The end

Simon writes:

The heroism of this, my final post on our blog (necessarily long to reflect the importance of the occasion), is not to be underestimated: I'm having to type it on a French keyboard - nothing is in the right place, even if you're writing in French! Now don't misunderstand me, I'm no Francophobe. I love their language, I love their cuisine and I'll even admit to a grudging admiration of their pig-headed approach to international and industrial relations. But making me use the shift key just to type a bloody full stop is really pushing it!!!! Also, this internet cafe costs about £60,000 per hour (€3) so this sparkling copy does not come cheap...

Ahem. Sorry about that.

So we're in Lille, an underrated city if ever there was one (see pic)



There's good food and booze, a cinema that shows films in their original language and literally dozens of lingerie shops. What more could you possibly ask for?

We made our way here at great expense from Switzerland (you could fly to New York and back twice for the amount we spent on train tickets - some things in this world are just plain wrong). There we did little other than overdose on cheese. One glorious day of skiing (and cheese) with our friend Juhani will stick in the memory:




I'm sure you'll agree that those braces are really quite fetching.

We also spent time in the company of the Swiss side of my family, some of whom have already made encouraging noises about visiting us in Canada. Here's a picture of us with my aunt and cousin:



So that's you all about up to date really. I'm struggling to find a suitably elegiac tone on which to end it all so I'll take refuge in statistics. What with me being totally rubbish at statistics, I only have three:
1. We left London nearly 8 months ago;
2. Without flying, we have visited 23 countries (some more than once);
3. We stayed the night in 89 cities/towns/villages (this figure does not include night buses or trains).

Thanks for reading and commenting. We're back in London on Thursday night. I'll buy a beer for anybody who can tell me which country we didn't photograph the penguins in (is there anybody THAT bored?!!).

Back in Europe...

Simon writes:

Back in Europe people are not as friendly (with some prominent exceptions described below), everything is frikkin expensive and the weather is generally miserable. But you can´t argue with clean trains, drinkable tap water and spaghetti bolognaise. Our progress from Istanbul to Switzerland (where we are currently enjoying the hospitality of the lovely Juhani and Karolina) has been swift.

For the record, and after repeated nagging from the penguins, here`s how we got here (Zurich) from there (Istanbul):

Train from Istanbul to Sofia, Bulgaria, where the penguins got addicted to gambling and Noelle got into the Easter spirit;


train from Sofia to Frankfurt via Belgrade train station, Serbia, where we avoided the attentions of bandits, donated drinks and pastries to a penniless young Aussie traveller with a bad cold and gave in to the penguins´ demands for yet another photo op;

train from Frankfurt to Dusseldorf, where we met the sublimely cute Maisie and the rest of Noelle´s cousin´s delightful family before they set off on their Easter hols.


Speaking of Easter, we´ll be back in the UK on April 9th, I´ll get to wear a different pair of trousers and you´ll all be spared my pathetic drivel on this blog for ever more. Hurray!

Istanbul

Simon writes:

In order to survive a Turkish bus journey be sure to first arm yourself with:
a) A pair of teflon-coated testicles to withstand the searing heat of the engine, which is pumped directly into the groinal area if you happen to be sitting in a window seat near the back.
b) An ability to enjoy (or at least endure) the worst film ever made. Dubbed. In Turkish.
c) Flipping great wadges of cash. Coming from Iran, the cost of coach travel and the (admittedly pretty good) food at the rest stops was a bit of a shock.

Don´t say you haven´t been warned. I learned the hard way.

So we´re in Istanbul eating and boozing mostly. Most of the pictures I´ve taken here so far are rubbish so this little collection is from Cappadocia (crazy rock formations, underground cities, caves/churches carved out of the rocks etc):





Seeing as it appears this computer is refreshingly fast at uploading them, here are a few pics from Istanbul, including one of this paragon of cultural sensitivity visiting one of Islam´s holiest sites. The logo was even less subtle on the front, but I didn´t have the balls to photograph it (see above):

Tehran to Turkey

Noelle writes:

After braving the streets of Tehran (apparently traffic is the most dangerous thing to foreigners in Iran), we took an overnight bus to the Turkish border where we were met with a snow storm.

