The Caspian

After 7927 km we have reached the Caspian. Sadly we didn't come over the brow of a hill and sea the blue waters sparkling in the distance it was more we got off the metro and could smell it - not salty sea air with chips and vinegar from Aldeburg(oh that sounds sooo good!) - but a pungent oily smell. It wouldn't matter how hot you were here in Baku you wouldn't want to go in the water, at least not without the RSPB there to de oil you when you got out. Actually its not that bad, and certainly not as bad as the smell suggests, but you can clearly see lots of little ball bearing size droplets of oil floating close to the shore. That said the rest of Baku is breathtakingly shocking. We have driven through villages with no mains water, stopped to give shepherds water and driven over roads that needed replacing centuries ago but Baku is a cross between Florida, Cannes and Vienna. It has the most impressively decorated motorway you've ever seen, with the 8 lanes of tarmac being guarded by a series of gorgeously decorated walls and mini towers. The centre though is totally immaculate. No litter, every building either completely renovated or in the process of being done, perfectly manicured gardens, an enormous tree lined boulevard along the sea front which runs for at least a mile and an old town with a UNESCO castle wall and palace that is exquisite. The streets are lined with buildings straight from Vienna mixed with a lovely mix of modern glass buildings. There are plenty of pedestrianised areas with numerous parks and all sorts of fountains in a multitude of shapes and sizes. I can't imagine what someone from a more remote area thinks when they see Baku. We loved it!

The new town is littered with large impressive and grand buildings. Theatres, the opera house and the literature museum were just a few highlights. Whilst the museum has romanesque statues lining a first floor balcony with islamic blue tiling, the theatre is a contrasting new glass building sitting opposite an imposing opera house. The old town by contrast is cosy with narrow alleys ancient walls and the UNESCO site. The Maidens Tower - part of the old city wall - provides a great view over both parts of the city and a much better view of the oil rigs off shore which are half hidden by the curvature of the earth and loom like an approaching army. At the top we met 3 Brits working in the industry and one of them came from Oulton Broad!

We enjoyed a long walk around the walls of the old city which look like Disney were brought in to design them, and a stroll down the sea front, a nice mexican where we watched England lose to Germany and then another stroll along the promenade till about 10pm. With the heat here - it was 34C and humid - people emerge around dusk and stay out till well after midnight, toddlers and all. It was fascinating to sit and watch, it is almost impossible to tell you are in an Islamic country. There are families, couples and groups of both men and women promenading with only the very occasional headscarf on view and only 1 burka. Despite being in the capital we only heard one call to prayer and mosques are hard to spot and seem few and far between. People seem much more interested in putting their posh clothes on and going out. Young people in particular could just be transported to London and they would fit right in. The bars all serve alcohol and it seems to be as much a part of their lifestyle as in western society. Whilst girls can where short skirts and not cause any furore men can't where shorts without causing offence which is peculiar. It is however like all Islamic countries a male dominated society, and in my opinion much poorer for it. With the exception of the centre of Baku, there is little effort made to make shops, cafes and streets in general pleasant. Cafes are normally a male preserve and look like a dishevelled garage with a few plastic seats in. They are often dirty and bland. Shops too are muddled and unkempt. No effort is made to 'sell'. It is just assumed you will come there and spend money because that's what's always happened. There is no competition, they are just places to go and get coffee or groceries. You feel that if women were being taken to the cafes it is almost inconceivable that they would remain the same. I can't see many women putting on a posh dress and being happy going to a dingy greasy spoon like cafe! Its not that they need to become Starbucks, just that they need some paint, a few plants and some non plastic chairs! Havings said that the people are extraordinarily friendly and kind. Without exception the men on buses will always give up their seat for any woman, and everyone waves and smiles at us as we drive by. They invite you for meals at a drop of a hat love to talk to you even if all they can say is "What is your name" and are so pleased to get a chance to have a look in Taffy. There is no envy or jealousy when they do this, just a child like sense of delight, wonder and innocent joy. They take photos and laugh. They climb up to the bed sit in the chairs and wow at the fridge. They ask to see the TV go up and down. Its great fun!

Our campsite in Baku was just a huge section of Tarmac outside the fire temple. This was where the locals came to stroll, play football, ride their bikes and chat well into the cool of the night. On our second night here we arrived back at Taffy at around 11pm and had to walk through the whole village to get to Taffy. No sooner had we unlocked the door and we had the local kids at the door all saying "what is your name?". They were followed by their mums who came in for a tour and then the teenage boys and girls - some of whom looked longingly at the picture of Ben - we dished out sweets, surprisingly as many to the cool teenagers as the toddlers, had our photos taken and all laughed non stop even though all we could establish was our names! It was the icing on the cake for a wonderful day.

Nearly there!

The Khan's Palace at Säki was our first tourist site in Azerbaijan and it is certainly an impressive way to start. All that remains of the Palace is one small two storey building made out of wood and stone. No glue or nails were used in its construction and it took 2 years to build and 8 to decorate - and before you ask, no it was way before my sister in laws time! It is covered in highly detailed bright colourful paint work on all but the floor and originally this would have had a carpet that reflected the patterns on the ceiling. The painting is of flowers, animals and scenes from battles and hunting and is incredibly impressive. The windows are made of thousands of small wooden blocks with coloured glass in each block, they are then joined together to make an entire wall of colourful windows, all made without nails of glue!
Sadly all of the rest of the palace inside the castle walls vanished under communist rule and they nicked the only remaining carpet too which is now in St Petersburg. It is an amazing building and almost worth the trip just to see it alone.

