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• Rob
• Chris

Iran/almost

before mentioning our time in Iran i think i should state that i was a bit hesitant about entering the country…not coz of the many oh’s and aw’s about Iran being a dangerous country but i had the idea that it would be a lot like Morocco a place where one is often hounded by men who wish to call you ‘my friend’ and get arsy with you in order to parade you around various leather shops filled with all kinds of tasteless shit yapping on about the dullest trade in the known world…no doubt you may see that im not keen on the sandy fly pit –  a talented country linguisticly but a devoted charmless scavenge hole none the less filled with leathery coffee stained men with a lust to seek you out and make a destiny out of dedicated annoyance  _ i believe if i made it to the sahara camping beneath the stars with a camel as a taxi and well humoured guidances to the country in the form of a honest guide called abul or mohammad who saw more to life than a white face and a western dollar then i might have more to say in positive light but i didnt and i dont.

[a good time to head to Morocco is during ramadam where you can get a feel for the meaning of BreakFast plus most of the dickheads mentioned above are too tired to apply themselves]

Iran/ money

before persisting with any written word about the country of Iran and our experience of it i feel i should tell you about the my decision to spend every penny i have on getting back home…i have 1132 pounds in my Bank account and we are just over half way if there is such a thing…im not sure what i’ll do when im back in England…i have no house, 5 friends no job and in a few months no money! I guess it’ll be an eventful time starting over again if we get back.

Iran / driving

before writting about Iran, i feel i must stress (after we got the car in the country) after driving for 2days in the country i strongly believe Iranian drivers are quiet possibly the most _____ i really cant think of a good word to sum up the spasticated  or spectacular (im undecided weather the disregard for anything that may seem like driving without a means to an end is to be admired or hailed abuse at)  drivers so far!

Iran/ Xmas

[email to my family]
hello one and all (sorryfor the group email), i should warn youthatthe space bar on my keyboard is not so great.

im in y azd for xmas in a hostel wit h some fellow traveler/ bum types…

ihope you areall smashing…and thanksfor the b’day well wishes, ii hope the donkey and breakfast turns out great…(idont m ean that you will eat the donkey)

here is warm and sunny which nice as we havebeen travelling through winter almost since we started. its odd to see xmas decoration in the hostel…it really doesnt feel like xmas at all…when me and rob where battling through the snow in mongolia 2 months ago. we where in the xmas mood singing xmas songs then (and along one our hitchhikers i manged to c o nvince rob thatsir cliff richards is dead, wh ich he just accepted so that might prove funny later on if he mentions it to anyone else. ) …its ironic that we dont feel that xmas-y coz we are probably closer to the real xmas where we are now…camel and desert and all.

so all in all times are interesting in deed…and all will be noted down for my mini book/next years Christmas presents

this leaves me to say…all the love in the world to you… be good to one another love love love again and salam amalekam (peace be with you) to you all

chris

Iran / 25

before i talk at length upon our time in iran i want to state my age at this point – this point being my birthday…2 days into iran i became 25 and wrote this at the time:

I m 25 today…lying in a basement covered wall to wall, floor to other side of the room _ceiling to roof in rugs…its cold but i fell fine the city im in is called Mashhad (in Iran) -  I’ve been told by our hitch-hiking French friend that this city may well be the most conservative city in Iran.

…the owner of the basement im living in has given me a woolly hat for my birthday and ordered his wife and augter to make me a cak - At the age of 25 I’ve learnt that a gift of necessity is a gift indeed

other things i have learnt today include:

statistically vegetarians farts smell more than meat eaters therefore vegetarians statistically stink…

i have also learnt if you eat with your hands its better for the digestive system.

being 25 i have decided to brush my teeth at night even if i dont have a girlfriend.
I will probably listen to more French electro, and other medioca ambitence early 2000s festival music

im goin to tolerate bad movies and shift my movie preference to comdies
….imay reframe from referring to the French in general as filthy –
in general i will start to try…

also while im re-framing and trying - i’ll try to re-frame from using the term ‘that gays’ to any mishap or wrong doing as it will/ has offened my big gay friends in the past.

As this appears to be turning into a christmas list – i would like a girlfriend who will encourage me to brush my teeth and cook.

my last 25 thought is of elephants and ants – rather than robs definition of the meaning of elephants and ants that went like this

‘ they are both very different sizes but in the end they both have legs’ – this is a just comment but i wish to add to it with the strong reality that i have stolen the words of Gandhi

i am an ant so how can i expect an elephants to comprehend what i experiences in the world… for some reason these words appear to make a lot of sense to me right now.

Ive also decided to arrive back in the uk with no money i currently have 219 pounds in my current account and 1109 pounds in another account…we have 10,000km’s or so to drive through 10 or 20 countries in europe the pricey end of town.

