Welcome to Iran ($$)

When the Pakistani border opened there was a massive jostle to get through. Standing out as Foreigners, they pulled us out and rushed us through quickly - in hindsight probably trying to get rid of us and make us Iran's problem. We crossed over into the Iranian building and waited for their immigration guys to finish their breakfast and open the border. The minute we were spotted in the queue our passports were whipped away and we were told to sit down and wait for a police bodyguard to turn up. It's the first border we've come to where we didn't have to fill out any paperwork. After about a 30 minute wait our police body guard turned up and we were told that he had to accompany us to the next town of Zahedan 83Km away. We exited the building into Iran and were met by any country's worst ambassador - the greedy taxi driver. Share taxis (5 passengers) were leaving from outside the building every few minutes but the taxi drivers gave their spiel about how foreigners had to take their own taxi. The price for our own taxi was of course astronomical. We confirmed the situation with immigration and the taxis changed their stance and said we could go in a share taxi but no one would want to share with us because we would cause a delay at the checkpoints. Really no one wanted to share with us because the taxi driver steered them well away so we were left with no choice but to sit it out with our bodyguard and wait for the price of our own taxi to come down. At this stage we had 48 hours of solid travelling under our belt and a long day's travel ahead of us. It was definitely one of those frustrating moments of travel made all the worse by greedy taxi men holding us to ransom.



Eventually there was a break through. Marcus started inquiring about the option of us not taking a bodyguard thus fitting into a share taxi easier. The police bodyguard was forced to make a call to his superiors, the police superior said he was on his way to sort out the problem and suddenly the price of our own taxi dropped dramatically. After losing two hours we were back on the road again. Along the 83km drive to Zahedan we pulled into about four police checkpoints, our details were checked and each time our police bodyguard was changed. The taxi driver drove like a maniac, his foot to floor. At one stage we had the police superior guy in the car and he gave out to the driver for not overtaking and driving too slowly. In the city of Zahedan we lost our fourth bodyguard and picked up our own squad car. Things were starting to get ridiculous. We travelled about a km before we pulled in at another station and waited for another squad car to appear. Our new squad car seemed to be in rush to escort our taxi to the bus station and even turned the flashing lights and sirens on to clear a way through the traffic. Meanwhile we were looking out the window at a sleepy little desert town full of people going about their business, we asked the taxi driver were we in any danger and he laughed and said no. At one of the police stops a man carry flat nan like bread a foot long and came over to the taxi and offered us a handful. It sounds like an exaggeration but it's absolute fact in the city of Zahedan we changed police car escort about every 2 blocks waiting to be handed over to the new unit took an age to coordinate. After three squad car transfers we were finally escorted by two police motorbike (sirens blaring) into the bus station. When you're travelling in a new country you want to blend in not be arriving with an entourage of noise, lights and activity. The police watched us buy tickets to the city of Yazd and then disappeared. We were finally left to our own devices. We're still baffled by it all and tend to avoid the police here since.

So.... our third night in a row travelling was spent on the 14 hour overnight bus to Yazd the driver broke all speed records and we ended up getting there 4 hours early at the awkward time of 2am in the morning. We alighted the bus and were greeted by the local park bums. Anywhere else in the world these guys would be passed out drunk and under newspapers, in a country with no alcohol these guys were lucid and friendly. With hours to put in before we could check in we started walking in the direction of the centre of two. We were only walking a couple of minutes before we had two offers of a lift. A local business man and his wife dropped us off in the touristy district where we waited along with the nocturnal street cleaner and the local feline population for the city to wake up. At this stage it was a straight 63 hours of travelling and a little frayed at the edges. Nothing a hot shower and a few hours sleep wouldn't fix.

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Journey Map Up To Date...

After some technical issues with our map site - its now back online and up to date - you can check out our progress here.