We stick to the edge of the Caucuses as we headed onto Baku and the scenery is a merry-go-round of different landscapes. One minute you will be driving along a french country lane with large deciduous trees lining it, then you'll be in the New forest driving through tunnels of trees and bushes with cows wandering the road. Turn the corner and you emerge into the open corn fields of Ukraine before finding yourself in a bleak Yorkshire moors landscape. All the while the towering mountains loom ominously off to our left, the clouds gently building for the evening storms. It is a fascinating drive. We spent the night at a cafe by the confluence of two of the numerous rivers that snake down the mountains on route to the Caspian. The rivers are no more than streams at the moment, a dark grey colour, but the river beds themselves and large banks sometimes are 100m across or more. When the snow melts these will be mighty rivers and after a torrential night of rain we see just how powerful when we drive through a village underwater from the overnight downpour. The diggers are clearing the river bed and the entire villages menfolk stand on the bridge watching them work. There's not a woman in sight so they all either drowned or are clearing the mess up on their own whilst the 200 men supervise the two diggers! It was very sad to see how much damage can be done when the river was not in flood.

Our next overnight was also at a cafe and we did our usual of asking if we could stay overnight and then buying a drink in the cafe. We decided on the Azerbaijan wine which was ok and got talking -sign language and the odd word of Russian - with the manager and his brother the cook. There was also a lady washer up, two male table cleaners and an older guy whose role we never sussed. This outnumbered clients by 2 to 1 all evening! They were again lovely people. We ordered the wine and got to try a cassis vodka free, we ordered some nuts and diced apples too. We dolled out 2 of our England baseball caps and were rewarded with tea and honey cherries and the next morning a going away bottle of wine and brandy! It almost makes you not want to give them anything as they are so generous when they already have so much less than us.

We arrived in Baku before lunch and were confronted by the sight of thousands upon thousands of nodding donkey oil wells interspersed with pools of oil and a smell of hydrocarbons. The air is hazy and your throat gets a slight sore after awhile but you do get used to it. It was also the hottest day of the trip so what do we do? Head for the Atesgah Fire Temple where natural gas vents had had a temple constructed around it hundreds of years ago possibly more. Naturally all the staff wanted to come out and see Taffy and then they went to get their friends to bring back to have a look too. It was great fun as they giggled and laughed. Again, they were such nice people.

What are we doing here?

After our previous nights storm we both woke up tired. Linda's back was still giving her a lot of discomfort and the continuous bumpy roads weren't helping it either. I'd got food poisoning in Tblisi and the local Georgians were not 'the warmest most welcoming and lovliest people in the world' that Lonely Planet had promised. They were in fact sullen faced, highly suspicious of us and seemed decidedly grumpy even aggressive. we have never been to a country and felt less welcomed than in Georgia. This attitude was whether we were in Taffy or not and despite the gorgeous scenery we were wondering what the heck we were doing here.

We headed to the border and had Taffy cleaned along the way by 'mister Grumpys dad who even though he was obviously charging us way over the odds didn't have the decency to look happy about it. The police at the border made Linda get out of Taffy and walk alongside it as if to say "and don't come back"

The customs were completely baffled by our documents and spent half an hour passing them from one to another with all the urgency of a hibernating tortoise. They did however let Linda get back in Taffy. Home seemed a very long way away and if we could have pressed a button to be instantly transported to Norwich we would have done. And we still had the Azerbaijan customs to deal with and we suspected they may not let us in anyway!

To get into Azerbaijan you need a visa. To get a visa you need a letter of Invitation and we had got this all sorted out before we left. When you bring a vehicle into the country you have to pay $0.50 per cc of engine size plus 18% of the value of the vehicle on deposit which allows you entry for 30 days. This is to secure the duty should you sell the vehicle whilst in Azerbaijan. Or, you can get a 3 day transit entry which is free. Its a bit odd and I hope no one ever notices the tiny flaw in the scheme.

We had decided we didn't like the idea of the huge deposit so asked for a transit pass to Iran! After a bit of pleading - we have to get Visas in Baku- and the old colleague routine, a free tour of Taffy for everyone of the staff including the head honcho they decided that "for the beautiful lady" we could have 30 days free! They were absolutely lovely people. They found an English fixer for us, helped us fill all the forms in, made Linda come into the air conditioned office to cool down and sit down, offered us coffee and changed money for us at better than the bank rate. They were even lowthe to accept a bottle of English Cider as a way of thanks. It was a breath of fresh air and just what we needed.

The country again immediately changed. The villages and towns were more prosperous and the people waved at us with huge gold toothed smiles on their faces blowing kisses and clapping. Half a mile away we'd felt like we were at a funeral - possibly our own- and here we were at a wedding! Amazing.

To cap it all we spotted a lake and drove off to find a quiet bank underneath the towering Caucuses. The local herdsmen came up with their sheep, water buffalo and even a horse to shake our hands and say hello. It was perfect and just as we left the next morning a local cycled up and invited us home for tea! Now that's what we call friendly people!

Who needs roads?

The weather we've had in Tbilisi has been nice. Sunny mornings and cloud later on meaning we never boiled. It has been around 30C and even when we wake up it is usually mid 20's, but come the late afternoon it always looks as though we are about to have a tremendous storm but we never do. Leaving Tblisi in the morning was no different and we swept past Tbilisi on the 'M25' bypass along with the occasional truck and car gazing down on the sprawling city below as if we were in an aircraft. Here we passed our Bonus Sea on the eleven seas tour "The Tblisi Sea" this is in fact a resovoir but the maps here refer to it as a sea! We decided not to chane the tour name to reflect this!

The road hugs the top of the hills and in places had simply collapsed into the valley below. Where this had happened it looked like a giant had taken a bite out of the road. The rest of the asphalt was cracked and warped towards the gap and looked as though at any time it might slide on down the hill to reunite itself with the missing section. These bites don't look as though they happened yesterday and have concrete crash barriers round them to prevent you sailing into oblivion. We'd got used to these in Georgia but then we had a new challenge, the asphalt stopped and we were on a dusty track with large ruts and holes in it and we were down to first gear. It wasn't the best start to the day as we had 150km to go to the border! Fortunately after a few miles the tarmac gradually resumed and we continued in bright sunshine through some lovely scenery.

