Der zur Zeit wohl berühmteste Tischkicker wird versteigert… Auktionsende ist der 27. Mai, 20 Uhr.

One of the currently most famous foosball tables is now sold by auction. The auction ends at 27th of May, 8 pm.

Zur Auktion / to the auction

Hier: zur Ebay-Auktion / to the auction on Ebay

Auction of our Libero Table Soccer from 17th to 27th of May

At the final stage of our ‘Globekicker’ project we want to help poor families in Bangladesh by supporting them on their way out of begging and out of a life that is dependent on the benevolence of others.

YOUTUBE
The Auction – main film
Message from Nobelist Prof Mohammad Yunus (Grameen Bank)
BONUS: A Libero in India
BONUS: The whole trip: Dia-Show

We want to support people – both financially and emotionally – and facilitate their way out of the vicious circles of dependency to a self-determined, independent and happy existence.

We consider this aspect a concluding element of our 6 month travel-project that has ended in July 2011. After all the wonderful and breath-taking experiences we made on the one hand, and knowing to well that too many people in the world are so much worse off than we are on the other hand, it is not hard to conclude, that we want to give something back to at least a few people who deserve to get a chance in life.

For this purpose, we will sell our ‘Libero’ table soccer (that has been signed by people from all over Europe and Asia) at an auction on the internet.

The table soccer “flix Libero” still is in the same very good order and condition as in the beginning of our tour!

All the proceeds from this auction will be used to pay for the expenses for project Muni and to support further families that live in life-threatening or humiliating undignified situations like hunger, begging or dependency.

More information about Project Muni

To see the progress of our current ‘Project Muni’ simply visit its page on facebook.
If you just want to suppot Project Muni, visit the page on Betterplace.

Hier: zur Ebay-Auktion / to the auction on Ebay

Das Globekickerprojekt ist vorbei – es lebe Projekt Muni!!!
Versteigerung unseres Kickers vom 17. – 27. Mai auf Ebay.

Unsere Reise mit Kicker endete im Juli 2011. Was bleibt sind die Erinnerungen an großartige Abenteuer sowie die Erkenntnis, welch ein Privileg diese Reise eigentlich für uns war.
Gerade in den letzten Ländern unserer Tour trafen wir viele Menschen, die aufgrund äußerer Begebenheiten kein menschenwürdiges Leben führen konnten und für die eine Weltreise wie unsere wohl für immer ein Traum bleiben wird. Somit blieb am Ende unserer Reise der Wunsch erhalten, einigen der Menschen, denen wir begegnet sind, zu helfen!

Das von uns initiierte Projekt Muni ist nun eben dieser Versuch! Zu diesem Anlass werden wir vom 17. – 27. Mai unseren Libero-Kickertisch (der inzwischen Unterschriften aus der ganzen Welt trägt) versteigern.

YOUTUBE:
Die Auktion – Hauptfilm
Grußwort vom Nobelpreisträger Prof. Mohammad Yunus (Grameen Bank)
BONUS: Ein Libero in Indien
BONUS: Die ganze Reise: Dia-Show

Der Kicker “flix Libero” ist im selben sehr guten Zustand wie zum Beginn unserer Reise, er wurde zusätzlich vom Hersteller genaralüberholt.

Die Erlöse des Verkaufs dienen dazu, die bisherigen Ausgaben für das Projekt Muni zu decken und um weitere Familien auf ihrem Weg in ein unabhängiges und erfülltes Leben zu unterstützen.

Mehr Infos über das Projekt Muni.

Wenn es euch interessiert, was bei Muni & Co gerade passiert, dann besucht auch unsere Seite auf facebook.

Den Stand der Spenden oder die Möglichkeit zum selber-spenden gibt es auf Betterplace.

Teaser

A big ‘SORRY’ for everybody who thought, that we’ve been in Pakistan until now – Here is the latest update:

Our journey with the VW-Van and the Table-Soccer is over, we shipped everything back to Germany including Simon, just me (Stefan) keeps on travelling, currently I am in Bangladesh. The good news for you: There is still one amazing story (including lots of crazy shit) about our India-trip waiting for you – and here we go!

Ah, just to let you know in advance, this article is very long, , so we will tease you a little what you can expect, once you`ll start reading:

• hiking in the Himalayas without gear over glaciers including running out of food and eating insects grilled on fire (with picture)
• nearly deadly street fights in Delhi
• meeting the Dalai-Lama
• playing table-soccer against the Indian national-team, Gurus, and street kids from “Slumdog Millionaire”
• and much more …

What has happened in our three month of ‘Incredible India’

If we complained about India, if we cursed about things happening to us or if we glorified India for its inherent natural beauty, the reaction of people were mostly the same – they started to smile and said: “That’s Incredible India!” After nearly 3 months we most certainly confirm this slogan, especially because India shows you everything, the poorest and the richest, the worst pollution and the most beautiful and untouched nature, most friendly, hospitable and kind people as well as corruption and arrogance.

But step by step. After we nearly witnessed the assassination of Osama Bin Laden, drove the most dangerous highway in the world (Karakorum Highway in Pakistan) and had more military escorts on our way than our German chancellor, we were ready for the next step and entered India at the famous Wagah border station. People call it the “Berlin wall of Asia”. Every day they hold a spectacular ceremony, in which soldiers of both sides march alongside the border and “show off” with their guns and uniforms. The audience loves it and goes crazy – shouting, singing and finally running in the parade to dance. For us the atmosphere felt a little bit like a soccer game, where the one side got fan-support by the Indians, the other by the Pakistanis.

After this spectacle we finally made it – reached the last country of our trip. To celebrate appropriately, we had a glass of good Whiskey (for Indian standards at least) and lighted our “Fat Lady” – a big cigar we took all the way from Germany to India. Aaftab, an Indian Couchsurfer from Amritsar (the first city you`ll run into behind the Wagah border) and a couple of his friends got in contact with us and planed to join in. He called and said: “I will just pass you and horn, so you know it’s me and you can follow my car”. That sounded like a good plan, just that every second driver passing us was horning like a maniac, as usual in India

Finally, we managed to meet up, had a good evening and could stay our first Indian night at Aaftabs place. The next day we visited the “Golden Temple”, the most impressing building we’ve seen in India (we liked it even better than the Taj Mahal) and an important religious place for Sikhs. 

1. The Golden Temple in Amritswar

A day later it was time to say goodbye to Simon – yeah you heard right. He decided to meet some of his old school friends in Thailand for 2 weeks and left me alone But before he left, I kicked his ass in our most sweaty table-soccer match ever since – having around 45 degrees.

That Simon escaped for 2 weeks was not as bad as it sounds, I used the time for some necessary recreation. After Aaftab and me gave Simon a lift to the bus, which took him to the airport in Delhi, Aaftab drove with me to a hospital, where I didn’t really know what to expect. A friend of him was lying in a bed, showing me ultrasonic-images of his knee, filled with many little bullets of a shotgun. 

Shotgun-bullets

What had happened? Aaftab told me his friend’s whole story, which was absolutely shocking. A crazy dude wanted to marry his sister, but neither she, nor anybody else of her family liked this guy, who then decided to force his luck by threatening the family. When threatening didn’t convince the family, the crazy dude tried to kill Aaftabs friend, but luckily “just” shot his knee. This was already shocking for me, but not more than the fact, that the family of Aaftabs friend couldn’t do much about it. I realized that in India as well as in Pakistan it doesn’t matter if you are right or wrong. It just matters who you are, who you know and how much money you have. In this case, the crazy dude apparently knew the local judge and had more money to bribe him and the police than the victims – Incredible India!

Surviving the first night without Simon after more than 3 months, the next challenge was already waiting for me. I had to get the car ready, put the table-soccer inside and drive to the next city named Chandigarh. Sounds simple, but not if you have a bad diarrhoea and outside it is just unbelievably hot. I felt like running a marathon, while just doing ordinary packing. Finally I was on the road, but it shouldn’t become much better. A 6 hour hell-ride was waiting for me. When it was getting dark in the evening, I was nearly blind cause of all the far-lights the Indian drivers turned on non-stop. All the subjects without any light on the street (cow, donkey, rickshaws etc.) weren’t improving the situation much and drove me nuts after a while. Exhausted I made it to Chandigarh and luckily the meeting with Rahul, my next Couchsurfing host, worked out pretty well.

Simon had given me his car key before he flew to Thailand, so that he wouldn’t loose it there and I could take care of it. After I lost our third car-key at a gas-station in Hungary, I managed to not find Simon’s key and forgot mine in the car after locking it. It is kind of an experience to break in your own car

Anyways, after staying at Rahuls place, Honey – also an Indian Couchsurfer, gave me the opportunity to stay at his place, while he was travelling in Nepal. It was great for me to have some time of my own and having the chance to watch every night from my bed how the same lizard hunts a cockroach half the size of itself – felt like national geographic.

Lizzard vs. cockroach

So I enjoyed being lazy on my own. Balwinder, the trainer of the Indian national-team made sure though, that I was doing at least something. He is this kind of crazy dude it needs to make a so far unknown sport more popular in a country. Without Balwinder, their probably would be no table-soccer at all in India. He invited me to visit one of the schools, where he teaches table-soccer to the youngsters. I had a great time playing and meeting new people, especially the enthusiasm and keenness of the little girls amazed me. They could barely look over the table, but had incredibly powerful shots. In a few years they definitely will kick(er) some asses.

Indian Table-Soccer Team & Stefan

The following days I became friends with Kiyan and Soniya, two Iranian fellows, who live and study in Chandigarh. With Kiyan I had one of my worst begging experiences. Together we were driving to a fast food place in the city. From where I parked the car to the entrance it was probably about 50 metres, but it took me more than 10 minutes to go there. Why? Cause I gave a begging mother at the parking space a little money and out of a sudden many mothers and even more of their little children appeared. Once they recognized, that I had given some money, they wanted more and the mums were standing in front of me, trying to kiss my feet while the kids went down to my legs, hugged them, so I couldn’t walk. I felt so uncomfortable, I didn’t want to get “rid of them” by force; but neither did I want to give them more money. Slowly I made it step by step to the restaurant where a security guy sent them away. This situation and many similar really pissed me of in India. Not because I was annoyed too much by the beggars – they simply do not have much of a choice – but the rest of the society, who is letting this happen. Most of the time the people beg in front of fancy places which are fairly well protected by security and police, cause obviously the companies in these areas can’t have an interest of letting beggars annoy their costumers. So I am pretty sure, that the local police sometimes is part of the begging-mafia, letting them beg and get a little share. And nobody in India seems to give a shit about this happening every day. Everybody knows that the kids often don’t belong to the women, who pretend being their mothers. Instead they are often kidnapped and together with the women forced to beg. And all this happens in the rich areas. So it’s like a crime which somebody is committing right in front of the public, but nobody does something. If a kid would steal something from me in front of a shopping mall, the people and police probably would intervene immediately, if a kid is forced to beg at the same place, nobody cares. I tried to find some organisations, which work against the begging-mafia – without success. Some friends told me that many influential people (including the police) are sometimes somehow involved in this crime. So it’s very hard and even dangerous for other people to change something.

