Sunday 21st October
After the seventeen hour drive from Iran through the desert, the mountains and the night we had earned a day's rest. We could stay in bed until breakfast between 9.00 and 11.00am. I didn't want to get on the bus to go anywhere but joined most of the group to the Geological Museum which was well worth the visit. The second destination sounded better - a lake in the mountains that's very popular with Quettans at weekends. I have my doubts, it took nearly an hour to get there through a maize of military roads and. When we got there we queued up for a couple of samosas and the sweetest cup of tea I have ever tasted.
We then got back on the bus and headed back into town to visit the bazaar. After a few moments walking from the bus towards the market it became apparent that there were serious problems. Within no time at all we were surrounded by 40 to 60 local men all wanting to touch, shake hands and speak to us. Eventually the crowd brought the traffic to a stop and things were only brought back to order by two armed police officers dispersing them and allowing us to proceed. The trip to the bazaar was abruptly scrapped and we beat a quick retreat to a restaurant for dinner. Food was very good and somewhat similar to restaurants in England with chicken tikka, lamb curry, fried rice and naan breads and rusmali to finish.
Walked back to the hotel after the meal with no incidents. I think it is the sheer number of people all turning out on the streets together that causes so much attention. I don't think they mean any harm but it is worrying trying to hold on to your passport and money while shaking hands surrounded. Anne quite liked being a celebrity.
Back at the hotel we enjoyed just sitting in the garden and drinking beer, even though it was expensive, after our moment of fame. Went to bed late, a little merry, with just four hours to go before hitting the road again.
Sunday 18 November 2007
Day 28: Zahedan to Quetta
Saturday 18th October
My PDA lit the coal black bedroom at 4.00am as its alarm started to do an impersonation of a dog barking. Anne wasn't impressed, not so much with the barking but the unearthly hour. Within a couple of a minutes the Imam was calling everyone to prayer and with it Anne lost the point of her anger. A very early start was needed to give us some chance of making it to a Quetta. Firstly there was the matter of getting our passports back which, along with a very basic breakfast, took us to 5.50am. All we needed was our escort. At 6.15am it arrived to safely deliver us exactly one kilomotre nearer the border and stopped to waite for relief escort. I arrived at 7.15am making a mockery of our early start.
After stops and starts we made it to the Pakistan border and duely queued up to have our passports checked. The actual administrative part didn't take too long, about and hour and half but it was so hot and the terraine a complete mess that it seemed longer. We have followed a constant strip of discarded rubbish since Romania and it seems it is all blowing into the border crossing area between Iran and Pakistan. It looked like the rubbish dump of the world with scapped cars, tyres, rusting pipe and gurders, tin cans and all wallowing in a sea of plastic and papers. An absolute shit hole is a fair description and sitting a few hundred yards away stood a square boxed mud township happily making a living from the mess but God knows how. Once we left the border behind, the scenery quickly flattened out as though the mountains new they belonged to Iran and had no right on the otherside of the border.
Our new guide Bilal introduced himself to the coach saying Marco Polo would have been proud of you and the land you're now travelling has little changed since. The scenery was quite interesting and the mountains looked quite high in the distance but when I asked Bilal what they were called he referred to them as hills, not being higher than 3000 feet . After a while we made our first stop in Pakistan and it caused quite a stir. All we did was cross the road to a hotel which had two toilets and a sign outside saying we were on London Rd and within a few minutes we drew a largish crowd. The toilets, both ladies and gents, were inside two seperate bedrooms and because there was no running water it was suggested that we use the bottle on the table between the single beds outside the gents. When I got back down stairs the large crow had now attracted a snake charmer who'd seen an opportunity. As soon as everyone had paid he grabbed the Cobra and stuffed it back in its bag.
Things began to deteriorate from this point onwards. The temperature outside was now 35 degrees centigrade and the road took a significant turn for the worse. The road was surfaced one minute and the next the bus would come to a sudden stop before crashing onto a surface of dust, stone and large holes. Things became even worse has the light gave way to a starry sky: every severe bump, drop into a hole, sudden unexpected movement was met by a series of expleteves and huhs and hahs. We had a total of 600 kilometres to cover, 300 on decent road and the final 300 on what Bilal called poor road. This was a conservative estimate, appalling would be nearer and the reality was somewhere between this and non existant. If we had been covering these latter miles in the daylight I think there would have been a census to wait and start again the next day but we couldn't see and so it went ahead. Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse the road began to rise and twist and turn with large gaily coloured trucks coming the opposite way which brought our progress to a complete stop. The only good thing about the trucks was you could see them coming down the mountainside looking like Trafelgar Squares christmas decorations on wheels. Bilal explained that the tradition of decorating the trucks stems from the way they decorated their camels.
