"A Single to Sydney, Please"

Sunday evening, Delhi, India

Continuity OzBus [cOzBus] is born.

This morning OzBus left Delhi for the Corbett Tiger Reserve and I wasn't on board. With two other OzBusers, Maz and Dave, I have decided to take a break from OzBus. An announcement was made on Friday night that OzBus 2 would not be going to Tibet, China or Laos and instead the group will be flying from Calcutta to Bangkok. OzBus 1 will similarly be flying over a portion of Asia. We wish to continue travelling overland as far as possible, so, in what I am calling Continuity OzBus, we will make our own way through India, Nepal, China, Laos and Thailand, before rejoining OzBus somewhere in Malaysia.

I'm off to explore some of Delhi now. More news later.

28 10 2007 - 14:29 - macmac - OzBus| 150 comments - § ¶

Thursday, Lahore, Pakistan

Only a few days after we arrived in Pakistan, it's almost time to say goodbye. Friday morning we'll drive to the border and cross into India. We will then proceed the short distance to Amritsar, where we'll spend the night near the Golden Temple.

I really like Pakistan. We've experienced nothing but hospitality and friendliness from everyone we've met during the past six days. So, add Pakistan to the list of countries I'll be returning to.

Our first overnight was in the town of Quetta, capital of the Balochistan province. After a long and welcome sleep, we went in the afternoon with our guide Bilal to see some of the town. First up was the geological museum run by the Geological Survey of Pakistan. The museum would normally be closed on a Sunday, but it was opened specially for us and we were guided through its interesting exhibits by the museum director himself. The area around Quetta is one huge desert, which was a sea in ancient times, and consequently a vast number of fossils have been found nearby over the years. Next we went to see a lake located about 10km from Quetta. To get to the lake we had to pass through land controlled by the military and the lake, although a local tourist resource, is on military land also. Bilal told us that this is a source of resentment in Pakistan. The British military carved out large parts of many of Pakistan's towns and cities and after independence the Pakistani military took over control of the lands. It appears that many of Pakistan's issues are not related to the struggle between islamists and those of a more secular leaning, but rather between the military and the pro-democracy forces. This is one of the many common misconceptions of those looking at Pakistan from abroad.

At the lake we enjoyed some delicious fresh samosas, while a couple of people rounded off their meal with some ice cream that tasted very much like frozen liquid soap. Bilal then took us back into town where we wandered in a large group (almost 40 of us) around the streets that comprise the town's bazaar. Our presence in such numbers had an astonishing effect on the locals. Everywhere we went we attracted groups of locals who stared at us. Apparently many of those in town during the day are nomads from the surrounding mountains and a large number of these would never have seen white people before, not even on television or in the movies. This is a remote, inaccessible corner of Pakistan and the only Westerners that visit the town are those overlanding to/from Iran. The other interesting thing about those out and about on Quetta's streets was that we saw almost no women. It would appear that the women were all at home looking after the family, while the men shopped, conducted business and generally just hung out with their mates. Our own womenfolk thankfully had had things a lot easier since we crossed the border. It was suggested that they might like to show respect for the locals by covering their heads, but there was none of the brusque and direct instructions to cover their heads that they had received in Iran, often interestingly from other women.

After some time strolling the town with our entourage, we went to a pretty nice local restaurant for some top curries. It was great to taste some spicy food again. Apparently the only way to experience real Iranian food is to get invited to someone's home and we were pretty underwhelmed overall by the culinary experience in Iran. I couldn't work out what they did with all the great spices they sell in the markets, as most of the time we dined on fairly bland chicken or lamb kebabs. But we had now arrived in the land of curries. Most of us will however be rebranding ourselves vegetarian until China at least.

On Monday morning we left Quetta and travelled mostly south but a little bit east to the city of Sukkur. This long trip took us through the Bolan Pass, which was considered the gateway to India in times past and a very strategic defensive position for the entire subcontinent. We left the plateau on which Quetta sits and started to descend towards the Indus valley. The mighty Indus river is to Pakistan what the Nile is to Egypt. Most of Pakistan would be unfarmable desert were it not for the extensive irrigation with Indus water that makes possible the fields of cotton, rice, maize and other crops that now surrounded the bus on both sides. Close to noon we passed through the town of Sibi, which is the hottest town in the world, with summer temperatures higher than 50 celsius (there are hotter places on earth, but there are no towns in these other hot spots). Just south of Sibi we stopped for a roadside lunch. Most of us tucked into the local fare - dahl and chapatis - while the official OzBus lunch was naan with tuna mayonnaise. This menu was decided upon when it was discovered that during a bus cleaning exercise the previous day the cheese had been discarded as rubbish (I wasn't responsible for this, even though I would have a hard time telling cheese from rubbish in most circumstances). The cheese crisis caused a heated and public spat between our leader and his second in command, who is chiefly responsible for catering when not acting as our second driver. In the end everyone calmed down (not easily done in the heat) and we continued on our way to Sukkur.

