Geo: 36.5382, 61.1598The temperature in these parts is hovering around 40 for most of the day and it gets a little hotter, 44 ish around lunchtime so we are unable to stand being out of the car too long. There is a hot desert wind which feels like a hairdryer complete with sand blasting. The Iran exit process was smooth enough. Turkmenistan has a reputation for being difficult and we were more than a little apprehensive given the dramas over the last few days. The immigration officer did look at my English passport and both Darren and I stopped breathing for sure. He got up and headed into a side office to talk to his manager, the manager came out (far out where is the Rescue Remedy when I need it, I have run out). He ... read more

Geo: 33.5959, 56.9244We only stayed in Yazd for the one night because we neededto get to Mashhad to collect our Turkmen Visa with plenty of time just in case it is not given… yep we may not get it..any we are 2 days short on our Iran Visa… hummmSo anyway we headed north towards Tabas and into the desert.. We steadily climbed up to 2500mtrs again and the temp also started to rise..then we started to descend in to the low desert and the temp went up to the mid 40's.. then the low 50's… at one stage it was 57 degrees freaken hell it was hot… well hot outside anyway…. Yep we had the AC turned on and the in cabin temp varied between 23 and 26 degrees…. How tough are we… maybe not tough ... read more

Geo: 29.0454, 56.9681Humm… we set out from Shiraz (which was nondescript) and headed for a town called Rayen… apparently it is just like Bam except it did not get flattened in the 2003 earthquake…I say apparently because we never got to see it. One of the issues that can happen with self drive overland is you just can't find the place you wanted to go… The signs start off in English then either change to Persian or just fade out altogether… The result is the same… opportunity missed… and it was only a 650Km diversion… lucky fuel is cheap.Stayed at Kerman and it was a crazy place… crazy insomuch as the drivers were particularly aggressive. Really intimidating to say the least. Rather boring town with only a few things to see like the ancient Ice House… ... read more

Geo: 32.68, 51.68Giving up on our Chinese visas yet again we head south, to theoretically calmer but hotter conditions. Camped out the first night and woke up to a flat tyre. Darren pulled a large lump of metal out of the tyre and plugged the hole and we were off and racing. Stopped enroute to visit a kashan which is an old traditional village that had been continuously occupied for 2500 years. Wow it is hard to get your head around exactly how old stuff is here.The town was nondescript however once we found the Bazaar we were in for a treat, it was not full of the normal tourist crap found in the larger cities. It also had some very interesting pools of water under large overhead curved roofs that were very efficiently cooling the ... read more

Geo: 38.081, 46.2901 Donned our Islamic clothing and headed the eerily quiet 30 kms down the road past Turkey's Military check posts, guard towers, tanks, bushrangers and other general displays of might to the border.We had heard this to be a confusing border crossing and had read various tips from previous overlanders. If you can imagine arrival at an international airport, it kind of goes pretty standard immigration and then customs. Overland borders particularly with a vehicle follow no known standard and are further complicated by having departure from one country back to back with arrival to another. Sadly we timed it badly as there was a bus load of Iranians returning from Ramadan festivities in Turkey. Given 40 odd people (conservative estimate) arrive at the one time we could well understand why there was only ... read more