Turkmenistan

…the boarder crossing had taken us 5 or 6hours, we drove along with bob sat in the back telling what we would be doin with our time_ after a while half listening to half sleepy bob in my own sleepy daze we made it to (dashgos) a town where we ate and changed money on the street…here we where told where wasnt much differnet from the banks and the black market… back in the car we were in a rush to get to the sights of ….. none of which i had much interest i must admit, they where nice all the same,,, i was much more interested in the big hole that we where driving to…

 ….[to be continued ...some day]

half way home part 2

…before writing about Turkmenistan i would recommend to anyone who wants to save money rather than to do what we did…actually thinking about it if you would like to save money i would strongly recommend you to use our journey as an example how not to save money.

(to the point)…get a transit visa.

Hi,us again - can we come in now…these where our words as we handed our stamped out of Uzbekistan passports to the still not so amused broader guard_ parkin up at the main building we could see we where still the only car goin in…getting out of our car we were greeted by our guide, he introduced himself and said welcome…we said thanks, we processed to get our tourist visa’s our guide – lets call him ‘bob’ to save him from anything unjust to come his way…bob was a stocky chap dark hair by that im mean black_ hazel eyes and strong sharp features at a guess i’d say he was early 35 or under…we explained our Uzbek fun and he explained that he watched the champions league [football] early in the morning havin slept for 1 hour caught the plane from the capital Ashgabat at 6am and had been waiting at the boader since 8am_ he filled in our customs declaration forms 2 of them each in the turkmen copy righed alpherbet that the former president had created,,,it looked a lot like Russian Cyrillic..bob spoke with a slight Russiani-british english accent,,,his english was pretty  good…bob asked us for the forms sake if we  were bringing any carpets into the country…we said no then joked that we couldnt fit any in due to the fuck off nuclear war head *mass amount of weapons we were bringing into the country in the hope to trade with Iran …bob, smiled and eased up alittle.
After no carpets were declared we went back to the visa window which bob had told us to hand in our passport and letter of invitation before spoke a bit the boarder guards spoke a bit…how much will the visa’s cost i asked…he says..pointing at the man behind the window $170…me and rob looked at each other,  i could tell we where both thinkin the same thing,,,how much was our Iranian visa’s i asked…rob said 95 euros, what that in dollars 155 dollars may be …but that was to get them day in 3 days…hopefully we’ll get these in 3mins though…good point..bit step dont you think, what else can we do…true – ok bob said you pay this guy at this window $174 ($4 commission or admin). In return we got a load of green paper…take these …pointing at the green papers to the first window in the other room that you went too when you came in…for the visa…yes for the visa…the guard will take what he needs and give you the rest back,,,bob said this fill filling in more forms…i handed the green papers into the guard at the first window in the other room he gave me back 3 or 4 of the green papers while keeping 4 or 5,,,i returned as bob was asking rob information about our car for the forms…while doin this he explained what forms we needed to keep to leave the country…also he explained that we didnt have to hand in our 2 photographers that we had been told to bring with us…here but in Ashgabat for registration he then explained a couple of the green papers a travel entry pass we needed to keep on us and some other documents…about us being tourists.

After we had our visa’s bob took us to another room, im not sure what was achieved in that room but questions about our car were asked…we took this time to get to know bob and for bob to get to know us.

Forms filled in we followed bob to another building in there we went into a little side room we said our salams to the new face and shook hands with them all…there was bread offered around where…chewing down the big circle bread we where asked again about our car…

me and rob both talked each other into the hope that the first bill we paid covered all fee’s that were written in english on a wall of all the cost for bring in a car to the country… – not long after we convinced each other that the first bill we paid covered everything rob said

so we dont have to worry about a thing coz its all paid for…i repied ‘its not though is it’…and rob repied ‘yeh its not’

bob and two guys in the room where talkin for awhile…at the end of the chatter one of us said to bob whats goin on…  bob told us that the guy in charge didnt know how to charge us for the amount of kilometers we would travel…bob said to us with a joke smile that the guy was asking him if he knew what to do_bob curiously laught the sentense to us ‘why is he askin me i dont know’.

Learning that we would have to pay for every kilometer we drove in turkmenistan was odd and oddly funny. For every kilmeter we would have to pay $0.04

but the funniset part of all this money being extracted from us was when the guy in this small room consisting of nothing other than a few chairs a desk with 1 pen on it and a grey safe in the corner…that was uterlised by opening the safe to removed a calculator – me and rob did look at each other and giggle while askin each other if he just got a calculator out of a safe…i guess it makes sense…we giggled more as no one else out of the 3 other people in the room seemed to see this as being a bit funny…the comical effect was highten as the calculator was removed from its box with such tenderness…and then locked away on its one in a big gray safe which only one man in a smart uniform had the key to.

after a few phone calls the guy in charge of the calculator figured out how many KM’s we would travel.

