Egypt: the Pyramids just as we imagined them as kids and the desert that makes you heart cry with happiness

Cairo: situated on the banks of River Nile and the largest city in Africa, I must admit the city did not impress me. To be fair, I'm not a fan of big cities anyway, let alone African big cities (which from my experience are particularly uninspiring and sometimes plain offputting with the exception of my beloved Cape Town) but Cairo did not strike me at all as a place I'd want to live in. I spent a week here and it was more than enough. Sure, there are several attractions here you would not want to miss, like the Pyramids and the Sphinx at Giza, the Egyptian Museum, the Citadel, the Khan-el-Khalili bazaar. They were all pretty amazing and absolutely worth visiting. The Pyramids are as breathtaking as we have all imagined them to be since we were little kids learning all about the fascinating culture of Ancient Egypt in school. But the place, which took my breath away most and made a lasting impression on me is definitely the Egyptian Museum (which I had the pleasure of living only about 3 min walk from). It's the biggest sinlge attraction within the city center. The sprawling sandstone building on Tahrir Square (which - strangely - during the day is peach coloured and in the evening orange coloured!) is packed with antiquities: mummies including the pharaohs Ramses II and III and Seti I, the contents of the tomb of Tutankhamen’s (King Tut) and many many other highlights from the oldest of civilizations. And don’t overlook the excellent collection of Greek and Roman artifacts either! And even the hordes and hordes of tourist, which I would normally consider an utter nightmare and run away from screaming, did not put me off from spending a day wandering around the museum with my mouth wide open in awe and wonder. Just imagine how fascinating it much have been for Carter and his archeology team when they discovered the Tutankhamen's tomb and all the priceless treasures inside it!!! As an archeologist you spend years in school and laboratories and digging in dirt, often without ever finding anything of value. For years everyone around you tells you that you're a silly impractical dreamer for believing in fairytales about the hidden treasures of ancient kings. And then imagine how Carter must have felt when he discovered what he discovered in Egypt and became world famous overnight!!! This is the prize for relentlesly following one's dreams despite doubt and challenge from everyone around...
White and Black Desert: travelling through the desert is uniquely romantic. No matter what desert in the world you're crossing, being in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by solutide and wilderness, emersed in complete silence and camping overnight under the sky lit up by millions of stars - if all this doesn't bring tears of awe and gratitude in one's eyes, I don't know what will. But the Egyptian Western Desert is unique. The Black Desert is a region of volcano-shaped mountains with large quantities of small black stones. The stones lie out across the orange-brown ground, so that it is not quite as black as many people may hope for. In the White Desert the rock formation are really white, which creates an especially dramatic landscape of mushroom-shaped white rocks ranging in heigh from less than a meter to several meters and spread out in the yellow desert sand as far into the horizon as you can see. At sunset climb the nearest hill (or the truck roof!) and admire the beauty of the world we live in... Don't forget the camera! For added adventure, the Egyptian Western Desert has 5 thriving oasis with their Pharaonic, Coptic and Roman history, dunes, hot springs and palm groves to explore. Even an overnight safari on camels can be arranged if you heart so desires!

Luxor: Luxor has been the ancient capital of Egypt for 500 years. It has often been called the worlds greatest open air museum, as indeed it is and much more. The number and preservation of the monuments in the Luxor area are unparalleled anywhere else in the world. What most people think of as Luxor is actually three different areas, consisting of the City of Luxor on the East side of the Nile, the town of Karnak just north of Luxor and Thebes, which the ancient Egyptians called Waset, which is on the west side of the Nile across from Luxor. Today the city of Luxor has some 150,000 people and is governed by special statues that allow it more autonomy then other political areas of Egypt. One thing you might notice is that various government and other buildings confirm to an 'ancient' building code. Particularly, the National bank of Egypt (located near the winter palace), the spa south of the police station, and the railway station are all designed to appear as pharaonic constructs. All of this occurred after the Egyptianization of the modern town resulting mostly from the mania that resulted from Howard Carter's discovery of the Tomb of Tutankhamun (who ironically  was a short-lived and not very important "boy king" and his tomb is tiny in comparison to those of Seti I and others).

Another visa drama: as some of you may have already heard, I bumped into yet another visa drama (which I - in the spirit of staying positive and attracting the good energies from the universe - prefer to think of as an adventure). Last time - as you may remember from my Istanbul blog chapter - it was Ethiopia. This time it is Sudan. It turns out that the Sudanese embassy asks that each visa appliation is accompanied by a letter of authorization from the applicant's national embassy confirming that the person is who their passport says they are (I know, silly!). Well, the Polish embassy in Cairo, which I paid a visit to, absolutely refused to issue such a letter for me. I met the consul, had a nice chat but failed to convince him. Evidently the Polish government considers Sudan too dangerous of a place to visit and doesn't want any of its citizens there. All Polish embassies around the world stopped issuing these letters for Sudan about months ago and my personal charms did not change the consul's mind. Oh well... At least I tried... I went to the Sudanese embassy in Aswan, Egypt (near the border ferry crossing to Sudan) and filed my visa application anyway without the letter. They did ask about it, I politely explained why I didn't have it and... miracle about 1.5 hours later I got my Sudanese visa!!! So Sudan, the country too dangerous for the Polish goverment to send its citizens into - HERE I COME!!!! Christmas in Sudan and New Year's Eve in Ethiopia. How cool is that?

Jordan: from the sea that you cannot swim in to the desert that will take your breath away

Border crossing between Syria and Jordan was my easiest and quickest yet since the start of my trip in July in China. It only took 1 hour, there were clean(ish) toilets, duty free shop and currency exchange that wasn't trying to rip you off. Impressive and civilized! And the first hours of driving in Jordan after crossing the border create the first immediate impression: there is much much less trash along the road than there was in Syria. So far, so good!

