the sun.

(The Presidential palace and parade ground, Ashgabat)

(Kebabs for lunch, again...)

We also visited the Sunday market, where we learned that hoisting camels around by crane does not a happy camel make!

Monday morning we were picked up by the guide and drove to Turkmenbashi, the port on the Caspian sea. We had planned to stay overnight, then catch a boat in the morning. However, there were two boats sitting in the dock being loaded up with cargo train carriages as we arrived and after hearing stories about people waiting for days for another boat to arrive, we had a quick panic, a quick supermarket sweep to buy supplies and hot-footed it to the port. Once there, we boarded the boat, purchased a super-deluxe cabin for $20 extra (got to be worth it for an en suite... And although grubby and mozzy-infested, it is so far mercifully cockroach free.) Then we waited, and waited, ate our picnic dinner (a big pot of caviar and a loaf of Turkmen flat bread... Yum!) and waited some more.

When we woke up this morning, we were still in the dock. Not ideal. But we have since made good progress across what has so far been a remarkably flat sea, and are hoping to land in Azerbaijan at around 8pm. The sailors get paid by "hour on the sea with a loaded ship", so if the queue of trucks on the Azeri side doesn't look like a full load when they get within sight of the port, they are likely to drop anchor and wait for the queue to build up. We are obviously hoping for a very large queue so that we can get off and say goodbye Central Asia, hello Caucuses!

(sitting in Turkmenbashi port)

(I see land! Approaching Baku.)

To finish up today's post, some Turkmen fun for the fact-lovers out there:
- Natural gas is free but matches are not, so many Turkmens leave their stoves burning 24 hours a day
- Internal flights cost $10 to anywhere
- Turkmens deal in 3 currencies, which are all interchangeable: old manat (14000 to the dollar), new manat (2.8 to the dollar) and USD and often give payments in a combination of the three. Never has the calculator function on our mobiles been so useful
- petrol costs 5p per litre at the pumps
- in 2003 the government confused everyone in Ashgabat by replacing all street names with a 4-digit code
- the Turkmen language has its own copywrighted alphabet, called Elipbi
..... so still just about enough mental-ness going on to keep us amused!

Gemma

(BTW - we know our map has stopped working in IE, but still seems to work in Firefox. Can anyone (Jamie) help?)

Bukhara and Khiva

2009-07-30T19:50:00.002+05:30

I was going to blog about these two towns, where we've spent the last week, but I can't get the pictures to upload. If you can imagine two very quaint mud-brick towns, full of blue tiled domes, minarets and medrasas, you've pretty much got it. Both city centres are beautiful. We've had a lovely time... Especially as Uzbek red wine is surprisingly quaffable when served chilled!

Then today we took a trip out to visit 5 forts in the desert. Again, the pictures will do it more justice than I can and we'll upload them when we find a better connection.

Tomorrow we're off to Turkmenistan. Widely renowned as the North Korea of Central Asia, we may be out of contact for a while. Or maybe not. To be honest, they might not even let us in... They've had the borders sealed due to the risk of swine flu and although they're officially now reopened, apparently they're still wary of Brits. (As an aside, can anyone tell us why the UK seems to have 100K cases and France only has 800? This is beaucoup puzzling us.)

Gemma
---------------------------------------------------------------
Update from Baku... the land of all things modern (including speedy internet):

Photos of Bukara:

Then onwards to Khiva...

Then our day with the forts in the desert surrounding Khiva...

(Crikey, we've gotten tanned!)

How to make friends Stan-style

2009-07-28T12:16:00.001+05:30

How to make friends Stan-style

Approach foreigner.

- Where you from? America?
- No, Anglia.
- Ooo... London?
- Yes.
- You know Andrei Arshavin?
- No.
- Oh.

Beckon friend over.

Repeat indefinitely.

Tashkent and Samarkand (now with photos!)

2009-07-25T13:12:00.004+05:30

We're now on our way from Samarkand to Bukhara. Its getting more and more desert-y and hotter and hotter as we go. Its only a four hour trip and there is plenty of space in the shared taxi, as both the other passengers are women, so it should be fairly painless.

We're travelling fairly quickly at the moment as we get to the halfway point of our trip. We were only 2 days in Tashkent and a day and a half in Samarkand. We've got another week in Uzbekistan and then have to meet our guide at the Turkmenistan border. The Turkmen government is a bit paranoid and you need to have a guide with you to enter on a tourist visa.

Tashkent was quite dull. It is a big city (apparently the 4th biggest in the USSR) but doesn't really have a centre, just lots of 6 lane highways lined with ugly modern buildings. We had to get Azeri visas, some more dollars and reading material, so that took one day. Then there are a few sights and our hotel had a pool, so that took up our other day quite nicely.

Samarkand was great and the main group of enormous intricately patterned medrassas deserves its cover-photo status on most of the 'central asia' or 'silk road' guidebooks. Any of the major mosques or mausoleums would have qualified as the number one site in Kyrgyzstan or Tajikistan. I won't test the limits of my descriptive prose, but instead upload some photos when I get to a computer.

Uzbekistan feels a lot more prosperous than the other countries in c. Asia, e.g. Only 50%of the car population are Ladas and there are proper petrol stations rather than big glass jars of fuel by the side of the road, and is also a bit cheaper. This seems a bit strange given that the currency is messed up and there were trade sanctions after the police massacred a bunch of protesters in 2005 or 06. Luckily, Andrew and Zarema are planning to join us for a few days in Georgia, so we'll have two genuine experts on Central Asian economics to explain it to us. It wil be great to see them - although mainly for other reasons.

T.

P.S. What is the right adjective pertaining to 'desert'? I tried 'desertified', but I'm pretty sure that refers to the process of becoming 'desert' and I wouldn't want to imply any criticism of Uzbek agricultural policy. After all, the Aral Sea thing was the Russian's fault, right? Maybe I should just have gone with 'drier', or 'deserted'....