Our plan to get into Azerbaijan was to try the remote northenmost border at Lagodekhi around 10 miles south of Dagestan, another FCO no go area. The main border further south was reportedly full of traffic being the most direct route between Baku and Tblisi. The road north was good and we stopped at a lovely castle for lunch. The area is the main wine growing region and we stopped at a winery too, but decided to give the local plonk a miss when we realised it came in reused plastic bottles! We're far too refined for that sort of thing!!

The road skirts a finger of the Caucuses before dropping down into a huge flood plain at the foot of the mountain range that stretches from the Black to Caspian Seas. Most of the towns are actually in the hills and the road weaves its way along the side of these hills giving a spectacular view of the plains below and the main mountains opposite. It is a very small road and was a "three'r" in our road grading scheme meaning we could never get out of third. We have 6 gears and this is like 2nd for a car- slow going.

The houses that lined the road would have been lovely when new but most were in serious need of attention. They are all small two storey houses with the obligatory tin roof. They are set in mature gardens and almost hide under the canopy of trees. They usually have a balcony upstairs with ornate railings of wood or iron, usually with peeling paint. It looked like many no longer had running water as people were filling bottles at the springs and the network of Soviet pipes that runs above ground beside the street seemed to not be reliable. These pipes are evident everywhere the Soviet union controlled. They run parallel to the street and loop over each drive forming mini bridges. Like much Soviet design, they would serve a purpose cheaply and quickly whilst at the same time being seriously ugly. Most places we have visited with these pipes they are broken, missing sections or just ending in mid air. But here they are normally in tact and they look like they are still functional.

The road was lined with groups of men, young and old, near the springs, under trees, at cafés and just outside houses. Some were playing cards or Yat - a form of backgammon - or just talking. It was the middle of a work day so we assume unemployment here is high.

We dropped down onto the plain and it felt like we were a mouse making a dash across the dining room floor from one hole to another as we headed directly towards the huge mountains on the opposite side of the plain.

We spent the night at a small farm about half way across and had a stressful night with the mother of all thunderstorms going on on both sides of the valley. We were the only 9 tonne lump of metal for 30 kms and there was one scrawny tree near by which may have been a few centimetres taller. The storm lasted around 8 hours and was like a silent artillery battle between the two sides of the plain- Georgia and Russia. Volleys were exchanged every half second or so non stop for 8 hours but to utter silence. The storm crept either side of us and we didn't even have a drop of rain. Inside Taffy, with the blackout blinds down it was like a fleet of police cars were parked outside with their lights flashing. It was the most spectacular of storms and we later learned that it kept local residents in Saki awake all night.

Tbilisi

After being woken by Daisy the calf mooing and bringing our early morning milk delivery we got a taxi into the city. We touched 100kph in the city centre and the driver was going carefully for Lindas backs sake. It was terrifying, 6 lanes of traffic with closing speeds of over 200 kph, in a city centre, with no seat belts on, one hand out of the window and the other holding the mobile and the obligatory fag, brazenly overtaking into the oncoming traffics lanes and he looked as cool as a cucumber. We were in the foetal position in the rear crying like babies!

When we arrived at the tourist information centre we discovered a unique aspect to their tourist services. Apparently the purpose of the centre is for tourists to give the staff information. Anything we asked them they didn't know about. They even seemed unaware of a tourist Petit train that plies the streets at speeds we liked the look of. In fact they googled everything we asked. All this with faces and attitudes straight out of communist times. Service with a smile it certainly wasn't. This in fact was becoming a trend for the city. Outside the city and especially in the autonomous republic of Adjara (Batumi area) people were friendly, here smile at someone and you'd get looked at as though you'd just sneezed on them. Wave at them and they reached for their kalashnikovs. Lonely Planet tells us they are about the friendliest nation on earth, well not here they aren't! A few of the younger people were ok and our taxi driver was nice, but Tblisi has to be the most unwelcoming place we've been to outside Chernobyl. Which is a huge shame because the city itself is gorgeous, even if crossing any road is like wandering accidentally onto a formula 1 track on lap 2. It is also a building yard - a bit like Berlin a few years ago. All the major hotel chains have bought up half derelict old buildings in the centre and are busy restoring them. The Marriott - where we had a coffee and sorted out our Russian visas- was simply stunning.

The main street if you ignore the motor racing is lined with an array of building types. Ottoman buildings have communist grand architecture neighbours and Parisian buildings sit next to central European styles. The street is lined with trees and benches and every few hundred metres fountains sparkle in the sun. Little child sized sculptures hide between shops and benches and Parisian kiosks sell papers and snacks. We thoroughly enjoyed walking up and down the boulevard watching the older folks snear at the young in their skimpy skirts and huge heels.

Away from the main drag the old town rambles down the hill to the river. We tried to go into a church here and despite being decently dressed and Linda having a shawl for her head apparently God wasn't seeing the likes of us that day! I wonder what Jesus would make of that? The area is a lovely mix of old ottoman buildings with balconies overlooking small winding cobbled streets. Many of the buildings look as though they haven't had any attention since they were built and sag and lean at strange angles. They are still lived in but the stares you get from the occupants on the balconies verge on the threatening. Smiling and waving has no effect.