We are now in Goreme, Cappadocia (thanks for the suggestion Belinda) where we will relax with some hiking for a few days before heading onto Istanbul.

This is basically the Tehran equivalent to the 401 in Toronto or M25 in London. Although there are supposed to be 4 lanes of traffic the Tehranians have decided to take it upon themselves to create 5 instead. We saw a few accidents but not nearly as many as you would think.



The road from the Turkish border crossing.



The view from our hotel room in Goreme.

The prettier side to Esfahan

Noelle writes:

Although Simon is right that there is evidence of nose jobs all over Esfahan there is also a much prettier side to the city. Here are a few pics from some of the most beautiful mosques in the world.










Esfahan is also home to some very cool bazaars.




And bridges.





We also had lovely walk along the river bank where we met this family from Shiraz who asked us to join them for some tea. Tea turned into three hours of hand gesture communication and a shared picnic lunch with them.

Rhinoplastic fantastic!

Simon writes:

Reading about the horrors of the economic slowdown from afar, I'm half expecting to return to the UK to find hordes of hollow-eyed people shuffling about trying to sell their own urine in exchange for wheelbarrows full of worthless cash.

I'm sure it's not that bad, but even if it was you'd hardly know it in Iran. Here the streets are crammed with people buying designer labels, mobile phones, stupid haircuts and, most astonishingly, nose jobs. Yup, ancient Persia has transformed itself into the rhinoplasty capital of the world. A sculpted schnozz is apparently cheaper and better here than anywhere else. The evidence, in the form of tell-tale facial bandages, is everywhere. Maybe this is what's keeping the economy afloat.

The penguins wanted the "procedures" of course, but as a foreigner it's impossible to get money out anywhere in Iran so we've been having to spend our cash carefully. I've so far been unable to upload a pic of me taking matters into my own hands. Prepare yourselves...

Success!



So we're in Tehran (a dump if ever there was one!) trying to sort out transport to Turkey. With any luck we should be back in Europe within about a week.

Esfahan

Simon writes:

We're now in Esfahan (Iran) fighting off carpet salesmen and enjoying the bazaars, the cleanliness, the pretty architecture and the food. After three days in Yazd and one here, we're well rested, well-fed and well-watered. Lovely. Here are some pics:




A few days back it was all so different. The Quetta (Pakistan) to Yazd (Iran) section of our voyage confirms us as full-option travelling legends: a quite staggering amount of Iranian police-induced ballache sandwiched between two consecutive night buses PLUS a cheeky bit of runny poo thrown in to spice things up a bit.

If somebody in Pakistan tells you that the bus you're buying a ticket for is an "AC" bus, this is a lie. The air conditioning on Pakistan buses NEVER works and the music system ALWAYS does. From the very start this gives the washed out traveller two major irritants: blaring music all night (drivers are no respecters of anybody's wish to sleep) and, if you're travelling on unpaved roads, a never-ending mouthful of grit. Then there's the chain smoking of course. There's likely to be loads of pointless flashing lights as well.

Still, the Disco Bus from Quetta (as it shall henceforth be known) was a pretty trippy trip if you know what I mean. Pakistani trucks are cool - brightly lit reflective beacons crawling across the desert at night like huge phosphorescent bugs. At a pit stop for "lunch" at 11pm there was a coach with reclining seats and cup holders stuffed with live sheep. Odd.


Back on the Disco Bus, the driver decided to turn the volume up. This driver was a complete lunatic of course. On the parts of the road that were narrowly paved his tactic of playing chicken with the oncoming lorries to get them off the road added to the torment of my mangled bowels.

Six hours in Taftan ("hell on earth" according to the guidebook) waiting for the Iranian border to open wasn't much fun either. We spent a further six hours on the Iranian side waiting for our police escort. This included being shouted at by an immigration official when I asked him why only I was being finger-printed - "Ask your government! Ask your government!" Sheesh! Calm down, mate.

