One week before our planned departure date and the sense of anticipation is growing. All that's left to do is pick up some US$, courses of antibiotics and get our Iranian visas back from the Magic Carpet Co.
Oh, and for Adrian to put his bike back together and to re-build the 15ft wide hole in the side of his house. We are concerned that he has confused his planned conservatory with Crystal Palace.
Just a quick entry on our first day as innocents abroad. Drove through torrential downpours to arrive without drama to a slap up meal at the groenedijk motorcycle loft hotel, outside Ostend. Greeted by Sonya, but proprietor Ivan was, perhaps wisely, off tonight.
All is well after a couple of beers, but looking forward to a good nights kip.
Hope to post some pics soon, when we have read the instructions.
Arrived Thursday morning in Budapest. Beautiful weather for a change as the ride down through Germany and Austria has been dull and grey. We have just stuck to the Autobahns so not much scenery and not much to report.
My bike is still losing a little oil from the airbox breather and onto my boot whilst Adrian has had to re-adjust his tappets. One of Adrian's rocker cover nuts has escaped - at this rate there won't be much left to ship home, maybe we'll need a parcel, not a container.
We set off from Budapest and headed for the Romanian border. Weather and roads were great but after making a slight navigational error, we ended up in a small town called Debrecen about 30 miles off our route. But what the heck, that's travelling, so we found a nice enough place to stay and parked up for the night.
Thanks for the comments chaps, keep them coming...
After our last post, we wandered over to the Grand Bazaar for a look around. It really is quite a spectacle. Adrian thought that it reminded him of the Victoria Centre - and I must confess I could see what he meant. I had my first thick, black Turkish Coffee which had the texture of gravelly sand except not as smooth. It has kept me awake for 36 hours now and I'm starting to hallucinate!
Well, there's clearly more to this photography lark than we thought, but we're starting to get the hang of Adrian's digital camera after some disappointing initial results.
Regardless, we thought we'd post a few snaps for your obvious pleasure and delight.
Sorry, but this is a big entry as we are still moving fairly quickly and have not come across any usable internet cafes for a while...
Stop press - we have just arrived at the Turkish border town of Dogubayazit - near to Mont Arrarat and Noah's Ark.
Will find a place to stop for the evening and make a break for Iran early as I believe the crossing maybe lengthy if not tricky. We're also a little bit worried about how the laptop will be received by the customs officials.
Oh, and some of the stone throwing kids have been practising as one of them got my front wheel this morning...
Iran is big. Really, really big. Bigger than the UK, Belgium, Holland, Germany, France and Switzerland put together. Three times the size of France and one fifth the size of the US. Get the picture? It's big. We left Lake Van and headed North through the Kurdish mountains to the border town of Dogubayazit. Both the weather and scenery was beautiful - although the temperature dropped and we did have a small rain shower crossing one of the higer summits just to remind us of home. More village kids hurled bits of roadside furniture at us with a worrying improvements in accuracy.
Just a quick note from a friendly internet company. Cliff, Jenny, Andreas Adrian and I arrived safe and sound in Pakistan yesterday after crossing the Baluchistan desert from Bam in Iran to Quetta in Pakistan.
The border crossing went smoothly, if slowly and the only problems were one flat battery and a plug lead disconnected. It feels amazing to be able to stop at the side of the road and watch a camel train meandering across the desert.
Tourists are still a relative novelty in Iran and as a consequence we have been formally introduced to at least one half of the population. "Hi, how are you?" rings constantly in our ears, proud fathers take photos of their kids alongside us and the bikes and soldiers ask "Do you have time for a conversation?". The other half of the population continues to try and run us off the road, but in the politest manner of course.
Five weeks away and I think we're starting to get the hang of this travelling lark. We're getting used to the large crowds that form every time we stop to look at a map. Developing techniques for getting rooms for $4 instead of $5 is of course essential for any one on the road. But when you start to get a little too cocky, certain aspects of a different culture, such as what may be considered a normal introduction, can always pop up and leave you damn well speechless. "Hey mister, where your hair gone?" was certainly one of those moments.
If I'm honest, the bulk of my many preconceptions about this journey have been inaccurate at best; I fully expected to experience the Indian 'culture shock' so often described. But, after the education of sharing a hotel room with a food poisoned Adrian Scott, the sights, sounds (and smells) of India are a walk in a rose garden.
Against all our expectations, and unlike many other visitors, we rather enjoyed the hustle and hassle of Delhi, we really did. But, after only one week, a combination of pollution and virulent colds left us both craving some clean air. And what better way to indulge ourselves and repair our fly blown carcasses than to idle away a few days touring the Land of the Kings.
The deserts of Rajastan beckoned...
We've had a couple of requests for details of our route so far, so here is the latest list of major and minor towns along the way (spellings are, as always, negotiable) ....England
Foston
M1/M25/M20
Dover
Belgium
Ostend
Bruxelles
Germany
Aachen
Koblenz
Frankfurt
Wurzburg
Nurnberg
Regensburg
Hungary
Passau
Linz
Wien
Tatabanya
Budapest
Debrecen
Romania
Oradea
Cluj Napoca
Sebes
Fagoras
Sighisoria
Brasov
India can sometimes bring the fundamentals of life into sharp relief and watching whilst a family cremates grandma on an open bonfire of banyan wood alonside the River Ganges inevitably raised uncomfortable issues of our own mortality. So, it was with some relief that the clean, fresh Himalayan air of Nepal washed away granny's remaining smoke and ash from what's left of my hair as we entered Chitwan Wildlife Reserve.
Just a quick post to say Happy Xmas and a Happy New Year from the tropical island paradise of Koh Chang in the Gulf of Thailand.
Happy 2003 to everyone and thanks so much for all the emails and comments gush, gush, gush....