Here's my brief impressions and memories of the key places I visited in Jordan:

Jerash, located 48 km north of Amman, is one of the largest and most well preserved sites of Roman architecture in the world outside Italy. To this day, its paved and colonnaded streets, soaring hilltop temples, handsome theaters, spacious public squares and plazas, baths, fountains and city walls pierced by towers and gates remain in exceptional condition. The ancient city preserved today was the administrative, civic, commercial and cultural center of this community, while the majority of the city's citizens lived on the east side of Jerash Valley. Jerash was hit by the Persian invasion of 614 AD and the Muslim conquest of 636 AD. A series of earthquakes in 749 AD did serious damage to the city and hastened its decline, and its population sank to 4000. The Crusaders described Jerash as uninhabited, and it remained abandoned until its rediscovery in 1806, when Ulrich Jasper Seetzen, a German traveler, came across and recognized a small part of the ruins. The ancient city was buried in sand, which accounts for its remarkable preservation. It has been gradually revealed through a series of excavations, which started in 1925, and continue to this day. I was fortunate to visit the place at sunset which - yet again - made for some amazing photos.

Petra is without doubt Jordan’s most valuable treasure and greatest tourist attraction. It is a vast, unique city, carved into the sheer rock face by the Nabataeans, an industrious Arab people who settled here more than 2000 years ago, turning it into an important junction for the silk, spice and other trade routes that linked China, India and southern Arabia with Egypt, Syria, Greece and Rome. The site remained unknown to the Western world until 1812, when it was introduced by Swiss explorer Johann Ludwig Burckhardt. It was described as "a rose-red city half as old as time". UNESCO has described it as "one of the most precious cultural properties of man's cultural heritage." Petra was chosen by the BBC as one of "the 40 places you have to see before you die". The long walk to the Treasury, among the amazing walls formed by red, white and yellow rocks is truly a unique view. Although quite crowded at this time of year, Petra is so big and spread out that you can easily find a less frequented hike where it's just you, the rocks and the amazing temples and monasteries carved in rock. You can easily spend a day wandering the various sites, getting lost on the hiking trails or just climbing a rock somewhere and sitting on it until sunset watching the people below... I absolutely recommend a visit to Petra at least once in everyone's life.

Swimming (kind of) in the Dead Sea: Deep in the Jordan Valley and 55 km southeast of Amman, is the Dead Sea, one of the most spectacular natural and spiritual landscapes in the whole world. Dead Sea is actually not a sea at all, but a lake that's made up of about 30 percent salt. It is the lowest body of water on earth, the lowest point on earth and the world's richest source of natural salts, hiding wonderful treasures that accumulated throughout thousands of years. As its name evokes, the Dead Sea is devoid of life due to an extremely high content of salts and minerals which gives its waters the renowned curative powers, therapeutic qualities, and its buoyancy, recognized since the days of Herod the Great, more than 2000 years ago. And because the salt content is four times that of most world's oceans, you can float in the Dead Sea without even trying, which makes swimming here a truly unique experience not to be missed: here is the only place in the world where you can recline on the water to read a newspaper.There is no such thing as swimming in the Dead Sea. Your feet and shoulders rise and float above the water, no matter how hard you try to make them go under the water. They just refuse. And a tip for those of you who want to try "swimming" out here: do not shave at least two days before you plan to take a dunk in the Dead Sea, and be prepared if you have any open cuts or sores while you're swimming, as you will quickly learn the real meaning of putting salt in one's wound.

Wadi Rum desert: this absolutely breathtaking desert near Aqaba used to be a rest stop for all the caravans travelling between Asia and Europe. The sand in Wadi Rum has this amazing shade of darkish red (which - on the downside - gets absolutely everywhere, and I mean everywhere including your teeth and private bits. And there are no showers anywhere around so you learn to live with the sand for a while...). There are also rocks scattered picturesquely around the desert. Interesting fact: T.E. Lawrence, the famous British explorer also known as Lawrence of Arabia, was a big fan of Wadi Rum, used to live here around 1917. He described his adventures and love for this part of the world in a book called "Seven Pillars of Wisdom", the title of which comes from the name of one of the desert rocks in Wadi Rum. We spent several hours driving jeeps deep into the desert, climbing rocks and watching the sunset. And then we spent the night in a Beduin tent camp under the stars. Unforgettable...

Syria: the ancient art of storytelling and the castles of every child's dreams

Crossing the border from Turkey to Syria was pleasanty quick (only 2 hours) and followed by a night of "bush" camping in a parking lot of a local gas station. But it was free, came with clean toilets and the seaside was just across the road, which made for a great swim and an amazing sunset views.

Aleppo was the first big city we visited in Syria. The Citadel (which I was fortunate enough to visit at sunset) is pretty spectacular. It sits on a hill in the center of the city and is visible from almost anywhere. Usage of the Citadel hill dates back at least to the middle of the 3rd millennium BC but the current structure dates from the 13th century. And the added fun factor came from our hugely entertaining, slightly bizarre and definitely memorable local guide who was an extremely loud older gentleman (maybe half deaf, hence loud??) talking in a strong accent with great passion about the city history and the customs (at at some point mentioned something that I understood to be - but maybe it was his accent - penis perfume...). 

Another amazing place in Aleppo is its main covered souq. All of the shopping your heart could possibly desire from gold and silver, boxes, clothing, fabric and soaps can be found here. I quickly found that many show owners spoke bits and pieces of Polish, which quickly led to funny conversations, including one of my fellow travellers trying to marry me off in exchance for some camels...

One of my personal favouite experiences of Aleppo - and of the whole of Syria to be fair - is the amazing sound of the calls to prayer, coming very loudly from every minaret in town (and there are quite a lot of them!) 5 times a day. It's fascinating and quite enchanting to listen to them - everything slows down for a bit, restaurant owners turn off their music and (what's different from calls to prayer in Iran) the mosques seem to be talking to each other: a call to prayer from one mosque is answered by a different "song" from another mosque. Around Syria I have listened to those mystic religious "performances" with up to 6 mosques getting involved in the "song"... Amazing... I got to truly love these sounds of Islam and it doesn't bother me that in some places, especially in the Syrian countryside, they come as early as 4:30 in the morning!

