Mini World Adventure Part 12

The last leg Iran to Cornwall

All was going well until we came to a by now normal check point, unfortunately this one was run by the infamous National Guard. They completely stripped the cars and found a machete in Tony’s that he had bought in the Amazon. 
We were all arrested and told to drive with an armed escort to a small police station about 10 miles off the main road beginning to panic a bit as no one knew where we were and the treatment, was if we were criminals. They took our passports, under duress, and although we were not in cells we were under armed guard. 
Of all 'scrapes' we got ourselves into I think this was the most frightening looking back at it, people were disappearing in Iran at this time, the country was at war, the National Guard were ruthless and we had not contacted home for several weeks so they did not even know which country we were in!
After a couple of hours a high ranking officer came and with profuse apologies gave us our passports back and escorted us back to the main road. 

I was amazed that in the mountains behind Tehran were covered in Snow and for the first time for a long time we were beginning to feel cold. We drove onto the Turkish border where there must have been a queue of at least 500 trucks.

As we arrived late again and the border was shut we stayed in the queue but at first light we drove past all the trucks to the actual border post and after 2-3 hour delay we crossed over. It was a very mountainous area with more snow beside the dirt roads,(we thought we had seen the last of these!)

so, of course we stopped and had a snowball fight, and the locals must have wondered what on earth was going on.

It is quite noticeable that either side of every border the roads and towns are very poor, I am sure there is a military reason for this.

We started to meet some English truck drivers who were driving across Europe and into Iran and it was strange to see English registration plates again. 

As we crossed the Bosporus Bridge we left Asia and crossed into Europe and you have guessed, it was raining.

It was now a couple Eastern Bloc communist countries, firstly Bulgaria, and to get in we had to pay $50.00 each as we were only ‘In Transit’ a great way to get foreign currency.

It looked and felt very different, lots of posters with workers all wearing the same written in Slavic, the towns were very grey, all the houses the same, agriculture was very old fashion with horses & carts still in use. 





Still sleeping in hammocks was causing a bit of attention, once we the only place to tie to in a layby was a bulldozer;

luckily we were away before they started work again. You can just see Peter, our cameraman's,mat on the right as he unfortunately did not have a hammock and slept directly on the ground.

We travelled through Sofia a very modern city and onto Yugoslavia as it was called at the time.

What a beautiful country and very nice people, I can vividly remember eating lunch in the beautiful gorge below, in a roadside restaurant with the fuselage of an airplane coming out of the cliffs!

By now we were driving from dawn until dusk in an effort to get back as soon as we could, though Belgrade, Zagreb and on into Austria and Germany. The road conditions were of course much better being back in Europe and the last few countries were almost a blur as we just wanted to get back home.

On the German Autobahn we had typical Mini problems with rain getting into the Distributor cap,

so we sheltered under and bridge and used plastic carrier bags to keep the electrics dry. 

Eventually we made it to Calais; we contacted Save the Children Fund and the BBC to arrange our return and it gave us a couple of days to clean ourselves and the cars up.

We had some issues with customs at Dover as you imagine, but after travelling for 13 months through 33 countries I guess there was much to check! 
As soon as we cleared we headed up the Motorway to our appointed with the BBC to go out live on Nationwide TV.

Unfortunately a wheel bearing failed on one of the cars

so I had to change it on the hard shoulder of the M2 trying to keep my only best set of clothes clean. I think this was the only time we used any of the spare parts we carried in the cars. Looking now at this photo just imagine how busy this road is today and how old fashion the cars and trucks look.

We made it just in time, they drained the fuel from the cars and they were taken by lift to the Studio.

We were interviewed by Hugh Scully and then local BBC taking to a blank screen which was a bit disconcerting; I need to apologise to Mary here, as when asked what I was l looking forward to most, I copied Tony, and said a pint in the pub, when of course it was getting back to Mary and my family, to be honest all we wanted to do was get back home so as soon as they cars were out, we drive straight back to Cornwall. 

So after 13 months, 33 countries and over 50000 miles we managed to get both cars and ourselves safely back, a life changing experience that will live with me forever.

I hope you have enjoyed reading these blogs as much as I have re-living them.
I have to thank one of my customers for 'badgering' me to write this for the parish magazine.The trip was 33 years ago but I have written this entirely from memory prompted only by place names on the map. I kept a diary, so when I have time, I might read it again and fill in the gaps.

We raised about £200,000 for the Stop Polio Campaign and although these blogs have been about my experiences the reason we took the cars around the World was to raise awareness of Polio. 

