Our first week on the road… still in the comfort of private homes and company of friends. We arrived in NL on Wednesday morning to meet up with Mariska and spent some lovely time over apple pie of Dudok in The Hague followed by finding the Iranian embassy closed (although not mentioned on their website and having had the day organised around their opening time between 14h and 16h), then joining Marlies, Jaap and Teun at Van der Valk in Nootdorp. What a match NL-AUS we enjoyed while having dinner and chit chats! Overnight in Nijmegen at my parent’s place, where we emptied the whole car. My goodness what had we all taken for this journey!
We hadn’t had time to put the chest with car parts and tools on the roof rack, nor anything else, so all was inside of the car. We are planning to get it all up on the roof when leaving Paris next week Monday.
Unexpectedly we made a return journey on Thursday to the Iranian embassy in The Hague again, with waiting time of 2.5 hours! We met some lovely people, millener, mathematician, researcher of apps on the human psyche etc. who were all on their way to requesting their visas. Mine would be ready by Monday.
A flits good bye to my family while on our way to the wedding of Renske and Mark. A delightful day, happy, emotional ceremony and a lot of dancing at the party. Saturday a family reunion; brothers, sisters, cousins of my father and their children and children’s children. It was an exciting day of meeting new people who are family. With all our trips to The Hague, we are now very familiar with the A15, the A12 and the A4;). We had a wonderful stay with Vera and Ab, with goodbye wave to friends in Amsterdam, after which we continued our journey to Brussels where we are currently. The Grand-Place and Manneken Pis have received our visit so far, as well as Bonsoir Clara to celebrate Helle’s birthday together with Hanne.
Tonight we’ll check out a local milonga.
The last few weeks…
All right! You might have been wondering: “Where are they at?” To be honest with you, we were questioning ourselves what we were doing, in what order and how.
It has been a challenging last few weeks with getting the apartment empty and our things into storage. I would pack boxes in the evening after dinner and Saeed would take them, once enough were ready, to the basement where everything is being stored. Of course, before leaving he would wait at home in the mornings for the many deliveries of items we had ordered for our journey. Think of an air shower, jerry cans, a water jerry can, tarpolin, first aid items, travel guides, a roof rack (flat packed!), compressor, car parts, etc.
Our living room was in major chaos with boxes half full for storage, others packed and ready to go, bookshelves and corners of the room with things being put together to take on our travels. Ahhh and that in 18m2.
Dear friends invited us for dinner and drinks and unfortunately we were not able to accept due to the mountain which seemed endless to deal with. Allowing ourselves no rest, but making sure everything we wanted went to storage, the apartment was cleaned and the car was filled till the top, we finally head off for the ferry last Tuesday evening and made it in good time.
Our bodies started to release all the tension and suddenly we felt the incredible tiredness of short nights and very long days of the weeks before. Our journey had started!
“We must slow down to a human tempo and we’ll begin to have time to listen.” Thomas Merton
Routes and Itinerary
Ai, ai, ai, how challenging can we make it for ourselves! It turns out that fixing dates beforehand is not the most organic way to do a journey (of course not!), and while it would be great to have certain overnight stays organised before hand, we have so many options and routes to take, that for now, after having spoken to our dear Slovenian friends, we have decided that Porec may be left aside, Tango festival or not, and that other places may be more exciting to explore.
Talking to my dear Turkish friend in Belgium, we discovered that entering Turkey through the border with Greece will be an easier route than through the border with Bulgaria.
So, are there dates/places set? Yes, but only initially: the Netherlands and from there to Brussels. However, from Brussels, we can go south to Paris, or east to Prague. We’ll see.
We have a rough itinerary with countries. There are ‘musts’ on our list of places to visit, however corresponding dates will only be decided upon a few days in advance. Not 4.5 weeks before we leave the UK;)!
Kim…
And today was the first day we truly let go of… one of our dear Goldfish (Kim).
For the past four years, we have had two goldfish, Kim & Tim, as they were part of our first haft sin table in celebrations of Norouz. We have had many considerations what to do with our fish (take them with us on the roof rack?), who had become real pets to us: feeding, changing the water and enjoying them playing with the toys and making bubbles or moving the pebbles in the tank.
Two options remained: give them to the pet shop or give them their freedom and hope for the best.
As Kim was ill, we thought the pet shop would be ruthless and flush her through the toilet, so we decided to set her free in the brook not far from our home, the same brook in which we had thrown this year’s sabzi on sizdah bedar, after Norouz. It was a sad moment, emptying the bowl of water with fish into the brook. The moment we noticed however, how she had found her way and seemed totally happy in her new surroundings, was precious and made us feel more at ease with the decision to ‘drop’ her there. No big fish around, no birds either, so good chances on survival.
For Tim we had thought to take him to the pet shop, for sale, so other people might enjoy him, however, after having seen Kim so happy out in the open water, we are thinking of taking Tim there the coming week too.
I know, they are just a few fish, but we had grown accustomed to them and they were part of our life. And obviously we want the best for them. We our freedom, they theirs!