Damascus - also known as the "city of jasmin" is the capital of Syria and is the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world. The old-walled city, in particular, feels very ancient and largely consists of a maze of narrow alleys, punctuated by enigmatic doors that lead into pleasing, verdant courtyards and blank-faced houses. The old city still has an authentic medieval feel to it, although this is vanishing very fast due to the increasing tourist traffic. One of my favourite places in the city - Souq al-Hamidiyya - is a broad (and crazily busy!!) street packed with tiny shops and is entered through columns from a Roman temple built on a site that had been occupied by an even older temple. The smells of spices, the screaming of the shop owners at each other and at potential customers, the music of calls to prayer, the noise of excited local children crowding the famous ice cream shops (slabs of ice cream rolled in pistacchio - yuuuum!) - it all creates a memorable atmosphere, which you just want to return to night after night. And it makes for some amazing people watching! At the end of Souq al-Hamidiyya stands the great Umayyad Mosque. It was an Assyrian temple, then a Roman temple to Jupiter, a church when Rome converted to Christianity, then a mosque and a church together, and finally a mosque until now. All the symbols are still pretty much there and some Christian drawings can still be very clearly seen on the walls inside. Damascus also has a Citadel (at the other end of the souq from the mosque) but it's not overly impressive if compared to the Aleppo Citadel and its crazy guide. 

One of the truly unique experiences in Damascus is visiting the Al Nafura (The Fountain) Cafe after the sunset prayer for a sample of some Arabic storytelling called hakawati. It's evidently a dying art in Syria and it's passed from one generation to another to keep the tradition alive. It's quite a view to see the storyteller (the hakawati) clad in flowing Arab dress and a white skullcap seated on an elevated chair and, surveying the people below, reading / acting the stories from his book. Every now and then he would point his walking stick at someone in the audience and ask them to repeat certain phrases (which if you don't speak Arabic can be quite entertaining for the locals and for the storyteller). It's all in Arabic so the exact meaning obviously escaped me that it truly was as if we were back in the Middle Ages when one of the most preferred types of entertainment in the Middle East were the storytellers with their tales of war, chivalry, love, oppressors, rogues, and romance. 


Krak des Chevaliers - another amazing place we visited in Syria. Standing as high as 2300 feet above sea level this Castle of the Knights considered the greatest fortress in the world. With its command over the valley between Homs and Tripoli, and being a model of perfection of medieval fortification, this Castle was never besieged or taken by storm. Exploring the many rooms, kitchens, towers, dungeons (including a challenge our guide gave us to find a secret passages under the castle) truly felt like an ideal hide-and-seek adventure for little boys. The history of this magnificent fortress is not very well known, it was given to a Kurdish garrison by the Amir of Aleppo in 1031, taken over by the Count of Toulouse in 1099, then by the Latin prince Tancred in 1110, and then by the Hospitallers in 1142. After that the Krak was kept in the hands of the crusaders, although it was damaged by a couple of earthquakes, and was rebuilt in its final form in the 13th century. It only fell to the Mameluke Sultan Baibars who resorted to a trick, in which he forged a letter supposedly from the Crusader commander in Tripoli that said that they should surrender, and so the greatest fortress in the world fell.

Istanbul, Turkey: I missed most of Turkey but I got my Ethiopian visa!!!

Originally I was planning to spend only few days in Istanbul. My Dutchman was flying in for almost 5 days (and we were both ecstatic about a chance to spend some time together after 3 months of not seeing each other). After those few days I was due to meet up my new group of travel companions and drive around Turkey to sightsee other parts of the country before crossing into Syria. Well... My plans ended up changing quite a bit and all because of Ethiopia changing its visa requirements. Before, it was possible to apply for an Ethiopian visa in any Ethiopian embassy around the world (so I was planning to do that in Sudan or Egypt). Now it's required to apply in an Ethiopian embassy in your country of residence. So that meant I needed to send my passport to London... And wait in Istanbul for however long it takes to process the visa and send my passport back to me... Oh well, I am learning very quickly that flexibility is one of the most important virtues one should develop on these kinds of overlanding travels... So I am flexible, not stressing about somethings I have absolutely no control over and I am perfectly willing to spend extra few days in Istanbul, which is after all an amazing town, very friendly for tourists and wonderful for walking around. In the end it turned out that I had to spend an extra week in Istanbul. Of course - typical for me - I had some "interesting" adventures in the process of getting my visa and receiving my passport back: the Ethiopian consul decided to go on a short holiday when my passport was already in the embassy and there wasn't anyone else who could sign my visa (that caused 1 day delay), then the embassy lost the copy of my bank statement and I needed to find a way to send it again from Istanbul (that caused another day delay) and then even DHL ended up disappointing me because they couldn't deliver to Istanbul on weekends (so I lost another 2 days waiting for Monday to come). But now I have my passport, I have my Ethiopian visa and I am ready to go back on the road!

The positive side of my "forced" prolonged stay in Istanbul is that I really had more than sufficient time to explore the city, see every sight in the book and just aimlessly wander the back alleys for hours on end, which is often the best way to find off-the-beaten-track treasures and to make new friends. The mosques (especially the Blue Mosque), Hagia Sophis, Topkapi park and palace, Grand Bazaar, Spice Bazaar, the Asian side of the river - these are only some of the most beautiful and only some of my favourite places in Istanbul. I even went to the cinema to see "Eat, Pray, Love" and it was even shown in English and not in Turkish (althoght I was ready for the adventure of watching a movie in the local language!)...

The not-so-positive side of my longer-than-intended stay in Istanbul was that my new travel companions went ahead without me to explore the rest of Turkey and I unfortunately missed all the attractions in the country outside Istanbul. But such is life. My priority at the time was to get an Ethiopian visa. Turkey is not going anywhere and I'm sure I'll visit it again soon... Ballooning over Capadocia is supposed to be an unforgettable experience and may be even better if I do it with family or friends...

The Iranians are among most welcoming people in the world and their boys among most flirty men on the planet

Finally, I am in Iran! After a relatively smooth border crossing from Turkmenistan (only 5 hour wait at the border among very nice immigration officers) I find myself in the country of blue mosques and amazing landscapes  (anything from desert to almost tropical water-rich views in the mountains). Iran is the country of my Central Asia and Middle East trip that I’ve been most excited about due to its exotic feel, fascinating and sometimes controversial propaganda about the country that we’re fed in the Western world and, probably most of all, wanting to observe with my own eyes how the everyday life of the Iranian people (especially the women) is influenced by the strict rules and restrictions of their religion.