The hotel at Quetta was a colonial building just two floors high rectangular set around a central garden area. When we arrived it was 11.50pm and the hotel had prepared a meal of veg and chicken curry with naan breads and bottle beer. I have never had Pakistani beer before and it's quite good: made by Murrees, since the 1860s, it's a typical IPA with good flavour and 5.5 percent strength. What was surprising about it was the price: 150 rupees in the hotel and to buy in bulk 130; Pakistan has the q £1 pint. I'd spent a few days thinking about beer in the sobriety of Iran but never imagined it would be expensive in a country where 100 rupees gets a 20 minute sim card for your phone or two veg curries and naan breads and if interested a 15 minute scary ride in a rickshaw.
My PDA lit the coal black bedroom at 4.00am as its alarm started to do an impersonation of a dog barking. Anne wasn't impressed, not so much with the barking but the unearthly hour. Within a couple of a minutes the Imam was calling everyone to prayer and with it Anne lost the point of her anger. A very early start was needed to give us some chance of making it to a Quetta. Firstly there was the matter of getting our passports back which, along with a very basic breakfast, took us to 5.50am. All we needed was our escort. At 6.15am it arrived to safely deliver us exactly one kilomotre nearer the border and stopped to waite for relief escort. I arrived at 7.15am making a mockery of our early start.
After stops and starts we made it to the Pakistan border and duely queued up to have our passports checked. The actual administrative part didn't take too long, about and hour and half but it was so hot and the terraine a complete mess that it seemed longer. We have followed a constant strip of discarded rubbish since Romania and it seems it is all blowing into the border crossing area between Iran and Pakistan. It looked like the rubbish dump of the world with scapped cars, tyres, rusting pipe and gurders, tin cans and all wallowing in a sea of plastic and papers. An absolute shit hole is a fair description and sitting a few hundred yards away stood a square boxed mud township happily making a living from the mess but God knows how. Once we left the border behind, the scenery quickly flattened out as though the mountains new they belonged to Iran and had no right on the otherside of the border.
Our new guide Bilal introduced himself to the coach saying Marco Polo would have been proud of you and the land you're now travelling has little changed since. The scenery was quite interesting and the mountains looked quite high in the distance but when I asked Bilal what they were called he referred to them as hills, not being higher than 3000 feet . After a while we made our first stop in Pakistan and it caused quite a stir. All we did was cross the road to a hotel which had two toilets and a sign outside saying we were on London Rd and within a few minutes we drew a largish crowd. The toilets, both ladies and gents, were inside two seperate bedrooms and because there was no running water it was suggested that we use the bottle on the table between the single beds outside the gents. When I got back down stairs the large crow had now attracted a snake charmer who'd seen an opportunity. As soon as everyone had paid he grabbed the Cobra and stuffed it back in its bag.
Things began to deteriorate from this point onwards. The temperature outside was now 35 degrees centigrade and the road took a significant turn for the worse. The road was surfaced one minute and the next the bus would come to a sudden stop before crashing onto a surface of dust, stone and large holes. Things became even worse has the light gave way to a starry sky: every severe bump, drop into a hole, sudden unexpected movement was met by a series of expleteves and huhs and hahs. We had a total of 600 kilometres to cover, 300 on decent road and the final 300 on what Bilal called poor road. This was a conservative estimate, appalling would be nearer and the reality was somewhere between this and non existant. If we had been covering these latter miles in the daylight I think there would have been a census to wait and start again the next day but we couldn't see and so it went ahead. Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse the road began to rise and twist and turn with large gaily coloured trucks coming the opposite way which brought our progress to a complete stop. The only good thing about the trucks was you could see them coming down the mountainside looking like Trafelgar Squares christmas decorations on wheels. Bilal explained that the tradition of decorating the trucks stems from the way they decorated their camels.
The hotel at Quetta was a colonial building just two floors high rectangular set around a central garden area. When we arrived it was 11.50pm and the hotel had prepared a meal of veg and chicken curry with naan breads and bottle beer. I have never had Pakistani beer before and it's quite good: made by Murrees, since the 1860s, it's a typical IPA with good flavour and 5.5 percent strength. What was surprising about it was the price: 150 rupees in the hotel and to buy in bulk 130; Pakistan has the q £1 pint. I'd spent a few days thinking about beer in the sobriety of Iran but never imagined it would be expensive in a country where 100 rupees gets a 20 minute sim card for your phone or two veg curries and naan breads and if interested a 15 minute scary ride in a rickshaw.