To some happy news: Simon was coming safely back to India, although he told me some crazy “we got chased by a bunch of wild monkeys-story”. Totally exhausted, after two days without sleep and thanks to the monsoon completely wet we picked Simon up from the bus-terminal.

Picking up Simon in Chandigarh

I showed Simon around the town and we were lucky to run into 75 years old Narinder Singh, who’s self-setted aim it is – since 50 years – to show tourists his town and make sure that they don’t get ripped off by other Indians. He is honestly a great guy!

 With our helpful guide Narinder

After a few days in Chandigarh, it was time to move on, towards north and straight into the Himalayas. On our trip we took Isabell, another German girl, and the two Iranians Kiyan and Soniya, which then was the maximum of passengers our car had ever seen. After a whole day of driving we reached the town Shimla and managed to find a parking spot in between the tight mountain-curves. A little bit anger arose inside me, when a nice Indian dude seriously suggested us, that he could park our car in case we feel not able to do it. Yeah sure, we drove over 10000 km and I feel better when a random Indian dude parks our car – you just can’t offer this to a German driver.

Now to the monkeys. The most famous place in Shimla to visit is the monkey-temple. While some of you guys might assume, that a monkey is a cute little cuddle-thing (like on the picture below), Simon already had his scary experiences with these animals and we were just about to walk right into them. “Don’t were sunglasses, if possible” was the advice we got before. I had to wear my glasses anyway, so I had to be careful. The first face-to-face encounter was really funny, though. A monkey showed up in front of us and Isabell, who was very scared that the monkey would jump on her head to steal her sunnies, threw them without a reason on the ground. The monkey took them and walked away. I wanted to stand up like a man and walked towards the thief, claiming the sunglasses back. Not really impressed, the monkey jumped towards me, opened his mouth and showed his teeth. This was enough to scar the shit out of me, we moved on. Lesson learned: never mess with the monkeys.

Monkeymummy with child

Shimla – city of monkeys (see them on the roof?)

We continued driving, had our first and only flat tire, fixed it and showed our Iranian friends how to make a delicious barbecue on a self-made fire.

Fire

The next day we reached Kasol, a Hippie-village full with tourists but also surrounded with amazing nature, which we explored during a nice hike.

Tricky river-crossing

Playground

After Kasol we reached Manali, based on 2000 metres it is a very known place to refresh from the Indian summer for tourists as well as for Indians. We spoiled ourselves with European cuisine, which was fully available thanks to the attraction this place draws to western backpackers. Manali was all over with German bakeries, which strangely were all managed by Nepalese people. After we enjoyed the cool temperatures and familiar food we were ready for some adventures.

Our nice hostel in Manali

We did a helicopter-flight over some mountains and water-rafting with the German couple Christian & Heidi and Claudia & Stephan from Switzerland. This was pure fun. While some Indians on other rubber boats didn’t even paddle themselves, but had guides doing it for them (where is the fun about WATER-rafting then?) we paddled like hell, overtaking all the other boots and attacking them like in the good old pirate-time – just by splashing water at them. Unfortunately they never showed any resistance, seemed even to be afraid of the water (again, why then doing WATER-rafting?) It became a little less fun with these easy “victims”.

Helicopter

Rafting

Let the the anger out!

Pirate-Training

After these sportive activities Simon and me got stomach-sick again, just telling this, cause I went to the pharmacy to get coal-tablets which should stop the diarrhoea, but they accidentally gave me cold-tablets. I only figured this misunderstanding out a few days later… Although my stomach problems stayed, I at least didn’t get a cold the next days Our original plan was to leave Manali soon to drive all the way down to Goa, but thanks to the monsoon, which was hitting the Southern parts of India at this time, we thought the plan over and decided to do a long hike in the Himalayas instead. After a funny night of exiting planning, our dream-hiking-team was ready:

Christian, Stefan and Simon – will these amateurs make it?

I know our articles are very long and this one is certainly no exception, so better do a break now, cause the next story about our hike over the Hampta-Pass is wild and you might not wanna stop reading, once you started it The Hampta-Pass was probably the most craziest and exhausting adventure I so far did in my life, in retro-perspective also one of the most naive things considering the preparation we did (not) have before. Usually the Hampta-Pass should only be tracked during the late summer when the pass is free of ice. Somewhat experienced hikers should than need no more than 4 days to cross it, strongly recommended is a local guide. It was middle of June, so not quiet late summer and we thought we won’t need a guide. So it happened hat the 3 Himalayas-hiking-virgins of us packed our backpacks, bought a map, some food and just started. Our backpacks were amazingly heavy, filled with a lot of stuff professional hikers would probably never carry with them. I carried my fishing rod with me hoping to catch something in the wild rivers, figuring soon out, that there was no fish and my fishing rod might be the first one reaching an altitude over 4500 metres We managed the first day quiet OK. Starting at 2000 metres in Manali we caught some rain, saw a rainbow and found a skull of a monkey on our path, a little bit scary if we would have believed in bad signs.

Monkey-Skull

Rainbow

Getting wild.

Making local friends

The second day we left civilization. The last little shop we passed on the way in the mountains offered nearly nothing, not even water, but coca cola. Having not much of a choice we had one before going off the path – into the wild. After a long march Simon started to talk about beer and infected us with his thought, how nice a cold beer would taste now. Facing the fact, that we were surrounded by mountains already and no shop will be nearby, we tried to forget this dream. Then the miracle happened. We ran into a big group of Indians, who had a picnic in the nature and surprise, surprise, offered us some beers. Knowing, that we have a long way in front of us we took some and saved them for the night. A big fire, some beers, knowing we are the only people 5 km in each direction was awesome, especially in India, where these kind of lonely places are very rare. I guess we underestimated the influence, altitude has on the effect of alcohol, so that’s the only way I can explain, why we were already drunk after a beer each, singing songs and eating insects. Wait a second, eating insects? – well, we figured, that some insects liked our fire and came close, being drunk we played “Schnick, Schnack, Schnuck” the looser had to grill and eat the insect, it was not too bad and a little protein won’t hurt.

Dinner

Fire

The third day it went rough. We had to cross freezing cold rivers, saw the first ice covering some of the landscape, the thin air made me sometimes dizzy and it was nearly too high to find some firewood. Just on the other side of the river we saw some wood, so Simon jumped across the fast stream and threw the wood over it to me. When he jumped back, it was too deep, his body was in the water, just my hand was holding his, I managed to pull him out. After this action we were unbelievable cold and freezing like hell, fortunately the wood was enough to make a warming fire.

Simon (right) faces the Gletscher

Simon climbed a “small” one.

Man makes FIRE.

Watching the clear sky with its falling stars, we fell asleep. The fourth day started with a shocking moment – our Nutella was empty!!! We enjoyed the last bit and walked again through an amazing scenery – the most colourful flowers filling the grassland, contrasted by the cold,icy and dangerous looking mountains surrounding us.

Flowers

No trees at all, so in this night we tried our best to heat water for our last food – some noddles – with dry grass we found, not really successful I have to admit. We camped in front of the huge glacier we had to cross the next day.

Night in front of the glacier

View out of the tent

No food beside some biscuits left, we faced a scenery of ice. At the latest by now we recognized how amazingly bad we were prepared. No ice-axe, proper shoes, no ropes, I not even had gloves. However, at this point there was no way back and all of us were keen to “beat” the mountain. It was exhausting! Every 50 metres we needed to stop, trying to fill our lungs with some oxygen, the ice never seemed to end. Then we saw a steep rise, that must be the top of the Hampta-Pass, we assumed. We climbed on it and then there was this big disappointment. We were not there yet, another deep valley of ice was waiting in front of us, followed by an even bigger wall of ice behind it. Somewhere we picked the last pieces of energy together and managed to climb on the pass.

Warming up.

Into the ice

The glacier

 … against small human

You see somebody?

With my hands, knees and feet on the ice I robbed the last metres up, one second not concentrated I lost my footing and slided about 50 metres down. It was not dangerous, there were no ice-cracks, but to motivate me that I can do it again was hard. I held my hands in the sun, trying to warm them up before I have to put them in the freezing ice again. I saw the clouds already coming closer and knew, that it gonna be super-cold in a few minutes. I made it, we made it – we reached the top of the Hampta-pass. A few seconds later we couldn’t see as far as 20 metres, a big cloud made us loose any orientation. And it got cold. Climbing so far with the sun shining, we just worn shorts and T-Shirts, now it felt like 5 degrees and we changed into winter-dresses. I mentioned, that we had no food left, well, that is not the whole truth, I had hidden a Snickers and a Twix for the top which I took out while looking at the happy faces of Christian and Simon as they recognized. So we made it to the top, but as most hikers might agree with me in this point, going up is mostly easier than coming down. Same in our case. We guessed our way down the Pass and just faced steep glaciers and sharp rocks.

Last energy…

 …activated

On the top – no sun.

Where is the way down?

Be careful, it’s steep.

What a view.