Some of the streets have been renovated and are lined with bars cafés and restaurants. These are delightful, no traffic, sometimes grapes growing overhead and always sofas and comfy chairs sitting under huge parasols to keep the glare of the very powerful sun off. The old town streets lead to a fantastic new bridge over the river. It is extremely modern and has a swirling glass canopy curled like a sail flapping lose in the wind providing shade but at the same time being totally see through. At the edge of the old town sits a cluster of narrow pedestrian streets on two levels adjacent to the river and in the shadow of the fortress and the towering statue of Mother Georgia high on the hill above. It is full of young Georgians and tourists a like and about the only place we found everyone welcoming. Dozens of trendy bars and restaurants are crowded together here some with huge chandeliers and larger rich coloured sofas covered with scatter cushions on the street.

In the evening the city is brightly illuminated and the ugly TV tower that sits on one of the many hills around Tblisi, has a moving firework lights display with all sorts of colours racing up and down the mast and 'exploding' on the viewing platform at the top. It's an ingenious use of a Soviet relic.

We've really enjoyed Tblisi, especially with Linda being able to sit down every few hundred metres on a bench of at a cafe. But the walk up to the new cathedral that dominates the skyline was too much so we took a taxi. Our experience with taxis here has been frightening and baffling at the same time. We would negotiate a price before getting in and then normally find after a few minutes the driver had no idea where we wanted to go or if he did, no idea how to get there. Our first evening here we got a taxi home and the driver had to stop 3 times to ask for directions. We had shown him on a map where we wanted to go but it seems that no one is able to read a map. We are staying on the equivalent of the M25, we got home in the end, but not before we had stopped to ask another taxi driver where to go and his girlfriend had held my hand kissed me and told me she loved me!

The cathedral though is brand new and enormous. It is roughly a square in shape and layered like a wedding cake with the central dome rising to an enormous height and gold topped. Unlike other Georgian churches it is bright inside with the walls white washed. It is busy with locals doing the rounds of crossing themselves 3 times and kissing each icon in turn. Some people prostrate themselves in front of presumably the more significant icons and others kiss every icon in the cathedral. It is fascinating to watch but you do feel it looks almost superstitious ritual and in some ways reminded us of Islam.

So, stumbling upon a delicious Indian for tea and passing some posters of Wayne Rooney with 'My name is Rooney' on a British Pub we got our taxi back home to the brothel. This morning I went inside the motel to pay. The interior is like a police prison with metal bent and bashed doors leading to each room. The floors and walls are all concrete and are crumbling with some kind of water damage leading to huge patches of fungus like growth. The owners room had a TV a small bed and table and chairs in and looked like something out of Steptoe with all kinds of stuff littered about the place. You couldn't renovate this building, it looks like if you tried to paint the walls the merest touch of the brush would knock it all down like a house of cards. The abandoned buildings in Chernobyl were in better condition than this place. Presumably you rent rooms by the hour here because if you spent the night you might be absorbed by the fungus from the walls. For once we felt embarrassed at the luxury of Taffy, but with one Georgian being worth over $4 billion we shouldn't be the only ones.

The Badlands...

We left the Botanical Gardens at Batumi in bright sunshine and to hearty waves from the cafe staff. The car park attendant looked particularly chuffed when we have him an extra 5 GEL. He had charged us 2 to park overnight, made sure we were tucked away for the night and buttoned up and introduced us to the local bobby. All for about 70p.

The road was OK but very wiggly. Georgian drivers are notoriously nutty. So on tiny roads winding up steep hills they tear past flashing their lights at the oncoming truck like phasers as if that will somehow make it vanish. I am sure that if we had another cost of paint on the front we'd have it scraped off by now! Georgia's not a tiny country but has very few roads. Imagine England, with just the A1, A14 and M4 as the only surfaced roads in the country. Add to that the fact that the large tracts of the rest of the country is a luscious green and where do you think the cows stand? Not by the road but on it. Do the Georgians slow down? Do they hell! The cars swerve inches past the noses and swishing tales of the animals who continue gently chewing away oblivious to the near death experience. It is little wonder that they have a low life expectancy (cows and people alike) with one of the highest accident rates in the world combined with the chain smoking.

The countryside along the coast is beautiful and very fertile. The towns though are often like scenes from a war film. The roads become almost impassable and the buildings are falling down. You do see some lovely buildings though and the unkind hand of communist architecture is only an occasional blight, not the wholescale obliteration we saw in eastern Europe. With a lot of money and considerable work this area would become gorgeous.

We left the coast road just south of Poti and headed inland to Tbilisi. The road passed through miles and miles of long villages joined seamlessly to one another. All a series of old 2 story houses with tin roofs and tin cladding over the walls. Its hard to judge the age but they all had well established gardens so may well be pre communist and would in their day have been lovely.

We eventually reached Khashuri- the beginning of what we have termed the badlands- and immediately came to what looked like a bombed out bridge, presumably from the Russian conflict a few years ago. A bailey bridge took us past the remains of the bridge piers which looked like they were in slow motion states of collapse.

We decided that asking the police if it was safe here would be insulting. The road was busy, well kept and had numerous police vehicles on it, so sod the FCO we drove on.

The road passed numerous refugee camps - housing those made homeless from Abkhazia and South Ossestia and eventually became a full blown motorway. The camps would not have been Kate Adie TV news material. They were neatly ordered rows of small single story houses resembling the British post war prefabs. They had large gardens, asphalt roads and most had a car. There seemed to be some kind of main large building at each camp, possibly a school.

We reached Tbilisi and being Lindas birthday in the morning found a quiet motel TIR lorry park to stay in for a couple of nights. We parked up at the rear of the motel which looked as though it should have been condemned a century ago. We overlooked a small field with daisy the calf not aware of how lucky she was to be grazing in a field! It was quite nice. During the course of the evening the Turkish lorries turned up and so did some questionably dressed ladies and It turned out to be a brothel! Happy Birthday Linda!

Nothing for it, it's back to Europe then!

