Steven Raucher's World Tour

2000-11-26 in Bam, Iran
Banged up in Bam near the border

The next day we headed for Bam, 750kms away

We landed up on the most stunning mountain pass with the road hewn straight out of purple and green rock! The final leg of this pass descended about a kilometer over ten kilometers of tarmac and landed up smack bang in an oasis. Palm trees, dates and oranges as far as the eye could see. Another hour and we were in Bam. Which is also an oasis town and very beautiful. We spent the night at Ali Amir�s Legal Guest House and had dinner with several other travelers at Ali�s mothers house. After a night of Robert hustling backgammon with Laurent and Tugdual and me doing my best to placate the gamblers, we got of bit of kip and decided to go see the old fort/citadel the following morning. After two hours at the fort we were thoroughly bored and suffering from tarmac withdrawal symptoms. We headed straight for Zahedan near the Iranian border with Pakistan. Alas, we were stopped at a police roadblock outside Bam and told to wait for a police escort, as the road was too dangerous. This was supposed to be a fifteen-minute wait but easily protracted into a 3-hour wait! Punctuality is not an Iranian police strongpoint. We returned to Ali Amir�s despondent and met some more interesting French travelers, Romain and Jean, who expertly helped me re-pack the camping (un-used!!) equipment. We inaugurated our mugs with a brew made on their camping stove and felt we had finally become backpackers. We left Bam at first light and had reached Zahedan by 10:30. The border crossing was nothing if not typical of our previous experience with uniformed Iranians, needless to say I kissed the ground upon arrival in Pakistan.

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on the road to bam...

we came, saw and conquered

and looked down too!

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