We weren't quite the celebrities in Sukkur that we had been in Quetta. This was because, we were told, the locals were more used to seeing Westerners, if only on television. I shall miss being a celebrity when I leave Pakistan. I took a stroll into town with Maz and Dave before dinner to do a bit of web surfing. We came back out of town in a couple of moto-rickshaws, which was good fun. There wasn't much to do in or around the hotel but an alcohol-fuelled party broke out in honour of Ted whose birthday it was on Tuesday.

We left Sukkur on Tuesday morning quite early and continued along the Indus valley to the city of Multan. En route our police/military escorts were sporadic, as they had been since we crossed into Pakistan from Iran, but when we entered the Punjab, we were picked up by the Punjab Elite Police and escorted into town, where they brought us to our hotel and stopped the traffic while the bus did a three-point turn on a street crowded with rush-hour traffic. Then they posed for photographs with us, toting their automatic rifles and bearing their t-shirts with "No Fear" emblazoned on the back. The hotel greeted us with pink rose leis for our necks and cold juice for our throats. They also had a birthday cake for Ted, which we demolished after singing 'happy birthday'.

After checking into the very nice rooms we went down to a football club where a game had been arranged between OzBus and the local team. The locals won four nil, but the flood of first-half goals was stemmed at half-time and OzBus may have won the scoreless second half on points. We then visited some of the city's sights - a mausoleum and the bazaar - but we were advised by our armed police escort that it might be safer to return to the hotel, so we did. I discussed this constant police protection in Multan with Bilal the following day and his opinion was that it was the result of extreme caution by the local police chief and that we weren't really in any specific danger.

Yesterday morning we left Multan early and arrived in Lahore mid-afternoon. After checking in to the hotel and popping next door for some Karachi Fried Chicken style 'local' food, we boarded the bus again for the short trip to the border to watch the flag lowering and border gate closing ceremony. The parading and foot-stomping of both sides' military is Pythonesque and the whole show is highly entertaining, with a couple of cheerleaders working the audience, composed mostly of school children, into a frenzy of patriotic chanting. We were warned not to join the pro-Pakistan chanting as we would be trying to gain entry to India via this crossing on Friday.

On the way back from the border the bus dropped us in the city centre and we dined along the marvellous Food Street.

I will miss Pakistan when we leave tomorrow. Everyone has treated us extremely well and we've had no trouble at all. One of our party left his rather expensive camera in the hotel in Sukkur and this was located and sent on to Lahore for him. Apparently a similar thing happened with OzBus 1, but on that occasion a money belt containing a passport and several hundred dollars in cash was left behind and returned to its owner intact. Impressive. People go out of their way to help us here and we seem to pay close to the local rates for things, rather being ripped off like gormless tourists.

So rethink your preconceptions, whip out your Lonely Planet and start planning next year's holiday in Pakistan. Jeevay! Jeevay! Jeevay Pakistan! [Long Live Pakistan].

25 10 2007 - 12:46 - macmac - OzBus| 145 comments - § ¶

Quetta, Pakistan

Sunday morning in Pakistan. Well, we made it. We survived what was billed as the longest, toughest day of the trip. We finally rolled into Quetta a tad before midnight last night, having survived a 16-hour journey across the Balochistan desert. Between Zahedan and the border we had Iranian military escorts. This meant several delays as we were dropped off by one escort and had to await the next before proceeding. We left the hotel at 6 am. With the border formalities completed and allowing for the 1.5 hours time difference, it was after noon when we left the Pakistan side of the border. At the border we said goodbye to our Iranian guide and met our new Pakistani guide, who will be with us for the duration of our stay in Pakistan.

Already the differences between Iran and Pakistan are striking. With a population of over 160 million people and a much higher population density, there seems to be more people around everywhere we go in Pakistan. We stopped for toilet breaks in the few towns that punctuate the desert and in each place a crowd that most League of Ireland football teams can only dream of gathered to watch us. They watched us and we watched them. In one small town a snake charmer and his snake appeared from nowhere and charmed both the snake and us. He then took up a collection and made what I estimated to be about a week's money in local terms. The OzBus doesn't pass this way often, so he'll be talking about this one for a while.