TLC checked
After quite some time, we got our car to the Toyota Landcruiser Specialist Julian, well known with Toyota Landcruiser fanatics. We had a lovely day out in Herefordshire, land of cider and hop, (from London you pass 6 (!) shires to get there), where the workshop is located on an old hop farm. While Martin was checking our vehicle, taking most nuts and bolts off, checking everything thoroughly and placing the nuts and bolts back, we had a conversation with Julian about our journey, receiving the necessary advice, as well as a tour in the hop ‘tower’; interesting piece of architecture.
It turned out that our Toyota Landcruiser is cut from the right cloth and no major concerns to go on the road. Yippeee!!!
Living The Change!
“35 years ago….., on a sunny Sunday morning, a simple journey that became this other life began, … and I wrote my destiny with all that either came my way or left with no lasting effect other than their faded memories.
The more I research the more exciting and anxious it all becomes. Now, in less than 8 weeks another exciting new journey will commence, I wonder how this one will write into my script!”, this is how I could best describe my feeling on my facebook page today.
Among amusing true facts/concepts: we now know who or what we are now being called. In the glob-trotting communities we are named “Over-landers”, and not Tourists or Travelers!!! “Over-landers” travel by own car or motorbikes – often on long journeys – living a near nomadic life, and visit many places that are not frequented by the so called tourists or just travelers. I can not help but feel amused , and somehow silly & special by this newly found identity and concept.
There are facts that are just as thought provoking however not in an amusing manner but more with a degree of concern. One of these is what I now understand to be “Stranded”. Being Stranded is when one might end up in a land between two official borders. From I understand there is a “no man’s land” between some countries’ borders where neither country has you marked in or out of their territory. In other words you are in a “no man’s land” of a few meters or some kilometers wide. Nothing applies or rules there! It is meant to be governed by International laws but no one is there to enforce it! Literally a twilight zone of being “No-Where!”
People may have exited one country but it is uncertain if they could enter the next.
We have been gathering as much needed information as we can to be never “Stranded” as “Over-Landers” in “No-man’s lands”. Papers, documents, copies and photocopies, international driving permits, visas’ requirements, vaccinations certifications, insurance papers, personal and car, banking details, addresses here, there, everywhere, and so much more and else that our heads hurt thinking about them.
Over-landers need a third passport! Seriously, this is not a joke , We need one for our car. There are these passport documents called “Carnet de Passage” which some countries require if you wish to travel in them using your vehicle over-land. Without these passports you may have visa and are free to enter but your car is not!
We discovered that the UK is one of the most expensive countries to get one of these passports for cars. No thanks to RAC! Monopoly of this document by only one motoring association has made the prices shoot up. Alternative to paying the RAC a few thousand pounds is to place a bond of between 5 to 8 times the value of one’s car at a bank for one year, this runs into many £10,000s sitting in a bank account as Security Bond so that we could have a car passport. Well, we are not that rich nor is the alternative a practical solution for us, so the RAC’s indemnity cover may be expensive, and we will lose some considerable sum by the time we get our deposit back but that is the only route that we have available to us.
From Turkey on-wards, and on to the East in Asia , in addition to all the African countries & throughout the South Americas, they all require this passport for the car. We can’t wait for our “carnet-de-passage” to be sent to us.
In our home there is not much else being talked about other than “Living The Change!” and going on our journey.
It is fabulous to know that we are having so many incredible good friends who are with us in our lives as we move on.
Europe: the Netherlands to Croatia
Our journey through Europe… Where to go? Whom to visit?
As one of our shared passions in life is dancing tango, we decided to have a look at the tango festivals in Europe in June, July and August, which would fit with our travel plans. Croatia it will be:)! Poreč, in the north of Croatia at the seaside, is hosting a tango festival with superb teachers and we have decided that this will do for a wonderful (beach) holiday (long wished for by Saeed;)) and shared fun in our tango embraces before heading on in the direction of Turkey.
The Route: Azerbaijan is out/in
The more and more we read and research, the clearer our journey is becoming. I am going to collect my passport tomorrow and then it is time to get the visas going. And for this we’ll need our itinerary as we’ll have to give dates of when exactly (approximately) we’ll be visiting a given country.
One of the decisions we have made, is that we’ll leave Azerbaijan aside on this journey. Or have we? Road police lurking behind every bush and tree (or so the research says), not really welcome with a right-hand drive car and the most ridiculous traffic rules make that we are thinking twice about to visit. To be continued!
Lists, lists and more lists
The commitment is made, we will be leaving mid-June, i.e. 15 to 18 of June 2014. Plenty to do before departure as you can imagine.
Let’s have a look:
A personal list for Stefani with things such as:
– collect new passport
– visas: less than expected as in the last 4 months things have changed in the ‘stans’ and some are becoming more friendly towards foreigners
– dentist
– prescription sun glasses
– selling surplus on eBay
A personal list for Saeed with things such as:
– microlight flight (birthday present to be collected;))
– sell the Mercedes
– become acquainted with his new toy: Canon 70D and accessories
A list for both of us:
– first aid course
– 4×4 course
– vaccinations
– go through our books & clothes and get rid of as much as we can
– organise storage space for our ‘stuff’
Car journey ready list with a.o.:
– roof rack needed
– car check up/service
– new airco unit
– sound system (to overcome all the rattling and noise;) during the journey)
– interior redesign and making of this
These lists seem to us endless for the time being. We have started to make appointments and very, very slowly are we ticking things of for completion.