Bandar Abbas

I'm in Bandar-e-Abbas, my last Persian Gulf destination. Once I've fixed my puncture this afternoon I'll get along North out of town to start climbing back up across the country. I've little to recollect of the last week or so along the sea; I've been effective. Early starts and late stops, big mileage and dinners. I spent a morning drying all my stuff and repacking for summer weather; warm stuff at the bottom; digging out Greek sunscreen and nail-scissoring off the trackie-bottoms Jamshid gave me. There's been no wind and hardly a hill to speak of. Easy without all the hard bits, and far less to tell. I had to ford a river yesterday and enjoyed a break after, baking my clayshod feet in the sun until they crumbled. One beachy midnight a torch woke me in the face; two men with assault rifles outside the tent - are you tourist? - areh - OK, salaam - cheers mate. Back to sleep to forget it by morning. Big, salty bits and weird Gaudi-abstract sandstone cliffs. A couple of hundred-mile days, several seventy-eighty ones. It's been nice to purge that little petrol foible I'd picked up lately! Now there's a habit-forming substance...

I had an email a few weeks ago from a Flemming somebody who wanted top tips and advice re. long distance cycle touring; I wrote several similar notes in my dream-plan stage. I replied tardy and rambling one night from my camp; a detailed description of circumstance (location, horizons, sleeping situation, dinner and breakfast inventories, morning direction etc) and little of practical advice whatsoever. There's not a lot of advice to give. I just heard from the French couple I met in Istanbul who're trying to sell their Renault Clio voiture to finance the next ride, which sounds a good start.