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Pakistan

:: Showdown at the Border ::

The Indian-Pakistani border is one of the strangest borders we've been across. There is no visible trade or movement of people between Pakistan and India so there is only a trickle of pedestrian traffic at the best of times. In the evenings thousands of Indians and Pakistanis travel to their respective sides of the border for the "closing of the border ceremony" to cheer on their 6ft 5" + border guards. They've even built grandstands to house the crowd. It's a pantomime of an affair evoking national pride on both sides. After 20 minutes of posturing, marching, throwing dirty looks at each other, high kick marching and violently throwing their gate open and slamming them closed both flags are inched down the flagpoles - one cannot be higher than the other as it suggests superiority. From the Indian border it's only about 25 minutes to Lahore but it's definitely worlds apart.

:: Indian Border Guard (Giant ) ::

We spent a week in Lahore waiting for our Iranian visa to come through and thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. Pakistan was created as a country in 1947 after the British partitioned the north of India into Hindu and Muslim states. This action resulted in a massive movement of Hindus south into India and Muslims north into Pakistan - with lots of blood spilt along the way.

Having the same roots as India we expected Pakistan to be very similar, but were surprised by the number contrasts. Lahore is a modern city with big wide streets and traffic lights (that are obeyed). When we left India it seems like we left the crowded, disorganised hecticness and organised chaos of everyday life behind. In Amritsar our diet was totally vegetarian. 50 km away, Lahore is a vegetarian's nightmare, meat meat meat is all that can be got - and as a Muslim nation the cow is no longer sacred.

Lahore has received a lot of attention in the Western media this year so I'm sure our family and friends reading this will have a distorted impression of what the city is like. One of the first things we noticed was a heavy riot police presence outside of the city mosques. Around the corner from our guesthouse was a building that was bombed a couple of months ago - apparently it was the highest intensity blast and all the windows in the hostel were blown out. A couple of evenings as we sat talking to other travellers we heard what could be gunshots ... We noticed all of these things; coming to Lahore aware and trying to avoid danger. In reality when you talk to locals in Lahore you find out that the bombings were targeted on government buildings, the police presence is normal and there for every one's protection, the "gunshots" are more than likely fireworks for a wedding celebration and you are as safe in Lahore as any other city in the world. Recent political events have taken their toll however. The judges have yet to be reinstated and people are anxious for promised change. Ordinary life for the people has been affected by an increase in food prices and there are multiple powercuts daily as the electricity grid struggles to meet the needs of the people.

As a Muslim nation the Pakistan people are among the most welcoming in the world. We didn't come across any aggressive touts, even the autorickshaw drivers are courteous. It's impossible to walk around Lahore without getting adopted by a local who ensures you're going the right way. A couple of times people paid our bus fare as a token of their hospitality. In essence it's a society of honesty where you can stop being paranoid that everyone is trying to take you to the cleaners and make a rupee out of you.

Visually Lahore is a city dominated by mosques and populated by men in Salwar Kameez and women wearing hajibs and chandors. Females travelling to the country are expected to respect the Muslim hajib rules which really equates to wearing a long sleeved top that amply covers your bum and a headscarf. As opposed to other Muslim countries the women dress very colourfully seeing women dressed completely in black is an exception.

:: Badshahi Mosque ::

Our week in Lahore was spent at the Regal Inn Guesthouse - an infamous guesthouse that attracts most of the backpackers passing through. It's location on the crossroads between Asia and Middle East means that it has evolved into the unofficial centre of the latest information from travellers coming from either direction. We arrived on Thursday which is renowned as being music night. Malik - the owner of the guesthouse organises his guests to attend a local shrine where sufi music is being played. Without going into lots of detail, it was a wild introduction to Pakistan. Throngs of men jammed together in the dark smoking charras and shaking their heads to the mesmerising drumming of the Gongasain Brothers (one of whom is deaf) which started around 10pm and continued until very late. Very full on.

