4th November 2010 – 412 miles

Words (or pictures) cannot describe the scenic route through the mountains we had taken today.

Thankfully, the weather held up and whilst it felt chilly, the roads were not icy.

I’ve posted some photos of our trusty steed today as I’m sure you’re sick of seeing the three of us enjoying ourselves!

The car has presented no problems whatsoever.  Shihab has owned this vehicle for the past 18 months or so and it has never let him down.  The Landy underwent a major overhaul prior to our overland and we are carrying most serviceable parts just in case. 

The only issue is that the rear brakes are squeeling despite them working perfectly.  The car has just had replacement pads, calipers and front discs so the only thing it can be are the rear discs (although the garage did not deem it necessary to change them!).  We’re hoping that it will sort itself out once the brakes are bed in.

I regret to inform you that we have been scammed yet again:

SCAM ALERT – in Turkey petrol is not self service.  You tell the attendant what / how much you want and you pay them.  In theory, you would think that this is quite a straightforward transaction.  However, the attendants, given half a chance, will use the premium grade equivalents of what you asked for – hence you end up paying more for less! We’ll be more vigilant from this point forward.

On the bright side, we have not received any parking / speeding tickets nor have we had to pay any bribes nor worse still we have not got arrested (yet)!

We’re going out now in search of some Euros as Iran do not accept credit cards and it’s impossible to withdraw money from a bank / ATM out there.  The Dollar is out of favour as the defacto hard currency in Iran so the Euro is King!

Whilst out, we’ll get a quick bite to eat.  On this subject, we’ve ran out of Pot Noodle, Ko Noodles and Shin Cup.  I’m not sure what we’re now going to eat for our rest breaks …