Here are some main highlights of my Iranian adventures. Since it’s completely impossible to describe everything I’ve seen and done, and especially the impressions it left on me, you’ll just have to come to Iran yourselves one day!

We started off with camping in the Golestan national park. It’s pretty much the only bush / forest area in Iran and camping here gave us a unique opportunity to observe the camping rituals of the locals. Camping Iranian style consists of cramping your family and half of your house into a small car, pitching your bright coloured tent as close to the road as possible (presumingly so you don’t have to walk far to your car to get stuff) and spending next few hours cooking up a feast, playing very loud Iranian pop music from your car speakers and talking even louder (so you can hear each other over the music). There is even a prayer hall so there’s no excuse for not fulfilling every Muslim’s religious duty of praying 5 times a day... And then the funny part comes: Iranians don’t actually stay overnight in those tents in the national park, after the dinner and the (alcohol free) parting they drop down the tents, pack up their mountains of stuff and ... go home. Bit bizarre but better for us, as it gave us a quiet peaceful night in the national park after the locals went home! Also, camping in Iran gave me another unique opportunity to climb up on the roof of the truck and unload tents while wearing my mandatory Iranian outfit of hijab (head scarf) and a long black tunic 3 sizes to big! Not the easiest job in the world as the tunic kept getting in the way and got very dirty after about 5 minutes and the scarf kept slipping but hey, all in the name of memorable travel experiences, right?

I must admit, as much as I loved the hospitality of Iranian people, I struggled to remain 100% tolerant and open minded in respect to the attitude of women in this country. Everywhere I looked I saw restrictions imposed on women that don’t apply equally to men: having to wear at least the hijab and preferably the black chador at all times while outside your house (in storching heat!), not being allowed many social privileges such as singing in public, using most swimming pools etc. While I completely understand that many of Iranian women are very religious by choice and they’re follow all these strict modesty rules even if it wasn’t mandatory for them to do so. But with my Western eyes I view one’s individual freedom as a basic right and I cannot help but view this particular religion and culture as unnecessarily and unequally repressive towards one gender and not the other.

 Yazd: rustic, tranquil and with a beautifil old-city with sun-baked tiles and lots of little bazaars. The city is still the centre of Iran's oldest religion, Zoroastranism. The practice of this religion is temporary Iran is similar to that of pre-Islamic Persia. The worship focuses around fire, fire temples were constructed in villages and cities and at remote places such as mountain peaks or caves. With the coming of Islam in the 7th century AD Zoroastranism lost is dominant position, large numbers of its followers converted to Islam and many shrines were abandoned. But Yazd remains an important Zoroastranism pilgrimage centre and there are still 6 holy shrines in the region.

Shiraz: Shiraz is known as the poetic capital of Persia, because two of the greatest poets of the world, Hafez (1324-1391) and Sa'di (1209-1291), come from this city. Sa'di, the traveler saw a great part of the world before he finally settled in Shiraz, where he died. Hafez on the other hand, except for one very short journey, never even left his city. One of them most impressive sites in the city is Shrine of Shah Cheragh, the tomb of Seyed Amir Ahmad, the brother of Imam Reza, the 8^th Imam. It's Holy Place but open to non-Muslims providing that no photos are taken inside the complex and that women wear the chador. Going inside the prayer area during a noon prayer was a powerful experience: crowds of people in the midst of their prayers, rows and rows of women fully covered in their chadors sitting or lying on the floor and loudly reciting verses from the Koran. Islam is a very picturesque religion to watch: I fell in love with the ritual of the call to prayer, ablutions in the mosque pools, laying prayer carpets in the direction of Mecca, prayer stones arranged on the floor... But - as mentioned earlier - I cannot get my mind around the (in my opinion supressive and limiting) impact the religion has on everyday lives of women in Iran: the chadors, the hijab, having to sit in the back of the bus, not being able to enjoy dancing or singing in public... I can safely state I won't be getting myself an Iranian husband and relocating to Iran anytime soon!

Oh, and I will remember Shiraz for another reason which is completely unrelated to Iran. It was over a nice cup of tea at our hotel in Shiraz that my crew leader informed me that Ethiopia just changed their visa rules and it's no longer possible for any nationality to get an Ethiopian visa on route (which was exactly what I was planning to do in Egypt). Now everyone who wants to travel to Ethiopia has to apply for their visa in the place of their residence before they leave home. Which for me means I need to mail my passport to the Ethiopian embassy in London and have it mailed back to me with the visa. The only problem is that I'm travelling and wasn't planning to be in one place long enough for my passport to make it to London and back. But traveller does what the traveller must do... Hence I'm changing my plans slightly and staying in Istambul few days longer than I was planning to. It will be a nerve wrecking experience to put my passport in the mail again after UK Royal Mail had lost it back in July! Believe me, this time I'm using the most secure mailing service I can find from DHL or another reputable international courier... And I will be camping in their office in Istambul until I have my passport (hopefully with Ethiopian visa in it) safely backi in my hands!

Persepolis: The magnificent palace complex at Persepolis was founded by Darius the Great around 518 B.C., although more than a century passed before it was finally completed. Conceived to be the seat of government for the kings and a center for receptions and ceremonial festivities, the wealth of the Persian empire was evident in all aspects of its construction. The splendor of Persepolis, however, was short-lived; the palaces were looted and burned by Alexander the Great in 331-330 B.C. The ruins were not excavated until the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago sponsored an archaeological expedition to Persepolis in the 1930s. Today the splendour is still easily appreciated: it's a vast site of impressive ruins, sculptures and palaces. The good news is that we were lucky to be there at sunset, which made for absolutely magnificent photos and ambience. The not-so-good news is that about 100 Iranian teenage boys from a local boarding school were visiting the ruins at the same time as us, which made for hords of boys following us and being at first sweet but then increasingly annoying with their 'what's your name', 'you have beautiful blue eyes', 'can I take a picture with you' and ' I love you'... I must say it was quite exhausting standing there smiling while tens and tens of teenage boys were lining up to take a picture with me! Oh well, another unforgettable travel adventure behind my belt...

