As you all know, we are stuck in Ankara while awaiting all kinds of things to go on. The wait has its ups and downs.
Ankara is a bit of a drag, although our neighbourhood is pretty and old and dilapidated.
The rest of the city looks like a Mussolinian wet dream: modern and filled with statues of the incredibly handsome Attatürk astride horses of incredible muscle tone.
There are cinemas and cyber-cafés and the women are pretty. Also, there is a very strange statue, a reproduction of a Hittite cult object, we later learnt, which really looks like a memorial to Bowinkle the Moose.
Five times a day the call to prayer cuts across the city like dull knives. No two mosques call at exactly the same time, so the call to Allah's bosom is echoed rather than pitched.
What is it we're waiting for?
Well, we've got our Iranian and Pakistani visas and now must apply for our Indian visa.
Also, we're waiting for some cash to arrive from France before heading to Ayatollah land, since they know not of ATMs. But most important, we're waiting for the replacement to our Carnet de Passage en Douane, a pretty little booklet which allows us to take the car into countries which have no customs agreements with France.
Our previous carnet was stolen from our car in Eilat. It has no value whatsoever to the thieves, other than as toilet paper.
But to us, it means putting down another caution of 15,000 French Francs since the Automobile Club de France can't just say, "oh! Your carnet was lost, we'll send you another one, mon ami". No, that would be too simple.
Another line of gelt has to be laid down - the first caution, by the way, will be returned to us after 6 years, free of interest - and a friend in Paris has to go and sign papers.
For this we can never express our thanks enough to Cécile who has agreed to help us out in this time of crisis. While waiting we wanted to share with you some of the dubious pleasures of travel, and some of the real pleasures of being stuck here. .