After 2 extra nights in our lay-by watching it rain and the dolphins consider becoming land species we decided it was time to head back to Europe. So, 40 minutes later we were jostling for positions at the Turkish border with a dozens of other vehicles. On the way to the border we past miles and miles of parked trucks. As we edged forward one car space every 5 minutes or so we thought it must take weeks for those lorries to cross the border. It was in the end pretty painless especially on the Georgian side but as usual the Turkish controls were bedlam.

Once again as we crossed the line on the map the scenery, houses and people all changed in appearance. Gone were the endless blocks of apartments crammed together and back came single story buildings. The dramatic backdrop of mountains that we hugged along the Turkish coast were replaced by lowlands and the plants became almost tropical. Palm trees and what look like mango and banana trees replaced the hazelnuts trees tobacco and tea. As for the people it was like going home. The men and women dressed 'normally' and there was a much more even mix of them. We'd got used to the cafés and beaches being largely an all male domain but that seems to have gone too.

Our first town was Batumi. We came to a roundabout and naturally picked the wrong exit and drove through the centre of the town. The roads ceased to exist and you drove on a mixture of potholes, mud and rubble. Taffy swayed around like we were in a force 10 storm but eventually after a few miles of this we took another wrong turn and ended up back at the first roundabout! The town itself was a falling down almost shanty town Affair with bustling food markets and second hand clothes stalls spilling over onto the muddy street. It felt incredibly poor.

We had another go at our roundabout and this time a couple of streets away from scenes form slumdog Millionaire we rolled up in Las Vegas. The sea front boulevard is immaculately kept lined with plants and palms, fantastic new 5 star hotels, pools, tennis courts water parks and a Ferris wheel. It is an impossible contrast to the shopping centre, but if it attracts the tourists it will bring the money to refurbish the rest of town. Some of the old buildings would shame Vienna. They are brightly coloured, with incredibly ornate facades and simply stunning. If this is a glimpse of the future of Georgia then it will be the new millionaires playground.

We found the tourist information and found that they had 'abolished' the campsite. We are rather hoping this was a bad translation rather than some Aldeburgh inspired initiative! They told us to try the Botanical Gardens who kindly let us stay here overnight. We staggered over to the cafe for a drink - the bar lady introduced us to her family, came in to see Taffy and gave lindas back a massage! And we had a bottle of wine for £4!

We've restocked with food where we had the whole store in stitches when I said 'moo' to get milk and for £9 got 6 bags of food including beer! The store owners family then came for the now customary tour of Taffy and we gave the eldest lad a bottle of Strongbow which they all loved!

The Police have been along to see us and told us to keep our windows closed at night and that they will keep an eye on us so we would like to say everyone here has been incredibly friendly and kind and indeed we would had we not had the misfortune to speak to the British Embassy.

We asked if we could have our visas sent back there. "No"
Could they tell us if the M27 was safe to drive on "No"
Well it says on the FCO site to liaise with the Embassy if you are going to areas on that route so can you tell us anything about these areas we should know "No"
They said that everything was on the web site. But it says on the web site to speak to you. Everything is on the web site. Hopeless. Now Mr Cameron, if you really want to save a few million why don't you abolish the British Embassies, after all everything they can possibly tell me is already on the website!

The FCO is notoriously safety conscious. If someone breaks a toe on a beach somewhere the FCO will issue a travel warning. When you read the travel advice for a country it almost always scares you half to death. When you arrive you usually find that you are made to feel very welcome and in fact feel more scared in London! Many seasoned travellers we have met now ignore the FCO completely. It cries wolf too often and its warnings lose their effect. We like to travel safely, but wherever you go there is always some danger. One of the things we find about travelling further a field is the warm welcome you get from the locals. We met a man today who had never met anyone from England, a boy who had never seen a map in English and all of them went out of their way to make us feel welcome. You certainly get the impression that if they thought it would be unsafe for us to stay here they would have made it clear to us. We find this local contact is a better indicator of how safe an area is, that and you own gut feeling- if it doesn't feel right we don't stop.

That said we aren't aiming to go to Abkhazia and south Ossestia the two breakaway republics in Georgia, but it would have been nice to have spoken to a British Embassy official who could have given some perspective to the warnings the FCO dish out.

So we have decided to stop and ask the police what they think when we get near the areas that the BE say we should talk to them about and then do what they say. If they think we are in any danger they will I am sure give us an escort or stop us driving there. Here ends the Reed rant!

Hold tight... Ooops!

After a lovely night in our roadside plot up by the crashing waves of the Black Sea we were just having our customary tea in bed when the heavens opened in what can only be described as a storm of apocalyptic proportions. Within a few seconds the water was coming through the air con unit as if someone was pouring a bucket of water straight into the van. Clearly our tiny roof drains were totally inadequate and it was all hands to the buckets.

It is hard to imagine how much water was gushing into Taffy but suffice it to say I never want to go into a submarine! Quick thinking was required - that or arm bands - and having just been described in an email to Linda as a 'special breed' expected too.

A couple of Lindas friends have recently had man problems and been chatting with her on email. So our email has been full of certain statements about Men being born out of wed lock! So Linda thought she would defend me a bit - Hence the origins of Linda's statement. So I thanked her by promptly trying to kill her!

My new found ego fuelled by the "Special Breed" tag lept into action and I yelled hang on and drove the van forward stopping suddenly to jetison our on board roof top swimming pool. A sound plan I am sure you will agree. One oversight though being what Linda, two buckets in hand standing dead centre of the van, was supposed to hang on to and with what? So, all progressed well during the forward bit of our doomed journey but Linda continued forward as Taffy stopped and complete with 2 full buckets of water fell on the floor banging her back quite badly and as she couldn't move nearly drowning in the slopping water freed from the bucket. My title of "Special breed" having been held for a good 10 minutes was replaced by another which didn't sound so nice.

Anyway, Linda is now resting in bed and is just badly bruised and no serious damage (except to my title) has been done. We will be staying in our layby for today and we will see how Linda is in the morning.