Finally we saw a glacier going all the way down into the valley. No rocks seemed to be in the way, so we thought, sliding down this glacier might be safer than climbing down somewhere else. With a lot of adrenalin in the blood we slid down, awesome, the fastest climbing down of my life. We made it safely, luckily – I don’t wanna imagine, what could have happened if we wouldn’t have been so lucky with the weather. However, still alive but without food we were lucky once more and ran into another group. 4 Guides took care of an Indian couple, they had pure luxury. Their guides even carried a whole Pineapple over the Hampta-Pass, crazy. When we told them our story and that we didn’t had a guide at all, they were a little shocked. They shared some of their food with us which was awesome. Although I didn’t fell asleep with an empty stomach, I still was dreaming all night long of my Grandmothers good old German food, yummy. The last day in the wild, there were a few though obstacles left for us. At first a super-cold river, we had to cross, were our feed hurt so much thanks to this ice-cold-liquid. Then we had to pass another river, which was too deep to cross it by feed, luckily we found some ice covering the river and walked over it. I was very afraid, after 6 day my legs felt already like gum, it was not too steep, but if you slide accidentally on the ice and you fall into the water, you are definitely dead. This knowledge in my mind didn’t really help to make me feel more comfortable. Luckily one more time, the guides we met last night saw us and helped us over the ice, holding my hand like a dad bringing his son to school – but at least it was safe A crazy bus-drive later, we finally reached civilization again, spoilt us with good food, a beer and fell asleep like babies.

Made it down

If you slipp or slide, you die

Yeah, we beat it.

Back to civilization

This was No trees at all, so in this night we tried our best to heat water for our last food – some noddles – with dry grass we found, not really successful I have to admit. We camped in front of the huge glacier we had to cross the next day.the Hampta-PASS, I can just recommend to everybody, just do it with a guide or have to be in very good condition or as lucky as we were. After this adventure it was time to leave Manali and go on to Dharamshala, the exile of the Dalai-Lama. On the way their we saw 6 accidents, pigs eating marijuana-plants, a girl throwing up out of the bus, driving in front of us and cows lying everywhere on the street. These were more less the highlights we saw, before finding a room and falling asleep exhausted from the stressful driving. The next day we figured out, that the Dalai-Lama was giving a lecture, which is very random, cause most of his time he is travelling. So we made sure that we get “tickets” and had the ambitious goal to play on our table-sosccer with him or at least get a signature. Soon we noticed, that this is nearly impossible, he was protected like a president and private appointments without advance reservation were not allowed. Our reaction on this information was a kind of protest in from of his temple, we build up the table-soccer and played against several Buddhist monks, unfortunately the Dalai-Lama didn’t come out for a game.

Buddhist monks liked our game

Just the Dalai-Lama was missing

We left Dharamshala and drove back to Chandigarh, were we met our friends Honey, Manpreet and Aman again and had the honour to challenge the Indian national-team. The crazy dude I talked about before – Balwinder – organised everything including 4 journalists asking us many questions about our trip. Then the competition began and first we played on our table and surprise surprise – we won against 2 team-members of the Indian national-team, yeah, what a victory.

Practising with the kids 

The last days of our trip had already started and we still had to drive all the way to Mumbai. First spot on this odyssey was New Delhi. We just had one night there, but this night was crazy. Arriving at night we found a quiet parking spot close to a school and decided to walk a few kilometres through the city to the famous Indian Gate. Everywhere poor people slept on the street, than we saw a fight, 3 people beating up a guy, lying already on the ground, many other standing around just watching. We didn’t know what all this was about, but the three attackers went crazy, smashing a glasbottle over his head and the most crazy dude then took a huge flagstone, lifted it over his head ran towards the victim, willing to smash it over him. We stepped in between and held him back, then they ran away. I never saw something like this before, they seemed to be willing to kill this guy. Although he was bleeding and crying he seemed OK, so we went on (calling an ambulance or police doesn’t work like we are used to it in Germany, so we didn’t do it, also he didn’t want it), saw another fight between people and barking wild street dogs showing aggression towards us. Puh, what a night walk. After playing some table-soccer with school-kids, we left Delhi the next day towards Agra, where the Taj Mahal is based.

Dude sleeping in Delhi

Simon vs. Local

Schoolkids playing

Yeah – GOOOAAL!

In the streets of Dehli

How we get the table-soccer into the Taj Mahal? This mission seemed to be very difficult, cause the security standards got much more strict after several terrorist attacks India has faced during the last decade. We tried very hard, building up the table in front of the entrance, but no way, we could not get inside. We decided to just leave it outside, so that the people can play while we having a look inside the Taj, sounds simple, but all Indians around us (30 or more) told us, we can’t do this, it’s dangerous, people will destroy it or steal our game. OK, so just one of you guys is watching the table-soccer while we have a look at the Taj Mahal? – again, not possible. It was a sad to see, how little these Indians trusted their own people and that nobody had the guts to just look after our game for 20 minutes. Frustrated we just left it there. The Taj was nice, but still just a building. We we came out, the table was still there, just that somebody had stolen the ball.

Not giving up on a game in front of the most famous sight of India, we drove across the river to have another try picture Buddhist playing We made it, although the police was not amused seeing us play in front of the Taj. We didn’t care and met amazing people. We played with a local Guru, who signed our table and gave us one of his books. Afterwards we even got invited from some Buddhist people, gathering there and I had the unique opportunity to discuss with them, why it is not even right to kill a mosquito (Buddhism says, you should not kill any animals/insects etc; I said killing mosquito did not matter)

After this nice experience the last big trip was waiting for us – 1500 kilometres to Mumbai. It started good until we got trapped in the city Gwalior – without no map or any clue, how to get back on the highway, it took us about two hours just to find a way out. All the people we asked for the way told us different things. If you ever are in India and not sure if an Indian actually knows the directions your are asking him for, either stop asking suggestive questions or make a test asking absurd stuff which is what I did. I asked the Indians how we get to Berlin or Munich and they just pointed in one direction, shaking their heads and assuring that this is the right way. That was the point we stopped asking.

We drove two days and one night, the monsoon started, everything got flooded, then we reached our final destination – Mumbai. We had to organize a lot of stuff for the shipping of our car back to Germany, but found some time to play a few more times on our table. We went into the Dharavi-Slum, a slum in the middle of Mumbai, which became famous by the movie “Slumdog Millionaire” that was partly shot right there. Once we built up the table the kids got wild, pushed each other away to play and started spinning the hell out of the soccer-poles. Soon, more than 50 kids were watching the spectacle, each of them amazingly enthusiastic. It was not easy to leave the place, but I am pretty sure, the kids and we had a good time.

The next day we drove Bernd – our car, who served us as a reliable comrade for more than 17000 km – to the harbour and parked him in a shipping container, where he was waiting to go back to Germany. We had our last match against curious harbour-workers and battled us One-on One for the last time. Bernd got a beer-shower, the container got plugged – that was it!!! Simon flew back a few days later, while I went on to Bangladesh.

Prologue – Where in the world is Osama Bin Laden

Well, now we all know where he spent his last days, but who would have expected his hideout to be in one of most beautiful and populated areas of Pakistan – and actually so damn close to our traveling route Even the many Pakistanis that we have spoken to were surprised to find out his whereabout to be in the midst of their country assuming Bin Laden somewhere in the tribal areas of the country close to Afghanistan. So how did he get to Abbottabad, unrecognized by anyone? Neither the two of us, Stefan and me, did have a clue that we were passing just a few kilometers away from his compound. We had literally been knocking at Osama’s door two days before US special forces started their operation in Abbottabad when we were on our track to the beautiful Hunza Valley at Karimabad. We got the news about Bin Laden’s killing two days later when we had arrived there, but still it was at least a strange and bizarre feeling having been so close to one of the world’s most famous and feared person.

But let us start right from the beginning…

Rehabilitation in Lahore

After our arrival in Lahore and one night in a hotel there, we had finally managed to get rid of the police escort. Again a police car had been waiting for us all morning in front of our accomodation. But we made clear to the dear officers that we appreciated but didn’t need their help anymore and after another discussion they finally understood…

So after six scheduled days of being driven through the most interesting areas of beautiful Pakistan by uncountable police escorts, we knew too well: freedom in this country doesn’t come for free – at least for foreigners and so we were blessed by our newly invented liberty! The days before, we had neither been able to stop by the road nor to get in touch with people. So the first thing we happened to do as free people, was to stop by the road and get in touch with people! We called Burhan, a Couchsurfer from Lahore, who eventually invited us to his wonderful home, where he is living with his wife and two of his children. It was more than relieving to have a place to stay after so many stressful and chaotic days, and there was even more truth in that when it turned out that I got a really bad diarrhea going back to some bad food that had been offered to us by a police officer during our nightly stay in a police station. I was too glad that I could cure my disease in a comfortable guest room of Burhans place, with his wife and house personal taking care of me. Stefan spent his time cleaning and tidying up our car (which had been a mess after the hell trip of 1500km through Pakistan). The next days, going out for dinner with Burhan’s great sons, Khitab and Arbab, we had most interesting discussions, about life and philosophy and cultural differences between Pakistan and Western countries.

After four days, when my stomach had recovered more or less, we decided to go up north all the way to Pakistans huge and giantic Karakorum and Himalaya mountains. After our trip to Pakistan we had been pretty tired of driving ourselves. So inspired by Burhan and his family we jumped on a comfortable public bus to Islamabad, and left our car Bernd in Lahore, for we felt that he, too, needed a break. In Islamabad Zafar and his son Younis were already awaiting us. Younis is doing his studies in Germany, but came back for a few weeks to Pakistan for vacation. Zafar had invited us to the his house at our previous meeting in Quetta, so we planned to spent some days and then to start our trip north from here.

Islamabad is a city of western shape where all the political, economic and military elites are having their residence. You can find McDonalds, Pizza Hut and all the other ‘accomplishments’ of Western civilization. Younis was showing us around and gave us an insight into all daily life in Pakistan’s capital knowing every single inch of it. He introduced us to the place where Pakistan’s presidents children are having their ice cream and took us to a car work shop in nearby Rawalpindi. During the days, while trying to finally get rid of that damn diarrhea, we also were introduced to Zafar’s house servant Jamil who, one evening, prepared a special surprise for us: a Hanflassi (see the green stuff below) Marihuana plants are growing everywhere in Pakistan just next to the streets and of course they caught our special interest.

