I shouldnt have left 15mins to board my plane in Dubai, i thought my gate was close by. I thought wrong! I couldnt even find it!! i searched UP and DOWN the second terminal until i found someone to ask! By then it was already 7.45am and my plane was about to take off! FINALLY with correct directions, the gate was tucked behind another terminal! The plane was waiting for me! As soon as i got on it took off! I arrived at International Khomani Airport after an hour and a half from Dubai! The plane went up, then it went [View Full Entry]

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Our stay in Iran is almost over. I will definatly never forget the time that we have experienced here. We have had so many interesting conversations about the things that you usually don't get to know. Our route has been: Khoy, Tabriz, Qom, Esfahan, Yazd, Kerman and Zahedan. All the places are different, I will not remember all the monuments but I will remember the people we have met. I will remember Khoy and Tabriz as places that have still a bit of turkish mentality. Qom is definatly a place if you want to learn about religion ... lots of mullahs [View Full Entry]

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I arrived at the shiny new Imam Khomeini airport at the uncivilized hour of 2 am, and zipped through immigration and customs in a few minutes. The drive to Tehran was just as fast - a good highway and empty streets - I wished it was like that during the day. We went on a side trip to Mashhad (literally the place of martyrdom) and visited the shrine of Imam Reza. But no pictures - attendants with dusters will not let them into the mosque. The wiki says that the rich go to Mecca but the poor journey to Mashhad: I [View Full Entry]

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Getting into Iran was long and not easy. We took off from Hong Kong to Mumbai and again to Dubai on a bumpy classic 777 of Cathay Pacific plane, where the turbulence made me to wait nearly 2 hours for just a cup of tea. Waiting in Dubai was another time of night mare, all the security staffs were South Indian or Bengali workers and no one knew what they were actually doing, the screening check system was totally rubbish, the airport is like a Sunday market, or simply Delhi's Parhaganj Air-Cond version, everyone was unfriendly and impolite. The next morning [View Full Entry]

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Been exactly a month since I last updated. Reason being was that I had been too caught up with school and such, and well, second year in university isn't exactly that smooth-sailing. And the term's just started! Nonetheless, I shall try to meticulously update because I really really have lots of things to share with everyone, so, here goes! Though the Iran adventure ended approximately 8 months ago, whatever happened remains vividly in my mind. I guess that's the advantage of being young? You tend to recall these experiences better than, say, a 60 year old unless you record it down [View Full Entry]

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As many of you will know, our original plan had us heading from Syria into Turkey. Our intent was to then travel north to Moscow, in order to get some serious miles under our belt by taking the Trans-Siberian Railway to Mongolia. Unfortunately, failure to obtain Russian visas rendered this impossible. Therefore we needed an alternative plan. After a fair amount of research and deliberation we settled on doing what few people do and turning right when we get to Turkey. Our new route would take us through Iran and the “Stans” into China. On the positive side this would tak [View Full Entry]

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Kandovan A truly spectacular, amazing village, that when it was time to leave, I found it hard to pull myself away from that place. I was lucky enough to be able to be presented with the glorious opportunity of discovering this tiny village in the outskirts of Tabriz. Initially, I had my doubts of going to a village. This was because I was used to seeing houses made of wood, and thought, Kandovan would not be any different. The prospect of travelling 2 hours just to go to a village is not that exciting, if you ask me honestly. Throughout the [View Full Entry]

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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 [View Full Entry]

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Iran; Tabriz, Zanjan, Tehran, Esfahan, Tehran If someone turned around to me and said wear your pj’s down Oxford Street, I would say “don’t be daft, I’d attract attention and look silly”. Well that was exactly the expression we were getting from the locals throughout Iran. Little did we know that eventhough in public they wear black as their religious wear, in the bedroom it’s a different kettle of fish… So there was us 15 women dressed in all the colours of the rainbow and not a single head unturned. And not to mention the riots that we got caught [View Full Entry]

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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 [View Full Entry]

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