PS. Some of you may feel it is unfair to poke fun at Linda when she is flat on her back, those of you who are married will realise its the only time! I did read all this to Linda before posting to the Blog and she laughed out loud, screamed and clipped me round the ear!

Still, every cloud has a silver lining - beans on toast for tea me thinks!

The Black Sea coast

The drive along the coast to Trabzan is lovely. The road passes through numerous towns, some of which looked much nicer than Unye with promenades along the sea shore and cafés in parks with plenty of trees and grass. It is certainly much nicer than our guide book lead us to believe. It was in fact nice to be driving as today it is so humid and hot its almost unbearable. Putting the electric cable away this morning I had sweat running down My face in just a couple of minutes and was glad to retreat to the air conditioned luxury of Taffy. Its not the heat that gets you its the humidity.

We parked up in Trabzan with ease despite Rough guide saying its impossible to park there. I don't know what they were driving but it must be very very big if they couldn't park it!

We walked into town which was a jumble of houses and shops on the hillside with a very pleasant Centre with a few old buildings thrown in and a Burger King which did Veggie burgers! yum! We found a ticket office for the ferry to ask about our crossing into Russia for when we return this way in July and there then followed a discussion with various people about whether we would get on or not because of our height. In the end, as the ferry was in port, we all walked down to the dock to have a look!

When I say ferry you will need some help picturing it. Think of P&O's Pride of Dover and Pride of Calais only smaller, a lot smaller. Well this is more like Pride of Rackheath.... Only 50 years ago and after it had served in the Falklands war and then not seen a paint brush since the fire shortly after it had been refloated after it had hit a mine a few years back and you'll get the picture! It wouldn't surprise me if my Mum and Dad went on it in their Bedford Dormobile 30 years ago and even then it would have been old. It is a roro ferry though and we have to go on the top deck. There are only 2 decks and the ramp to the top deck takes up half the ship and it looks like they will have to clear chairs and tables away to make room for us. We will fit on with a few mm to spare I think but we will roughly double the gross weight of the ferry whilst at the same time blocking any view from the bridge. We are roughly 1metre taller than the funnels and will double the number of toilets on board! On the bright side we can sleep in Taffy - presumably because once on the top deck we won't be able to get out of Taffy without falling overboard! Suddenly Crossing into Russia through Abkhazia looks a safer route than sailing! Still all that's for July and we now know the price and can look to see if the ferries from Georgia to Russia are running again as an alternative.

After the port tour we headed to the Sumela Monastery up in the cool of the hills. We parked at the Monastery car park which was so sloped it felt like Taffy would capsize, so we took the opportunity of practising our abandon ship routines in preparation for our eventual ferry crossing!

Rain RaIn go away!

If the rain in Spain falls mainly on the Plain, then the Torrents in Turkey target Taffy! By the time we reached Unye poor Taffy was black. The rain has followed us each day and even now on a lovely little campsite overlooking the Black sea a thunderstorm is passing by. The drive from Istanbul took 3 days and we are now about 2/3rds the way across turkey. It is a very big country. The road here is currently being dualed and we have driven over 500kms in non stop roadworks. We will never complain again about English ones.

The towns are all modern clusters of flats and don't look very appealing and the villages often look almost uninhabited or falling down. Some of the houses have wattle and daub type walls with holes in them and look like they could be anything from 50 to 400 years old. All these places though have numerous mosques. One town around the size of Stowmarket (20000) had 15 that we counted as we past through.

The mosques here haven't been as disturbing to us as last year. The call to prayer is quick a couple of minutes or so, and there haven't been any sermons over the speakers like we found in Egypt. They also dont seem to be as fanatically sung. They still wake us up at 4.30 though! When you are in the country they are, during the day, not unpleasant, but when you get to a town the staggered starts of each mosques calls and the fact that they always have their loud hailers turned up one setting too far so they all sound distorted the cacophany of noise is should we say an aquired taste!

The scenery has been ever changing. We've gone from flat lands to Small mountains and been through valleys filled with paddy fields that looked more like Vietnam! We still see motorhomes but they are all now travelling in groups and we are the last individuals around!

This part of Turkeys coast is described as being full of prostitutes and sprawling growth. Whilst the towns have been modern high rise and unappealing the coast we are on is pleasant. The beach is a bit untidy with rubbish washed up from the sea and you wouldn't venture in the water for fear of emerging like a sea monster from doctor who! But our site overlooks the sea and from under the trees it is very peaceful and idylic.

We've spent 4 nights here and have caught up on the washing and even managed to get Taffy cleaned! We've cycled both ways along the beach from our camp and sat under the trees reading our books. Our most ambitious cycle was to Unye 20kms away. We tried to cycle there on our first day here but got half way and it started to rain so we headed back. Two days later though we tried again. It was around 34C and humid and it was into a very strong wind along a busy dual carriageway, some of which we did on the wrong side of the road!! We survived and were pleased to get to Unye as our guide book said it was a nice town. When we arrived the smell from the sea was overpowering and the Ice cream we bought chewy! We cycled upwind and found a cafe overlooking the sea and had a very pleasant drink before holding our noses and heading home. Naturally on our return to camp the whole family came to greet us and give us drinks to cool us down.

We are still the only people here and the owners are lovely and kind - they keep wanting to take us places in their car and all we want to do is chill out! Fortunately they don't seem at all offended when we decline their kind offers. They say in a couple of weeks there will be 150 tents on this site! It is around the size of 2 tennis courts! We are glad we will be elsewhere!

We will move on to Trabzan in the morning and find out about the ferry and after a few days chilling are now ready for the final outward leg of our journey.

