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Turkey to India - Brainaddict takes the interesting route

Missed this thread!!

Blimey, sounds like an excellent trip mate. Thinking of going to Afghanistan myself next year. Keep us posted, and good luck :)
 
hope brainaddict is doing fine?

enjoy your trip mate. i am so jealous. the weather here is still not appropriate for the time of the year. so you really don't miss anything. it was great to have vixen back here and soaking up some travel stories. makes me really melancholic.

see you :)
 
Brainaddict said:
:mad: :mad: :mad:

Admittedly I kind of like the waiter service on Turkish buses though :o
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Have you tried the barbers?. You get lots of them in small villages, not sure about the big towns but they give you a proper cut-throat shave, they even burned off the hair in my ears with some paraffin.

*just remembers that ba has a beard* :(
 
SubZeroCat said:
Aaww Vixen your tagline is so sweet, it makes me feel sorry for you :)
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:)
sleaterkinney said:
Have you tried the barbers?. You get lots of them in small villages, not sure about the big towns but they give you a proper cut-throat shave, they even burned off the hair in my ears with some paraffin.

*just remembers that ba has a beard* :(
Click to expand...
They're bloody everywhere aren't they, even in the tiniest of towns, every second shop seems to be a barber. I wonder how they stay in business!
He didn't try though. He did buy a thingameejiggy on a street stall though... something to do with shaving.
 
Vixen said:
I know you're kind, SZC, don't worry :-/
Click to expand...

I know, I was just emphasising cos I didn't want you to feel bad.

How are you today? Any better?

You're like a poor little abandoned orphan with a persistant hacking cough and it's sad :(
 
SubZeroCat said:
How are you today? Any better?

You're like a poor little abandoned orphan with a persistant hacking cough and it's sad :(
Click to expand...
You make me laugh, which is good but also not so good as even a smile makes me start to hack. :( Other than the depression and the cough I'm okay. Ish.
 
i am the komedy klown for the kerminally ill

Vixen said:
You make me laugh, which is good but also not so good as even a smile makes me start to hack. :( Other than the depression and the cough I'm okay. Ish.
Click to expand...

What about the inches of soot in your lungs though? And the street burns and rat bites round your ankles? :(

*pats Vixen on the head and gives her 2 shillings and a potato for her woes*
 
SubZeroCat said:
What about the inches of soot in your lungs though? And the street burns and rat bites round your ankles? :(

*pats Vixen on the head and gives her 2 shillings and a potato for her woes*
Click to expand...
Actually I saw a mouse today, in my kitchen and you'd need to give it to me in YTL to make me :) Enough for a plane ticket actually. Potato salad would be fine though.

Anyway, no more derailing :mad: Let's leave BA to report back re Ottoman life.
 
Brainaddict said:
:mad: :mad: :mad:

Admittedly I kind of like the waiter service on Turkish buses though :o
Click to expand...


Yes, I like it when they bring round hot wet towels to wipe your hands with, and little packets of biscuits. They are so sweet.
 
Yeah, someone was telling me today about that judge who got killed. A canadian turkish ex hippy I met on the ferry who now sings the blues and country music in holiday resorts. He was pretty pissed off at the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in Turkey and reckons the fundies act like a cabal in power, giving power and favours to other fundies = not a good development.
 
So I get to Tabriz in Iran and what do I run into when I walk out of the bazaar? A demonstration - which everyone advises foreigners to avoid like the plague. I was a hundred yards or so away from the chanting mob when a truckload of riot police turned up. I started walking away but I swear the demo followed me down the street. I turned down another street and thought I'd lost it, then met it again - or another contingent of it. One guy on the street suggested I go back to my hotel, which seemed a bit extreme, so I just went into a restaurant instead. There I met an English Literature teacher who explained to me that someone had said in an Iranian newspaper that Azerbaijanis - a big ethnic minority in this area - were no better than insects, so the demonstrators where all Azerbaijanis and not, as I had feared, some kind of pro or anti-Western rally. By the time I came out the restaurant it was raining and they'd all gone home.
 
I was just walking down the street in Tehran and a man sitting in a car looking silly wearing a bluetooth headset beckoned me over. He then claimed to be a policeman and showed me some ID or other - for all I know it was a supermarket clubcard - and asked me if I was from Israel. I said no, and he asked again, so I said "Do I look like I'm from Israel?"
He said "Maybe not, but there are many Israelis coming here now and it is my job to look for them."
He then asked to see my passport, which I told him was back at my hotel - which happened to be true but I would have told him that anyway I think - no way would I have let him get anywhere near it. Then he asked if I had any other ID, and when he insisted I showed him my drivers licence, which thankfully has a conspicuous EU flag on it and no British symbol - since the government here hate British people too. I held the card between my fingers though and wouldn't let go when he looked at it, since as far as I was concerned he still could have been anyone. He looked at the card, said "Okay, thank you," and drove off.
:confused::confused::confused:
 
Don't let these little tales make you think Iran is dangerous or anything. In face most people are ridiculously friendly and keep paying for stuff and showing me around and being generally very hospitable.

I'm annoyed with myself today though cos I wanted to buy my Kabul ticket and leave tehran for the south, but it's friday and everything's closed. Silly me :rolleyes:
 
To the first - they don't give me a choice!

And to the second - partly that, but more in order not to perpetuate the stereotypes propagated in the Western media about lovely Iran :)
 
This afternoon I foolishly ran out completely of Iranian Rials. I went to the bank to change some dollars but they said they only change money in the mornings, and sometimes not even then. I didn't even have money for food until the next day but my pleading did not affect their bank-clerk hearts. It didn't seem worth investigating why the strange policy existed, so I wandered out the bank looking confused and frustrated, and as if by magic two eighteen-year-old girls with some of the best English I've heard in Iran asked me if I was okay. I explained the problem. They said they knew a guy in the bazaar who would change money. So they bundle me into a taxi (for which they paid) which took us to the bazaar entrance. Then we plunged inside through the crowds until we got to a small jewellery shop. At first sight it looked closed, but then through the gloom we could make out a bearded man standing behind the counter at the back of the dark shop. So we go inside, and in the darkness agreed on the exchange rate. I didn't know whether to be reassured or scared when the tiny shop was suddenly invaded by a horde of little old ladies in billowing black chadors. I couldn't work out whether they were there to change money or to look at jewellery in the dark, since once inside they just stood around chatting. I got a good rate for the money, counted it near the front entrance where there was some light, and we left. I thanked the girls for saving me, and then one of them insisted on showing me around one of the old mansion houses of the town - it was huge and fantastical and we kept getting lost in the cellars and windtowers and corridors. The girl must have been from a rich family because she explained that her family was renovating a house just like it, only slightly smaller :eek:.
 
Agent Sparrow posting

Glad to hear it's all going well, sounds such an adventure! Makes me want to go travelling again and get myself into potentially shitty situations which magically at the last minute work out well. :)

The garden at Nu-urban towers has been transformed into a forest of Jerusalem Artichokes! :eek:

Crispy says artichokles, rofl.
 
All sounds very exciting :)

Glad you're alive and well and managing to get sustinence.

I'm loving your posts btw - little vignettes from another world :cool:
 
This is beginning to get very interesting. Love the way you're writing here. Conjures up some great images.

Enjoying reading this when I can.
 
I'm sitting in the Armenian Christian quarter of Esfehan right now - which is one of the most beautiful places I've been to, with truly amazing architecture. As soon as I walked into the Armenian section of town a load of young men rushed up to me and started talking violently about how much they hate the Iranian government and how they love Britain and the US.
At least someone loves you Tony&George :p
 
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