Going to any war cemetery can be a depressing experience. There are always huge numbers of graves of young men who never got to experience life much beyond their childhood. The Behest-e Zara war cemetery on Tehran's southernmost city limits is no exception.

The storming of the USA Embassy on the 4th November 1979 remains a pivotal memory for Americans and, along with the ongoing hostage crisis, led to a distrust of Iran which continues to the present day. For the Iranians, the 'Conquest of the American Spy Den', was equally an important part of their revolutionary history. The CIA had meddled in Iran's affairs before, and there were fears that they would do so again to try an overthrow the newly installed revolutionary government.

Baku is an oil city. The black gold has turned what was once a small sleepy port into a modern city vying with Dubai for excess in modern architecture. The hotel prices are crazy, and accompanied with an archaic visa system (now slowly changing), there is little encouragement for tourists to visit. Yet Baku is well worth the effort, and expense, to visit and explore.

A mountain that is continually on fire near Baku, Azerbaijan? That sounds a bit like the 'Gate to Hell' at Darvaza in Turkmenistan, one of the most amazing sites I have experienced. I set off to see how one of the major attractions in the country compared with that of its near neighbour.