Day 27: Bam to Zahedan
Thursday 18th October
Since leaving Troy the weather has slowly got warmer and warmer until now it is well into the top 80s but not a serious problem as yet thanks to the bus's air conditioning. This is the start of our last full day in this fascinating country and I shall miss it but not its drinking laws. I think the food has been poor compared with Turkey but would be more palatable if washed down by a good bottle of wine. I gather from Vali that Iran did make wine before the fall of the Shah and we have only been a few hundred miles from Shiraz which I presume, but can't verify, is the home of the grape so central to the wines of the New World.
After another standard breakfast of fruit and boiled eggs I carried my bags out to the bus through a group of young soldiers some carrying machine guns. All replied to my Salem and smiled. We all expected to be escorted from the Pakistan border to Quetta not from Bam to Zehaden. However, it seems this stretch of road is one of the most dangerous roads in the world because it's one of the main routes for coke etc to enter Europe. Vali told us that while he was in Bam, working on the relief operation, he was offered hard drugs every day and saw their effects on many in the area. The once great Silk Road is now a highway for drug smugglers and killers and bandits of all kind and if anyone finds this hard to believe then look at the young soldier lads with their Kalashnikov A47s and truck mounted machine guns. Most have their faces covered with Arab type scarves and I can't decide if it is for anonymity or protection from the blowing sand. Whatever it is, it is very hard to distinguish them from Hamas fighters in Palestine. Strangely there's a kind of attractiveness about these young warriors with their smart uniforms and and head scarves. I could see Fidel Castro, at their head, leading them in to the struggle for freedom from the Mullahs.
The drive so far has been pleasant and memorable not for any events but the scenery which is totally foreign to anything before. We have travelled along a winding road with desert on both sides stretching to the horizon and sand dunes at one point and camels sitting around a circular area of mounds of what must be food for them. After miles of the same, the armed guard changed from a car with five soldiers to a pick up truck with two inside and two on the back with a fixed machine, the road began to wind and climb through a narrow pass into a new mountain range. If we were to be attacked I think this would be the place as vehicles, heavy loaded in low gear struggled up the road.
Once through the mountain pass and back down on a flat plain the guard was reduced to one soldier who's joined us on the bus. We are now less than 100 kilometres from Zehedan and presumably out of danger for a while. It will be interesting to see if the Pakistani soldiers are as polite and courteous as their Iranian counterparts.
Zehaden from what I can see is a reasonably new city with few interesting features although we did see a statute of a St George figure slicing the head off a dragon as we left. We were warned not to leave the hotel under any circumstances and with soldiers and police on every corner this appears to be a very nervous settlement. As we have crossed from West to East of this large and interesting country the military have gradually increased in presense until here in Zahedan they're on every corner as though in wait for invasion from one of its many eastern neighbours.
The hotel looked quite modern from the outside and the back area was an interesting use of space with fountains, a play area, with swings etc for children and a series of wooden gazebos on decking with carpets and cushions for lounging about on. The first sign that not all was modern came as we entered the rickety lift for floor four, the second was stained carpets on our landing, the third was the heat and noise of the inefficient air condition system and the fourth and fifth were etc etc etc. It had all the hallmarks of a communist hotel past its best.
Within minutes of getting everyone booked in Leighton was in negotiations trying to get the price of an evening buffet down from the extortionate price of 112,000 rial to something nearer the normal 70,000. Eventually an a la carte menu in English was produced which consisted of the usual boring selection. It was not so much that people objected to paying the higher price but didn't want to change money on their last night in Iran. I have 60,000 left and I can't imagine being able to change them anywhere outside of Iran.
On arriving at the diningroom I was surprised to hear we could help ourselves to a buffet for only 43,000. This was to be our last meal in Iran and I can't say I have enjoyed my first experience of this country's culinary delights but the buffet was excellent with, of course, lentil soup, a fine array of salads with grated carrot, cabbage, tomato, cucumber, a pepper salad in a vinagrette and risoles and a beautiful chicken dish in a spicey sauce and a sweet to finish off of caramel.
After dinner sat outside on the carpets with Sue, Mary and Claire talking about who is doing what in the next two weeks: Mark flying from Quetta to Lahore, Barry setting off with others to Bangkok, Mac and Emmett flying into Laos and China and there may be others we don't know of yet. The temperature was perfect and amazingly there were no insects of any kind not even moths round the lights above our heads. We made our way back to our room and another early night before the long and tedious journey in the morning.