Last stop in Europe - Istanbul

We loved Istanbul. It is everything the guide books tell you and more. Being able to walk into the city in 5 minutes was excellent, though our plot up beside the sea sounded a lot more idyllic than it was. The car park was where the local lads brought their dates each evening until about 2am. They seemed to think the best way to impress them was to deafen them and the van would vibrate every time one of the more amorous lads drove past. When they had finished for the night the resident pack of dogs would hold extensive barking sessions. Fortunately sleeping pills, air con and walking for miles and miles each day make you tired enough to sleep through most of this so despite the distractions we didn't fare too badly.

Istanbul is unlike any other part of Turkey we've visited, denslet populated, hectic, dotted with large western style shopping malls and it is huge. You drive for hours just to get from one side to the other, most of the time on motorway and most of the time at speed. It wouldn't surprise me if it was 40km wide as we spent all morning driving in (before getting lost) and another morning driving out(after getting lost again). Apart from the city centre itself it appears to be mainly apartment blocks, some high-rise, some 5 or 6 storeys crammed together for mile upon mile.

The old town and the main attractions are mostly within easy walking distance of each other and despite its vastness and the terrible traffic, the centre is calm and mainly car free.

The Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia dominate the skyline and sit opposite each other separated by a small park and some lovely fountains like a pair of fighters sizing each other up. A constant stream of coaches drops tourists between them from dawn to dusk and the numerous street vendors try to sell them everything from wooden recorders to something sticky that you are supposed to eat! Unlike Egypt the sellers don't stick to you like glue and seem content to accept a no thanks and move on.

The Hareem that Linda had promised to take me to when we got to Istanbul turned out to be in the Topaki Palace complex and sadly also no longer in use! We found the palace a little disappointing after the previous days visit to the Blue Mosque, though the Hareem was well worth the additional entrance fee to see. It didn't help that it was raining and we had no coats but it was almost unbearably crammed with tour parties and it was hard to get to see many of the items on display without a lengthy wait. By the time we left in the afternoon the crowds were thinning rapidly so we probably timed our visit wrong.

Our visit to 'the New Mosque' which is a few hundred years old, coincided with the Friday lunch time prayer which we were allowed to watch. It was fascinating with people coming and going during the service almost constantly. The only bits we understood in the sermon was the word "Jihad"!

One thing that everyone does when they go to Istanbul is go to the Grand Bazaar. We had been told by someone that the sellers were a lot of hassle and we were expecting Egyptian 'limpet' traders but they were nothing like that. They were funny, good natured, helpful and most spoke good English especially to Linda as she kept buying things.

Apart from the Indian we also feasted on a very good Mexican and visited numerous lovely cafés - "Home Made" being Linda's favourite.

Our route home each night would take us through the old ottoman district. The houses here are a brick or stone ground floor with wooden floors above, often brightly painted. the narrow streets slope down to the city wall which runs next to the sea. The area today is full of restaurants and small boutique hotels and even the odd hostel. Almost all of which sever breakfast on the roof terrace! They looked lovely and we were tempted to have a mini break from Taffy but Linda had already spent us dry in the bazaars.

One of our most memorable moments of Istanbul was nothing to do with its tourist attractions, bazaars or restaurants. We were walking through the site of the old Hippodrome and we're accosted by a young man from Turkcells -O2 for Turkey. He wanted to show us how to manually tune our phone to Turkcell which we weren't interested in. But we got chatting, went over and sat on a bench, bought some drinks and eventually about an hour and a quarter later had all 3 sales reps chatting to us about everything from cream teas to religion when their parents turned up to meet them. We were introduced to them all and had a wonderful afternoon chatting to them. Apparently Spain will won the world cup and England will come third!

Leaving Istanbul after only 4 nights was hard. There's plenty more to see but the torrential rain and end of the world thunderstorms convinced us that we should see the rest outside the monsoon season! So we meticulously planned our exit route, drove 2 miles and reached a bridge we couldn't get under! Fortunately we picked up a motorway sign Quickly and found ourselves at a toll point that only accepted smart cards and tags. There did not appear to be any place to pay with cash or card and we got stuck at a barrier unable to reverse due to the queue behind us and unable to get through. The help button at the barrier connected me with the cousin of the shouting policeman we first encountered at the border and we were looking suitably confused enough for a fellow driver to run over swipe his card and then drive off having paid our toll! The Turkish people (with the exception of the shouting policeman and his family) are undoubtedly some of the kindest most generous people we have had the privilege of meeting.

Farewell EU!

The Turkish Greek border crossing was fun! You leave Greece easily enough and then get to the bridge linking the two countries where there are plenty of armed soldiers in full combat gear at each end and the middle. The two opposing countries soldiers face each other in the centre of the bridge it reminded me of checkpoint Charlie in Communist times. The Turkish side - like last years entry point from Syria - had a brand new customs hall. Oddly the first Police checkpoint has the booth on the passenger side of vehicles. Linda handed our passports to the policeman who flatly refused to accept them from her - presumably because she was a woman - and someone had to come and tell me to get out of Taffy and walk around with them. After shouting at me for a few seconds to make himself understood he gave them back pointed and shouted a bit more for effect and I got back in Taffy and drove to point number two! I'm not really sure what he was trying to say but I'm pretty confident that the impression he left on me was not what he intended. Shouting no longer bothers me - we've been in too many borders and had too many police checks to be fazed by that. Now if he'd pointed his gun at me that would have been a different story!