Esfahan (sometimes also spelled Isfahan): by far the most beautiful city in Iran and one of the most beautiful cities I have seen anywhere in the world. I loved its breathtaking mixture of impressive blue-tiles mosques (my favourites were Sheikh Lutfollah, Jameh and Imam), beautiful palaces and gardens, Imam Square (the second largest square in the world after the Tiananmen Square in Beijing) and multiple bazaars and teahouses. And the people... It is truly impossible to overemphasize how amazingly friendly and warm Iranian people are in general but in Esfahan it took whole another level. The children want to know your name and practice their English, the women want to touch your hair and teach you how to wear the chador, the teenage boys want to practice their flirting techniques... All done in an enjoyable and relaxed atmosphere. I would love to come back to Esfahan some day...

Tehran: a huge crowded city of 14 million people and hence much more modern, noisy with much more hair sneaking out from underneath the girls' headscarfs and many more unmarried couples holding hands freely on the streets. And the traffic... Books have been written and movies made about Tehran traffic. Hundreds of cars, motorbikes and pedestrians squeezed into the streets, which seem way to small to fit all of them at the same time. Cars moving along on what seems like 5, 6, 7 traffic lanes while only 2 or 3 are painted on the tarmac. The orchestra of cars honking, brakes screeching, Iranian pop music blasting from the youngsters' cars. angry drivers shouting at each other or at stupid tourists trying to crossing the streets... It's all overwhelming, fascinating and exhausting at the same time. But the good news is that I have crossed quite a few streets in Tehran and didn't get hit by a car even once :-) Other than the traffic (which admittedly I did love to watch) Tehran has some amazing sights, my favourite of which was Golestan Palace, an oasis of peace, azure tiled palace and a quiet green park in the bustling city. But overall Tehran is too big and noise of a city for me. I was absolutely happy to experience it for few days, would love to come back one day in winter to go skiing in the mountain resorts around it but it's not a city which stole my heart forever.

Overall, Iran has been definitely one of my very favourite places on my Big Trip thus far, possibly even the most favourite. I may very well visit it again one day... But now, off to Turkey where I spend few days in Istambul with my cute Dutchman and then am catching my next Dragoman truck, which will take my through Middle East and Africa. Excited, excited, excited!!!

One more note, to completely change the subject... In the past couple of months on my beloved truck, which so is faithfully taking me across huge chunks of Asia, I have been conducting a litte informal survey among my fellow passengers. There are a few people here (some here with their partners, some without) who seem to have discovered the secret to the perfect relationship because after decades of being together they still seem ridiculously happy together. I wanted to take advantage of this unique opportunity of being surrounded by happily married or otherwise committed people and 'interview' them about what is the secret of a happy long-term relationship. What are the tricks? What works and what doesn't? What to watch out for? And voila, here are some of the trends that emerged. Nothing brand new or hugely surprising but rather a confirmation of the simple 'relationship truths', which all of us should remind ourselves of regularly...
- Love each other. All else will fall in place.
- Don't go to sleep angry at each other
- You have to be friends and share at least some of your respective passions and interests
- Don't over-analyze and over-plan every aspect of your future together. Whatever comes, comes and as long as you tackle it together, all will be well. And sometimes the fun is in the not knowing.
- You both should have the attitude of 'sometimes he does things for me and sometimes I do things for him'
- You should want the same things from life and share your fundamental values and principles
- Make each other laugh
 

Turkmenistan – strange police state where you get told off for photographing a donkey and taken to a police station for photographing a presidential palace

Turkmenistan is a strange mix of some of the most remote scenery on Earth and modern, futuristic city of Ashgabat. In the countryside you get the inhospitable Karakum Desert (which means Black Desert not because of its colour but because of its harsh and bleak atmosphere) and the Turkmen still living a fully nomadic lifestyle revolving around yurts and carpet weaving. In the city of Ashgabat you get a weird futuristic landscape of modern monuments and buildings, loads of presidential palaces and government building and a police officer on every corner to make sure you don’t photograph any of that. I am not kidding. One of us got stopped by the police for photographing ... a donkey in the countryside. Another got taken to the police station and deterred for couple of hours for photographing the presidential palace in Ashgabat (pictures had to be deleted). Couple of times I got stopped by the police outside our hotel and told I couldn’t enter it via a side entrance and had to go all around the building to enter via the main entrance. Why??? Who knows... Maybe the police bosses in Turkmenistan still believe in the Soviet rule of “everyone will have a job”... Well, the police force in this country must be the biggest employer here!

One of the strangest places I visited in Turkmenistan was Darwasa Gas Crater. One night, when we were camping in the desert, a small 4 x 4 picked us up at night in complete darkness and took us to a place like I’ve never seen before: imagine a huge hole in the ground (size of a football pitch) ablaze with fire fed by natural gas vents! Truly a scary and breathtaking sight! It was hot, it was bright as day, it was like seeing what Hell must look like. And for me, an employee of oil and gas industry, it was an interesting educational experience of what can happen when gas exploration and irresponsible drilling of huge holes in the ground goes wrong. This crater was evidently created about 30 years about when a gas exploration site exploded and the government hasn’t been able to stop it since. And there’s still enough gas left in the ground to keep it going for another 30-40 years!

Next stop for me on my Big Trip will be Iran. My visa has been granted by the Iranian embassy in Ashgabat and hence I now have a “great” photo of myself in my passport wearing a black hijab. Definitely not my best look. I’m off to the land of more blue tiles, mosques and interesting presidential figures (would be great to meet the guy and discuss world politics). I can’t wait to fashion chadors or at least hijabs every day...

The blue tiles and passionate men of Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan is the one country on the Silk Road portion of my Big Trip that I did absolutely no pre-reading or research about. I knew nothing about it except where it is (vaguely) on the world map. It turned out to be Central Asia at its most exotic. It’s the land of the great Sultanates, the kingdoms that once controlled the trade and cities of the Silk Road, and – above all – of the most amazing cities I’ve seen thus far on this trip. Samarkand, Bukhara, Khiva are the Silk Road at its best, the picturesque towns taken straight from the Alladin and 1001 Nights stories. They are beautiful to look at, safe to wonder around and adventurous to get lost in (which is almost guaranteed in the confusing maze of their old city alleys, especially given that they are no street lights and if you’re caught after dark without your flashlight, you’ll need a great amount of good luck or help from the locals to get back to your hotel).

