stranded in bandar abbas

manki

amir left. his 6 o'clock flight took him back to Tehran. We will probably continue to zahedan tomorrow coz no asshole in the bus station said that today is a huge national holiday. no one said tht it is extremely important to the balochis, and no bus is heading to balochistan today.

fuck. no alcohol. no weed. only some cigars, few cans of Baltika 0 and Titanic on TV.
Happy fuckin' new year to all party people!!!

Iran still kicks ass, and I am still the dude...

Bandar Abbas/Iran

Warm weather at last!!! It is +25 quite constantly during the day and a nice breeze of cool wind during the evenings.

Bandar Abbas is not a spectacular place but it has it's pros- during a clear day, it is possible to see the mountains of Oman situated at the other side of the persian gulf.
20 km away from the city there's an Island called Quesm and it is possible to get there by a continous speedboat service. Cost- 1200 rials. And it is great fun to sit on a speedboat and go really really really fast!!!!!
Also, it is possible to get illegally to Dubai for a tiny price. There's a lot of smuggling between Dubai and Queshm, so u just pay some smugglers some money and they put u down somewhere in UAE. Takes only 45 minutes to get thereby a speedboat.

First trouble with police during the trip- we got arrested coz Joss was wearing a shirt with no sleeves. Just for an half an hour but was fun.

We will celebrate new year on the bus (probably with a few non-alcoholic Baltika 0's, and it is un fucking believable that its comercially available here in Iran) which takes us to the border of Pakistan. We leave 6PM on sunday towards the city of Zahedan, and meet a swedish dude there. He was looking for travelmates trough lonelyplanet thorntree websit to cross the border and we replied.
www.rekan.se

still in Tehran

tu

week in Tehran

i came to find the summer in asia, but instead
theres more snow here than in europe

Finally, after several days of struggle and countless visits to the embassy of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, we walked out of it, with visas in our passports. Not cheap (760 000 rials+15 USD for the reccomendation letter, made by the embassy of Sweden) but yet another triumph over the cogwheels of bureaucracy, weird unnecessary laws and cocky embassy staff put a smile on my face.

Now, during the nearest few days, we try to leave Teheran. It is cold here, and me and Joss are still a bit sick, so we wanna go to the seaside, south Iran, city of Bandar Abbas. Current temperature there- +30. We will be accompanied by Amir, our host in Tehran. I got in touch with him trough mr. Piros of Magyaristan, and I am extremely grateful. Amirs family treats us like we would be their own family. Very, extremely pleasant people.

But Amir himself is a crazy fuck with a twisted sense of humour- exactly my kinda dude. We've been chilling in his house, visiting markets, hanging in the city and just having fun, talking all kinds of shit.

Hope we get some traintickets tomorrow. Good news is that public transport is cheap in this country- it is 1300 km to Bandar Abbas. 1st class tickets- 86 000 rials.

Tehran

Amir Hossein Banu Azizi

My children I love, but martyrdom I love more

dudes from the smoking cafe

Fuck. God dammit. Swedish bureaucracy. IN TEHRAN!!!!!!! I’m fuckin’ allergic to it.

So. To be able to proceed to the Islamic republic of Pakistan, we were forced to get help from the embassy of Sweden in Tehran. I went there, and they kindly agreed to help. First they triple checked the passport, tried to remove the signatures (which are printed) by rubbing paper against it and tried some other weird shit. First then they let me know that the recommendation letter will cost 15 USD. Fuckers. They basically just copied the letter written by the Estonian embassy dude in Tbilisi, put their own stamp on it and that was it. Fuck fuck fuck greedy bastards.

But ok, I got the letters and we will once again visit the embassy of Islamic Republic of Pakistan tomorrow.

Yerevan-Meghri-Tehran

Yerevan

In Yerevan, we were hosted by mr. Julius Belanoska from the hospitality club. He is a Lithuanian dude, living in Yerevan and doing some projects. We drank vana Tallinn, talked until late in the night and slept on his sofa. Thnx a lot Julius.

Tbilisi-Yerevan

So, after a week in Georgia, some trouble with the Iranian embassy and a lot of eating and drinking, we took off towards Yerevan. An 8 hour marshutka ride over the mountains and trough the canyons reminded me the trip to India 6 years ago. I had not seen the mountains since that and I felt immediately that I am getting closer. Closer to some warm place with mountains and a lot of fun, I had in the memory since the last trip to Asia.

a week in Tbilisi

tourist shit
but only a little bit

botanical gardens, Tbilisi

The week in Tbilisi was not easy to survive. Georgian people like to drink and eat a lot. And I mean A LOT. The drinking wasn’t a problem coz I like to drink a lot too, but the eating was. After waking up in the morning (I think it was for the first time in my life I woke because of an urgent need to go to the toilet and shit), they served a full three course meal (which of course was delicious, and I fuckin’ love hatsapuri and adzika) and I never got out of the house before I had poured down at least 4-5 shots of dzadza (nice Georgian vodka made of grapes). Walking on the streets wasn’t so easy- I was always stuffed with food and a bit drunk. Balance and coordination problems were usual during these days. And in the evening, we repeated the morning drill, only with larger amounts of tasty Georgian food and a lot of more dzadza.

In Georgia, I got sick as well. Throat problems, nausea and dizziness. Probably caused by the cold weather and lack of warm clothing. Local medicine- a lot of vodka. I liked the medicine a lot.

Nika is the coolest small dude I’ve ever met. Total chillmaster and a little hooligan. Our host family was tired of his pranks, so I and Joss considered to include him in our travel plans and taking him with us to India and Australia :)

Tbilisi & Georgian hospitality

The first thing I did after arriving in the railway station of Tbilisi was, to try contact Joss. He arrived the night before and we were supposed to meet to team up at last and continue the trip together. But the fucker did not want to show himself. I waited for a long time in the subway station nearby and after 2 hours he appeared, accompanied by a policeman. I immediately thought- damn, this dude is fast. Less than 12 hours in Tbilisi and already in trouble with the police. But the policemen in this town turned out to be extremely nice and they were just trying to help Joss to find the way.

So, we went to the house of my fathers friend- Ruben. My dad used to make cognac business with Ruben during the eighties and is considered to be a member of Rubens family. And so was I. The people greeted me in a way they greet only family members.

And then we started eating and drinking.

and then we drank some more

and ofcourse
we were offered some more

Odessa-Kiev-Tbilisi

In the airport in Kiev, I met a German soldier. He said that he is working at the border of Abkhazia and Georgia as an UN observator. He was a cool dude. He knows how to drive a tank and how to fly helicopters and stuff. We had a nice conversation about formation flight with old Sikorskys and the political situation in Abkhazia. He also gave me a ride to the city from the Tbilisi airport. Thanks a lot man!!!!!

Kiyv post. 04.12.2006

Go Supermarat!!!!!

Odesa

I decided to take the plane- Odesa-Kiev-Tbilisi because the boat company that was supposed to bring me from Odessa to Poti in Georgia, was weird. The manager I met, did not know himself, when exactly the boat was leaving. So, to be able to stay three more days in Odesa and chill with Tolik instead of sitting on the boat, doing nothing, I chose to break my goal to travel from Estonia to India without flying. And it was totally definitely worth it.

rõõnok power

babuska in chillout zone

Marissa, Ira, Tolik

sanatorium



toliks datsha

arkadi

An extremely nice chillout week in Odessa with Tolik and Ira. Some drinking, a lot of salo and kukuruznõje palotski. Many many new good people and 2 hooligan cats. For several nights, we stayed up late with Tolik and just talked. About stuff. Was cool. Because he is me and I am him. It felt really really bad to leave.