Far Flung Places

It is easy to lose things. I have lost count of the number of decent pairs of sunglasses I have lost in my travels around the world. Yet to lose an arch, and not just any arch, but the largest arch in the world, which could easily fit the Empire State Building in New York into it with room to spare, well that seems to be a whole new level of carelessness.

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US Dollars. The greenback is useful in so many places in the world, not just of course the USA, and proved to be the means for my escape from Sost at the Pakistan end of the Karokaram Highway. I had been stuck at this frontier town due to a tit-for-tat dispute between the countries which had led to the international border being closed for nine days.

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The Karakoram Highway, connecting Pakistan to China, regularly makes it into the top 10 most dangerous roads in the world, alongside the Kolyma Highway, or ‘Road of Bones’, in Russia and the Yungas track, the ‘Death Road’ in Bolivia.

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When you think of Pakistan, many images come to mind. Cricket, curries, crowded streets, maybe the capture of Osama Bin Laden. Castles tend not to not figure that prominently.

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A mammoth project, and a result of spending two years living and travelling around the islands, and involving help from the Vanuatu Tourist Office, many locals living on the main and more remote islands, and Air Vanuatu (working there gave us access to cheap airfares which were a huge help in getting to the more remote islands!).

324 pages with maps, photos and detailed listings on accommodation, food and drink, and things to see, not just for the main islands of Efate, Santo and Tanna, but also for the more remote islands including Ambrym, Malekula, Pentecost, Epi, the Banks and Torres, and much more.

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From the moment you set foot on the Air Vanuatu plane to Port Vila you start to taste the great kaikai (Bislama for food) that Vanuatu offers. Unless you are in Business Class that is (the upmarket menu is full of expensive Scallops, Barramundi and other delights, usually sourced from New Zealand).

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I had seen the ancient Roman temples of Baalbek in an old BBC documentary and have had it on my travel list for many years. Now seemed a good time to visit, I was in the region and the recent fighting close by in Syria, which had sent rockets crashing into the town, and incursions over the border, had quietened down considerably.

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The distant crackling woke me up. I was having a nap in the car to overcome the effects of the lack of sleep on the overnight flight on Middle Eastern Airlines to Beirut from Heathrow.

I got out to stretch my legs, and then I heard it again, but this time it was louder and more concentrated. Distant, but unmistakable, there was a fairly major gun battle raging beyond the Syrian hills behind me.

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When I first said I was going to Iran some friends were horrified. Not only was it seen as being extremely dangerous (being situated next to both Iraq AND Afghanistan), surely you would have no freedom, and you could not drink alcohol and would have to dress modestly. Why would I want to go there?

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Yazd, a city right in the middle of two Iran's harshest deserts, the Dasht-e Kavir and the Kavir-e Lut. This isolation has led to it avoiding many of the wars and battles which destroyed many of Iran's other cities and has left a beautifully preserved ancient city. Genghis Khan never made it here, but Marco Polo did and he wrote extensively about it. I found it a great place to visit, ideal for walking and exploring, and it is the home of the best Baklava in Iran.

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Evening prayer at the Jameh Mosque

Isfahan, also spelt Esfahan, is one of the great cities of the world. Once the capital of Persia, it was compared to Rome and Athens by the writer Robert Byron in the classic Silk Road travelogue 'The Road to Oxiana'. Today it is in the news for having the site of Iran's nuclear research facility nearby, and causing the resulting global sanctions against the country (which are now being lifted), but is really should be known for its stunning treasures.

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