LIST OF PHOTOGRAPHS

St Catharine’s College Cambridge in 1960, where it all began.

Bob transferred supplies from College to the British Rail container.

Tim supervised the loading of supplies at the railway station in Ostend.

Traffic was light through Czechoslovakia, the first country visited behind the ‘Iron Curtain’.

Tony and Traicho talking with a local in Prague.

Young Pioneers in distinctive uniform in the centre of Prague; they were the Soviet Bloc replacement for our scouting movement.

Farmer’s transport, east of Warsaw, Poland – market day.

The friendly face of a local farmer.

Ostankino campsite, Moscow. Tim was repacking the extraordinary weight of food and supplies that was carried in each 1200cc Kombi.

Dominating the Moscow skyline at the time, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The queue to visit the mausoleum containing the embalmed bodies of Lenin and Stalin. St Basil’s is in the background, at the far end of Red Square.

Part of the mausoleum queue. The frocks were typical of the time.

The local petrol station.

The Chairman of the students’ Komsomol Committee in his office.

The dinner hosted for the Komsomol Committee.

The classic symbol of Communism – officially entitled ‘Worker and Collective-Farm Woman’; it is now dismantled, and the pieces stored in a lock-up on the outskirts of Moscow.

Traicho and Mehmed outside a Moscow hospital; Mehmed was recovering after ‘nuclear’ treatment.

Women hand-painting white lines in the middle of a busy Moscow street.

The centre of Kiev was pleasantly tree-lined, and had a mature feel and style, in contrast to Moscow.

This small delivery vehicle was on the outskirts of Orel, and normally used for luggage, but apparently occasionally used to take away dissidents!

In Romania, the Kombi, flying the Union Jack and the Bulgarian flag, attracted a lot of curiosity from the locals.

The traditional white costume worn by the northern Romanian peasant farmers was distinctive and set them apart from the Russian peasants with their rather drab clothes.

Harvest time in the Ukraine, with mainly women in the fields, little mechanization, and men driving the horse and trailer!

The vast wheat lands of the Ukraine.

An abundance of fresh food outside the Iron Curtain – fish sellers by the side of the Bosphorus, Istanbul.

There were many spiralling roads, of uncertain surface quality, in the mountainous areas of central Turkey.

A typical mountain village with flat-roofed, stone-built houses, in eastern Turkey.

The end of the day – sunset on the two Kombis by the Black Sea coast, northern Turkey.

Driving – or leading – a herd of goats, in eastern Turkey.

Market stall in Tashkent.

Tea break, northern Iran. Left to right – Peter, Tony, Bob, Tim, Roger.

Typical village spring in northern Iran, forming the centre of village activity.

Darius’ palace at Persepolis, which had been excavated only 30 years previously.

The size was breathtaking. This shows one of the four flights of stairs forming the Grand Staircase.

Seventeenth-century Lutfullah Mosque, originally a ladies’ mosque, on Maidan Square.

Uniquely decorated cream tilework and lattice windows on the dome of Lutfullah Mosque.

Islamic decoration.

Food vendor, Kombi and mix of clothing on a typical Teheran street.

The long drive westwards from Hamadan to the Iran/Iraq border.

Shepherd’s accommodation, western Iran.

A relatively minor hazard for the fully laden Kombi en route.

Bedouin encampment near the Roman city of Jerash in Jordan.

Jordanian children off to school, smartly dressed, on the eastern outskirts of Jerusalem.

Going through the Mandelbaum Gate, accompanied by the British Consul – the only way to go from Jordan to Israel in 1961.

First sight of modern, westernized Israel. What a contrast with the Arab world.

The UN post at the Gaza Strip. Visitors could stand with one foot in Israel and one in Egypt.

The Kombi being loaded onto a boat at Haifa, destined for Turkey.

Crossing the Bosphorus at Istanbul, this boat looked in imminent danger of sinking.

Accommodation at the British Embassy’s summer cottage, on the outskirts of Istanbul, overlooking the Bosphorus. Bob was never photographed without a cigarette drooping from his mouth!

Last tea break on the way home after four months. The Colman two-burner petrol stove performed dutifully throughout the trip.

‘Doctor’ Thompson administering to the local tribal chief who had wrenched his hand driving the first tractor to come to his village.

Male-dominated group posing for the wedding party. Westerners were seldom seen in the Turkmen Sahra.

Preparing pilau for the all-day wedding feast.

