I received a friendly welcome from the Iranian border guards and was directed towards immigration and customs. They took my paperwork and told me to sit and wait. 2 hours later I was free to go. Well, free to go with an escort. They weren’t over just yet. Baluchistan is a troublesome area in the region and it runs across both Pakistan and Iran. I wasn’t going to escape my escorts until somewhere after Bam. I hoped that I would...

Right from the beginning of my adventure Pakistan always loomed as the trickiest country I would have to cross. While I was going to Afghanistan it was only to a small, relatively safe area. In Pakistan I would have to cross the whole country and pass through Baluchistan in particular. Before I left London it seemed like Pakistan was in the news every week for some act of terrorist or form of tribal conflict. As a result the news always...

Armed with my Iranian visa I set off for the border. Seven smooth days with no problems, then I’d be out of the region’s trouble spots and safely in Iran enjoying the famed hospitality I’d heard so much about. My first stop on the tour of Southern Pakistan was the city of Bahawalpur. Mansoor’s mate Ahmed had offered me a spare bed which I was only to happy to accept. As I got closer to Baluchistan and safety...

The drive to Purnia went so smoothly I was there by lunchtime. By smoothly it was the standard chaos but with only one overturned truck in the middle of the highway to dodge. Having reach my planned destination for the day I decided to have a crack at making Patna by nightfall. It was turned out to be the biggest risk I’d taken on the journey to date. As the roads clogged up it became obvious I wasn’t going to make it before...

The morning after the accident was a slow start. Nobody was sure what to expect. None of us had ever been in this situation before. Still there were things to do. I needed to fixed Boris’ right rear spring. I’d been driving on it for over 1000km, and a solution need to be found before I disabled my car even further. So while the bikers looked after the situation with David, Fun, V, K and I went to visit the local spring...

I had strong suspicions that my entry back into Tajikistan wasn’t going to be straight forward. I was wrong. It was too easy. The guards who I had met at length only a week before, had forgotten me. It wasn’t like I was the only tourist entering Afghanistan with his own car at this time of year. Oh wait, that’s right I was. The problem was that, they were not able to give me any of the paperwork that I need to enter...