Penjikent and the Fansky Gory

2009-07-20T12:58:00.002+05:30

The trip North from Dushanbe was every bit as bad as expected... We got our hopes up when our driver managed to negotiate his way through the initial roadblock and we passed the Jolly Follies landrover coming the other way in the Tunnel of Death. But half an hour further on there was a proper closure, and no way of getting past. The road was supposed to re-open at 5pm, but it was after 7pm before the Chinese truck came through beeping its horn to signal we could proceed. At this point, about 100 cars at either end of the closed section started off simultaneously, with no regard for what was coming the other way. This resulted in a spectacular demonstration of collective genius - two queues of cars, each queue three abreast, facing off against each other on a mountain pass. It was another couple of hours before they'd organised enough reversing to get some kind of stream of traffic going. The police were completely unhelpful - concentrating on extorting bribes rather than trying to sort out the stupid traffic. Trevor's suggestion of throwing rocks at any car pulling into the lane meant for oncoming traffic was demonstrative of our mood by the time it all got sorted out.

We didn't arrive in Penjikent until nearly 2am and were tired, dirty and grumpy. Luckily the only hotel in town has obviously been refurbished since Lonely Planet was written, and we were pleasantly surprised by the running water and general lack of squalor.

Penjikent is famous for the Sogdian frescos that were preserved when the Arabs burnt the city down. The best ones are now in museums in Dushanbe and St Petersberg, but there was enough old stuff to see to fill a day.

(Me and Sogdian ruins)

Yesterday we took a trip up into the Fan Mountains, to hike to the seven connected lakes near Margurzor. These were beautiful, although the water was too cold even for Trevor to swim! We took a picnic and had a lovely day walking and enjoying the lakes (and attempting to build a causeway...)

(Trev by the 7th lake)

(Me on the way back down)

(Got the camera timer to work - thanks Jamie for buying Trev and instruction book for Christmas!)

So then this morning we changed our 5 x 100 Tajik Somoni notes for a 6 inch high stack of scrappy Uzbek Sum, and took a taxi to the border. It was a pain-free crossing, made somewhat amusing by the border guard insisting we took his brother's mobile number, as he is currently studying in the UK.

We're now in a car going from Samarkand (near the border) to Tashkent (the capital), where we're hoping to get our Azeri visa tomorrow. The scenery is flatter already, and we're expecting to hit dessert before we get much further West. The other obvious difference is that women's clothing seems to have changed from the velvet salwars in Tajikistan to a much more comfortable light cotton (yes, it's 35 degrees in the shade and the Tajiks are all wearing velvet. Bizarre.)

I'm not sure we'd go back to Tajikistan - there's some stunning scenery and very friendly people, but the travel is hard and there's not much in the way of sights or stuff going on. The walking is lovely, but you'd need to bring your own kit if you wanted to do any serious trekking.

In Other News, I got a new pair of flipflops (which made me very happy)... and we realised that it is indeed possible to eat Shashlik and Naan for four meals on the trot without any serious side effects (which made Trev very happy)

Gems

Dushanbe

2009-07-16T19:41:00.004+05:30

We're getting ready to head off from Dushanbe tomorrow to Penjikent, near the Uzbek border and the Fan Mountains. Its been a good restful few days here. Dushanbe is an attractive city, with lots of pastel coloured neo-classical Russian buildings and tree-lined streets, if a little dull and more than a little sleepy. The Tajik parliament building still has its Christmas tree up.

We headed out to see an ancient fort yesterday and for a walk (and swim, if you're brave about cold water like I am...) in the hills today, but haven't otherwise been up to much other than dragging ourselves round the museums and enjoying having BBC World in our room. Our most exciting discovery was a second hand book stall with English books for a pound (in the underpass outside TsUM, if anyone ever reads this for travel advice). Nothing remotely literary unfortunately but we are now well stocked with fantasy, courtroom drama and aga sagas. This is a big relief as we were running low of all three genres.

Dushanbe is dominated by an army of NGO workers. Every tenth car is a brand new white Land Crusiser or Nissan Patrol with a big aerial and a mysterious acronym and logo. Not sure how much they acheive from driving round Dushanbe in fancy cars other than making hotel rooms and decent restaurants way overpriced compared to other cities in the region. Of the 6 other tables in the Georgian restaurant we ate in last night, 3 were occupied by Americans. Gemma had 3 flies in her wine, but my beer was unblemished by insect life.

The trip here was a bit of a nightmare. The road from Istaravshan to here crosses two passes, both of which are being repaired by Chinese crews. The second has a long tunnel that was closed whilst they were working on it, so we sat in the dull town of Aini waiting for it to re-open from 2 until 6. We bumped into some other British travellers there who are driving from the UK to Australia in their Land Rover and were kind enough to make us tea. You can read about their trip at http://www.jollyfollies.com/. The tunnel itself was awful: Really long, dark, flooded, incredibly hot, dusty and filled with construction equipment. We've no idea how much of this we'll need to endure tomorrow. Our best guess is that we need to do the lot again, probably including the agonizing wait until the road crew finishes and the road opens. At least, that's what we're assuming, which handily also means there is no point getting up too early to set off.

Istaravshan to Dushanbe

2009-07-13T20:33:00.001+05:30

Istaravshan to Dushanbe

240 km took 14 hours in a jeep. Heinous. And the Tajik guy we were sharing with aiming to pass the time with vodka wore very thin very quickly.

Proper post to follow when we've gotten over it (and found a hotel that isn't full of NGO 'consultants' driving prices up to $100 a night and more)...

Rubbish Friday, pretty good Saturday in Istaravshan

2009-07-11T18:07:00.008+05:30

I woke up yesterday morning with a blistering rash down one side of my face and chin. It looks gross, is making it difficult to see out of my right eye and itches like hell. We have no idea what it is... top suspects are whatever washing powder was used on the pillow, bed bugs, or a pack of cleansing wipes I bought in Osh.

Then I tripped and snapped the strap on my flip flops. I got them fixed in the bazaar (the cobbler was so excited to be serving tourists that he wouldn't let us pay!) but the new strap rubs and is giving me blisters. No idea where to buy decent new ones; we're hoping Dushanbe will be developed enough to have decent shops.

On the positive side we finally bought a Russian-English phrasebook, which kept us amused on the drive to Istaravshan with what the Russians consider to be essential vocab. It contains such gems as:

- Do you have anything to declare?

Only possible answers:

- No

- I have vodka

...and...