(Karakorum highway) – Knocking on Heavens..eh.. Osama’s Door

By that time, Zafar had to leave for a business trip to China and after several days at Islamabad, we decided to rent a car and to go all the way up to the most beautiful Hunza Valley to finally start our trip into the mountains. The planes going to Gilgit (100km before Hunza) had been booked out for weeks, so a car was the way to go. To our surprise, there was even a driver included in the really cheap renting fee for the car, which no doubt is only made possible by the minimal wages paid for lower segment occupations in Pakistan. So, very early in the morning, Aslam, our (underpaid) driver, picked us up from Zafar’s place in Islamabad and we started our two day (14 hours per day!!) trip going 600km north on the so called Karakorum Highway (KKH), which turned out to be the worst ‘road’ we have have ever been driving on. The track had been devastatingly destroyed by the flood and landslides as well as riverflows from the mountain tops had done the rest of the job to make our trip a torture and a test of patience. If we looked out at the left window, we usally saw hundreds of metres going down steeply, while on the right side we saw neverending stony high mountains, from which each rock looked like it could fall down every single moment right on the “street”. As if this would not be enough, our stomachs (especially Stefan’s) still gave us additional trouble and the adventurous pleasure of a few extra-stops next to the road .

To our luck, Aslam turned out to be a nearly perfect driver, combining appropriate speed with sufficient safety. He went as quickly through the difficult track as possible passing the town of Abbottabad (where Osama would be killed to days later), Dasu, Chilas (here we rested for the night), Gilgit and taking us finally to heaven, to the great Hunza Valley at Karimabad. For us more, less funny, Aslam as a Pakistani, was much more concerned about Taliban, the people in general, whom he deeply mistrusted and the roadconditions as we were. He ended up saying uncountable times: “It`s very dangerous!” in his unmistakable Pakistani accent. We definitely will keep this sentence in memory!

On our way we had already passed the more than 8100m high mountain top of Nanga Parbat (see above), but Karimabad offered to us a scenary that, even more, made us quickly forget the exertions of the days before. Just imagine a lovely and mostly untouched mountain village in a green valley with a big mountain river going through it and all surrounded by nearly 8000m high snow covered peaks – simply beautiful and breathtaking! The next three days the Hilltop Hotel should be our accomodation. Zafar had recommended this place to us. From here we soon discovered Karimabad, a village where live takes place in complete simplicity, mostly based on agriculture – you will find more cattle than vehicles in this peaceful place. Education is working nearly perfectly, the town has one of the highest literacy rates in Pakistan.

We soon decided to do a trek up to a glacier in an altitude of 3500m, but starting the trip with a guide, we soon realized that Stefan was hardly up to the task as he still had to deal with bad stomach problems and a generally weakened body. So instead of climbing the peaks around Hunza and following in the steps of Reinhold Messner, we finally took things easy and had a walk through the village, getting in touch with people ending up at the big river of the valley where some nomad people had opened their camp for a few days. As soon as they recognized us, they were full of amazement and curiosity about the different looking strangers. Especially our cameras, they had probably never seen any modern electronic equipment before, became objects of their great interest and we couldn’t help but taking pictures of them in front of Karimabad’s beautiful mountain panorama and showing each to them. They invited us for a tea into their simple but cosy tents. Although communication could only work by gestures, there was a relaxed atmosphere that enabled us to experience life as it is simplest. Tea was prepared and we could watch them prepare a dinner consisting of bread and some green leafes probably from the mountains. These people are living without any knowledge about world politics or without any modern information system at all. We mentioned names like Osma Bin Laden or Barack Obama, but there was no reaction at all, they just didn`t know. Life basically consists of walking around, putting up the tents, cooking, sleeping and moving on again. Human existence couldn’t be simplier (and probably happier) for these people are not bothered by luxury problems of modern civilization, but (have to) keep things simple. For both of us this will be an unforgettable and probably unique experience! To give a little memory of us to these nice people we made a big effort to print some of the digital pics we had made with the nomads. The next day we were really excited to give them the photos as a present, but – all the tents including the people were no longer there. Apparently the nomads had been moving on.

After only four days in Hunza we already had to head back on the same road. We had run out of money and the fact that there were no ATMs in Karimabad forced us to leave this heavenly place, the roof of the world as one might say. We had literally been knocking on heaven’s door and really would have liked to stay much longer, to check out the higher mountain areas. But there was no choice but heading back to Islamabad. And again we went into hell, this time even knowing what is expecting us…

On our way back, we became direct victims of the Pakistani corrupt societal system. Once again, at a check post, police had recognized us as strangers and consequently insisted on escorting us. At a construction site, Aslam parked the car in a narrow parking bay waiting for the cars in the opposite direction to pass us. When a big Army truck passed, it completely cut off our right side mirror for the road was too narrow. Aslam, who was driving, could not have done a thing about it, and to Stefan and me it was clear that the driver of the Army truck would have to compensate us for the damage he did to our car. The police escort going ahead of us had observed the whole incident live. But surprisingly, a big argument came up between Aslam and the raging truck driver who did not feel accountable or committed to the accident. It soon turned out that the truck would simply drive on and police wasn’t intervening but just trying to calm down the two parties. Before Stefan an me realized the situation, the truck had been gone und we had to take care of the damage ourselves. The incident made clear enough for us, how corrupt the Pakistani societal and political system is and how badly underpriviledged people are affected by unrightousness in this country. Imagine a public vehicle (like a truck of the German army or a police car) crashing your vehicle and it is you, who has to take care to the damage, although even a policeofficer had witnesssed the whole situation. In Germany or other developed countries something like that would be nothing but unimaginable. It makes clear that a rightous and just systems cannot be appreciated enough! We were really afraid, that the reparation of the complete electronic mirror would be very expensive, but we were lucky. In the car workshop two diligent youngsters were taking the whole door of the car apart within minutes and then exchanged a small part – matter of expense for Pakistan’s corrupt military: 8€! In Germany we would have probably paid for a complete new door

After the unforgettable trip into the world’s biggest mountains we went back to Lahore, again by bus. Burhan was picking us up late from the bus terminal. We spent some more days with his family and let Burhan’s grand daughter discover the pleasures of the table soccer game.

Recovered from our stomach problems we wanted to discover more of Lahore the next days. We met Cindy, a Chinese girl doing her studies in Lahore, in the Forman Christian College University. She was showing us around the campus and introduced us to her lecturers, on of them was Dr. Bashir Ahmad Khan, a really impressive personality, well informed not only about business financing but knowing even more about German history and Franz Beckenbauer’s achievements as a soccer player than we did Bashir was listening carefully to our project idea and invited us over to his place for dinner the next day. The same evening, Cindy was taking us out with some of her friends to see some nice spots of Lahore and to have dinner. We met her again the day after when she joined us with her brother for dinner at Bashir’s place. It was a great evening with Bashir and his wife telling us their life stories and some anecdotes about the habits in their relationship. But the evening had to be over too soon for Stefan and me – we were planning to go to the nearby Indian border the next morning and still had quite some things to settle before we could start.

The next day we went into Burhan’s office at Lahore to say goodbye after so many days together. We had a last pizza together, and then started in the direction of Wagah, the border station between Pakistan and India, known for its highly frequented border closing ceremony. We had started far later than planned and only showed up at the border at 15.30 in the afternoon. The gates on the Indian side were closing at 16.00 already. So we had to hurry through Pakistani customs and security check within 30 minutes and it turned out that we were the last people crossing the border this day. To our surprise the Pakistanis made our borderlife pretty easy. They helped us to get through the processes as quickly as possible and so we finally made it to the Indian side where we could already see hundreds of people rushing to the grandstands especially built for spectators of the border closing ceremony. But the ceremony was only starting in two hours…! And still, people were going crazy about it hurrying up like teenagers trying to get in the first row at their favourite bands concert. For us two Germans it was all weird and we couldn’t understand what all the drama was about. But still we didn’t want to miss the ‘spectacle’ that makes people come from all over India. Seeing all the enthusiasm of the people in preparation of the ceremony, we were even more disappointed and disillusionised when we finally saw the actual event. It was a ridiculous nationalistic show-off which soldiers on both sides performing meaningless and absurd routines. They were running around and sounding like chickens, but people did not really care about what is happening. They just came to celebrate their country and supporting the feeling of being different from the other side of the gate. Stefan and me, we were soon to annoyed by this procedure that is good for nothing but to built up even bigger wall between two countries that once used to be one. So we couldn’t wait to start our trip into India, going the the city of Amritswar…

At this occasion we would like to thank all the people that sent us E-mail requests because of the Osama killing and the security situation in the country. Thank you for being worried, we appreciate your empathy!

The experiences, the pictures of alldaily life in Pakistan have pulverized everything that we have seen so far. The country is most beautiful and has wonderful people, unfortunately a lot of them live in extreme poverty and can hardly make a living in a society that is exploited by a corrupt political and military elite that draws profit out of the situation rather than initializting fundamental change. And each who does is being killed by those in power or other extremist groups. The life in the districts Balochistan and the agricultural Sindh, where the flood of 2009 has done its worst damage, is as simple as you can imagine – it will remind you in a way of the Middle Ages. The damage of the incredable watermasses is still visible everywhere: we saw destroyed tracks, streets that were just completely washed out by the flood, little towns out of tents sponsored by the UN with begging people in front of them and many other sad impressions. But the comparison of Pakistan with the Middle Ages meant also something nostalgic for us: We saw beautiful endless golden wheat fields with huge palms in between, women in the most corlorfull dresses, working in these fields without any technical equipment, cropping the golden wheat with their pure hands. We saw little children on the way to their school, carrying all their schoolbooks on the head. We saw more donkeys, camels, cows and carriages than cars on the streets and were impressed by the mountains, the deserts, by the whole nature. Life in Pakistan is organized chaos, loud, hectic, wonderful and horrible in one, simply breathtaking!

So our perception of Pakistan is – to say the least – twilighted, but we hope sincerely, that things in the country will finally turn out to improve. And, starting with our entry from Iran into the country at the very west at Taftan border station, we will try to give you a realistic picture of a underdevelopped, but great country that has to deal with Al Quaida and the Taliban, the political domination by the US, radical islamism, a weak government, a lot of corruption and the consequences of the horrible flood in 2009 (only to mention the most present problems).