Here's a wee factoid for you: 85% of all the opiates in Europe plus the occasional knackered Westerner comes through Iran across the Afghanistan/Pakistan border. Drug dealers nab Westerners when they want compensation for a big bust apparently. For this reason we had to have an escort. After about three hours he turned up: an unarmed wee man in a green uniform who insisted we take an overpriced taxi to the nearest town. Ivo, a highly strung Czech fella who'd come from Quetta in the same bus as us, was having none of it. We convinced them to let us go in a minibus for half the price. Ten minutes out into the desert the bus stopped and we, plus some random punter, were told to get off. We began trudging up the road after our passports, the wee man and the random fella. A taxi pulled up and we all got in, including the random punter. Hmm. I sensed foul play, but we didn't really have a choice.

Four hours, two police stations, three police cars and countless clueless police/army officers later we were finally left alone at Zahedan bus station (only an hour's drive from the border) to continue our journey - another night bus, this time mercifully quiet and squeaky clean. The whole day was all very bewildering. Poor Ivo was livid - "We are guests in your country (pronounced as in "bounty") and this is how you treat us etc etc". I thought I was going to have to physically restrain him at one point. To be fair, the coppers were all very nice and presumably had no idea what we'd been through. One of them even spoke very good German, so he and I chatted away for a bit.

Ciao for now!

Oh, by the way, the beard's gone. I have of course got some comedy shaving pics but I'll be damned if I put them up here!

PS: Here are the penguins in Pakistan:

Quetta

For all those concerned, we left Lahore before the attacks and are now in Quetta. The plan is to head to the border on the overnight bus tomorrow.

Lahore, Part Deux

Simon writes:

In response to a pointed email from a fella known to me (and selected others) as Monty about our blog thinning out somewhat, here follows a long-winded account of our experiences of the past few days. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I give you the best tourist destination in the world: Lahore, Pakistan. Fact.

Although a depressingly large part of our popular "culture" endeavours to suggest that everybody should aspire to become famous (I'm thinking of vacuous travesties like Big Brother, Pop Idol etc), very few people are able to feel like a genuine celebrity, still less to feel truly important and justifiably valued by complete strangers. As a foreigner in Pakistan, things are different. The hospitality and kindness of the Pakistani people is truly humbling.

The other night we were taken to a music festival courtesy of the hostel we're staying at. The place was already packed out when we arrived - hundreds of people sitting cross-legged on mats in front of a huge platform occupied by VIPs garlanded with flowers. We were ushered to the front to hastily vacated sofas, given free mineral water, soft-drinks and food and treated to the most amazing evening of Pakistani culture.

There were fiery Imams giving sermons on how to be a good Muslim and then breaking into song, an extraordinary little child that sang Sufi tunes and worked the crowd like somebody ten times his age and the opportunity for us to crowd surf (we politely declined) to the sounds of a singer/rapper accompanied by a human beat box. The whole atmosphere was sweetened by rosewater sprayed over our heads at regular intervals. Later one of Pakistan's most celebrated Sufi bands showed up to wild applause, jostling crowds and TV cameras. Eat your heart our Simon Cowell.

The whole evening was hosted by this splendid individual:

With tears in his eyes he made a welcoming speech (later translated) for us about how, no matter where we came from and no matter what religion we were, we are all brothers and sisters, we all bleed red and we are all part of one humanity.

Apart from being genuinely touching, this speech made us feel slightly less tense about the random cross-eyed bloke with a machine gun who was guarding one of the VIPs very near to us and who seemed to see no issue with jostling and pushing the crowds with one arm while holding his loaded weapon in the other (well, this is Pakistan after all!). I do have a photo of him but damn it if this sodding machine won't upload it!

Almost every night we've been in Lahore there's been a cultural treat for us to enjoy (I'm aware that this phrase sounds proper sucky but I couldn't think of anything else). There have been concerts on the roof terrace in our hostel and a wild Sufi drumming night with sweat-drenched dancers working themselves into a trance. I have video evidence.

All the while, we've always felt welcome and never felt threatened. A wander round the old city was accompanied by phrases like "Hi foreigners, hi!", "We love your people!" and "You are our guests here." This last one came from a steward at the cricket ground who let us in for free to see the first day of the test match between Pakistan and Sri Lanka yesterday. There we met "Uncle Cricket", Pakistan's most famous cricket fan who showed us his international photo album and (of course) gave us some of his food. I also had the opportunity to explain the rules of the game to an agreeable American guy from Idaho called Chad. Again, I have pictures but no way of uploading them (the ones I have managed to upload were done yesterday).