Unfortunately it is still a major but preventable disease today.

The Mini's Back 

(to pinch and advertising slogan used in South Africa by British Leyland)

Mini World Adventure Part 11

 We arrived at the Indian border in the early evening too late to cross (it closes at sunset and opens again at sunrise) and watched the closing of the border. Is a real ceremony with crowds filling stands each side,shouting and jeering at each other.It was very tense, I felt if someone had fired a toy pistol, war could have broken out. Both sides have the tallest possible soldier and go through a gate closing, when the gates are slammed shut and the flags lowered, whilst the soldiers goose step like some kind of Monty Python sketch!

The same happened the next morning and as soon as it was complete we crossed into Pakistan and headed for Lahore airport to send our film back to the UK. I am still not sure if it ever made it as we asked a stranger to take it, I’m not sure I would do the same. 

It was about 1000 miles across Pakistan and the closer we got to Iran the more nervous we got.They have a very strange way of driving at night, when they see a vehicle coming towards them, they turn out the headlamps, this is very unnerving, when they are almost upon you they turn them on full, almost blinding you, I am still unsure why they do this but it certainly put us off driving at night. 
The road to up Quetta was not too bad, apart from when a truck breaks down, and they do quite often they leave them in the road like mobile roundabout, so you have the spectacle of gearboxes and rear axles being remove as you drive around them. 

So we used the same tactic as you can see above.

The trucks are fantastic; almost all old Bedford’s that have been to use a modern word ‘Pimped’ with polished chrome multitudes of coloured lights and paintings, it must decrease the load they are able to carry considerably. Some of the paintings are fantastic either, fantasy landscapes or pictures of the President in full military uniform,some are on the rear of fuel tankers,(who very interestingly were taking fuel to Iran as the war was affecting supplies) and normal freight trucks, one thing I always found amusing was that the area of these freight trucks consisted of several boards that slotted into the side panels,
even though they had a picture they were still numbers so as the Presidents hat wasn’t where his medals should be?

As we approached the border we had an unexpected shock,

sand had been blown across the roads and we became stuck in several of these drifts, memories of the Sahara came flooding back. 

The towns and villages here consisted of streets with open shop front down each side, as well as the normal bakers, food shops, car parts many were selling guns for the Taliban rebels who at the time were fighting the Russians. It felt a dangerous place to be with many Afghans wearing their Salwar Kameez (long dress-like) with a Lungee (turban)

The road eventually ran out and it was dirt track for the final 50 or so miles until we reached the border.

We were very used to Border crossings by now, Iran was our 20th country, and knew the technique, ensure you have absolutely every possible piece of paperwork to hand, never get impatient, be prepared to have to ‘pay’ or have ‘gifts’ (usually cigarettes but none of us smoked), look like you have all the time in the world and don’t take any photos. 
Well we knew we had an issue, our health certificates for various diseases were out of date and we did not like the idea of having injections in India or Pakistan, so we went to the bank to change our money into Iranian and whilst one of us kept the chap busy ‘borrowed’ a date stamp and forged the paperwork. We crossed out of Pakistan but Iran would not make it easy, you have to remember they were at war and we were three westerners driving two brightly coloured cars with what looked like ‘Stop Police’ (in fact it was STOP POLIO) written down the side. They noticed our forgery straight away, but after a couple of packets of fags eventually let us in.

We were met by a very strange sight, an old coach being loaded with sheep,

when the inside was full they were pushing them into place where the cases are normally kept! 
So we drove off down the dirt road only to be confronted by trucks coming straight at us, no one had told us they drive on the right hand side of the road! 
For some reason we stopped on a desert stretch of road and out of nowhere an elderly gentleman turned up, (I cannot remember how he told us as we didn’t speak Iranian and I don’t think he spoke English) but he said he had a headache,

so we gave him some aspirins telling him to take two now and two tonight, as we drove off I looked in the mirror and saw him push all the tablets in at once. 
Finding food here was very difficult, our staple diet was the unleavened bread the Taftan or Lav-ash and a jar of marmite we still had in our supplies.

In the towns and cities there were lots of flags and posters of the Ayatollah Ali Khomeini and soldiers with machine guns. 

Above we are driving up the main street in Tehran and it surprised me to see snow in the distance

Mini World Adventure Part 10

We eventually caught the boat to Madras India; it was more like a ferry and must have carried 1000 or so passengers. There were several classes of travel, as westerners we were only permitted in first class but we were able to go anywhere on the ship and the conditions in the lowest class were cramped to say the least. No canteen for them, they either had prepared or cooked for themselves and some of the smells were enough to make your mouth water. 5 Days on the boat allowed us to clean all our clothes, repair any and generally catch up with ‘housework’.