Does the room rate include breakfast? How about 'personal services'?

Today was a much better day. We explored Istaravshan town (old, and not at all 'old-town-ified'). The main sight is a mosque that is now a medressa. Unsurprisingly, lessons came to a rather abrupt halt when we showed up outside with a camera:

Then on our way to see another mosque, we asked directions from a man who said he'd show us the way aftrer we'd taken tea in his house. So we went into his house, where four generations of family were hanging out on a day bed, drinking tea and eating local fruit (apricots, watermelon and apples). They insisted we stayed for lunch and we rolled out a couple of hours later. It was all a bit weird, but they were very excited to have foreign guests. We didn't see any other tourists in Khojund, and there's only one other in Istaravshan, so I don't think the novelty has worn off yet.

They also made Trevor wear one of their traditional hats so that we could all laugh at him, which seemed like fair payment for a free lunch!

Gemma

Down from the mountains

2009-07-09T18:09:00.008+05:30

We've now entered Tajikistan and, more significantly, left the hills and mountains of Kyrgyzstan behind. Both Khojand, where we are now, and Osh are on the southern edge of the Fergana Valley, the richest and most fertile part of Central Asia, crossed by a multitude of rivers from the Altai, Tien-Shan and Pamir mountains that either gang-up to push through to the Aral Sea and the Caspian as the Amu-Darya and Syr-Darya rivers or, more often, disappear in the deserts of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. You can see this on the map below (last post) - Osh is in the top right and the 'and' of Khojand on the far left, on the West side of the lake.

The culture here is also a long way from traditional Kyrgyz culture. The Fergana is the centre of Uzbek culture and the people have long been settled farmers, rather than the nomadic shepherds of the mountains. As Gemma mentioned, the valley was carved up somewhat randomly in soviet times between the Tajik, Kyrgyz and Uzbek Socialist Republics, but the population is largely Uzbek whichever side of the border you're on. The Fergana is also the centre of Islam in the region. Many more women here cover their heads and western dress has become rarer. The towns feel much more 'eastern' than the more russified towns further North - there are more old buildings and more old men in traditional dress lounging in tea houses. The food is now more consistently mutton kebabs and noodles rather than Russian-style salads and meat with sauce, which is overall a good thing.

(Chess playing in the park, Osh)

(Traditional Kyrgyz hats, Osh bazaar)

Less pleasantly, it is MUCH hotter than we've been used to, and with the heat have come mosquitoes. I got bitten all down my back in our particularly scruffy homestay in Osh (bucket of water to flush the loo, bucket of water to shower - thankfully, two labelled buckets provided). I guess Kyrgystan and Pakistan were too cold for mosquitoes, and China too politically repressive.

(Main square and theatre, Khojand)

(Woman with cheeky son and gold teeth selling bread, Khojand)

We haven't seen a big difference between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan so far, or at least between Osh and Khojand. We expected a bigger contrast given that Tajikistan is much poorer (roughly half the GDP per capita of Kyrgyzstan, and the 25th poorest country in the world) and only emerged from a decade of civil war 7 or 8 years ago, but I think a lot of this poverty is in the mountains to the South and East of the country rather than up where we are. There is certainly more soviet stuff left around, including a ten foot hammer and sickle on the main street and the biggest Lenin in central Asia. The biggest difference for us is that we're staying in the best room in town. We have a suite of three rooms overlooking the main square and both the hotel's balconies. It's roughly 4 times our recent accommodation budget at $60 a night.

(Syr-Darya River, Khojand)

(Main bazaar, Khojand)

Khojand is most famous as the furthest point in Central Asia that Alexander the Great reached before turning South East towards India. He fought a famous battle at the river here (where Gemma is standing in the picture below) against the Scythians, his men floating across on inflated cow hides to establish a beach head, and founded the city as 'Alexandria the Furthest'.

(Gemma recreating Alexander the Great's victory over the Scythians, Khojand)

Tomorrow we're heading further South, stopping in the town of Istaravshan for a couple of days before crossing the two mountain ranges that separate the North of Tajikistan from Dushanbe and the rest of the country.

T.

Here a Stan, there a Stan, everywhere a...

2009-07-07T17:58:00.003+05:30

Tomorrow we are saying goodbye to our favourite vowel-challenged republic and heading on from Osh to Tajikistan. I posted a map of the border becausue it is the most ludicrously complex thing I've ever seen. Those green bits are all enclaves (left to right are Tajik, Uzbek, Uzbek, all surrounded by Kyrgyzstan). There are some enclaves in the other enclaves. The road (and the bus) goes through all of them.

We're not sure what happens if you accidentally cross a border at an enclave (presumably you get stuck in the enclave, having used up your single entry Uzbek or Tajik visa, and unable to re-enter Kygyzstan as that visa is also single-entry). We've hired a driver to 'skirt around the enclave checkpoints' and get us to the actual border at Isfana. We'll let you know how it goes.

Fact-finders: designing these borders was Stalin's job before he got famous for all that Communist stuff. (Although I can't actually find a source for this fact, other than Trevor, so it may or may not be correct)....

Gems

Cholpon-Ata... back to Bishkek... and on to Osh

2009-07-07T09:59:00.004+05:30

Cholpon-Ata, on the North bank of Lake Issyk-Kul, is a holiday destination for Kazakhs and Russians, and the President even has a holiday home on the Lake. For us, it was supposed to be a couple of days in the sun on the beach, but the drizzle set in before we even left Karakol.

We got a lift with a middle-aged Kyrgyz woman and her dad. There was only room for one backpack in the boot as a dead goat was taking up most of the space. They fed us kymys (mildly alcoholic fermented mare’s milk), which was foul. It tasted OK, but had the consistency of sick with lumps of gelatin in. The woman kept herself amused the whole way with our Central Asian phrase book; who knew that reading out ‘I am menstruating’ in various languages could cause so much hilarity?

We couldn’t find the hotel we were aiming for, and ended up in a dirt cheap (and unsurprisingly not very nice) room. With the drizzle still coming down and the town already explored (think Southend-on-Sea before they redeveloped the shopping centre, or Morcambe pre-Blobbyland), it was clearly good form to hit the bottle and sit it out. I don’t think licensing laws exist here - every imaginable retail outlet sells booze, mainly vodka (either by the bottle or by the shot).