In short, people: go to Lahore! Do it!

There is but one caveat to all the legendariness (and no, I don't care that this is not a real word) that is Pakistan: the possibility of the surprisingly sudden onset of a virulent and downright explosive stomach complaint that turns one's body from a blushing grape of joy into a shriveled raisin of despair in just a few short hours. Alas, such an eventuality has come to pass. I'm convalescing...

Next up it's Quetta, Balochistan and Iran (we have the visa and the safety assurances).

More pictures:

Lahore

Simon writes:

We journeyed forth from the village of my former pedagogical employment with gladness in our hearts at the warm and friendly people we had met (and re-met) there. We then spent some time in the company of a bus conductor with an uncanny resemblance to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Actually, although he did blow his whistle unnecessarily fiercely, this comparison does him somewhat of a disservice: he was very nice to us about the storage of our oversize bags. Well. Done. Mate.

An Indian cooking course and a visit to the Dalai Lama's gaff were the main events of our brief stay in the backpacker-encrusted hangout of McLeodganj in Western Himachal Pradesh. His Holiness wasn't about unfortunately.

A couple more pointlessly noisy bus rides later and we arrived in Amritsar, the holy city of the Sikhs. These people have got this rather cool temple with a roof made out of pure gold in the middle of a lake.

The closing of the border between India and Pakistan is a spectator sport. Groups of frilly soldiers prance about like peacocks snorting, shouting and eyeballing each other while pumped-up patriots shout slogans and wave flags on either side of the gates. It's all rather bizarre, but very entertaining nonetheless.

We're now in Lahore awaiting tomorrow night's apparently legendary Sufi cultural feast that takes place every Thursday. I've got frikkin awesome pictures of the above but no way of uploading them at present. Curses!

Stepping back in time

Noelle writes:

We've just finished spending several wonderful days back in the town where Simon taught English ten years ago. We wandered around Alampur, Sujanpur and Jangal visiting with people Simon had met when he was teaching, all of whom were very excited to see him again.

It was such a refreshing break from the main tourist towns where people are constantly asking you to join their tour, buy their goods or just give them money. Instead, everyone seemed really excited to see foreigners and we were asked to join people's tables for meals to talk and into their homes for chai and a chat. We even got in a few games of cricket with the locals. I bowled Simon for a golden duck!

We couldn't stay too long though as we ran out of toilet paper which is unavailable in the area (bottled water is also quite scarce).

Delhi/Agra/Delhi

Simon writes:

Bombaby was cool. We were so busy sampling the food, the drink and the tailoring we didn't have much time to take photos.

Onwards: we're now based in Delhi and we did a long but worthwhile trip to Agra yesterday.

PHOTOS

This is me failing to come to terms with the eventual demise of my favourite t-shirt (11 years I've had this R.E.M.-themed bad boy. I had to face the fact that it had finally become too old and tatty, even for somebody as old and tatty as me):

This is Noelle looking angelic in one of her new Indian-style outfits:

This is a picture of a local boob with a quite ridiculous dress sense (he was actually combing his mullet when we first spotted him!):


This is a picture of an elephant walking along a busy Delhi overpass (nothing out of the ordinary apparently):

And finally, these are some pictures from Agra:





You'll notice that the last of these is of our web-footed friends. They were actually refused entry to the Taj Mahal complex. Ugly scenes ensued. We found them later drinking in a local rooftop bar plotting the downfall of the Indian government. Deep sigh.

Anyway, we've now got night bus tickets (we never seem to learn) to Sujanpur Tihra, which should be not far from a wee village containing a local school in which I had a brief spell as a teacher almost exactly ten years ago.

As far as we can tell there are no hotels in the area, I have nothing for anybody to remember me by (not even my R.E.M t-shirt) and I'm growing a beard that's making me look like a cross between the yeti and a crack addict. Fingers crossed somebody will recognise me and take us in...

Should be quite interesting to visit the place after so long. It probably hasn't changed as much as I have. I'm preparing to become quite emotional.