Tashkent: it was the 4^th largest city in the Soviet Union. The old Tashkent was largely destroyed by earthquakes and Soviet planners. Today (at least to me) it still looks like it can’t quite decide whether it wants to be Soviet or Arab. These two influences are randomly mixed with each other in a schizophrenic cocktail of architecture, monuments, people’s clothes etc. But it is clean, safe and the people are so very welcoming. The Chorsu bazaar has the biggest and most picturesque fruit and vegetable market I’ve ever seen. The underground stations are decorated in beautiful paintings, tiles and sculptures – each station in different style - (although taking photos in the underground is forbidden and there are lots of police around to ensure this law is followed). The old city with its maze of mud walls and old traditional houses makes quite an impression (and it’s here, among poor old mud huts, that I stumbled upon a HUGE expensive looking Spanish-style yellow villa complete with a swimming pool, white columns on the porch and white wooden window shutters – it seemed so out of place in this neighbourhood, it must be worth millions and I still wonder which local drug lord owns it).

Samarkand: a romantic spot of the Silk Road. Gentlemen, if you’re ever planning to propose in Uzbekistan, this is the place to do it in style. The centre of the town (and seemingly the spot for a romantic date for all teenagers in town) is the Registan Square where the beautiful Medressas (Islamic schools) are loaded with ornate wall sculpting and the traditional tiles in every shade of blue under the sun. One of the best landmarks in the city is the Shakh-I-Zinda complex, which is basically a street with tombs for Timur’s family where one tomb is said to be that of Prophet Muhammad. Again, the blue tiles and golden walls and ceilings take your breath away. I also had a great opportunity to visit a silk carpet factory where not only one can go on a crazed spending spree buying carpets for many tens of thousands of dollars but also the owner (medical doctor, speaker of 7 languages and ex-employee of Doctors Without Borders in Afghanistan) gave us a great tour of how his carpet workshop works, how the recruitment and employment of staff works (he’s a true believer in the saying that happy employees make better carpets, so the people here seem well taken care of with full benefits, including 3 year fully paid maternity leave!). This carpet workshop has been visited by almost every president and celebrity under the sun (including UN officials) and has been internationally recognized for its good labour practises (etc. no child labour).

Bukhara: if the primary colour of Samarkand was blue after its mosque tiles, the primary colour of Bukhara is light brown after the walls of its buildings in the old city. The old part of town is entirely UNESCO protected – and that means the buildings, the streets, the people. If anyone wants to build something new here or extend / change an existing building, extensive permissions are needed to ensure the continuity of historic and architectural styles. The buildings are absolutely spectacular, especially the Ark Fortress, the Ismail Samanid Mausoleum (I’ve never seen such a concentration of blue tile in one place!) or the Kalyan Minaret (aka Death Tower). I also had an opportunity to attend a concert of local music and dance, which was truly enchanting.

Khiva: it’s much smaller than the other great Uzbek cities of the Silk Road but also the best preserved Khanate. The old city is surrounded by the ancient walls and used to provide sanctuary for the Silk Road traders and travellers. To the eye (and the camera!) the old town is a beautiful mix of light brown buildings and the classic azure tiles of the mosques and medressas. And to top up a great day of sightseeing to The Juma Mosque, Islam Hodja Madrassa and many other amazing places, I took a chance to “invade” a very fancy swimming pool in a very fancy hotel (where I was NOT staying) and go skinny dipping J Truly a perfect ending to a great day out...

Oh, I almost forgot. I should probably explain the mention of the passionate men in the title of the chapter J Well, for some strange reason practically everywhere I went shopping or just browsing the bazaars, the Uzbek men were proposing marriage to me! I later compared notes with my other female travel companions and couple of them had similar “adventures”. The Uzbek men were all the time asking me if I have a husband and kids, and then would try to convince me to marry them. No matter that they already had a wife and kids! Evidently that’s not a deal breaker in Uzbekistan...  I did receive a couple of marriage proposals in Kyrgyzstan too but nothing to the extent of the frequency and passion, with which the Uzbek men kept on trying!

The most beautiful mountains I have ever seen…

So – after almost 2 months in China (I still can’t believe I crossed the whole bloody country east to west!) - I find myself in Kyrgyzstan. These are some words I’ve never thought I’d say… Funnily enough, crossing from China into “Kyrgy-land” (as we’re affectionately calling it) felt a bit like homecoming: from the land of eating rice with chopsticks and of absolutely no way of communicating with the locals unless one speaks Mandarin Chinese to the land of post-soviet architecture in the cities and the familiar diet of bread, meat and potatoes (all of which I grew up with). Plus I can actually talk to the locals as I remember surprisingly much of my primary school Russian!

But the absolute unexpected highlight of Kyrgyzstan is the landscape outside the cities. 92% of this country is covered with mountains and pretty spectacular mountains at that. Everywhere you look you see glaciers, snow-covered mountain peaks, lakes, streams perfect for white-water rafting, herds of horses and sheep, yurts, and abundance of hiking trails. I have been told that Kyrgyzstan is one of the most beautiful countries in the world but still nothing quite prepared me for how beautiful exactly it is. It is virtually impossible to take a bad picture of its mountains and sunsets (which I hope the new pictures on my Snapfish website prove).

Some of the highlights of my last few weeks in Kyrgyzstan include:

Zety Uguz: extremely picturesque mountaineering camp where we camped for couple nights in below 0 Celsius temperatures, almost continuous rain and – inevitably – heaps and heaps of mud. It was by far the coldest temperatures I’ve ever camped in. Most of us slept in several layers of clothing, in our all-season sleeping bags and under several blankets. And my nose was still freezing cold and red when I woke up. To keep ourselves from freezing to death we resorted to entertainment such as drinking insane amounts of Kyrgyz vodka and singing Russian revolutionary songs by the campfire (don’t ask me why but it does help with the cold weather). Oh, and let’s not forget a whole lamb roasted on the fire that some local guys cooked for us… Amazing…

Altyn Arasan (which means Golden Spa): another absolutely breathtaking spot in the Kyrgyz mountains where we camped for few nights. It serves as a mountaineering camp and has an added benefit (which we happily indulged in) of hot baths with steaming hot water from the underground springs. Nothing better after a freezing cold night and a day of hiking than jumping in your bikini (or without) into the hot spring with an obligatory glass of vodka.  