Arriving in Madras was a culture shock. 

The first problem we encountered was with the dockers, they would not unload the cars with a Baksheesh (Bribe), we refused to pay and at one point, Peter the cameraman, climbed the ladder to the crane and tried to persuade the operator to unload the cars. In the end sense prevailed, We paid!  

The other thing that struck me was the locals understanding of personal space, they see nothing wrong in crowding in so close you are almost touching, it may be a British trait but I found it alarming. As you can see from the picture below, the exhaust came loose and we found a quiet spot to repair it and within minutes I thought it gone dark only to find a large crowd around me.

As a matter of interest the further north we travelled the less it happened. 

It took us a couple of days to get organised and as it was a 'dry state' we had to get permission to buy beer, as this was India a lengthy process was involved. Firstly we had to take our passports to the correct person prove we were tourists, there were three officials alone to check this,after moving our way through a very busy office collecting signatures for different pieces of paper that moved us to the next level we eventually got our 'chit' signed which allowed us 8 units of alcohol, we must have kept at least 50 people employed that morning just to get the correct form and certainly needed a drink after it all!! It did make the beer taste extra special.

We were invited by one of our sponsors to the India Club for a drink. It was a typical colonial style country house with pillars outside and all the staff in white.I had a coke and made the cardinal sin of having ice thinking it was a posh place it would be fine. Within a couple of hours I was feeling unwell and for 3 days very poorly, I lost a stone in weight and learnt a hard lesson.
We were staying in a beachside bungalow just south of Madras, whilst we waited for permission to enter Pakistan, the beach's were totally deserted golden sand absolutely beautiful.
Driving in India is an experience, there appears to be no rules and in the towns and cities it requires full attention, with sacred cows, rickshaws (motorised, human and horse powered), tractors, horse and carts, taxi’s,buses with passengers hanging off all corners, trucks and pedestrians.

The road north west from Madras took us across some of the poorest, driest and hottest countryside we had experienced. Eating here was difficult and we had to resort to what we had been carrying, I can remember one memorable night having baked beans and fried kidney mixed together, not sure if was because we were so hungry but it was awesome! We occasionally ate at local establishments but had to be so careful that no salad or food that had been washed in water and not fully cooked.

On route we stopped at Agra and saw the Taj Mahal and continued towards Delhi. What an amazing city Delhi is, the Red Fort, white painted kerb stones, tree lined parks next to the road; the British influence is everywhere, just a bit faded. To begin with we stayed in a campsite right in the centre of the city with lots of backpackers but after a couple of days Save the Children fund allowed us to stay at the house of the Director and rather than stay in the stuffy rooms, we hung our hammocks on the roof which gave us a cooler night’s sleep and great views of the city. The house had a cook from Nepal so the quality of food was much improved.

Opposite the house was a large walled garden with a very large residence, lots of coming and going was happening on one particular day; a large marquee was erected for a wedding with several very large Air Conditioning units, these were to cool the air outside!! Outside of the house there were beggars, people sleeping under cardboard, holy cows the difference between the rich and the poor was incredible and difficult to take in. 

We filmed some Save the Children Projects on the building sites,

working with families who were enticed to the city with a promise of work, they had borrowed the money to pay for the journey and were then at the mercy of loan sharks,living in hovels literally 3 metre square built from broken bricks.The hovel below had a white mark around the yard to signify a death, they had lost a child 

and the little girl below had the same symptoms.

The woman carried the bricks to men building the houses meaning the children were left running around the building sites.Save the Children fund were ensuring these children had an education, had one good meal a day and were kept safe and we filmed this fantastic project. 

The next part of our planned route wa pretty volatile,Pakistan and India were 'sabre' rattling and further on Iran was at war with Iraq. This meant we needed special permission to drive through the region and this being India was taking quite some time. I must admit I found the locals from Delhi comparatively more relaxed than their southern countrymen,maybe they were used to seeing westerners or the milder climate had something to do with it. 

In the end we decided to leave with partial permission, I think Tony and I just wanted to get back home, we had been away a year at this point and living together for that length of time was beginning to tell! So we packed and headed North West for the border. We stopped off at the Golden Temple Amritsar, the Sikh holy place built in the 16th century, on route to Pakistan and a country at war Iran.