Since leaving Troy the weather has slowly got warmer and warmer until now it is well into the top 80s but not a serious problem as yet thanks to the bus's air conditioning. This is the start of our last full day in this fascinating country and I shall miss it but not its drinking laws. I think the food has been poor compared with Turkey but would be more palatable if washed down by a good bottle of wine. I gather from Vali that Iran did make wine before the fall of the Shah and we have only been a few hundred miles from Shiraz which I presume, but can't verify, is the home of the grape so central to the wines of the New World.
After another standard breakfast of fruit and boiled eggs I carried my bags out to the bus through a group of young soldiers some carrying machine guns. All replied to my Salem and smiled. We all expected to be escorted from the Pakistan border to Quetta not from Bam to Zehaden. However, it seems this stretch of road is one of the most dangerous roads in the world because it's one of the main routes for coke etc to enter Europe. Vali told us that while he was in Bam, working on the relief operation, he was offered hard drugs every day and saw their effects on many in the area. The once great Silk Road is now a highway for drug smugglers and killers and bandits of all kind and if anyone finds this hard to believe then look at the young soldier lads with their Kalashnikov A47s and truck mounted machine guns. Most have their faces covered with Arab type scarves and I can't decide if it is for anonymity or protection from the blowing sand. Whatever it is, it is very hard to distinguish them from Hamas fighters in Palestine. Strangely there's a kind of attractiveness about these young warriors with their smart uniforms and and head scarves. I could see Fidel Castro, at their head, leading them in to the struggle for freedom from the Mullahs.
The drive so far has been pleasant and memorable not for any events but the scenery which is totally foreign to anything before. We have travelled along a winding road with desert on both sides stretching to the horizon and sand dunes at one point and camels sitting around a circular area of mounds of what must be food for them. After miles of the same, the armed guard changed from a car with five soldiers to a pick up truck with two inside and two on the back with a fixed machine, the road began to wind and climb through a narrow pass into a new mountain range. If we were to be attacked I think this would be the place as vehicles, heavy loaded in low gear struggled up the road.
Once through the mountain pass and back down on a flat plain the guard was reduced to one soldier who's joined us on the bus. We are now less than 100 kilometres from Zehedan and presumably out of danger for a while. It will be interesting to see if the Pakistani soldiers are as polite and courteous as their Iranian counterparts.
Zehaden from what I can see is a reasonably new city with few interesting features although we did see a statute of a St George figure slicing the head off a dragon as we left. We were warned not to leave the hotel under any circumstances and with soldiers and police on every corner this appears to be a very nervous settlement. As we have crossed from West to East of this large and interesting country the military have gradually increased in presense until here in Zahedan they're on every corner as though in wait for invasion from one of its many eastern neighbours.
The hotel looked quite modern from the outside and the back area was an interesting use of space with fountains, a play area, with swings etc for children and a series of wooden gazebos on decking with carpets and cushions for lounging about on. The first sign that not all was modern came as we entered the rickety lift for floor four, the second was stained carpets on our landing, the third was the heat and noise of the inefficient air condition system and the fourth and fifth were etc etc etc. It had all the hallmarks of a communist hotel past its best.
Within minutes of getting everyone booked in Leighton was in negotiations trying to get the price of an evening buffet down from the extortionate price of 112,000 rial to something nearer the normal 70,000. Eventually an a la carte menu in English was produced which consisted of the usual boring selection. It was not so much that people objected to paying the higher price but didn't want to change money on their last night in Iran. I have 60,000 left and I can't imagine being able to change them anywhere outside of Iran.
On arriving at the diningroom I was surprised to hear we could help ourselves to a buffet for only 43,000. This was to be our last meal in Iran and I can't say I have enjoyed my first experience of this country's culinary delights but the buffet was excellent with, of course, lentil soup, a fine array of salads with grated carrot, cabbage, tomato, cucumber, a pepper salad in a vinagrette and risoles and a beautiful chicken dish in a spicey sauce and a sweet to finish off of caramel.
After dinner sat outside on the carpets with Sue, Mary and Claire talking about who is doing what in the next two weeks: Mark flying from Quetta to Lahore, Barry setting off with others to Bangkok, Mac and Emmett flying into Laos and China and there may be others we don't know of yet. The temperature was perfect and amazingly there were no insects of any kind not even moths round the lights above our heads. We made our way back to our room and another early night before the long and tedious journey in the morning.
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