When the rain finally stopped we headed up the hill behind town to view the petroglyphs – a bunch of rocks with drawings of goats scratched on them, dating from the Bronze age. These may have been more impressive if I wasn’t cold and grumpy, with an evening hangover starting to set in.

Sunday dawned bright and sunny with temperatures in the low 30s and we took a picnic to the beach for breakfast. Droves of fat Russians and Kazakhs, wearing unbelievably tight swimsuits, were already staking out areas of the beach. The house music was pumping and I’m sure it wouldn’t have been long before the vodka came out again. We decided to press on to Bishkek, where we arrived late afternoon.

We took our finished paperbacks to the one place we’ve found in Kyrgyzstan with English Language books in order to swap them. It’s a café called Fat Boys and seems a prime expat hangout (not that there are many expats in Bishkek – the British presence is only an Honorary Consulate). There was an Ozzie expat at the table next to us whose conversation we could overhear… I think being a gold explorer might be a much better job than being a management consultant.

Before we left Delhi, we had said that we’d go for sushi in Bishkek, which is about as far from the sea as it’s possible to get. So last night we dutifully went and sampled it. The restaurant was reassuringly expensive and the sushi was great, although atmosphere somewhat lacking (we were the only people in) and the Kyrgyz waitresses all looked a bit silly in their Japanese dressing gowns.

(Yes, TJ, we know your friend got sick from sushi in Russia, but we didn’t think that should stop us…)

Then this morning we were up early and caught a shared taxi to Osh. It’s supposed to take 10 hours to cover 600km, for which we’re paying 10 quid a seat in a normal car; excellent value (especially considering the zebra print interior and the fact that Trev’s scored the front seat).

In Other News, we have now learnt to read Cyrillic, which is making ordering in restaurants a much less random experience!

Gemma

Karakol

2009-07-03T18:46:00.002+05:30

We're still in Kyrgyzstan. Probably for another week or so. We're currently staying in Karakol, the biggest town near to Lake Issyk-Kul (the second largest alpine lake in the world, lacustrine-fact fans). We spent a day on the beach. The sunbathing was good, the swimming less so. 'Issy-Kul' apparently translates as 'warm lake'. It isn't. We then walked up to some hot springs yesterday and spent the night there, before walking back today. We're planning to head to a resort on the North side of the lake tomorrow for some more beach time, if it stops drizzling.

The countryside here is the big draw for tourists, and it is suitably beautiful. I don't think comparisons with Switzerland particularly do it justice. Since the low parts of the country are around 2000m, the mountains don't look so high, but provide a snow-capped backdrop for the bright green corrugated hills that make up most of the landscape.

Kyrgyz towns are very low-key and pleasantly rustic. The streets are wide and tree-lined and as soon as you are off the main street, give way to quaint cottages with yards filled with livestock. Most streets have a couple of donkeys and goats wandering about. The tourist map of Kochkor includes the town's only four-storey building as a landmark. There are no three-storey buildings and only a couple of 2-storey buildings. The map itself was somewhat superfluous.

Towns do have a few Soviet-era concrete eye-sores and usually a lot of rusty metal. The economy withered after independence, as most of the Russian businessmen, technicians, etc. that ran things left. There are now almost no working factories in the whole country. There are quite a lot of factories around, but they are nearly all slowly disintegrating. Rusty caravans are also a common feature of both the urban and rural landscape. The government gave away all the soviet railway carriages to poor families (which I think included everyone at the time) and these are now scattered across the country on street corners, in car parks and in people's gardens.

Horses seem to be a mainstream and common transport option everywhere outside Bishkek. They're not a bad idea given that the average car is a 30 year old Lada in a poor state of repair. Our taxi back from Song-Kul to Kochkor only had one handle to work the windows, so whenever another car and associated dust cloud approached the handle would be frantically passed around to wind the windows up and the passed around again less urgently once we'd passed the dust, to wind them down again. The other problem with non-equine travel is the state of the roads. It seems that, in the 18 years since independence, establishing a road maintenace capability hasn't been a big priority for Kyrgyzstan. Even the major highways are somewhere between gravel tracks and heavily cratered concrete. The police pursuit vehicles are slightly more modern Lada '4x4s' that look like VW Golfs with slightly bigger tyres. The man we discussed how to get to the hot springs with (before deciding to walk) was keen to distinguish between these '4x4s' and 'jeeps' - only one of which could have actually made it up the track.

T.

Photos - Kashgar and Song Kul

2009-07-01T19:36:00.002+05:30

All the photos from China are now up, as well as a first few from Kyrgyzstan.

This is proving to be a slow and annoying proccess, so we'll probably be uploading fewer in future.

Same place as before: http://picasaweb.google.com/trevorcot

Bishkek

2009-06-30T19:20:00.002+05:30

We’ve spent the last few days in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan. It’s a small city with not a great deal going on. We were done with the sights in a few hours (one museum (in Russian) one monument and mutiple statues of Lenin, which have been moved to less prominent positions sinc independence, but still dominate the must-see list). So then there was nothing much left to do but set about developing a taste for Russian caviar and Georgian wine (which turned out to be far superior to Moldovan).

The restaurats and vodka cocktails were excellent and except for a huge storm on Sunday night, the weather was perfect for sitting in the sun and enjoying both. And for the first time on the trip I could choose my outfit safe in the knwledge that the sizeable local population of Russian girls would be sporting far skimpier outfits than I could ever rustle up from my backpack.

The floor-madam in our hotel did all our landry and we feel refreshed and ready to goagain. We’re now en route to Karakol, close to Lake Issyk-Kol, where we’re hoping to get in some beach time. The name translates as ‘warm lake’, so let’s hope it’s accurate this time! After that it’s probably about time to start heading West...

Gemma

Our plans

2009-06-29T11:45:00.002+05:30

We've begun to realise that we've been heading in the wrong direction. We've managed only to progress from 77 degrees longitude in Delhi to 74 degrees in Bishkek over the last 22 days. At our current rate of westerly progress it will take around another 543 days to get back to London. Whilst our employer is usually willing to be fairly flexible about such things, we'll probably need to return to work before mid-2011. Also, although Gemma's Mum can no doubt cope with all the preparations, our wedding in May is (arguably) going to be less successful if we don't actually attend.