$135 was the total of all the costs in this building… after hands were shaken went back to the previous building paid a man the $135 got a form stamped…and handed the form to some other man in a small room…the latest form in our possion had our route drawn on it in bio along with some other info on it, we where told we’d have to show this when stopped by the police…it was kind of like a travel/restricted area’s itinerary…we asked if we would be stopped by the police many times…bob said, maybe – depends if they are not drunk.

car entry finally bill’s paid we went out to the car for a customs check…and then off we went

What I know about Turkmenistan

 Turkmenistan has been dubbed the north Korea of central Asia…[not sure who by but im sure they have their reasons] i watched a documentary of the place, the documentary was called ‘the happy dictator’ (i think), the documentary told the story of Turkmenbashy the first president of Turkmenistan…and this is what i learnt;

• Turkmenbashy is a bit of the name of the president, i cant remember his first or real name but turkmenbashy is what the Turkmenistan people call him. (so im guessing that is the name he named himself…)

• Turkmenbashy renamed a lot of the country and the days of the week…

• one place is called turkmenbashi

• the russians use to own it

• they (turkmenbashy) have lots of money

• the capital gets rebuilt so often that it confuses taxi drivers

• the capital mainly gets rebuilt in marble

• (in the capital) there are more fountains than common sense

• there’s a gold statue of the turkmenbashy that rotates to always face the sun or if you are turkmen the sun rotates around turkmenbashy

• there are lots more turkmenbashy statues

• some are not real gold

• some are real gold

• some look gold

• some are a little bit gold

• some taste like gold

• half the books in the books shops are written by turkmenbashy

• Mr t-bashy wrote a book of spiritual guidance that every turkmen must read

• there is a statue of this book

• there’s a big hole thats on fire

• there’s a lot of desert

• hotel rooms and restaurants are said to be bugged

• most people have no idea the country exists

so that is the country we are about to enter 1 part dictatorship 1 part Disneyland – [without turkmenbashy as he died in 2003]

half way home

arriving in Turkmenistan took awhile…our morning started with a bang on the widow from one angry Uzbek and his donkey…opening the door he saw that we were foreign and his face lit up with a big smile and hand shakes all round. Toooottleing down to the boarder a 5min drive from our motel/ parking space we waited for the Uzbek Turkmen boarder to open…we were the only car crossing…we waited watching a group of 20 old ladies wearing identical cardigans with a peacock design on the back in the varying background colour of brown or black …josselling in the misty morning light…we wondered if the brown background peacocks where the black background peacocks rivals or higher up in the chain of the peacock gang.

After awhile we were nodded in by the guard to drive up to the gates…there we waited for a bit…after awhile a guard who spoke English asked for our passport and reeled off the usual questions…we handed him a doc for the car he said he’d call someone…and we waited for awhile…we were a bit worried that the guards would asked for our receipts for our hotels which you are suppose to collect and hand in when you leave…if you haven’t got a receipt/been registered for every night of your stay in Uzbek then you are legible for a possible fine or as i or anyone out of an offical uniform would say,a ‘bribe’ – the night before in the car/hotel for the night we forged our last hotel recipe to cover ourselves at the border…after awhile our passports got taken…we waited and after awhile we got our passports back then waited for a bit …an hour had maybe passed by this point and we had been debating if they were waiting for us to go in the little room where other people had been goin in droping off their dollar bill identity cards – in no hurry and definitely no hurry to lighten our dollar load we waited - after awhile the guard came out and said OK you can go – we got in the car, but he changed his mind, no one had checked our car at this point, but at a few boards we have been through we realised you could smuggle as many bundles of opium that you could fit in your glover box or the place where our jack is kept, stello tape to the inside of the tires, hide in the roof lining or put on the back seat in a big bag with the words drugs written in big letters… OK OK we will get the dog…the English spekin guard said, so we waited awhile…after awhile a dog came…the guards gathered around the dog went around and in and out of the car after awhile of encouragement me and rob spoke about how the dog looked like a sniffer dog but didn’t act like one as it was not interested in us or the car but rather having a deep and well throughout piss up the entry gate so we waited for the dog to be put in the boot and pushed into the back of our car by a couple of the boarder guards…after awhile and the usual questions we got given the nod to go…we left Uzbekistan and drove through no man’s land talking about the guards not lookin at our registration receipts…we got to the Turkmenistan boarder handed our passports to the first border guard he was a tad puzzed…we smiled he didn’t…Uzbekistan where? He said …a bit curious me and rob looked at each other with the look of eh! Upon our faces…a 3^rd guard who spoke English came to our aid…he talked with the first guard and then return our passports pointed out that we where not stamped out of Uzbekistan so we couldn’t enter Turkmenistan…oh dear…see you in a minute we said turn around and drove back through no mans land and asked if we could come back in and get stamped out…we walked through the boarder up to the small window of the small building where dollars are left a man shouted the guards that delt with us for almost 2 hours hide and then shouty man we think was asking where our car was and that customs should check it as the guard that delt with us were hiding/avoiding the blame for not stamping us out – it was left up to us to try through the medium of anything we could use to say our car is in no mans land coz no one stamped us out of your country even though 6 or 7 guards and one sniffer dog look a like had spent 2 hours not stamping our passports…after awhile we got stamped out walked to our car and drove again through no mans land to Turkmenistan.