Travelling in Pakistan

Our Pakistan experience started rather problematically. At the passport check on the Iranian site we were told that the entry stamp (going back to our entry into Iran at Sero border) was missing, which meant for us, that we couldn’t get the exit stamp from Iranian border officials, which again is necessary to enter in Pakistan. So we were told to go back to Zahedan – the next big city in Iran – to have things worked out. But this was our last day of valid entry visa into Pakistan (April 17th) so every going back would have meant: end of journey for us – at least in Pakistan! We couldn’t believe that a simple (god damn) stamp would lead into so big trouble and I was starting to get really annoyed by the officials insisting on this issue. After some waiting, and even more argueing, they had finally made some calls to Sero border and figured out that two long haired, white skinned Germans (maybe Reinhold Messner and Wolfgang Petry) in a green Volkswagen mini bus, represent no (major) threat to their country and that – in the end – we would be allowed to enter into Pakistan

So, in the whole, getting through the different border offices on the Iranian site had already taken us six hours, so we were more than glad to see the Pakistani site. But here again surprises were waiting for us. After our registration in the border immigration office we had to go into three different customs offices to finally get the import documents for our car approved (see pictures below). Here bureaucracy basically consists of dusty old rotten books that nearly fall apart. Names, passport and visa numbers are to be entered, but we are sure that no one will ever care about our entries. We saw more Ak-47 guns than properly working personal, but this would be a picture we would soon get used to in Pakistan. For after the customs adventure the Pakistani police officials had a weaponed guy seated next to Stefan in our car.

He was supposed to provide us security for our 250km trip to Dalbandin (this in the aftermath was just one of estimated 40 different police escorts we got in Pakistan). To our surprise, our new companian with his rifle did not make us feel uncomfortable in any way. But in the same time we cannot say that we felt so much safer by his presence. If someone wants to bomb you, or tries to kidnap you, this guy could have hardly prevented it, but at least for our psyche it helped a little out…

For the driving in Pakistan, going on the left side of the road didn’t cost us as much adaption as did the real bad road conditions and the permanent and recurring military check post. The first check-point looked pretty much like the basecamp of the bad guys in Rambo 3. Imagine one street, surrounded just by desert, five guys with Kalashnikovs sitting in a castle made of clay, with a big gun on the roof. When the boss of these guys was talking to us, his alcohol breath was getting in my nose and he started to command his soldiers to check our car. Unfortunaltey it was strictly forbidden to take a picture, but if you watch Rambo 3, you`ll know what I am talking about.

Stopping every 20-30km at these check-points kept us from advancing quickly and soon made us realize that we would never be able to reach the city of Quetta in one day, as orignally planned. Passing the border had simply cost us too much time…

Late in the evening we arrived at Dalbandin – a busy city located just around 40km from Afghanistan -, spending the night in a compound being protected by several police officers. Before we went to bed (in our car) the hotelmanager showed us around the crowded marketplace, carrying his AK 47 with him. And of course, as Globekickers, we did not miss the opportunity for a quick challenge with him and some other security guys. They were probably the first people we met so far, who had not seen a table soccer ever before in their lifes. So after some introduction in the process of the game, which is fortunately not to hard to explain, we had quite an enjoyable time together that both of us will probably never forget!

Next morning maybe 20 people (mostly with weapons) were standing around our car, waiting for something. Because we don`t like people just starring at us, we just took out our frisbee and had some morning sport all together Afterwards we prepared for the trip to Quetta. The roads got even worse than the day before, but this time we dealt with the military check post in the style of Globekickers. We stopped by, put our table out to the car, built it up right next to them and had another nice play!

After this little timeout, we made it through the desertous parts from which you can even see the Afghani mountains and arrived at our destination in daylight. Quetta is the capital of the Balochistan district and is – as well as Dalbandin – close to Afghanistan. It was the first bigger city in Pakistan that we saw in daylight, and what we saw at the first glance, we could hardly believe.
We haven’t been to a city before with that much military and police forces in it to provide security. It felt like we found ourselves in a complete chaos: traffic is totally unorganized, loud, dominated by small motorcycles, rickshaws, carriages and some few cars. Police is desperately trying to keep things running but their authority is hardly respected by anyone. Most of people are poor – their day basically consists of working and sometimes begging to make a living. As soon as they recognize foreigners, they get really curious – to say the least – and everybody in the streets, out of this curiosity, will start talking to you even if it is superficial small talking only. In a way, we started to feel like an attraction or better saying some aliens People in Quetta are simply not used to see any foreigners or differently looking persons. If there is something like a cultural clash, then here – in Quetta – the time for it had definetely come for Stefan and me!

Overwhelmed by this intensity of life and the extreme poverty we took a rest in a hotel for two nights. We had actually planned to spent the night in the car, but police were recommending us it would be safer to spent the night in a security area, which is what we did. So Lourdes Hotel was then after an estimated two months of traveling the first place where we spent money for a night. All the 8 weeks before we had successfully slept either in our car, at friends or most probably at Couchsurfers.

During our check in at the hotel we got to know Zafar, a Pakistani business man, who is married to a German woman and therefore speaks really good German. He help us kindly out with our upcoming itenary (see below) and invited us not only for a great dinner next night, but offered us above this to come to Islamabad where he is living. As you will see in the next article, we finally accepted his offer and went to Islamabad..

After two days we left Quetta – again escorted by a police car going ahead of us to clear the way. Our minds still overburdened with the pictures, the people and the incredebility of impressions, we started our long journey to Lahore. This day, our military escort was really starting to get on our nerves. From the Iranian border to Quetta an escort might have made sense, but in between Quetta and Lahore, in our opinion, it was not necessary. We drove on normal streets, sometimes even motorways, so we hardly could imagine a situation, in which we would have had any advantages out of our security escort. So we slowly, but surely recognized the disadvantages of beeing escorted and got more and more pissed off. We drove through the most beautiful nature, but were not allowed to stop, because the security people permanently wanted us to continue. Secondly, they drove like (pardon) shit, sometimes way too slow, sometimes too fast. So two times, when they were too slow, we just escaped, but without success, because the next escort at the next check post was already waiting for us. And that was the third problem. Each escort had the responsibility for our security, because we were driving in their district. So each of them wanted us to leave their district as soon as possible. The consequence: We were dirving 14 hours a day and each new escort was telling us something like: “Just 30 km, then you can sleep!” But that was a lie, because after 30 km the next escort in the next district was waiting for us, telling us the same story. After we figured this procedere out, we insisted on getting some sleep, which we really needed. So we ended up in a police station, parking our car in between some prison cells and as much security, as you could imagine.

The next morning we got in our pants and brushed our teeths, watched by 20 people with machine guns and some prisoners arrested in the cells. Our journey to Lahore continued to be exciting. In one district, we got an escort, which looked like a special force. 2 Pick-up`s, 15 soldiers with M16-guns, AK 47`s and even a Bazooka. As soon as we entered a town to get some money, petrol, food or water, all the time a guy with a big weapon was following us like a bodyguard with a very serious look. We actually found these situations pretty funny and couldn`t prevent the feeling that we are very important persons

Finally we entered Lahore, the second biggest town in Pakistan. The escort took us to a hotel and insisted to pick us up the next morning to bring us to the Indian border at Wagah. We told them, we didn`t want their protection anymore and would continue on our own and they accepted. But – big surprise – the next morning an escort was already expecting us, but we argued so long until they left us alone. So, after five days with armed babysitters we finally were free people again.

Unfortunately, I counldn`t use this freedom to much, because I felt sick (never eat a rice-dish with meat and vegtables after it has spent a day in a 50 degree hot car). I stupidly did and layed down in bed for the next three days. Luckily, I am not talking about the bed of our car, but of the room the couchsurfer Burhan offered to us. But our experience with Burhan and his family is another story to tell. We will try to catch up as quickly as possible with the many happenings!

To be continued…

We have to make a little chapter about driving in Iran, because that was actually something, we just couldn`t handle after the first days in this country. Our Iran Guidebook named Lonely Planet told us: „Maybe they seem to be hopeless, crazy and stupid, but they are not…“ And then they wrote several excuses, which should explain to the reader, why in the end, Iranians have everything concerning the traffic under control.

Our conclusion so far: Yes, they are stupid, hopeless and crazy drivers and by saying this, hopefully nobody feels personally offended. But feel free to judge on your own by these examples we have experienced:

What do Iranians do, if they miss the exit of the motorway?

Right, taking the next exit would take too much time, so they just put their gear in reverse and drive backwards to the missed exit, we saw this a lot – crazy.

Some more examples, we experienced:

Some Iranians don`t turn their lights on, while driving in the night or they just don`t have working lights
99 % never use their indicators (Blinker)
If they do, they just use it wrong and so it happens, that they indicate to the right side, while turning to the left
After using the indicator, they not even think about turning it off, so we saw many cars just indicating happyly around the streets, without any reason
Iranians overtake in every situation, from the left, from the right, before corners, just on every street, where their cars could possibly fit through a little gap
In every roundabout it works like this: First of all, there are no rules! If you don`t want to spend the rest of your life waiting in front of a roundabout, you have to enter it so fast, that other drivers think you would not be able to break, if they go now. If they think, you still could break, they just move before you.

So, as you can imagine, we felt a little better, when we finally got the chance to get an insurance for our car in Tehran (actually the first week we were driving without any car-insurance, because of Iranian holiday-time, we counldn`t get one). This personal driving experience in Iran contrasted a lot with what we had seen so far. If people give a shit about their environment, drive like complete egoistic idiots on the streets and then finally, when you meet them in person, turn out to be very friendly and sensitive human beings, that leaves you with some sort of confusion and we still couldn’t figure out, how these to sides of a medal fit togehter.

One more thing, to complete this Iranian traffic-chapter.

We regognized, that probably everybody, who is not used to the Iranian traffic and drives here for the first time, is going to face 5 different psychological stages – at least we went through these five:

1. Non-Believing and astonishment about the traffic
2. Annoyment and hate on other drivers
3. Desperation and gollows humor (Galgenhumor)
4. Resignition
5. Finally, if you like it or not: Adaption

So it might sound funny, how Iranians drive, but the sad fact is, that each year 22000 Iranians die in the traffic – 5 times the world average. What does the government do?

Nothing – chaos keeps people from thinking – is one theory, we heard. Oh . . . wait, their is one thing they do: The government is building speed bumps all over the country, which we think makes most of the time no sense at all. Maybe there is somebody in the government with a speed bump-company, otherwise we can`t explain this (excuse us) shit. They are everywhere, mostly not signed, so if you see them to late your car is (excuse us again) fucked. Once we didn`t see a speed bump and with 90 km/h our car was flying a meter over the streets For some reason nothing broke and we could continue our driving. Now you know all this, one more amusement: Ironically, the current president Ahmadinedschad has a Phd in traffic management. So, no wonder, that this works out as bad as the government in total.