So, we've decided to change our plans slightly. We'd originally been planning to head South out of Kyrgyzstan into the Eastern part of Tajikistan. This would take us back to slightly nearer to Delhi than Bombay is and to within a few days walk of where we were in Pakistan a couple of weeks ago, which slightly defeats the point. We're now going to head into the northern part of Tajikistan, and only spend 7-10 days there in Khojand, Dushanbe and the Fan Mountains.

More significantly, in terms of an overall route, we've finally given up on ever hearing back from our agent about an Iran visa. Instead, we're planning to get an Azerbaijan visa in Tashkent and travel through Turkmenistan to the Caspian Sea and take a ferry from there.

We'll try to update the map up top at some point. In the meantime, we're heading even further East to Karakol (78 degrees longitude) on the shores of Lake Issy-Kul tomorrow. Apparently, there are vodka stands on the beach. I'll let you know how/if this manages to be compatible with the Russian habit of sunbathing standing up....

T.

Horses and yurts

2009-06-28T12:09:00.001+05:30

The last couple of days have been spectacular. We hired horses and a guide through CBT from some shepherds close to Kochkor and rode them over a mountain pass to Song Kul, an alpine lake (translates as ‘Convenient Lake’, which it certainly wasn’t!)

On the way we ate and slept in yurts belonging to shepherds. They are made of felt and smell a bit muttony, but are surprisingly cosy (at least they are once they’ve piled 7 duvets on top of you).

Having pretty much had our fill of mutton and noodles, mutton soup and mutton kebabs, the lake provided some excellent barbequed fish for the meals on the second day. That feeling of congealed mutton fat on the roof of your mouth is not something I’ll miss about Central Asia. Homemade cream and strawberry jam on freshly baked bread to finish every meal I think we will miss.

The horses were well behaved – the only scary moment was when mine bolted at the sight of a shepherd walking towards us carrying a calf over his shoulder. Apparently the sight of a man-cow was just too disconcerting to stay calm, but I stayed on. Later the sound of putting on or taking off my coast would have a similar effect. Twice

Apparently the Kyrgyz don’t name their horses, but when pressed, the shepherds told us we could call them Blacky, Patchy and Farty. In Kygyz, of course.

Arriving back in Kochkor yesterday we took a shared taxi to Bishkek, where we arrived last night (hence the sudden flurry of posts). Somewhat saddle-sore but clean and learning to enjoy $2-a-bottle Moldovan wine, first impressions are positive.

Photos of Song Kul to follow (when Trevor stops reading about Michael Jackson and gets on with uploading them).

Gemma

...and on to Kyrgyzstan

2009-06-27T19:25:00.003+05:30

The Kyrgyz visa was the very first one that I got in Delhi. At the time, the Ambassador's wife spent significant time and effort telling me how similar to Switzerland it was. Having never been to either country I nodded and smiled. But now that we're here, I can confirm that Kyrgyzstan is very green and drizzly, full of sheep, the men are all on horseback and the people live in yurts. The only thing missing is some smoked cheese.

Tuesday started early with us leaving the Kashgar hotel at 7.30am local time in a jeep to the border. Customs opened at 11.30am Beijing time (everything in Xnijiang is given as Beijng time, but locals set their watches 2 hours later, with the effect that standard opening hours are 11am-8pm Beinjing time, i.e. 9-6 local). We were first through customs and needless to say the Chinese officials were much less rigourous with their checks on the way out that they had been on the way in.

It was then a 3 hour, 100km drive to the Kyrgyz border across no-man's-land. We were under strict instructions to "not stop or take photos but toilet break behind rock is OK". We arrived at the border just in time to see it closing for lunch, so sat in the jeep for 90 minutes waiting for them to get their fill of noodles.

The Torougart pass is one of Asia's most notorious and unpredictable border posts and we'd heard and read plenty of horror stories about travellers having made careful arrangements only to be thwarted by logistical gridlock or unpredictable closures. We had hired a jeep in both China and Kyrgyzstan and an agent just for us, and we got lucky... after the lunch break nd then a further delay while they ransacked a couple of trucks, we were through and nto Kyrgyztan.

After we had crossed the pass the scenery changed pretty quickly to green rolling hills, replacing the more jagged mountains of China. There were lots of marmots on both sides, but no Marco Polo sheep.

As soon as we had entered no-man's-land the road had changed from the excellent tarmac of China to a gravelly track, reminiscent of the Pakistan roads. This continued into Kyrgyzstan, except for a wide smooth 4-lane superhighway for about 3km just over the border: a military airstip, apparently never used. It was another 3 hours of driving to Naryn, which we reached just before 8pm.

Naryn is derived from the Mongolian for 'sunny' - a rare moment of Mongol irony accordnig to the guidebook. In reality it is a cluster of soviet era concrete blocks in some of the prettiest scenery we've seen so far. Finding a room was easy through CBT (Community Based Tourism - an NGO that essentially connects tourists with a network of guides, drivers and families willing to take in guests across teh country). We were placed with the high school history teacher's family in an apartment in one of the aformentioned concrete blocks. It was actually pretty pleasant; much like a B&B in the UK.

Wednesday we donned our backpacks again and caught a lift to Kochkor, where we arranged to take horses for the 2 day ride to an alpine lake, staying in yurts on route.

And then we just kept our fingers crossed that the Swiss drizzle would abait for 48 hours!

Gemma

Kashgar posts

2009-06-24T16:10:00.004+05:30

We seem to have chosen a route through the areas of the world with the worst internet connectivity. This is the third time I've started a post about Kashgar but, if you're reading this, the first time that anything has made it out into the ether.

As a result I'm getting a bit fed up with all this blogging business and we're getting further and further behind our actual location when writing entries. This can only negatively impact the already fairly low quality of our writing. I'm now trying to write something interesting about a surprisingly modern Chinese city on the edge of a desert whilst wrapped-up warm in a yurt halfway up a mountain in Kyrgystan. By the time this gets posted we'll probably be in Bishkek, which will hopefully be a whole new story.