Lake Ysyk-kol: we spent few days driving around the entire lake, camping along the way. It was such an amazing change from the rain, mud and snow of the high-altitude mountains: we camped directly at the lake waterfront, swimming and sunbathing all day in the glorious hot weather. Swimming in this lake was a very memorable experience with its crystal blue water and snow-capped mountain peaks at both sides of the lake. Water temperature was similar to that in the Baltic Sea in summertime, which means that most of us Europeans jumped right in but most Australians wouldn’t dare. We spent the evenings by the campfire (those Russian revolutionary songs again!) eating the fish that our local guide caught in the lake. I even learned how to cook vegetarian goulash and raspberry tart! This was a perfect example of what Donna  - our lovely crew member – said: “when you wake up in the morning on these overlanding trips you’re never entirely sure what and where you’ll be doing in the evening”. So true: in the morning I woke up in the freezing cold mountain and jumped into the hot springs at 6 am. By 5 pm on the same day I was swimming and sunbathing in summer weather by Ysyk-kol lake. Life is amazing!

Next stop: Kazachstan!

More of my favourite quotes about travel and life

“Travel of not just the seeing of the sights. It’s the change that goes on – temporary or permanent – in the ideas of living”

“Traveller sees what he sees. Tourist sees what he came to see”

“All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveller is unaware”

“The true mistery of the world is the visible, not the invisible” (Oscar Wilde)

“As you walk, eat and travel be aware of who you are, otherwise you’ll miss most of your life” (Buddha)

“I soon realized that no journey carries us far unless – as it extends into the world around us – it goes an equal distance into the world within” (Lillian Smith)

“Life is too important to be taken seriously” (Oscar Wilde)

“The criterion is how you treat the weak. The measure of civilized behaviour is compassion” (Paul Theroux, Dark Star Safari)

“Safari in Swahili means “journey”. It has nothing to do with animals. Someone on safari is just away and unobtainable and out of touch” (Paul Theroux, Dark Star Safari)

“Home became a routine. I was a sitting duck in my predictable routine: people knew when to call me, they knew when I would be at my desk. I was in such regular touch it was like having a job – a mode of life I hated. Being available at any time in the totally accessible world seemed to be a pure horror”  (Paul Theroux, Dark Star Safari)

“My typical travelling mood: hoping for the picturesque, expecting misery, braced for the appalling. Happiness was unthinkable for although happiness is desirable it’s a banal subject for travel” (Paul Theroux, Dark Star Safari)

“Why did this man’s zealotry make me so uneasy? He seemed a nice fellow. He said he accepted everyone. But he didn’t listen. He was a true believer. His zealotry worried me because it was zealotry. Zealots never listen” (Paul Theroux, Dark Star Safari)

Who knew that desert life is so beautiful

We spent the last few days crossing the Taklamakan desert. 

It’s that huge empty patch of yellow on your maps of China in the western part of the country, going almost up to the border with Kyrgystan (which we’ll be crossing in few days). 


I absolutely fell in love with the Taklamakan. It’s huge, empty, totally inhospitable, sand dunes every direction you 
look, the only vehicles on the only crossing road are huge cargo trucks. Its name means “go in and you won’t come out”. Well I proved them wrong! We camped each night in the middle of the sand, cooked dinner, made a campfire, looked at stars from the roof of the truck. Gusty winds in the sandy dunes mean one thing: sand gets absolutely everywhere. In each piece of your clothing, in each opening of your body, in your food, tent, teeth and toothpaste. You learn to like crunchy meat and beer for dinner. 
And it’s still so amazingly beautiful out there. Just before sunset the wind picks up and the loose sand does its pretty dance on the top of the dunes. And Taklamakan even has its very own oasis town of Turpan – green (they invented their own ancient clever irrigation system), bloody hot as it is after all one of the hottest places on earth (temperatures here can get up to 70 Celsius). I loved it there…

Life doesn’t end at 50.

Admit it, you’re probably secretly thinking that the exciting things in life happen to you until you’re about 40 years old, maybe bit older if you’re lucky, but anything after that is all about serious  boring office work, tending to your garden, looking after children and soon after grandchildren and trying to age as gracefully as possible. Well, one of the absolutely amazing benefits of my Big Trip is finding evidently everywhere I look that it’s absolutely not the case. There are several 60-plus year olds in my team (among them my favourite Australian couple I have written about before) who are having an absolute blast on this trip and are more excited about overlanding life than the folks half their age on the truck. I love talking to them about the travels they have done in their 50s and 60s, and still are planning to do. Some of them have travelled more of the globe in a more adventurous rough ways that most people I know. I find their life stories very inspiring.

Another example that life doesn’t have to end at 50 or 60 years old was a German couple we met on the road (to be specific, in a nasty smelly toilet on a Chinese petrol station in the middle of nowhere). This German couple, easily in their 60s, was driving in their 4 wheel drive with a sleeping cabin across China, central Asia, Nepal and then planning to head to Thailand, Cambodia and rest of South East Asia. And this was only a small part of their Round the World itinerary: they were planning to spend the next 5 years travelling like this. Every year they were planning to spend June, July and August back in Germany with their family and friends, and the rest of the year on the road. Can you believe it? They are grey hair grandparents driving around the world and changing their own 150 kg tires on their monster truck! How many grandparents do you know back home having the guts to do anything like that??? Inspiring...

Have any of you ever slept on the Great Wall of China? Ha ha, I have!

I got this amazing and once in a lifetime opportunity on the Jiayugnan western section of the Wall. It is a small but absolutely amazing and completely non-touristy section of the Wall. It has been renovated by a couple of locals with their private money over the last couple of decades. They charge a small fee to camp in the area and to climb the Wall. We bush camped at the base of the Wall, washed in a cold wild stream nearby, cooked and ate a simple camp dinner by the camp fire and then several of us climbed the Wall (steep and sweaty) in the dark with our sleeping bags, wine and “fire water” (local and very strong spirit). It was an amazing night. Lots of laughter and telling ghost stories and taking amazing night pictures of the Wall and the mountains. About 6:30 am it was time for an amazing sunrise on the Great Wall of China. Truly an unforgettable experience...