Mentioning Ahmadinedschad, we have to loose some sentences about the political situation in Iran.
If we wouldn`t have known about the dictatorship before our journey, in the entire 3 weeks of travelling in Iran, we would have never regognized it. People on the streets are the nicest, most helpful and open-minded people you can imagine. If you are walking down Teherans big streets, you would not see so much differences to Germany, as you might think. Sure, woman have to wear a headscarf, but beside this, most young women wear make-up and western styled clothes and many of them just got their noses made (actually Iran has the highest rate of so calles nose-jobs in the world). People we met, told us, much of this outward appearance is a sign of protest. 25 years ago wearing a headscarf, which didn`t cover the hair of a womans entirely, would have had serious consequences for a female person. One example we heard of a friend is, that the police used to cut with a knife in the women arms for punishment. But now things are different. Step by step Iranians are breaking the rules and today most of the young women, you will see on the streets, just cover 70 percent of their head, so everybody is able to see their beautiful hair If the police would say something about it, a women will excuse and fix the headscarf „properly“. But since so many women are protesting in this way of dressing, mostly nobody says anything anymore.

But don`t misunderstand. The law in Iran is still very strict, but mostly (young) people don`t care. They (mostly in the cities) hold hands on the streets (punishment: can be death penalty, like it happend for one 15 years old girl in 2004), they bypass the censored internet-sites, they basically do all the things, young people in Europe are doing for fun (but most of them secretly). Most (young) people in the cities are not as much religious, as Europeans might think, most of them hate their government and want to get rid of it as soon as possible, most of them are just like you and me. The way, how these (young) people mistreating the repressing laws slowly, but surely, shows, in which direction Iran is going. But it is not easy. The government, or lets call it some fanatics, have the weapons in their hands and do not hesitate to use them against any opponent. With their believing, that fighting against every ciritcal person is in favour of Allah and a „worst case scenario“ of maybe getting killed one day by regime-opponents, but than going to paradise with 72 virgins, these fanatics have nothing to loose. Smart (young) Iranians on the streets do.

All these words are just expressing our personal experience and opinion, which means that we can be wrong about how we judge on the current situation in Iran. So for any feedback we are very thankful!

By the way, if you going to Iran, don`t put your thumbs up – I did it several times to express that I am thankful for good (direction) advices, but I figured out that it actually means something like „Fuck you“ in Iran – so the same meaning as in Germany the middlefinger.

After our great days in Tehran the time was coming to move on. The plan was to make all the way from the capital to the city of Esfahan. But again everything turned out pretty much differently. For this time our big surprise was known as: Hoji!

In Iran you will hardly find a properly English speaking person. But among 70 Millions of Iranians Hoji is probably the best English speaking person in the whole country (no shit!) and, above this, he is very much in American hip hop culture and couldn’t be prouder of his own ‘gangster hood’ – the city of Badrud. Hoji has never been abroad but if you didn`t know, it would not be hard to consider him as an 100% US-American (see him on his bike below).

Ah, now you might wonder, how we met this guy… On the way from Tehran to Esfahan we sort of fell tired and took an exit of the motorway. Going without orientation we ended up in a place called Badrud, a small village that – how we got to know later – is closely located to a nuclear power plant program. So not surprisingly in the aftermath, the first thing that happened to us clueless tourists in Badrud was police stopping us and dragging us in their office. We, including our documents, passports and camera pictures, were checked most precisely, still not knowing what the problem was and having no idea about them considering us as Western spies or CIA agents or whatever. We already started to get annoyed by police repression when Hoji suddenly showed up. He was befriended to the police officer and showed up to do the translation. When he stood right in the doorway of the office, I was first considering him as an special secret police agent. But as soon as he explained the situation to us, we realized the problem and were pretty happy to leave the police station. After we recovered from this kind of James Bond feeling, Hoji convinced us to spent the night at his place. The next morning just started amazingly: We woke up, when hip hop music à la 50 Cent was schalling all over the house. Just realizing, how funny it is, listening to this kind of music in Badrud – a really old, traditional Iranian village, Hoji came inside the room to tell us: “Yo bros, just the early bird catches the worm, so get up you motherf…..” So we got up with amusement and we were introduced to his lovely family. It was quite a bizarre picture so see them on the floor of the living room in their traditional dresses while American hip hop tells some stories about growing up in a gangster hood and being shot and so forth… Anyways we had a tasty breakfast before we went out on our car with Hoji and his cousin to see the impressive desert around Badrud and an old bandit’s castle in the middle of it. During this tour Hoji started talking in his unmistakeable American hip hop slang, which is honestly more than amusing

We spent two great days together and got to to know nearly all of Hoji’s big family who were all keen about getting to know us. In Hoji’s uncle’s garden we were introduced to ‘Ali the Crazy’ who was eating some green grass out of the garden like an animal and had just two teeth remaining, which did not keep him from smiling all the time (see picture; Ali is the guy on the first picture on the right). We had some cay tea traditionally prepared on an open fire for us. After this we also had a competition Iran vs. Germany at the table soccer.. You should have seen their yelling and enthusiasm… but all in vain – we won

When we left Badrud and Hoji next day, we figured out, that Hoji had somehow made it out of the typical Iranian lifestyl for some reason. He is the only English speaking person in his family and the only one with connections to foreign countries. Up to now we are still wondering why he made it that far, but we can just say that we are more than happy having met him! And we came to the conclusion that once again a big coincidence had put us together! If we had not taken that exit on the motor way to Badrud, things had definetely turned out differently and supposedly not that well…

After this great experience we had to go on to Esfahan. Unfortunately we had to schedule our trip through Iran pretty precisely for our visa for the entry into Pakistan were expiring the 17^th of April already. So – to keep up to the plan – we could not stay longer in Badrud and went on 200 km south to Esfahan.

There Ali, a friend of Mohammad from Tehran, was already waiting for us. Esfahan is probably one of the most beautiful places in whole Iran. It used to be the residence of powerful dynasties that created the most impressive and eye-catching mosques of the country. And thanks to Ali’s enthusiasm to show us his city, especially the beautiful monuments and the impressive bazar, we soon became eyewitnesses of the beauty of the city.

In the afternoon we also met with Najma whom we had also got to know via Couch Surfing. She suggested to visit an old traditional Iranian bath (picture below) and this is what we did! We also spent the evening together and for us, talking with an Iranian girl was a really nice experience, since so far we mostly had contact with Iranian males. Later at night we walked over several old bridges of Esfahan and out of a sudden some old people sitting near the briges gave a concert for us Another thing, which we couldn`t imagine happening to us in Germany. Without any fear each of them (all around their 70s and 80s) was performing a solo-song in persian language, so soon many people joined as audience to watch this spectacle. What we learned: Older people in Iran and also Turkey seem to be much more happy, active and integrated in society, than in Germany.

In the same evening Ali’s family had invited us to spent the night in their wonderful home! The next day we were busy playing a lot of table-soccer in Alis table-soccer club, but also with his family.

We spent our last day in Esfahan together with Ali and two friends of his again with great food prepared by Ali’s family, playing cards, somking shisha and trying to get used to Iranian music taste which – in the case of Ali’s friends – circles around Celine Dion, Enrique Englesias and Cher… Anyways, we spent a real good time, but then next day had to leave in the direction of Shiraz again because of our Pakistani visa commitments. On our way we passed Persepolis and, of course, did not miss to take a quick glance at the ancient monuments. But constructions going on, constant rain and us not being to interested into archeological stuff made these ruins a pretty boring stop for us – maybe we are not the right guys for this historical experience… So to get into more practical experience,we quickly went on to Shiraz and spent a night there in the car to get things organized. Our trip through Iranian Balochistan was getting closer and we still did not have a place to stay. Fortunately, we found Atefe in Kerman who was hosting us for a night.

On the way to Kerman we once again made the mistake to order a pizza in a quick restaurant. We had some before and learned that is just not comparable to western standards. A pizza in Iran consists basically of three things. Tasteless bread, covered with tasteless cheese and to top it all, u also got some sort of tasteless, disgusting sausage. So what Iranians do to make their pizzas sort of eatable: they just drown it into ketchup and french sauce and their you go! You dont have to be a gourmet to find out that is not the most enyoyable eating experience. So actually, when we were on the way to Kerman, I was giving it a last try and was explaining to several of the employees of a quick restaurant that I would like to have a pizza with CHEESE ONLY! What I got, you can see it on the picture below. I couldn’t really find cheese but instead of it got even more of that damn shitty sausage…

But inspite of that culinary mistreatment we had to keep on going to Kerman. It had gotten very late and Atefe, our couch surfing host, had already been asleep. Most kindly she got up for us to pick us up. Atefe is a young mother, working on 3 different jobs, to make a living for her and for her family and in order to fund her studies. We had the pleasure to meet her little daughter and enjoyed watching the ‘Pink Panther’ with her. Talking to Atefe made it clear to us and showed impressively how hard it can be for some (underprivileged) people to get a proper education in Iran but she even found some time for us and we went out with her to see an antic garden a few kilometers out of Kerman.

Early the next day we went on to Zahedan through 300km of desert. Zahedan is the last big city before the border to Pakistan. It belongs to Iranian Balochistan and this became most obvious by the white dresses that all men wear here. We enjoyed the beautiful landscape with big mountains, dried out rivers and stunning dunes. But we also had to see something sad. We don`t know, how this could have happened, but we saw a pick-up totally destroyed off the road with dead people covered next to it. Probably this accident had just happened an hour before we passed. It was shocking to see that and made in the most horrible way clear to us, how dangerous driving in Iran is. 

So we were very glad when we had finally made it safely to Zahedan where Mohammad (our friend from Teheran) again arranged enough things for us, so we wouldn’t get bored in this City. First of all we had a meeting with a team from a TV channel. They were interviewing and filming us driving on the bus and playing a quick match. Later that night we enjoyed some so called “ancient games”, a mixture between religion and sports taking place in a mosque (see below). After this long day we were glad to meet our beds and dream about what would happen to us in Pakistan. So much I can tell: We planned to cross Pakistan in 2 days, after 3 weeks we are still here, so next article will not be a boring one

Dear Mohammad, Iran has been great for us – our project has got a lot of feedback and publicity due to your efforts! Thanks a lot for helping us out so much and of course for the great sport suits. We will definetely deliver the third one to Volker to Germany! It would be great to get a copy of the television clip about us sent to Germany as soon as we will be back! But anyways, thanks for showing to us that beautiful Iran we will not forget about! Stefan and Simon!