We haven't yet met too many locals but everyone we have met has been very friendly, if a little less openly curious about us than the Iranians were. Not too many tourist buses pass this way. Actually the route we travelled from Iran to Pakistan is not well travelled by anyone, except the smugglers. Our guide told me that most of the trade with Europe and the Middle East is done by sea and this is reflected in the state of the roads. It's only 600 km or so from the border to Quetta but it took us almost 12 hours. The first 300 km were on pretty decent two-lane sealed roads, but the last 300 km were on the worst roads we have seen to date. At times we were travelling on rubble-strewn tracks with no room for two vehicles to pass. Jean-Paul, our Belgian driver, played a stormer again.

Pakistan seems poorer than Iran, especially in this neglected corner, but it seems more fun too. When we rolled through the streets of Quetta close to midnight there were still a few shops and restaurants open. Although officially a dry country, you can get booze in hotels that are designed to cater for westerners, to the delight of almost the whole OzBus contingent. Our hotel has beer and some OzBusers reacquainted themselves with the amber nectar until 4 am this morning.

The odd thing, especially considering that I've never been in Pakistan before, is that this country seems more familiar than Iran. There is more English spoken and in shop signs and advertising. Driving is on the left and the infrastructure and signage reflect the British history. Our hotel has Sky News whch is a bit strange to watch.

Today is a free day. Actually, I've just sat down and looked at the statistics and they are quite startling. We are four weeks on the road today and in that time we have travelled from the prime meridian in London to 67 degrees east, which is over one sixth of the way around the world. This is only the fourth day of the trip that we haven't moved on to the next place and it's almost two weeks since we have had a day off.

Fatigue is setting in a bit. There is the possibility that the trip may not be following the original route through Tibet and China. It may instead fly from Calcutta to Bangkok. I'm looking at the possibility of continuing through Tibet regardless and rejoining OzBus later on, perhaps in Indonesia. A break of a couple of weeks would be welcome and would set me up nicely to enjoy the last few weeks through Indonesia and Australia with the group. Nothing is definite yet. For now I'm going to see what I can of Pakistan in the week we have here, starting with this afternoon's look around Quetta with our guide.

21 10 2007 - 08:50 - macmac - OzBus| four comments - § ¶

Enchanting Esfahan, Iran

Well our crazy trail-blazing across the middle east has slowed slightly, allowing us time to draw breath and actually see some of The Islamic Republic. If I was writing this entry 12 hours ago I would have said that I was a little disappointed and underwhelmed by Iran. We spent Friday night in Tabriz, Saturday night in Tehran and last night in Abyaneh, none of which wowed us really. Not entirely the fault of these places: getting into town after nightfall and leaving at dawn doesn't leave much chance to form a positive impression, but everywhere we have been before Esfahan has been rather dull and shabby.

My little OzBus sub-group (Maz, Dave, myself) and a Polish motorcyclist we met called Martin made the most of what time we had in Tabriz, which was almost no time. We went for pizza and then wandered around and ended up visiting a mosque just after Friday prayers, which was a real treat and a great experience.

Saturday's drive from Tabriz to Tehran was long and quite boring, punctuated only by toilet breaks at petrol stations. It was quite good for a while watching the scenery change, but even this became boring after a while. The highlight of the journey was watching the 'Coyote Ugly' movie. No, not the movie itself. We were stuck in really heavy traffic on the outskirts of Tehran and watching the passengers on the other buses sneaking a look at the movie on our bus was hilarious! It must have seemed like hardcore, Western porn to them and most of the men were glued to the screen.

Most of the Iranian landscape that we've seen so far has been desert, mountains and scrub. The country's motorway network is amazingly good with many 6-lane freeways that are mostly empty (with the exception of Saturday last, which was the equivalent of Easter, the day after Ramadan ended, with lots of people out and about visiting relatives).

We arrived into Tehran after 9pm and went for a wander near the hotel. We ended up eating kebabs (again!) and didn't find anything very appealing or interesting in the vicinity of our hotel. The question on everyone's mind was "what do they do for fun in Tehran?" On Sunday morning we went on a brief tour of Tehran's sights inside OzBus and with our Iranian guide Vali, who will be with us as far as the border with Pakistan. We didn't get to visit any of the sights and only had a couple of photo stops. I don't think Tehran is remembered fondly by anyone on board.

We headed south yesterday and our destination for the day was a small village called Abyaneh. Earlier in the day we called into Kashan and spent two hours exploring the rather sleepy little town. I managed to find a few interesting buildings and mosques, but nothing to write home about, so I won't. The town's bazaar was reasonably interesting. We spent the night in a great hotel in Abyaneh and explored the village after dark. The village is known for its houses made of mud which are built one on top of another, so that one person's patio is another's roof.