Speaking of ghost stories, I feel obliged to share with you a little night-time scary story that bunch of Australians on my truck have been trying to frighten me with. They have told me about a very scary animal called drop bear that lives in Australia and kills quite a few people every year. These creatures (that I’ve never heard of before despite having visited Australia twice) look like Koala bears and are vicious man-eaters. When you’re walking in the forest, they drop down from the tree when you least expect it, land on your shoulders and start chewing off parts of your body. Evidently they’re deadly, everyone is scared of them and the safest way to protect yourself is to stay away from the forest. Well, as ashamed as I am to admit it, it was a while before I found out that the whole story about drop bears is complete fiction and my evil Australian friends made it up just to scare me

Curiosities of everyday life in inland China:

[pictures still to come]

Over the past month or so I have carefully and with (sometimes morbid) fascination observed the curiosities of day-to-day life in inner China and especially the “interesting” challenges that await a non-Chinese speaking foreigner in the provinces and villages where the locals possibly have never seen a foreigner before. Here are some examples, which I hope you find amusing because I certainly did:

Trying to get an Iranian visa photo done in China: Iran is one of the many countries I’m planning to visit in the next several months (although, in the case of Iran, “hoping to visit” is a more appropriate wording as evidently they refuse entry visa applications randomly and without explanation, so I actually have no idea if I’ll be able to enter the country). For my entry visa into Iran I need a number of different invitation letters and documents, among which is a visa photo of me wearing a black head scarf. I didn’t get this done in UK (no idea why, it would have been easy enough) so I needed to get it done on route. In one of the cities we were visiting I found a photo store, which appeared to do passport photos. Now all I needed to do is somehow explain to the store clerk (who of course spoke not a single word of English) that I need a visa photo for Iran (not passport photo because they are a different size), with black headscarf (not any other colour because my visa application will then be refused), with white background (not any other colour for the same reason as above) and absolutely no hair showing and no smile. Hmmm, let’s just say that it was quite an adventure and an exhausting exercise of body language to explain to the store clerk what exactly I was after. But, after about 2 hours in the store I got my photos: 2 visa and 2 passport because till the end the clerk wasn’t 100% sure which one I needed. I also had to endure bunch of local people in the shop pointing at and loudly commenting on my eyes, which, against black scarf and tanned face, appeared freakishly blue in the picture. Now I have my Iran visa pictures safely stored in my wallet and all that remains is to keep our fingers crossed that the lovely Iranian authorities will let me into their lovely country. I’ll keep you all posted on that one...

Trying to buy white wine in China: in the spirit of the preparations for going camping (i.e. buying lots of booze) we went to a supermarket with an ambitious objective of buying some wine (as the girls were getting sick and tired of drinking cheep Chinese beer). Red wine was easy enough: there were bottles of it stacked on the shelf so all we needed to do is choose one. White wine was bit more tricky. There was none of it on the shelves so we needed to ask the store clerk if they even had any. Of course, as in 99% of the cases, the locals didn’t speak any English. After many, many failed attempts to explain what we’re after, we did what we thought was a simple charade: we pointed at the bottle of red wine and then we pointed at a white shirt of a Chinese customer in the store. The store clerk’s eyes lit up and she said a relieved “aaaaaahhhhh!!!”. We thought “yes, she got it, we’ll be drinking white wine in no time”. Well, not so quickly. The store clerk went to the storage room for a minute and emerged with a box of.... laundry powder with whitener in it J We gave up our hopes of drinking white wine that night...

Trying to buy tampons in China: hmmm, that is a continuous experience, still going on in every city supermarket I get my hands on and still prving to be an unsuccessful mission. I am coming to a conclusion that they don’t sell tampons in  this country. Miles and miles of fully stocked shelves with pads and panty liners of every imaginable brand, size and colour. Tampons – not a single one in sight. And asking a store staff girl if they have tampons was an adventure in itself. I was using every bit of every language known to man to explain to the poor and more (embarrassed by the minute) girl that I don’t want that thing that you put in your underwear at certain time of the month (i.e. a pad) but instead I want that thing that you put inside of you at certain time of the monh (i.e. a tampon). No luck. By now the entire female store staff have gathered and nobody had any clue was I was on about

Trying to ask where the toilet is in a restaurant in China: toilets in restaurants in China can be tricky to find. The more remote the city / village, the more obscure the location of the restaurant toilet: in back storage rooms, on the rooftop, in the restaurant owner’s private apartment, in the neighbour’s apartment etc. We were at  a restaurant in a small town and, after couple of beers, I was desperate to go to the toilet. All my attempts to ask the waitresses where the toilet was failed. Finally, getting desperate, I crouched on the floor (as all toilets in China are crouching style) and made a peeing sound “psssss, psssss”. The waitress burst out in a mad attack of laughter and started waiving over the other waitresses to take a look at the crazy foreigner pretend-peeing on the floor in the middle of the restaurant. But my mission was accomplished: they did show me where the bloody toilet was and it was one of the best toilet stops I’ve ever had

Trying to buy 5 kilos of lamb meat on a local market in China: the rules of the overlanding life say that when we’re camping, we cook our own meals. There’s all the basic cooking equipment on the truck, gas stove and cook book with plenty of simple recipes. We have 4 cook teams of 4 and we take turns planning meals, shopping for them and cooking them. Few days ago my cook team was up. We wanted to make lamb stew. We went to a local meat market in a small town. No butcher had 5 kilos of fresh good meat that we wanted, just small leftover scraps. One butcher was extra nice – he signalled for us to wait 10 minutes and watch over his store while he’s gone. He jumped on his old little motorbike and disappeared. So we sat there minding his meat stand with the locals quickly gathering to stare at the strange white people behind the meat counter at their local market. After about 10 minutes the butcher came back – with a whole animal on the back seat of his motorbike, just killed and skinned! He emptied the blood and removed the main bones right in front of us with the biggest knife I’ve ever seen. I have blood spatter on my shoes to prove it!