So we finally made it to Iran! Our travel in this country started slow, a little bit disappointing, but our adventures progressed quickly, so that we have a big bag with great stories from the Middle East for you. We have experienced so much, that we consider ourselves in a position to give you – with the following articles – not only an impression about our personal adventures, but also about politics, culture, daily life and especially traffic in Iran. But first of all we`ll start in this first article with our travels.

After we became millionaires by changing some Euros at the border into Iranian Rial (the rate is approx. 1 to 15500), we headed east and got an amazing reward for the border-stress. The sunset at the saltlake named Urmia-Lake gave us a first idea of the beautiful landscape of Persia.

The next recompense of the unjoyful border experience was already waiting for us in Tabriz, one of the bigest cities in Iran. There we met Masoud, an Iranian student, who invited us into his appartment for the next couple of nights. Glad about this warm and comfortable place to stay we prepared a nice dinner (green beans with rice – ‘Lubia polo’ as far as we remember) together with Masoud and his cousin, learned some card-games and finally fell asleep.

The next day we made a trip alltogehter in the bus to see Kandovan, a very ancient, 3000 year old village that is located directly in the mountains. People built their houses right into the sand stone and have been living here for hundreds and thousands of years untouched by major modernisation. But of course nowadays a lot of tourism has found its way into here, what we were a little bit annoyed of, although I know we are just visitors ourselves. On the way to Kandovan me (Stefan) and Masoud’s cousin were trying to play chess in the back of the car. Due to the numerous speed bumps on the Iranian roads, it was quite a tough job for the driver Simon to ensure us good playing conditions and once, by going to quickly over one of these damn obstacles, he messed up our whole game. 

After this we didn’t want to deny Masoud and his cousin the opportunity to have a game on our table soccer. Actually, Simon and me, we were really keen about having our first match versus Iranians. So we went from Kandovan into a nice park in Tabriz and built up the table right there.

When it got darker, we were invited to a skatepark of a friend of Masoud. When we arrived there, we felt transported back into our teens. Techno music sounding like ‘Blümchen’ or ‘DJ Bobo’ was all over the place and everybody was going crazy about inline-skating and skateboarding, a thing that started similarly in Germany 15 years ago. Out of a sudden even a Kia Pride came along with music on board, which encouraged some people to dance and improvising breakdance-moves in front of the car – seeing this and knowing this just happens in Iran, I was pretty amused about the scenery.

At the same time, inspired by his own skating experiences many years ago, Simon tried some skating and immediately got many new friends. But when the Iranian skater-hipsters got little to pushy, wanting to have a race with him, we left and had something to eat in the ‘Godfahter’ restaurant. Simon and me actually wanted to have something traditionally Persian to eat, but it finally ended up with the conclusion, that this ‘Godfather’ was pretty much the same bullshit as McDonalds, just with the pictures of Ayatolla Khomeini and his successor Khamenei hanging at the wall instead of Ronald Mcdonald After eating we bought some snacks in a small shop and looked out for something to drink. Since Alcohol is strictly forbidden in Iran and gets officially punished with 139 lashes, we watched out for something similar and – believe it or not – we got some nonalcoholic Oettinger in a little shop.

After one more day together with Masoud in Tabriz, we left the city into northern direction to hit the Caspian Sea, which we were very curious to see. Beach, swimming, fresh air, delicious oriental food – some kind of these thoughts were circling in our heads. After a damn long drive over the Elburs mountains and partly on the motorway called (no kidding): „Martyrhighway“, we made it to the coast, but we were mostly disappointed of its appearance. The hole 750 km of Irans coastline was completely overcrowded and overloaded with buildings or remainings of those. The few „beaches“ that remain are completely wasted, because people living here – as in the whole Iran – do not really care about their environment and are just throwing all their stuff in the nature (see picture below to get an impression). Another thing which really started to annoy us, was the traffic and the crazyness, Iranians use to „what they call it“ drive. More to this topic in an extra article coming soon.

Summarising for this day, the experiences had left us with a taste of disappointment. Cause we didn`t find a place to park the car at the seaside, we spent the night in a very poor looking area with little houses, watched a movie and dreamed about upcoming adventures. The next morning we were pretty surprised, when an Iranian lady came by to our Bus knocking at the door. First of all, we were annoyed by her waking us up, but we soon realized that she was holding a breakfast on a plate (Cay-tea, biscuits, fruits etc.) right in front of her. Of course, we kindly opened up and the woman warmly invited us into her house for lunch. By trying to use our picturebook, which is supposed to make an understanding without knowing a foreign language easier, the lady unfortunately misunderstood the situation and thought this book is a gift from us to her. So she just took it very thankfully and being polite, as we are, we continued our travels having one piece of luggage less.

After another night at the Caspian Sea we headed back south, again through the Elburs mountains, to make it to Tehran. When we arrived, it was an iranian celebration day, called Natureday (for us little ironically, since we didn`t see untouched nature so far). Tehran, a city of approx. 15 Million people, was like dead, as all the people went out into the nearby mountains for vacation and all shops were closed. Being pretty lost in this big and noisy city with no internet available, we were glad that Patricia and Greg from the U.S., the former host family of Simon’s girlfriend Anna, had offered us a contact in Tehran – Macih or Mac, as we call him. So after giving Mac a call in the same evening, we could not have been happier to meet him at his flat in the center of the city next noon. The next days turned out to be very exciting, entertaining and eye-opening to us. Mac was reading out of the Koran to us, to teach us about Islam (see below), showing us around Tehran (and the political situation), taking us out to some traditional Persian restaurant and he was even cleaning our car for us (without permission). Dear Mac, thank you for hosting us for so many days in your quiet and restful flat! We are so glad having met you more or less by coincidence – we will miss the nice discussions about Iran, religion, life in general, your pilot stories and of course your swearing like a trooper while in Iranian traffic !!!

Next and last stop for us in Teheran was the olympic-town, a huge sport-area, situated in the middle of the city. Every sport you can imagine, you`ll find it here, from rock-climbing, bowling, any fitnessstuff, swimming to even paintball. And the very best, unlike the rest of Tehran, here you can smell a lot of green nature and fresh, non-polluted air. Ok, so far so good, but you probably wonder, how and especially for what reason we got to this place. The answer is named Mr. Mohammad Chamani. He is the coach of the Iranian national team in table-soccer and a very very kind person. We got this enjoyable contact through Volker Gröschl, an German table-soccer-player, who supports us permanently on our trip. Thanks a lot Volker! So we got the opportunity to play against the Iranian nationl team and even had the honor, to challenge Abdulla, Irans most successful player and one of the best players on our planet. We didn`t look too good, but at least we shot a few goals, which satisfied us a lot. During our gaming we were also asked to give an interview for the iranian sports TV, so Simon and me answered the reporter`s questions, while Mac, who joined us for this happening, translated for us. Actually Mac couldn’t have made a better job looking like a real officia person – so thanks again for doing this for us! A few days later they broadcasted it and hopefully we`ll get a copy of our TV-perfomence sended to Germany. Our last night in Tehran we spent in a nice hotel in the olympic-sports-area, sponsored by Mohammad. Before our departure he invited us to take a swim and hang out in the whirl-pool, while having a great view at the Iranian mountainside. We even got 3 original Iranian-National-Team-Table-Soccer-Jackets as a gift (one is actually for you, Volker!).

So, that was our stay in Tehran – awesome!!! The things we gonna experience after Tehran will be even more crazy - promise - and for the upcoming article we won`t have you wait to long. And Mohammad, we really have to thank you sooo much, it felt, like you took care of us as of your own children. We appreciate this a lot. Hopefully, we will see you again, maybe in Germany for a match

Who the hell is “Osman”? By entering Turkey Stefan and me saw all kinds of Osmans walking around, whether in the city or on the rural side. Osman may be a farmer, a taxi driver, a seller in a bazar, a car engineer, a gas station attendant, a student.. actually Osman could be pretty much everyone you see in the streets. Most of all, Osmans share some typical habits as for example drinking cay tea or/and eating Turkish kebab. Osman is a very communicative and most probably open-minded character, so as soon as an Osman realizes you are a tourist, especially a German one, he will speak frankly and in the most direct way to you. He actually does not have any sense of shame that might prevent him from adressing you and asking a lot of questions. This can either be very kind and helpful but at some point may also annoy people who are simply not used to this kind of behavior.

“Osman” (in our metaphorical use of the word) is the typical turkish citizen (a “Müller” of Germany) – the most helpful, interested, curious, direct and warm-hearted person one could ever imagine.

So far Turkey is definetely the country that surprised us most with respect to mentality and this has undoubtedly a lot to do with the insane amount of kind people we met in our two weeks ot traveling through Turkey. We simply did not expect to meet so many “Osmans” but – before we came to Turkey – were rather prepared to see a different kind of Turkish mentality and culture (probably prejudiced by our experiences in Germany).

This sort of lecture about getting to know different cultures is one of our major motivations for our trip and that is why we are glad about having made this impressive and lasting experience! Beside this very memorable impression of Turkish culture we also had the opportunity to learn a lot about the political and social situation in the country. There are a lot of conflicts going on which range between modernty and tradition as well as between individualism and family…

After this anecdote on Osman and his home country Turkey, we do not want to forget to give you the latest update on our trip:

We left Istanbul after five days full of action and wonderful experiences. We wanted to make it to the south-eastern part of Turkey which is much warmer than the Bosphorus in march. So after one night close to Ankara we headed south in the direction of Adana, where the Mediteranean Sea was waiting for us. On our way to the Sea we got lost somehow in a very rural and agricultural area where at some point roads stopped in the middle of nowhere and traffic signs – if existing – were nothing but confusing. So we could not help but ask people in the villages for the proper roads. Here we actually found countless “Osmans” and “Osmaniyes” (female version) who were not only helpful but rather keen about helping us out (see below).

After some driving Bernd took us safely to the small fisher village Yumurtalik which is nicely located at the Sea. We used the great weahter with temperatures up to 20° to take the first swim during our trip and had some sunny games on the tablesoocer with some guys right at the beach.

