JAM09

We crossed the border into Western China on 22nd July over the Toruquart Pass at 3752m - quite a road. It was a day’s driving over nothing more than a gravel track - this is the main route into China from Kyrgyzstan! The border crossing is quite a palaver and has several phases - it took us from about midday until 8pm to complete all the phases of it and know that we were finally in China. This is an area of China that tourists don’t normally see as most foreigners are familiar with the Eastern side of the country. We picked up our young Chinese guide called Kevin - yes really! and started off in Kashgar in the Xinjiang province where we had to spend an extra day for Steve and Lucy to be put ... read more

Sorry no photos, the internet here in Bishkek is very slow and I couldn't use the laptop. It's a shame we had some beauties! What a difference a border crossing can make. After leaving Tashkent we spent a day driving through the beautiful and fertile Fergana Valley, quite a contrast to some of the desert type countryside we have seen and then on to the Kyrgyzstan border. From Minarets to mountains in a couple of days - no more majestic cities with tiled mosaic mosques, the cities are quite run down and Russian influenced with the exception of Karakol on a lake which is a faded Russian Spa town which has the most beautiful wooden Russian Orthodox Church and wooden Chinese mosque. The scenery is totally different, with snow capped mountains, deep fertile gorges and very ... read more

Having left Esfahan behind, visiting mosques, wonderful bridges straddling a river with no water and having eaten some traditional Iranian food (apart from the ever present kebabs!) we headed south to Shiraz of grape fame - isn’t it odd that they are a nation of teetotallers. Although we were spending two nights there we only had one full day to explore and half of that was spent at the Iranian Department for Aliens (yes really) extending our visas as we discovered they were due to expire a few hours before we were due to leave the country - a hefty fine for breaking this law! It was another beautiful town and we spent the afternoon in the most brilliant bazaar which was heaving with locals buying very sparkly and exotic fabrics - one wonders what goes ... read more

This is just a quick in between blog because I know some of you have been in touch with Helen about the news coming out of Tehran at the moment. this is just really to say that we're sitting in a beautiful air conditioned hotel in the middle of Tehran and we have not seen any of the "riots". Everybody we have met is very friendly and happy to have us here. We have been to visit a very ornate palace this morning and going to see the crown jewels this afternoon. We leave Tehran tomorrow heading to the Turkmenstan border which we cross on Friday after a couple of nights roughing it!! The biggest threat we have come across is crossing a road here and taxi drivers!! We'll do another proper blog with more photos ... read more

On the morning we left Cappadocia we were up bright and early at 5.30 am for camp breakfast at 5.45 and we were met by the most beautiful sight. Hundreds of hot air balloons going straight overhead. Cappadocia is one of the top five places in the world to do a sunrise balloon flight. It was a real WOW moment and we just thought “How lucky are we?” We had a long drive ahead that day and Lucy was on her own as Steve had had to go on ahead to Erzurum to collect his visa for Iran. It was a very long day on the truck going through several mountain passes, from deep gorges to being up with snow line. It was the most beautiful drive. It was rewarded with a wonderful bush camp by ... read more

After our few days acclimatisation in Istanbul which we loved we set out on our first big drive of about 485km to our first “bush camp”. Our tour leaders consist of Lucy (late 20s), Steve (late 20s) who share the driving and Kristina (our truck which is also in her late 20s) Steve and Lucy are great fun and our travelling companions are all really nice too, all in 40’s/50s. There are only 8 of us on this leg of the journey as there have been a few visa problems so some have had to cancel. We had hoped to set up camp by a lake but unfortunately the dirt track leading to it was closed! Therefore our bush camp was found and to the dismay of the ladies turned out to be a “bushless” ... read more

Hi evryone Packing done! Getting excited(??) This is our blog, please feel free to browse and make comments (but only nice ones) James & Margaret... read more