We hear two antiquities call …. from 1000 kilometres away! We answer. And it’s up and over the Zagros Mountains we go. It’s a knotty spine of a mountain that halves Iran into a west and an east. Both these antiquities hang around a village called Shushtar. One is a set of ancient watermills from the 3rd century A.D. The other is a huge ziggurat from the 13th century B.C. We arrive in Shushtar and it is severely hot! All we do, is [...]

Yazd is a Puzzle. She sits dead centre in Iran. A city of a half a million people, inhabited for 7000 years. But in a desert, with not a river in sight! Why! Why? Why, here in the glaring white of a desert? Why not, faraway there, along the green and blue hues of a river! A Puzzle! But as the desert dust settles, she bares herself. Unhurriedly! One piece at a time falls, each simple and elegant. Her four pieces fit flawlessly; [...]

Armenia may be a little country. But it is really BIG on grit! It stretches like a tadpole from north to south. Not a friend, or an ocean, in sight. Neighbours double down to douse, snuff out, smother and choke it. It’s a marvel Armenia is still on the world map. Just take at look! Its two long borders with Turkey and Azerbaijan totally closed. Today, its border with Turkey is closed! Its border with Azerbaijan is closed. This blockade of [...]

Footprints criss-cross a country. “We bear witness to history”! Large and small, old and new, they are. This way and that, over and under each other, they go. Some stroll, some march, some stagger, some stomp. It always bewilders. But in Armenia, two sets of bold footprints claim us! One set belongs to Christianity and the other to Communism. Steadfast and stubborn, these footprints zigzag Armenia, still today. Imagine Armenia is the world’s first country to declare CHRISTIANITY its official religion. Way back [...]

We drop our roll-bags, expansion bags, tank-bags, helmets and jackets with heavy sighs. We are eager for three days and three nights of no-where and nothing, in a cabin on a ferry from Burgas, Bulgaria to Batumi, Georgia. Then, a dog barks! And our hearts leap. Oh, we miss our Potter and Oscar. We crave the company of dogs. On the deck we soon meet Ruth and Homer …. And another, Pluto! What a joy. We chat and pat eagerly. Ruth’s tale crawls [...]

Here is a last little collection of photos from Romania .... Romania has many little villages ... ... and it is a pleasure riding through them ... spot the stork ... ... it is a long winter and we wonder if she thinks she has arrived too early ... we are told some of them have to be rescued as it is still very cold. There are plenty of spots to stop and picnic. [...]

Gypsies are Roma. But Roma are not from Romania. Roma or Gypsies leave north India in the early Middle Ages. They travel and settle throughout Europe. Here they adapt, and adopt local religions and languages. Gypsies are Europe’s largest minority group with 11 million people. They endure centuries of discrimination. It culminates in WW2 when Hitler tries to exterminate them. The EU estimates 34% are unemployed, 20% have no health insurance and 80% live below the poverty line. Today, Europe’s far-right parties again [...]

Transylvania evokes medieval villages, Saxon castles and Dracula!! Yes, it’s the mid 1200s and the world’s empires race to claim land. Present day Germany craves the land to its east; Transylvania. It’s magnificent, in the heart of Romania. Grand Carpathian Mountains shield a fertile valley on all sides. The peasants there are mild. And a call to Saxon craftsmen to colonise Transylvania rings loud. The promise by Teutonic Knights to guard this Christian mission heartens. So blacksmiths, carpenters, traders, farmers and their families [...]

  ! Middle Earth ! How did we miss it! Our first trip skirts around it. Our second goes under then over it. And our third slips away. How curious? We are. How curious! Middle Earth is. Turns out. Everything clatters here, in the Middle. First - Vikings, Saxons, Slavs, Romans, Arabs, Turks and Persians. Then the empires - Greek, Hapsburg, Ottoman and Russian. Now the super-powers - Europe, Russia, the US and Arab world. Strong-arm here, right in the Middle. ! Middle [...]