After two wonderful days at Yumurtalik and after Stefan had finally given up on his tries to do some fishing, we started in the direction of Sanliurfa – east of Turkey – where we were planning to meet Halil, a really cool and relaxed guy and actually a friend of Steffi from Istanbul. Somehow Bernd, our car, didn`t seem to be so excited about going east and gave us some trouble.

First problem occured at a gas station, when we realized all of a sudden that fuel was leaking out of one small hose (Schlauch). We did not know at all what had happened and – not able to do something about it – we watched our expensive fuel (in Turkey it is approx. 2€ per liter – highest price in the world) passing away. But within two minutes a gas station attendant, who had become aware of our problem showed up with a new hose, which exactly fitted. He did not even ask us before he climbed under the car to replace the broken parts and fixed the car. For us, this guy was just another Osman and a perfect example of the great Turkish mentality and helpfulness.

After this we went on to have a quick stop at Gaziantep (where the delicious pistachios are being cultivated). When we stopped the car, we realized that something was wrong with our accelerator pedal, which kind of stucked a few times before. We tried to fix it by moving the pedal up and down but somehow made it just worse, so it simply was not movable anymore.. This being our second problem with the car within one day, so we started to get pissed of Bernd and were pretty certain that we would not be able to go on the same night. Pretty desperate we were checking the internet for a solution for the problem and, surprisingly, found one very quickly. So this time we, ourselves, got under the car, did some screwing and finally fixed the broken parts. This actually fulfilled us with some pride for this was the first time we did some engineering and fixed the car on our own.

Anyway, although it was already late, we could continue to Sanliurfa where Halil (the cool guy we mentioned before) was waiting for us until midnight and took us to the appartment of his friend Mehmet. We spent the next three nights in his nice place and had a really chilly time togehter! In these days Halil introduced us to all parts (and Halil might know what we mean by that..) of east-Turkish lifestyle and culture. We really started to like spending our time in Urfa, where Turkish, Kurdish and also Arabian people are living togehter. In a way Urfa reminded us of our imagination of Syria where – because of our lack of time – we unfortunately can’t go. Not only the cultural aspects, the great food but especially Halils great hosting made this an unforgettable stop for us Globekickers. Before we had to say goodbye, we build up the table in a park playing with some kids and had a picknick.

From Sanliurfa we started in the direction of Iran, our next stage. On our way we had to pass the very mountained eastern parts of Turkey/Kurdistan. We had a quick stop at Diyarbakir – the “Kurdish capital” of Turkey – and the same day went on to Van, which is located at a big lake surrounded by mountains. Although it was very cold, we spent three days in the middle of the mountains with the beautiful snow covered nature around us.

We had a kicker match on the top of one big mountain (I could catch up and the score is now equalled to 6:6 in matches) in front of an impressive panorama. But we are certain that pictures of the Himalayas will even top this scenary!

The day after we headed to Yüksekova, the last bigger town before the Turkish-Iranian border station, we decided to spent another night outside and finally found a place to stay (actually the spot was just 50km away from the Iraqi border, which made us feel a little uncomfortable). The next morning – the night had been quite and peaceful – we woke up when some Turkish guys – who had not recognized the two of us sleeping in the back of the car – were trying to open the doors of our car. They were actually trying on every single door to get into the car. We got up and knocked angrily at the door to make sure that Bernd is our property and does not like to be touched by strangers.

After this kind of unexpected experience with people – who were definetely no typical “Osmans” (that is for sure) – we headed to the Iranian border.

At our arrival a complete chaos of cars and people going crazy expected us. The computer systems of the border station had crashed (which apparently happens once a year, we`ve got told) and the whole place had been closed for several hours. When the gates were reopened, hundreds of cars and their crazy drivers inside tried to make it over the border as quickly as possible which obviously overburdened the Turkish bureaucrazy that we were “kindly” introduced to. The whole scene reminded us more of a stock exchange or a bazar than of a properly working administration.

Anyway, with some help of kind Iranians, who did the necessary talking for us, we made it out of hell in 3 hours and finally got into Iran, where some big challenges waited for us – as the following article will show you

Preface

For us Turkey began in Silivri, a town near Istanbul. On Saturday night we didn`t make it the whole way to our planned destination (which was Istanbul), so we parked our car just in some street in Silivri. While everybody apart from some barking dogs was asleep, we joined our new „neighbours“ for a night and dreamed about the adventures lying ahead of us. The first one of those came walking by our car the next morning just after we woke up. Still not 100 percent awake we saw a bunch of children coming closer to our „bed room“ and we quickly figured out that this was the opportunity to start our first soccer match with a crowd of Turkish youngsters. So we asked them: „Hey guys, u wanna play?“.The picture below might give an impression of the answer they gave us We played and had a good time, even though it was a bit difficult to enjoy the moment, having to keep an eye on all our stuff, which our upgrowing friends were little too curious about.

So, playing with 15 kids was quite a nice start in the day and some sort of introduction to the crowded and busy city of Istanbul, which was waiting for us. First lesson we`ve learned about traffic in Istanbul ( like Ahmed, a friend we met later, used to say): „You have to look the enemy in the eyes and if you see some weakness, you drive first!“. Doesn`t sound like German traffic rules, but it`s the only way to make some meters in Istanbuls totally crazy traffic jams. After recognizing that our navigation system is not working any longer, no gas station has a city map and that leaving the mainroad was a big mistake, because we`ll never find back on it, we anyhow made it to Steffi`s place in 4 hours for 20 kilometres (no shit..). Finally entering Istanbul we could smell the traffic, see the beautiful ocean and feel the overwhelming presence of masses of people on the streets. Here life is happening outside – just astonishing!

Steffi, a friend of a friend but now just a friend welcomed us at her place and showed us around to get some good Turkish food. Food – that actually should get a chapter on it`s own. So far we have become real fans of Turkish cuisine. Recommended are Köfte, Adana-Kebab, for vegeterians Cig-Köfte and the very traditional but awesome Lensesoup. Each meal is followed by a cay-tee (or some more). And sweets, so many tasty sweets, we still can`t get enough of it. So for us, Turkey has definitely been a culinary highlight.

But lets get back to what we did in Istanbul, if not busy eating. After we had the pleasure to enjoy Steffis hospitality, we also got to know her flatmate, Faruk. The four of us spent a lot of time togehter. We`ll never forget our deep conversations while having some Efes Pilsen, the nice places you showed us in this neversleeping metropole and of course – the Schooladventure.

Ahh, I forgot to tell you. Faruk is a teacher, probably the most chilled and coolest one we`ve ever seen and he took us to his lessons. This is why little Turkish kids got the opportunity to ask many questions about us, our trip and Germany. Afterwards we enjoyed playing on the soccer-table with them. So we had a real good time with these lovely children and we suppose it was pretty enjoyable for them too!

Their actually was one „problem“ left. Parking our car and not paying loads of money for it.

If you would ask a person from Istanbul, if he or she could name just one good thing about searching for a free-parking place, especially in the Istanbul city-center of Beyoglu, the person probably could not imagine any positive thing connected to that, because first of all searching for a parking space sucks everywhere, but in Istanbul it is horrible to find a spot and it will stress you totally out, because traffic is just a big mess. In our case searching for a spot for our car was the best thing that could have ever happened to us – just an example of the power of coincidence and our luck. Why? Because all of a sudden (right when we were starting to despair), their came a funny guy (his name was Mihran) knocking on our window and said: „You need help? Are you searching for a place to park? I can help you – you can use our parking area!“. Not believing in our incredible luck, we (of course) accepted his offer and he unlocked a parkingplace in front of his house for us. But that`s not enough, Mihran, actually kind of an artist, dancer and actor, performing together with his friends from the „Çıplak Ayaklar Kumpanyası“-community, (just check it out on their website: http://www.ciplakayaklar.com/english/index_e.html) invited us for his performance later that evening, which we totally enjoyed – thanks a lot for that! We are so glad, we met all of you!

But still not enough. We met some more of Mihrans friends who warmly welcomed us and had some more suprises left for us.

First thing again had to do with our car. We had some serious problems with our wheeling, it was blocking sometimes so that we couldn`t drive properly in certain situations. Anyway, we tried to fix it on our own, but soon figured out, that we can not do it and have to find a repair shop. So it is quite more than a task to find a good repair place, specialized in VW-busses with staff able to speak english in a city with 17 million people… But not if you know Cihan who is – no surprise – a friend of Mihran. He took us to the best place for old vw-cars you probably can find in whole Turkey: „ARZU OTO – Full Servis“. When we arrived at the place, first thing these guys did, was calling Ahmet, who speaks excellent German and English, so he could translate for us and really helped us out of our misery. Perfect, thanks so much for your help! The VW-guys soon recognized the problem and fixed it in a few hours – in Germany for sure it would have taken us 3 days, because they would have had to order a new piece, which our turkish friends just fixed on their own somehow – but it works so far!

Dear friends, thanks a lot for fixing our car and so make it possible for us to continue our journey!

„Sevgili arkadaşlar, arabamızı tamir ettiğiniz için ve yolculuğumuza devam etmemizi sağladığınız için çok teşekkür ederiz!”

So Bernd (our car) again was on the road, actually in a big „stop and go“ after we left the repair shop. Since we moved one meter per minute, I decided to take a pee in a hotel I saw next to the road. When I came out of it again I didn`t see the car anymore, traffic somehow was moving fast, so I started running in the middle of the 5-laned road, searching for the green bus. Luckily for me I saw it after a 5-minute sprint through the streetsmok, then lost it again, because Simon couldn`t just stop in the middle of the road. Finally, I made it… but just picture me running – the long German guy just trying to catch up with his own bus – hilarious . After I had made it back into the car we drove as quick a possible to Taksim Square, where we met Zeynep. We originally wanted to stay at Zeyneps flat, but then just met for a nice dinner in one of the countless restaurants in the streets around Taksim. Dear Zeynep, unfortunately we could not spend to much time together, but still we enjoyed meeting and getting to know you!

So, what next … sure, next surprise. To keep it short. We were invited to another performance of the artists community and Cihan, whose is doing flying effects professionally and made us Globekickers fly as well (check his website: www.vertigoeffects.com). Thank you so much for making this possible – we really enjoyed this a lot!

With this our really impressive and unforgettable Istanbul-experience ended and left us with the strange feeling that quite a lot of our experiences is influenced by coincidence and fate!