Silk road, sow's purse

I mentioned in the last post that I shot through Azerbaijan and most of Georgia, staying at the seaside city of Batumi. I thought I’d...

A transit visa gives me 5 days to enter and arrive at my designated exit point. I entered via Farap in the South East of Turkmenistan and...

Bandwidth has defeated me keeping the blog up to date. So I need to keep this shortish. I will fill in the gaps once I can connect...

The roads deteriorated as we progressed eastwards. They were generally stony/rocky and/or sandy. We were climbing higher too (well ok,...

I’m sorry about the delay in getting this report to you. The Pamirs are simply beautiful but simply extends to very poor internet...

No problems finding petrol for the journey thankfully. Uzbekistan is known for petrol shortages as it tries to push everyone to LPG,...

One non-Bukhara story first.... OK, it’s not a 9th century minaret or a piece of rather lovely honey cake. It was a very old Lada Riva...

Khiva was to be my first ‘tourist’ destination in Uzbekistan. It’s a fairly uninspiring town on approach but then all roads focus on the...

I planned to continue North, then East to Konye-Urgench and to exit Turkmenistan and enter Uzbekistan on the same day. I needed to be in...

A loose translation(from farsi) of the name of Turkmenistan’s capital city is ‘the City of Love’. As a tourist, even a transiting one,...

I was extremely tired after my escapade across the Caspian, due to lack of sleep and maybe a bit of heat exhaustion. I should have headed...

I realised at the end of the first day that I’m not really built for delays, waiting and the essence of mañana. I realised at the end of...

I’m in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan. I have written a detailed report of my trip over, which I will post as soon as I can. For some reason, my...

I had the late afternoon and evening to explore Tbilisi. I could have stayed another day there and seen more but the car was parked in...

There is no definitive view of when Europe ends and Asia begins. Some bodies say it is the crossing of the Bosphorus (Istanbul). Others...

We had a drive of about 4 hours to a city called Sivas. This is a fairly non-descript sort of place – about the size of and with maybe...

The early part of the drive from Lake Egirdir gave us spectacular scenery and some steep climbs. Despite the temperatures, there were...

After a long drive to Pumakkale, we took a shortish 3 hour run to Lake Egirdir. It is vast, covering some 480 sq. kms and is set just...

It was a long drive of just under 6 hours from Istanbul to Pumakkale. Around 2 million people visit here each year. It’s unique. Thermal...

Burhan Sönmez ................................. More prosaically, Istanbul is fascinating, utterly bonkers, a bit smelly, noisy, hot and...

Well, it wasn’t any snoring which interrupted sleep but dogs barking, cats fighting and motor scooters roaring about certainly did. We...

Another 525kms added to the clock today. A fairly easy drive through Croatia and into Serbia. We’re now at its southernmost point, just...

I picked up Keith at Marco Polo airport. I managed to miss him as he arrived through the (two) arrivals exits, despite watching out like...

I must just gush a bit about the place I stayed at yesterday. It’s an agriturismo – a farm based B&B. The rooms were modest and simple...

I was planning to go straight to Venice but chickened out at the first opportunity. This of course is a dreadful lack of commitment to...

- Abraham Lincoln So, key to a successful trip is preparation, apparently. This particular blog is dedicated to inveterate, preppers and...

It seemed sensible to think about what vehicle to take. Part of me wanted to go for the grand luxe option of a massive Discovery or Land...

I'm not sure when the idea of a long road trip occurred to me. I'm hardly short of things to do and desperate for some new stimulation. ...

The first leg of the trip starts at Toulouse. From there, we head East, through the Cote d'Azur into Italy then into Croatia, then...