I think the best way out of this is to do away with prose and write some entries in bullet point form. For any of my consulting comrades reading, these will be neither mutually exclusive nor collectively exhaustive. I'm on holiday.

Some good things about Kashgar:

Being in a modern city for a few days. Amazing how developed Kashgar is, given the distance from anywhere and particularly from Beijing
The contrast between the old and new cities: Maze-like mud-built Muslim areas are hidden behind a one building deep layer of shiny malls, banks and government buildings
Diversity of the local Uyghur people: Everything from 100% oriental to plenty that would pass for Spanish or Italian (if they kept their mouths shut and dressed a bit differently)
The Sunday market: Not as chaotic as we were expecting, but great to see locals and country folk going about their business buying goats and kebab sticks
Uyghur women's fashion: There is no such thing as too shiny, with head to toe red sequins being particularly popular
Uyghur architecture: No spectacular buildings, but a colourful take on islamic style, with Chinese touches
Great peaches, plums and apricots

Some less good things about Kashgar:

Less friendly than Pakistan, by some measure, although nothing like the rudeness that I'd been led to expect from China
People minding their own business on public transport: The contrast between everyone sharing food and chatting non-stop on the Pakistan bus from Sost to Tashkurgan and the nice, polite, modern Chinese bus from Tashkurgan to Kashgar was a bit sad
Not being able to speak the language, read menu or even make ourselves understood with the phrasebook (tonal languages must only have evolved to stop anyone else ever understanding you). As some indication of the depth of our underacheivement, I still have no idea how to pronounce the word 'Uyghur' other than it involves a whining noise and can only consistently make one word (hello) understood in Mandarin. At least in Russian the phrasebook is fairly effective
How much of the old town has been knocked down since our guidebook was written (published in 2007!)
No yaks or bactrian camels at the animal market
Segregation of Han Chinese and Uyghur neighbourhoods and shops
'Meat' pies consisting entirely of mutton fat

A first load of photos of Kashgar is up at http://picasaweb.google.com/trevorcot (or whatever it was before). There will be some more whenever it is raining hard enough to spend all day in an internet cafe. All the PCs we've met for a while speak only Russian or Chinese, so I've no idea how to compress the files from my camera to make them uploadable in any sensible timeframe. If anyone can tell me which menu options to choose (in either language neutral terms or cyrillic), there will be a special reward of a bottle of fermented horse milk. That is assuming it is not intercepted by Kyrgyz or British customs. The former at least seems unlikely, given our customs check on arrival consisted of the guard waving at our driver from across an empty car park.

Pakistan photos

2009-06-22T15:46:00.001+05:30

We've had a great few days in Kashgar and now it's time for us to head over the border to Kyrgyzstan. I'll write some more about what we've been up to here soon. In the meantime, here is a first batch of photos from Pakistan. Uploading them is painfully slow, so there is not too many. We've not been able to put them on the blog, since Blogger appears to be blocked from China, so they are on Picasa, at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/trevorcot/pakistan

T.

China Lesson #1: If you don't speak the language at least learn to interpret mime

2009-06-20T10:15:00.001+05:30

China Lesson #1: If you don't speak the language at least learn to interpret mime

FINALLY arrived in Tashkurgen after the most thorough customs searches either of us have ever seen. Three times the entire bus had to empty all bags (except for me - they took one look at the box of tampons at the top of my bag and said they were done checking).
At the Chinese border they handed out thermometers and had us all take our temperature for swine flu. This caused much hilarity amongst the Pakistanis... Three of whom had to take theirs a second time because the original reading was too low as they'd been joking about with the thermometers so much.

Crossing the pass was in the company of hundreds of marmotts, but unfortunately we didn't see any Marco Polo sheep.

Tashkurgen is the first town on the Chinese side and although beautifully located, there's not much going on there. We couldn't find a single restaurant in the town with an English menu, so we resorted to pointing at what other people were eating. Trev pointed at some pork ribs and I chose a dish of sliced mushrooms. At this point the girl whose dinner I was pointing at kept miming at my earrings. Somewhat naively, I thought she was saying she liked my earrings. Trev thought she was explaining the food and the mushrooms were named after ears (he claims such a mushroom exists...) When dinner came, it turned out the real meaning of the mime was 'are you sure you want to order sliced pig ears for dinner?' Nice. They actually didn't taste too bad, but the chewy cartilage put us both off after a while.

Now we're in Kashgar, where we're staying for 3 or 4 days to take in China and take a break from buses.

I am enjoying wearing a T shirt rather than a kurta and seeing the female half of the population out and about. Chinese wine is nothing to write home about, however.

Thanks for all the comments... especially TJ saying Skardu(sty) was smart - I knew I was onto a winner with that title!

Gemma

Ni hao, China!

2009-06-18T15:58:00.001+05:30

Ni hao, China!

Made it across the Khunjerab pass. Looks pretty similar to the Pakistani side so far, except for we're now driving on the right!

Will post more later, but wanted Matt and Mums to breathe easy asap...

Gemma

Passu and Sost

2009-06-17T22:09:00.001+05:30

Passu and Sost

It's our last evening in Pakistan, most likely. We've had a great time here and would definitely come back if we wanted to do any serious trekking or when new parts of the country become safe. The scenery is spectacular and the people have been amazingly friendly. I can't think of anywhere else in the world where people with no connection to the tourist industry have been so interested in meeting and helping tourists, except perhaps Cambodia. The Pakistani people have been very polite and calm so this has never seemed like hassle, as it can in touristy parts of India. I'm sure some of this is due to the relative lack of tourists here. We've often been the only people in our hotels and have only once had another foreigner on the same bus trip as us.

We've spent the last few days making our way higher into the Karakorum Mountains towards China. The valley has grown steadily steeper, the mountains closer and sharper and the tributaries of the Indus narrower and more feeble. We've not really been up to much beyond sitting on buses, staying in small villages and walking. We had a longish walk along the side of a glacier and across to a lake yesterday and a shorter walk this morning along the river.