So, given the relative disappointments of Iran to date, we weren't expecting too much of Esfahan when we arrived here at lunchtime today. This place is just amazing however. It bills itself as "one of the most beautiful cities in the world" and I'd go along with that to a certain extent. After side-stepping the official sight-seeing we set off for some food. Crossing one of the bridges we got chatting to a couple of local girls who recommended a place for lunch, which turned out to be very good. Then we headed to the central square and spent hours wandering there. The square is the largest enclosed square in the world (Tiananmen Square is bigger but is open) and it is surrounded on all side by one of the most fascinating bazaars I have ever visited. The best thing about our visit was that there are almost no foreign tourists here and we were treated like celebrities everywhere we went. The Iranian people really are friendly and the touts are pussycats compared to other countries, mostly happy just to engage in some friendly banter of the where-are-you-from variety. The Emam Mosque at one end of the square was designed by the same architect who built the Taj Mahal and we spent a while gazing at its splendour.

We visited some of the craft workshops and I ended up buying a handprinted tablecloth and a salt bag that was handmade by Iranian nomads. The people in the bazaar all seemed very friendly and genuine and watching them work was fascinating. It's the "softest sell" I've ever experienced. One helpful fellow brought us up on to the roof of the bazaar for the best view of the splendid square.

We have a few hours here tomorrow before we board the bus again to head south and east once more.

By the way: my Irish mobile doesn't work here. I can receive texts on my Spanish number, but I've no credit left to reply. Many websites are blocked by the Iranian authorities at least some of the time, so I don't always have access to facebook, etc. Generally our internet access on this trip is very limited. Internet access is not always available in the towns we visit and often we arrive too late to get on-line anyway. Thanks to everyone who has emailed me; I will get around to replying sometime.

That's it for now - the internet cafe is closing and I'm the last here as usual.

15 10 2007 - 18:25 - macmac - OzBus| 154 comments - § ¶

Sunday morning in "the axis of evil"

Up bright and early to join the queue in the hotel lobby for the one PC with internet access. I've just waited an hour to get on so this entry will only be as long as I can suffer the stares of my fellow would-be internet users.

So we're in Iran. What a strange place!! We got across the border from Turkey, eventually, on Friday. We were held for something like 4.5 hours, due to the abandonment of OzBus 1's vehicle in Tehran. The authorities wanted assurances (ie money) that our bus would be removed from Iran should it break down. Not unreasonable given that the Latvia-registered OzBus 1 is sitting outside our Tehran hotel one week on.

No time for fence-sitting. This is a fascist police state. In all my travels (60-odd countries now) I've never seen tourists hassled by the authorities (with the notable exception of TSA agents in the USA [aka 'The Great Satan' in these parts]). But we've had our bus boarded twice so far, causing the ladies to scramble for their headscarves, which they should be wearing at all times in public. We've also heard stories of people reporting their neighbours to the authorities in the old East German way.

The Iranian people I've met so far are extremely friendly however. On Friday night, at the end of Ramadan, I went to the mosque in Tabriz with some of the bus people and we were made very welcome.

Our schedule in Iran is insane! This country makes Turkey look small and yet we don't have a single two-night stay anywhere in Iran. That means we're looking at some crazy driving days (yesterday's was about 12 hours) and seeing Iran pass by the coach windows.

That's all for now. I have to get some breakfast and we're on the road again in 1 hour. Inshallah.

14 10 2007 - 05:17 - macmac - OzBus| 78 comments - § ¶

Thursday evening: last night in Turkey

Just a very quick entry. I'm currently in a town in Turkey, known to all international travellers as 'Doggy Biscuit'. Mount Ararat, Turkey's highest peak is close by, but there's not much to see in the town itself. We're here because this is the last stop in Turkey before we enter Iran tomorrow. On Monday night there was a party for my birthday in Göreme. We were brought out for an evening of Turkish music, dance and food. Little did I know that it was also a surprise party for me. I had to do my first public belly dance, not a pretty sight!

When we left Göreme we headed to Mount Nemrut, which we reached late on Tuesday night. After nowhere near enough sleep, we were up at 4.30 am to be brought to the top of the mountain for sunrise. The sun-up itself was something of a disappointment due to heavy cloud cover, but the occasion was special and one to remember. Last night we broke the very long drive from Mount Nemrut to 'Doggy Biscuit' by 'bush camping' for the first time. We just pulled off the road and pitched the tents in the dark beside a river close to Lake Van.

