Babs’ travels -The Peking to Paris Rally and other driving adventures.

We have just been informed that instead of dining in the hotel tonight we are being picked up in a fleet of limos to be taken into town to have dinner with the Vice-President of Iran.  Watch this space.

Thank you for all your encouraging messages and emails.  We do value them. Keep them coming.

It has been another stunning days driving. We awoke to driving rain and wind and set off up the mountain on a steep, winding, tree lined road which, alas, had no view as we were in a cloud.  We went up to about the same height as Darjeeling and it had a similar feel, apart from missing the Himalaya! We had to keep reminding ourselves that we are in Iran.  Once we went over the top the difference was immediate and dramatic.  The sun was shining and is was warm, dry and arid. All quite beautiful.  It was very sparsely populated, just a few isolated, dusty villages. We continued through more stunning, ever changing scenery to the large city of Tabriz, our home for the night.  It has been a relatively short day  and we arrived at 3.00pm, a real treat.  Rally days are long and tiring. A typical day sees us up at 4.30 or 5, a quick breakfast, a raid for lunch and off.  We usually drive for 12 hours, or more if we break down.  ...

One of the things about a new country every few days is getting the money sorted out, especially when most of the currencies one has never heard of.  China was quite straightforward with the yuan, Mongolia has tourog, Kazakhstan the tenge, Uzbekistan the sum, Turkmenistan the manet and Iran the rial.  The result of all of this is a wallet full of odd bits of useless money. The sum in Uzbekistan has been the strangest; the largest note printed is worth very little and so when changing as little as $150 you are given a wad that almost needs a carrier bag.  One evening in Samarkand 20 of us went out to dinner.  The bill came to about $10 per head and the money needed to pay it was almost 6 inches high. In Turkmenistan almost the first thing we had to do was get some petrol.  when Adrian went to pay the attendant held up his fingers and we thought he had got it wrong and needed to add some noughts.  In fact, petrol in Turkmenistan is so cheap they are almos...

The border crossing was chaotic and tedious on the Turkmen side and disorganised on the Iranian side. We didn't care though as it was just so wonderful to be there. The welcome we got as we entered the country was without precedent on this trip. The Iranian Motor Federation were there with a big welcome banner and a display of their lovely old cars. They were clapping and cheering us, calling 'welcome to Iran' and all had huge grins. It was tremendous. Leave all your preconceptions about this country in their box and be prepared to be surprised. It is the end of our second day here and we have been constantly surprised. The warmth and welcome we are being shown everywhere is overwhelming. People are lining the streets and cheering and clapping, all the time shouting 'welcome to Iran'. Cars hoot and all their occupants wave and cheer, even the old ladies. The policemen, of which there are many, all wave enthusiastically too and show us where to go and, every time we...

I left Adrian fettling at the hotel in Samarkand and set off to explore. I walked, and walked and walked and got very lost, but it was all very interesting. I was enmeshed in suburban Samarkand and jolly good it was too. I then started to feel that I was a very long way from anywhere recognisable and so I asked some people if I was going in the right direction to a local landmark. Silly me, I should know by now that everyone likes to help and so, even if they do not understand what I am on about they point vaguely in the direction I am going and nod furiously. I eventually asked two ladies selling flat bread from a pram the way to a big, well known bazaar. They started talking to a woman who was walking past about where I wanted to go and she said to them that she was going there on the bus and that I should wait with her. It is amazing how you can communicate without a single word in common. I waited and ascertained that her name was Muphapet. I asked her how much the fare was and sh...

Samarkand. What a name to conjure with. The knot in the Silk Road. The almost mythical place that one has heard of but, somehow, never thinks one would see . I have to keep reminding myself that we are really here in fabled Samarkand. It was a fairly easy journey to get here from Tashkent; the roads were, the main, reasonable. As long as we made regular stops to top up the radiator the car actually ran well and we made good time. Uzbekistan is a great contrast to Kazakhstan, physically it is much more fertile and the inhabitants look quite different too. After dusty, brown Kazakhstan with it's drab, grubby villages with no thought given to the environment Uzbekistan is fertile, pretty clean and neat. Thi country is the largest exporter of cotton in the world. Amazing for one that is so small. As soon as we crossed the border we started seeing endless fields of cotton growing along with watermelons and pomegranates. It makes it all look very attractive. Such producti...