The men did prepare some food.

As part of the wedding celebrations, there were horse races for ‘bareback’ boys, aged between 9 and 15. These boys were racing near the finish.

Wrestling was part of the day’s entertainment, and winners were given small cash prizes.

Several judges ensured that nobody cheated, and the elders distributed the prize money.

The food drum, used to feed warriors before a battle, in the Friday Mosque, Herat.

The Friday Mosque of Herat (or Masjid-i-Jame Mosque), Afghanistan. It was originally built by the Timurids of mud bricks, with tiles decorating the exterior.

The camel train was a common sight on the drive to Kabul.

One of the sixth-century giant Buddhas at Bamiyan, on one of the old Silk Routes in the Hindu Kush, north of Kabul.

There were five linked lakes near to Bamiyan. The rich blue colour comes from the travertine walls of the lakes.

The terrain was harsh near the Band-e-Amir lakes.

Barefoot child in Kunduz, northern Afghanistan. There was a wide mix of ethnic groups here including Tajiks, Pashtuns, Hazaras, Uzbeks and even Arabs.

Some were better shod.

Mehmed, on the left, photographed at the start of his unauthorized trip north to the River Oxus.

Impromptu chai and a lie-down outside the blue mosque in Mazar.

Street barber in Mazar.

Local transport – a ghari.

The mosque in the holy city of Mazar-i-Sharif.

Selling watermelons by the roadside, Hindu Kush.

The road over the Hindu Kush, northern Afghanistan.

Fruit stall and local tribesmen from north of the Hindu Kush.

Driving through the Khyber Pass, an essential part of the old Silk Road, into Pakistan.

Accommodation was provided at Jahanzeb College, Mingora; since destroyed by an earthquake.

The Kombi was well protected by ‘pistol wallahs’ provided by the governor of Swat.

Young girl on bed, Mingora.

Driving further north up the Swat valley, pausing 15 miles from Kalam, before driving on to Gabral, some 7,300 feet above sea level, mainly with the Kombi in first gear.

Well north of Mingora in the Swat valley, northern Pakistan, was this curious but wary child.

Driving in the Swat valley.

The custodian at the Golden Temple at Amritsar in India provided suitable clothing before entering the temple.

Sikh service in the Golden Temple.

One of many university buildings in Chandigarh, a shrine of modern architecture.

Dancing monkey at Fatehpur Sikri.

Custodian of the temple at Fatehpur Sikri.

A typical street in Benares (now Varanasi), the centre of Hinduism in India.

Bathing in the Ganges, which is meant to be pure despite the ashes from funeral pyres.

Buddhist votive offerings.

A Hindu temple photographed late in the day in Kathmandu.

Street sellers.

Friends playing.

Kathmandu ‘Orchestra’; they were more photogenic than musical!

The enthusiastic young soloist of the orchestra.

Busy life on the streets.

The British Embassy bungalow at Kakani was said to have some of the best views of the Himalayas.

Visits were made to several schools in Colombo.

Climbing towards Adam’s Peak.

Huge elephant about to charge in Yala National Park, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka).

Escaping from the elephant, they returned to Colombo in more tranquil surroundings.

Near Arusha, in Tanganyika (now Tanzania), a Masai ‘standing guard’ over the Kombi.

Kombi admirers in Uganda.

Enthusiastic students at a school in East Africa.

North from Nairobi, Kenya, en route to Ethiopia, passing these harvesters …

… and one learning to play the drums in northern Kenya.

Sunset in East Africa.

A warm welcome was given at the Norwegian mission in Alge.

There was more than a little trouble en route from the Kenyan border to Dilla just across the border in Ethiopia; four-wheel drive was normally considered essential, but the Kombi struggled through.

Meeting the camel train …

… they eventually arrived on this extremely muddy main road in Dilla …

… and there was not another vehicle in sight.

At the border town of Kassala, there was a wait for a convoy to assemble, as there was no discernable road to Khartoum!

Finally arriving in Khartoum. This was the main shopping street.

The government flew Mehmed and Nigel to Gezira – an area between the White and Blue Niles, which was a successful, major cotton-producing project.

Traditional Egypt – one man and his camel.

The journey onward was by train, with the Kombi on a flat car, to Wadi Halfa in Egypt. Then by boat to Aswan to see the Pharaohs, which had to be moved when the dam was built later.

The face of Egypt.

Photographs credited to Mehmed Demirer and Roger Sherwin.