Ludhianna was nice in a very untouristy kind of way, we have become experts in judging how many tourists come to a place by their reaction. Normally the heads turn if Jen walks down the street, but if I walk down the road and people stare then it’s a good sign that we are off […]

Bam in Eastern Iran should have been a nice stopping point, walled mudbrick citadel, good guesthouse, friendly people, etc. But it wasn’t, we didn’t exactly hate it, but we got close, damned close. Being our last stopping off point in Iran we were looking forwards to chilling out before the big ride across the desert. […]

By New Years day 2003 we hadn’t ridden our bikes for 3 weeks. A wee side tripdown to Esfahan and Shiraz was one reason, the others were the PakistaniEmbassy not knowing elbow from #*rse and, of course, our old friend laziness.
So, feeling very fat and unhealthy we got up at 5am on New Years day, […]

Four hours until the new year (first stone cold sober one inabout 20 or so).
When Jenny’s cold showed all the signs of becoming a permanentfixture we thought it better to head off south to Esfahan by sleeper train. Theguys at the Asia Hotel were amazingly unflustered by us leaving 2 bikes andvast quantities of very […]

What ought to have been a relatively easy day turned into a 6 hour battle witha strong head wind (when are we ever going to get a tail wind??), we ended upcrawling along, eventually resorting to cycling directly behind each other(drafting) to keep out of the wind, each taking a 5km turn. The wide tarmachard […]

Where were we last time I wrote, Ah yes we had just arrived in the Lakesidetown of Van having taken a 5 hour ferry ride across Van Golu (Van Lake). OurIranian visas had lapsed by this point so we had to take a detour up to theuniversity town of Erzerum. It is famous for […]