That's it for now. Looking forward to seeing Iran.

11 10 2007 - 13:08 - macmac - OzBus| 905 comments - § ¶

A great way to start the day

Monday morning, Göreme, Turkey. We were up early this morning. Nothing unusual in that, but this morning was a little bit special. Struggling out of the sleeping bags in the cold morning air, we were collected at 5.30 am and brought a short distance from Göreme to board a fleet of three hot air balloons for a dawn flight over the amazıng Capadoccian landscape. This breathtaking scenery is characterised by conical rock formations called Fairy Chimneys, many of which have been carved to form caves, houses and even hotels. Most of us had the thrill of not only seeing this wonderful scenery at first light, but also the thrill of our first balloon flight. With four of us in each of the four corners of the basket, we drifted slowly down the valleys, going wherever the wind took us, often only a couple of metres above the strange rock formations. After a while our expert pilot took us higher, up to 2,000 metres above sea level, to give us a bird's eye view of the entire region. The trip was concluded with some more low-level winding in and out of valleys, before the balloon was impressively landed on the trailer used to transport it. A short while later we were back on terra firma and enjoying a breakfast of champagne, sour cherry juice and fruit cake. Quite decadent. There were not many people hating this particular Monday morning.

Göreme itself is a great little place, a backpackers' oasis, and it has long been a stopping off point on the Silk Road. For us OzBus people it is also one of the far-too-few two-night stops. We're staying in a gem of a campsite a couple of km above the town and today being basically a do-as-you-please day I'm taking advantage of the town's internet and laundry facilities. There's an open air museum here in the town that I plan to visit later.

Just over two weeks into the bus marathon and the only complaint I have is the lack of time we have had to explore the places we've passed through. But this is not a tour of Turkey nor of eastern Europe. It's a bus journey from London to Sydney and, as sad as it is sometimes, we have to pack up and hit the road by 9 am each day for another 12-hour bum-numbing stage of the relentless journey eastward. We have been in Turkey for almost a week now and we're still only about half-way across this huge country despite many long driving days. The list of places I want to return to and see properly is growing daily. I could happily spend two months in Turkey.

After two nights and one day discovering the sophisticated charms of Istanbul, with visits to the "blue" mosque, the Aya Sofya mosque, the Basilica Cistern and the Galata tower, we headed south down the peninsula to Gallipoli. We camped inside the national park there and had the world war one commemorative sites to ourselves. We got to enjoy some lovely sunsets and the views over the Aegean Sea and the Dardanelles were particularly memorable.

Early on Friday morning we took a ferry across the Dardanelles and entered Asia for the first time on the trip. We stayed that night in the wonderful Atilla's resort near Selcuk. On the way to Selcuk we visited the ruins at Troy, which I quite enjoyed. This site is not as impressive as Ephesus, but the absence of the hordes of tourists enhanced the experience for those of us who spent the couple of hours wandering around the ruins.

Selcuk is right beside the Roman city of Ephesus and we made for this massive tourist draw right after breakfast. Although much of the site has been reconstructed after many earthquakes, this is a very large and impressive ancient city, and once I found a few quiet corners away from the crowds I thoroughly enjoyed exploring it. The crowds, many spewed from cruise ships docked for the day, really were unbearable at times. Our destination on what was another very long driving day was the town of Egirdir, but on the way we made another stop at a place called Pammukale. This is an area with geothermal springs that feature on much of Turkey's tourist literature and postcards. There are large deposits of calcium bicarbonate on the surrounding rocks and cliffs that look like snow. While most of the crowds headed off to bathe in the geothermal pool, I again escaped to a far corner and wandered the strange chalky cliffs with almost no one else around. Quite a beautiful place.

In Egirdir, we stayed in a less than impressive hostel, with a 10-bed dorm, some smaller dorms and one cold shower between 20 people. The town is beautifully situated on a sandbar in a large lake and I was up early to see a wonderful golden sunrise over the crystal-clear water. We had another long drive yesterday from Egirdir to Göreme. The roads have started to deteriorate as we've headed east and the scenery has changed too. Yesterday we passed a lot of desert and many dusty towns, stopping only for toilet breaks and for a nice picnic at lunch time. We arrived in Göreme as the light was fading and pitched our tents before heading into town to watch the Scotland v Argentina rugby match in one of the pubs. Not much sleep was had last night so I think a siesta might be in order this afternoon.

08 10 2007 - 11:49 - macmac - OzBus| 715 comments - § ¶