The number of travellers in the region at the moment has dropped off due to security fears - so it's only the most brave or hardy coming through at the present time. Naturally this leads to a rather unusual bunch of people - some whose next port of call was Afghanistan. The mix was broadly Canadian, Japan, Chinese, Moroccan, Korean, Spanish and French. Most people were hanging around in 45 degree heat waiting for visas or resting before heading on the road again. The result was a group of people sitting around hotly discussing issues like the Chinese girls attitude to Tibet, what the Japanese guy thought about whaling, the small matter of the "Rock" between Morocco and Spain etc. Suffice to say it was real "don't mention the war" material.

When we did escape from the hostel it was out to get fantastic icecreams, strawberry milkshakes and cold coffee shakes from Chaman across the road. We found Food Street, an atmospheric open air eating street a few kilometres away and tried out some great Pakistani dishes. Reminiscent of Vietnam we hit the tailors to get some hajib friendly clothes made for Iran. The rest of our time was spend to-ing and fro-ing to the Iranian embassy to get our visas. Once we got them it was off to the station to get a train ticket towards to Iranian border.


Getting our train ticket was a total fiasco, we were informed that we were entitled to a substantial discount so we headed off in search of the "Commercial Office" of Pakistan Railways only to be redirected to another outlying office. Eventually we found the right team of people who could rubberstamp a concession form and send us on our way. His office was at the back of a vast complex of rooms full of men sitting around looking at folders covered in dust. I don't think any work had been done by anyone in years. It was bureaucracy at it's best. Duplicate copies of everything, everything stamped and placed in a folder not a telephone in sight. We walked past tables of open folders with the date 2004 on them. After 30 minutes of hanging around discussing Imran Khan's appeal and Ricky Ponting's captaincy we were on our way with our all important concession form - an aged delicate piece of paper, parchment colour with letters uneven from typewriter production. We took our concession to the ticket office and were told that it was worthless and couldn't be used on the train we wanted. Problem is we don't think that anyone has communicated this to the guys back in the dusty office. So hours wasted .... but not as many hours as the guys in the Pakistani Train Office are wasting day in day out.

:: Flat out like a lizard drinking.... not ::

Armed with a half dozen boiled eggs, a loaf of bread and jar of strawberry jam we boarded the train from Lahore to Quetta. The train journey takes 24 hours from point to point, then turns around and does the journey back. The train left 2 hours late, which essentially means it's eternally late, it can never make up the time. We shared our business class aircon berth with four Pakistani business men. One of them a car smuggler involved in what he termed "risky business". The train was surprising;y comfortable and we arrived the following afternoon in Quetta dustfree. Just before we arrived one of the guys bought a newspaper and announced that the border between Pakistan and Iran at Taftan had been closed for "security reasons". This was the worst news we could have got as we were stuck in limbo and had no choice but to proceed onwards and hope that the border would have reopened by the time we reached it.

Quetta is a frontier town with a diverse mix of people, Afghanis, Taliban, Nomads, outlaws etc. We'd heard mixed reports about Quetta. One girl we'd met told us people had thrown stones at her there, another guy had said it was one gun shop after another and it didn't exactly entice you to stick around. We didn't see anything out of the ordinary there - mind you it was a fleeting trip before we headed off on a night bus to the Iranian border town of Taftan.

This was the section of the journey we were looking forward to the least. The stretch of land between Quetta and Taftan - the heart of Balochistan - is open desert that skirts the Afghani border. If there's anywhere you're going to be ambushed it's along this road in the dead of night. The route is a busy one so there is relative safety in numbers. We did make a special effort to keep the curtains closed so as not to be a target if someone decided to take a pop at the bus - I think that was just the imagination playing up! Being the only foreigners on the bus we had to get off at regular police checkpoints so they could take our names and passport numbers. Luckily we'd a smooth journey, our only complaint being the drivers inability to fix the air conditioning at a comfortable temperature. Our journey to Taftan ended at 6am when we were unceremoniously dumped out in Taftan at the door of a restaurant open and waiting to relieve everyone of the last of their Pakistani Rupees. After a quick cup of tea we walked the last kilometre to border and waited for it open.

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