Moving up to booth 2 it was at least on the drivers side and the official was slightly less obnoxious. But the organisation was hopeless. In order to get past booth 2 you need a visa (fair enough) but to get one you have to go inside a building to buy it (again fair enough) but that means you then have to drive past booth 2 and 3 and park and then walk back, get your visa and then visit each booth on foot fighting with the other people doing the same as you and those visa exempt people in thru cars! Chaos ensues together with lots of pushing in and jostling for positions. Eventually we manage to get to booth 3 where the happy chappy decides its time to make a phone call on his mobile and shuts the window on us for 5 minutes whilst he chats away about goodness knows what but it looked more a social call than work. After he had finished with us we then have to visit the booth opposite him (presumably so if you had got this far without getting out of your car you would be forced to do so now!) and get a stamp on the visa. It was a funny old setup and its hard to see how it will cope if through traffic is ever more than the 1 car every 2 minutes that we saw despite the fact we saw around 25 staff members, nearly all smoking like chimneys and not a woman in sight. Its interesting that when we crossed into Tunisia last year we were told that it used to take hours to get in but since they had accepted women into the job it was now much more efficient and quicker! We've crossed many borders in our vans and they are always interesting experiences. We've had rude and unhelpful - USA, slow -Ukraine, bureaucratic nightmare - Egypt, but Turkey has managed to roll all these into one! Oh, I forgot to mention that after all these checks you still have to pass a last booth and hand all your papers in again before you are allowed to drive underneath the welcome to Turkey sign!

The roads immediately changed from the smooth asphalt of Greece to a patchwork quilt of potholes and patches but we instantly encountered a large hipermarket - Kipa which is really Tesco and resupplied.

Our first night in Turkey was spent at a 'Camping' by the road. It was an overgrown field with an old Bedford truck abandoned in it and a small shanty town leading to the beach where the Jelly fish were so tightly packed you could hardly see the bottom. This didnt stop the locals from swimming though!

Our master plan for getting into Istanbul was to arrive on a Friday morning as we had found last year this to be the quietest times in Islamic cities. I can't tell you if Istanbul is in fact quieter on a Friday morning than any other time but if it is I'd hate to drive in it on a different day. We missed our turn off and ended up right in the very centre of the city. Everytime we tried to get out we encountered a low bridge and eventually found ourselves in streets so narrow our mirrors past over the top of parked cars, people had to be phoned to move others and passersby lifted motorbikes onto the pavement to let us by. I'm not exaggerating to say we frequently had less than 1cm clear on each side of Taffy to squeeze through. But we survived and certainly provided the locals with something to talk about! We did eventually manage to reach our destination and parked up almost directly below The Blue Mosque! Well worth the nightmare drive.

We spent the rest of the day wandering around and enjoyed a lovely Indian meal on a roof top terrace overlooking the Hagia Sophia in the evening. It was hard to believe that earlier that day we had thought about giving up on Istanbul after we encountered our third low bridge!

We slipped through Greece

As usual we've spent far too long in Germany and so we decided to drive through Greece in a couple of days. We left Macedonia and re-entered the EU to find the landscape change immediately once more. The farming became intensive and properties looked more prosperous. You wouldn't believe there was any crisis in Greece from the little we saw. We picked a stellplatz en route and found we had by chance stopped at the site of Alexander the Greats fathers tomb. This was only found recently and was completely in tact with the burial artifacts as they were almost 2500 years ago. The jewellry was exquisite and some of the gold items were huge. Linda was feeling very hard done by but at least she doesn't have to voluntarily sacrifice herself once I die like Alexander the greats fathers wife. It really is worth a visit and we were lucky enough to have the museum, which has been built over the tombs to preserve them in situ, to ourselves and were relieved to see thousands of kids forming up outside when we were leaving and not as we arrived. Visit early us our advice!

Google maps once again helped us find a wonderful overnight stop near the Turkish border for the next evening. Scouring the coast on the satellite view we found a small deserted beach and headed for it. We parked about 10 m from the waves and had a lovely peaceful night in preparation for Istanbul!

Ohrid - the Cinderella Town

Lake Ohrid is another UNESCO site being one of the oldest lakes in the world. The town of the same name also a UNESCO site, has a large dominant castle overlooking the dozens of bars restaurants and Yarmouth sea side tack shops heaving with thousands and thousands of people. The walk up the hill to the fortress weaves it way past exquisite churches, a roman theatre and a large excavation of a byzantine church and by the time you reach the summit the number of visitors could fit in a mini bus. It crossed our minds that many of the visitors to Orhid may not even know of the existence of the castle let alone have visited, preferring instead the unrelenting thud thud thud of karaokes and piped music to the wonderful views from the castle walls.

Orhid is picturesque, quaint and full of charm but it is teetering on the edge of becoming another Benidorm. It seems keen on driving away tourists attracted by history and culture and replacing them with the party people. The cruise boats lined up on the quay play thumping music to attract customers and the castle itself is the last refuge safe from the incessant disco beat.

Cycling down the shore a few kilometres we found a lovely cafe with decking out into the water and comfy sofas to lounge on under sun shades. Even here the cafe music was inaudible because of the music from Orhid.

Our cycle from our camp to Orhid and back was 45km and a lovely ride even if we only managed to cycle halfway up to the castle and to walk the rest of the way! Most of the ride is on pavements or minor roads and despite the mountains that circle the lake flat.

Even at night 10 miles away across the lake in our beautiful campsite on the edge of the water the disco boats keep up the noise till well past midnight and even with Battlestar Galactica on our tv we could still clearly hear it.

Despite the noise we eventually spent 4 nights on our tiny camp. The party nights Friday and Saturday gave way to a silent Sunday and Monday and in any case we have a wonderful bedroom air con unit that uses hardly any battery and allows us to keep Taffy buttoned up on noisey nights and still get a good nights sleep.

Orhid appears to have made its choice with tourists though, and you can't help but wonder if it is the right one. Competing with seaside resorts is cyclical as the Costas will testify as their visitors have switched from Spain to Turkey. The huge advantage Orchid has is its heritage and nature and if it drives visitors away who come for this reason it will find it difficult to survive when the party people decide Albania or wherever is the new cheap party place to visit.

Despite this we liked Orhid though if we visit again we'll avoid the summer or leave well before midnight.