The travel has been a bit slow. The Highways Agency is paying the China Road and Bridge Company to upgrade the Karakorum 'Highway' to something more worthy of the name. It seems like an endless task. All along the road you can see gangs of ten Chinese labourers in red boiler-suits building a twenty metre wall in the middle of a five mile stretch if similarly exposed dusty cliff-side track.

The bus trips haven't been too uncomfortable, despite the lack of legroom and capacity being four-aside in the width of a standard estate car. Women can claim front row seats, as can men and children travelling with them. It wouldn't be appropriate for me to sit next to any local women, so we usually get the two end seats on the front row. This has a bit more space than sharing with three other guys and has some useful extra leg space on the step inside the door. It also gives me the responsibility of opening and closing the door, which breaks the tedium.

We're now in Sost, the last 'town' before the Karakorum National Park and then China. Its really just a row of dingy concrete hotels, shops and restaurants before Pakistani customs and immigration. There is only one proper road and other buildings are strewn across a trackless field of pebbles behind the main strip. A memorably ugly place, and a big contrast from the peaceful and green village of Passu that we woke up in. Sost is the only edgy town that we've stopped in. We're only 45km from Afghanistan (vs. 85km from China). One of the roads from town leads to the Wakhan Corridor - a finger-like extension of Afghanistan that reaches to China and once served to separate the British and Russian empires. We should be nearby again, on the other side of the Wakhan Valley in Tajikistan, in 3-4 weeks after a big loop through China and Kyrgyzstan.

For those of you who were particular worried for our safety in Pakistan (Matt, all our Indian friend), we'll confirm that we have actually made it to China either tomorrow from Tashkurgan or the next night from Kashgar.

The picture shows Gemma crossing the Hunza River near Passu this morning.

T.

P.S. For any Mum's reading: The part of Afghanistan that we're near and will be seeing again from Tajikistan is fairly safe. It is ethnically Tajik and was a stronghold of the Northern Alliance that fought against the Taliban.

The Hunza valley

2009-06-15T14:01:00.002+05:30

We made it to Karmabad in the Hunza valley late Saturday night. The road from Skardu to Gilgit was fine (although a bit scary), but once we were on the Karakoram Highway... well let's just say "Karakoram dust path with lots of craters in it" might have been a more accurate name!

Hunza is beautiful. As we hoped, the women here don't have their heads covered, which means I don't have to, which is MUCH more comfortable. The scenery is very spectacular, with snow covered peaks all around. We hiked up to Ultar Meadow today, which involved a lot of scrambling up scree, but was worth it.

The food in Hunza is different to anything we've ever tried before. Current favourite is Hunza Pizza - kind of a chapati sandwich with miced meat and veg inside. And apricot kernel soup was a surprise winner last night.

There are hardly any tourists around and lots of empty hotels. The place we're staying offered us a 60% discount without us even asking. It's sad that a lot of these places may well go out of business. (In Skardu we paid published price because the guesthouse owner was the Baltistan coordnator of CAI (of Three Cups of Tea fame), so we thought we were supporting a good cause).

The people are much less pushy than in India - walking through town they stop to say hello, but don't ask you to come in their shop or hotel or restaurant. Even when we walked outside the airport in Skardu there were a buch of guys standing there with hotel fliers, but noone aproached us until we went and asked them to see the leaflets.

In all, we are very pleasantly surprised by Northern Pakistan and would certainly come back. The weather is amazing (cool enough to hike, yet sunny enough to sit outside), the people are great and we're having a superb time. If only wine were as readily available as dodgy Chinese beer, we'd all be happy...

Gemma

Skardu(sty)

2009-06-14T15:04:00.005+05:30

We're now on our way from Skardu, the capital of Baltistan in the far NE of Pakistan, to Karimabad on the main Karakorum Highway to China.

I've been to some dusty towns, but Skardu beats all of them. The Indus river makes a wide meandering river bed in the Skardu valley and, between the time that the valley itself thaws and the snow and glaciers high in the mountains start to melt, it leaves hugh expanses of sand and silt exposed. This gets whipped up into the air by the wind for a few hours every afternoon, blocking views across the valley and covering every surface. Really unpleasant, especially for contact lens wearers.

Its not like there is much to see in the town, either. The bazaar is at best passingly interesting and the local beauty spot, a lake in the hills above town, has been disfigured by the ongoing construction work for a Chinese-funded dam. The lake was pretty enough if you only looked in one direction and the trout and chips we had for lunch were good. It's quite a conservative shiite town and there were no women around at all, so Gemma wore a head-scarf for the first, and perhaps only, time in the trip. The rest of the places we're heading to in Pakistan are largely ismaili muslim and supposedly she won't need to cover her head.

The main attraction of Baltistan is the scenery. The area is home to something like 5 of the world's 20 highest mountains, and the views are awesome. There are also some nice villages nearby, with old forts and wooden mosques, and good walking. Balti food has nothing to do with the dish of the same name in UK Indian restaurants, but is really good. My lunch yesterday was the best of the trip so far, despite the unpromising menu description: "Local bread cooked in mutton broth". It turned out to be tasty pasta-like pieces in a spicy and nutty sauce with pieces of meat.

Baltistan became part of Kashmir when the British sold it to the Maharaja of Kashmir after capturing it during the Sikh Wars, and Skardu is only a couple of hours away from the Line of Control between India- and Pakistan-controlled Kashmir. Surprisingly, there is not a heavy Pakistan army presence in the area - in contrast to the other side of the border in Ladakh and the Kashmir valley itself. I guess that, unlike the Indian army, the Pakistan army have got bigger problems. The locals here have some strange ideas about the Taliban (although people in Islamabad were well informed). One of our fellow bus passengers today, like many Europeans, thinks that America is to blame for all the world's problems. Our American friends will be glad to know that I lept to your country's defence; pointing out that at least Kashmir isn't America's fault. He claims that America are both (still) funding the Taliban and the Pakistan army. He didn't have a particularly strong view on why America would want to do this. I guess general malevolence would need to be invoked. More extraordinary was the owner of the restaurant we ate in a couple of days ago. He told us that his 'friend in the Pakistan army' had told him that the insurgents he had killed in Swat are uncircumcised and therefore obviously Indian soldiers pretending to be Taliban. The Indian press have claimed things at least as extraordinary as this about Pakistan, so perhaps this kind of thing is to be expected here also. I was more concerned about the removal of enemy casualties' undergarments. I doubt this is specifically covered in the Geneva Convention, but it is clearly against the spirit of the agreement.

