UK to Mongolia. You Call These Roads?

It has been five years since a journey of six weeks, driving from London to Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia, engulfed our lives. We called ourselves, 'team: one steppe beyond,' which was fitting, since we left London with only one CD of the same name by the group Madness. Great album, but how many times can you mosh with four burly men and skinning Nick in a van with minimum head room and a giant beer fridge.

I met Nick in Africa on another overland trip to Gambia, West Africa. We became good buds, So our banter can take a lot of whipping. His thing was that he loved doing paper work, so there was no hesitation needed when it came to delegating jobs whilst organising that section of the expedition and I assure you, there was no argument from me.

As soon as we pulled up to a border crossing, somewhere next to nowhere, Nick would frantically gather passports, papers and all documents he thought would get us to the other side. He was also our own personal trigger happy photographer, who once took so many photos in a single burst, Matt, who was driving at the time, thought we were being shot at.

If you can imagine a shrunken down big foot with werewolf feet and glasses you're probably not to far away from Matt. He's the team hippy with absolutely zero organisation skills. He left us on three occasions because of his visas and under planning of time, but he made us laugh and was dam good at chess.

So, Madness through the speakers and engine on we started to roll. Our first port of call was a closed hostel, hay, start as we mean to.

Over the next five days, getting through Europe was straight forward, strong fast roads, and plenty to do and of course see. From one of my favourite cities Luxembourg, the capital of the tiny country Luxembourg, which is nestled between Belgium, France and Germany, to Buzludzha a historic peak resting in the Balkan mountains in Bulgaria, in which stands the Buzludzha monument, built by the Bulgarian communist regime to commemorate events that happened in 1891.

Interestingly Luxembourg's inhabitants speak German, French and Luxembourgish, not the most common of languages, but what can you do. Their national motto, Mir wëlle bleiwe, war mir sin, means "we want to remain what we are," and that includes speaking Luxembourgish, so there.

The drive through Romania or "Ramanus" in Latin, meaning "Citizens of the Roman Empire," was really lightened by the Transfagarasan highway. Made famous on a Top Gear special when Hammond, Clarkson, and May took the rights cars. A Ferrari, Lamborghini, and an Aston Martin. Well, we thought, bugger that, we'll do it in a van. Wow, what a road, we took the right van, even if we did catch the breaks on fire.

Romania isn't just famous for Transylvania and blood thirsty vampires, it also as lots of other stuff going for it, such as Parliament palace in Bucharest, which is the second largest building in the world, next to the Pentagon.

However, with just a small detour you can visit Bran castle, a picturesque monument once owned by Queen Marie of Romania. Vlad III Dracul, better known as Vlad the impaler "Vlad Tepes" was said to have been imprisoned there for a short while, but there are no proven records of this and that is the only link between Vlad and the castle. It is however a fitting monument to the Dracular Character, as it certainly looks the part.

Just a few hundred yards away from the castle is the vampire camp ground and some excellent restaurants with plenty to get your teeth stuck in.

Deciding to add another country to our hit list, we thought entering Turkey via Greece would be a good idea and it was, providing you hadn't forgot to get a green card for your van. It's to show you have minimum insurance for your vehicle, but we didn't have one. If we did, it would have saved us a bucket of money and enough time to roast a chicken.

Where two Continents Collide

Istanbul is almost certainly worth experiencing at least once in your life. Vast, over crowding and heat are no deterrent to stop you trying to do everything there is to do in this amazing city.

Turkey, itself, is relatively a large country with huge amount to explore. When time is limited, stick to your set plan, as to really see just the incredible history, and natural wonders of the place is enough to take up a year of your life.

The one place that was certainly on our route was Cappadocia. The fairy chimneys shaped by the wind and human inhabitant since the bronze age have certainly left their mark in a remarkable way here. Sculpted out from the rock are the numerous churches, with amazing frescoes and underground cities that are much more comfortable to live in than the seering heat outside.

It maybe cliche, however it is one place I do the touristy thing and take a balloon ride over the spectacular moon-like landscape, and even watching the multitude of balloons all in the sky at the same time is quite impressive. This is coming from someone who sees himself as an explorer and an experienced overlander, who does things at his own pace. The balloon ride is half a day and so worth it. Cappadocia is vast and gives you so much freedom to stop anywhere and explore.

Way out east

If you want your car bitumined, the melted tar roads leading to lake Van will help to prevent stone chips and rust ageing your car for decades to come. It was whilst driving through rivers of wet tar, Aaron (the nicest man on earth) told us of a place where ancient kings were buried and that was built for the gods. Most fascinatingly it was only a centimetre away on the map, so we went for it.

Mount Nemrut, indeed it was incredible, but so was the drive up. Resembling the Transfagarasan highway, only Higher, steeper, more sheer drops, more bends, no barriers and covered in gravel, we went for it.

On the many times four of us got out to push the lighten load up the hill, the one where the side door fell off, sticks in my mind. However, it made for a breezier lighter vehicle, until we collected it on the way down, which was in short terms, terrifying.

The monument was truly interesting. The burial ground of King Antiochus I. Whose tomb is said to be buried under 50 metres of stones and watched over by five giant statues. There is a lot of history here and makes for a good read.

Aaron (the nicest man in the world) never seemed to be fazed by anything. If something didn't go his way he would give a quick shake of the head and move on to the next thing. Also has a great knack of finding weird shit.

After collecting Matt from an airport, a swim in lake Van, and being treated like rock stars with the northern Kurdish (Turkish Kurdish) people of the area, we where heading north to yet another Volcano. This one however was sacred.

Mount Ararat the landing spot of Noah's ark. The old caretaker at the site claimed to me that he found a piece of the anchor. After nodding my head 'til my neck was sore, I didn't have the heart to tell him of the other 500 or so flood myths, I took some pictures of an outline of the so called ark laying at the bottom of a slope and left.

Friendliest people I've ever met

Entering Iran didn't start off well. The border patrol was vigorous with us. Getting a Carnet de passage just for Iran at a cost of £1,600 felt to us as a waste of needed funds. Already pushing our luck by smuggling in a bottle of JD, two bottles of whisky, and a smallish bottle of vodka, for medicinal purposes, we though we'd use our strengths and play our trump card, "The Ignorant foreigner," rarely fails and nothing ventured, nothing gain.

Instead of the expensive Carnet, which is basically the vehicles passport, I arranged a fixer to meet us at the border. It mean't we would need a guide but we were free to travel through Iran.

We were travelling through Iran during Ramadan, it was late and we found a hotel. I believe that you could haggle for anything here and they would probably let you win. But why haggle, nothing cost more here than the average packet of cigarettes back home, including a full tank of fuel.

The pavements were full of house wives and their daughters sitting on picnic blankets surrounded by food. We were attempting to find a place to eat, but we were never going to get that far. The generosity from the locals was overwhelming. We were invited to sit and eat on numerous occasions, as they wanted to know about us and our way of life, even Nick.

Not accustomed to foreigners from the west, they were intrigued into what would make us drive through their country. I explained, it was for the alcohol and women, I am so glad, they seemed to be accustomed to the British sense of humour.

Our time in Iran seemed to be spent having our photos taken with locals, invites to homes and being made to feel like pharaohs. I say it again. The friendliest people I have ever met.

Reza. The worst guide in the world.

We got lost more times than a one armed man trying to swim an ocean. How then did we become such good friends. Maybe it was because of his electric sense of humour, no that couldn't have been it. How about his adaptability and problem solving skills. No, not that either. What I think it was is that we were pretty certain that our guide was really, Norman Wisdom.

END OF PART ONE