Getting to Skardu ended up being a bit easier than we'd feared. The landing involves circling down within the valley and has to be done visually. It wasa tterrifying. Sensibly, they cancel the flight when it is windy or cloudy, and the flight had been cancelled on 5 days of the week before we wanted to travel. There was a big back-log of people with tickets wanting to travel. Luckily, we got chatting with the manager of the main PIA ticket office in Rawalpindi and she managed to find 2 seats on the next flight.

Finally, apologies for the title of this post. Gemma insisted and I'm an indulgent kind of guy.

We've now enabled comments on this blog. This is somewhat ambitious, given that we only have one reader that we're aware of (hi, Vanessa!)....

T.

Things BBC World is consistently getting wrong today

2009-06-10T21:07:00.002+05:30

1. They are out on 'local time' in Pakistan by an hour. No wonder hapless travellers miss border opening timings when they are reporting the time difference incorrectly (and it's totally counter-intuitive anyway);

2. Security in Islamabad is not exactly 'beefed up'. We have seen a few traffic policemen lounging in the shade and a lone sniper hanging over the wall of the sister hotel to the one in Peshawar.

The best laid plans...

2009-06-10T17:32:00.000+05:30

The best laid plans...

We rocked up at the airport this morning to catch our flight and were told that because we hadn't reconfirmed it in person in an office in Rawalpindi (a half hour driver from Islamabad) yesterday, our seats had been given to waitlisted passengers. Genius system. And because the Skardu flight hadn't gone for 5 days, the waitlist was LONG.

Despite our best efforts at the airport this morning, they weren't letting us on. So off we trotted to the PIA office to try and confirm for tomorrow. To cut a long story short, 5 hours later we have confirmed tickets. Now we just have to keep fingers crossed for the weather (which is why the last 5 days were cancelled).

A room of 400 Pakistanis waving tickets and trying to shout their way onto one flight tomorrow doesn't make for a very interesting picture, so here's one of Trev in front of Asia's largest mosque, a gift from King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, instead. Islamabad's sights don't get much more impressive.

Sad news this morning about the bomb in Peshawar. But for those who are worrying (Mums) we are nowhere near what we knew was a dangerous place, we're staying in a small guesthouse not a 5 star target and we're not going anywhere that has a higher threat rating from the FCO than Mumbai does. And we're being very careful :-)

And as long as the weather holds in the mountains, we'll be in the safe haven of Kashmir by lunchtime tomorrow.

Gemma

Living the dream

2009-06-09T21:36:00.000+05:30

Living the dream

Beer and steak in Islamabad. Steakhouses a plenty... Beer available as long as it's ordered in a whisper.

Happy holidays!

Hello Pakistan!

2009-06-09T20:40:00.001+05:30

Hello Pakistan!

(Picture of Trev exiting India)

A late arrival into Amritsar, but luckily we had booked a hotel right by this station so after only 10 minutes of fending off 'wanna rickshaw? Wanna hotel?' type requests we were in bed.

This morning we had our last breakfast in India (a disappointing, but classic, fried egg on toast) and headed to the border. The log book suggested there'd been 6 other foreigners in the last week... we are not alone!

The only other guy trying to cross at the same time as us was a Russian. He didn't seem to have read any kind of 'How to seem inconspicuous to border guards' instructions. He was still being questioned as we left the border, but his answers didn't seem to be making him particularly welcome...
- where are you from?
- Russia
- what is your profession?
- pilot
- what is your purpose in Pakistan?
- flying planes.
Right.

We had organised a car from a guesthouse in Islamabad to be waiting for us on the Pakstani side. We were 90 minutes late after messing up the time difference (who knew Pakistan would be ahead of India?) And then a power cut meaning the immigration computers weren't working. But we found the car easily and the drive was fine; on the Grand Trunk road for the most part. The standard of driving (accelerate towards the vehicle in front and beep manically until it gets out of the way) is confirming our suspician that the biggest risk to us being here is road safety and access to medical care, rather than anything to do with the Taliban.

6 hours later we've arrived into Islamabad. The guesthouse is nice, the people friendly and most women don't have their heads covered (phew!) The roads are in better nick than in India and there seems to be less rubbish around. So far, so good.

Gemma

...and they're off

2009-06-08T17:16:00.001+05:30

...and they're off

It's been a crazy week and a bit since we got back from the UK. There have been lots of very late and drunken nights and very busy days as we've finished various work admin jobs, packed up and shipped all our stuff, said goodbye to friends and staff and Gemma has run around Delhi buying the few handicrafts we didn't already own.

Its quite a relief to finally be on the train to Amritsar after such an emotionally and physically tiring week, and we're even looking forward to a forced detox in Pakistan. We've been touched by the number of send-off events (and presents...) that people have organized and will miss everyone in Delhi. The prize for saddest farewell goes to our driver Prasad, who has been breaking into tears periodically all week. We've probably spent an order of magnitude more time with him than anyone other than each other over the last 3 years, so perhaps that's not too suprising.

We're staying in Amritsar tonight, crossing into Pakistan tomorrow morning and staying in Islamabad tomorrow night, then flying up to Skardu early on Wednesday. We'll then be making our way North into China for 10 days or so.

We've been monitoring the security situation closely and this route avoids Swat and anywhere else we probably wouldn't want to be at the moment. I guess we'll know for sure soon.

Trev.

Trip planning

2009-04-27T16:05:00.002+05:30

We have almost got all of our visas for the big trip. So far we've got
Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and China. Still pending are Iran,
Pakistan and Turkmenistan.

Pakistan should be easy once we finish work, but they require you to
attend the embassy in person. Iran and TM could prove far trickier.

We are now planning on setting off from Delhi around 7th June... If the
security situation in Pakistan gets any worse we may leave a little
earlier and go via Nepal and Tibet instead. Watch this space...

testing email updates

2009-04-14T18:04:00.000+05:30

Just trying to get it working...