Pipe dream ... Peter Moore makes the most of some time in a Tehran tea shop. Photograph: Peter Moore
Having travelled independently from London to Sydney back in the 90s and chronicled my adventures in the book The Wrong Way Home, I have been following the OzBus overland odyssey with great interest. When I read here on Guardian Unlimited that things were allegedly going a bit wonky in Iran I felt massive relief for Mark Creasey, the guy who organised the trip. After a couple of weeks of hot-air ballooning over Europe and getting backs scrubbed in Turkish baths in Istanbul, his customers have finally got something to complain about.
His passengers probably don't agree. The reports of a 'mutiny' suggest that they think that they shelled out £3,750 to avoid crap food, itinerary changes and a bus that breaks down every second day. But they'd be wrong. That's exactly what they should have hoped for when they handed over their hard-earned cash.
Let's face it. If it was easy to drive from London to Sydney we'd be all doing it. We'd be putting the Vauxhall Zafira on the Eurostar and setting off east to visit Uncle Brian in Wagga Wagga, allowing an extra day in case the traffic is bad in New Delhi. But we're not. The roads are atrocious. The food can be worse. And the situation on borders is as hard to read as Gordon Brown's thinking on announcing an election date.
That's what makes it one of the world's great adventures. Reliable is boring. Safe is the easy option. When the Ozbusers roll into Sydney mid-December they'll feel a real sense of achievement - even if it is just for putting up with the guy who snores like a jet fighter for three months.
OK, it's unfortunate that they are stuck in Tehran. Just about anywhere else in Iran would have been more interesting. The only tourist site, as such, is the former US embassy, now rebranded as the US Den of Espionage, and Ayatollah Khomeini's final resting place on the southern outskirts in a complex that cost US$2 billion to build. Although a quick walk around the cracked pavements of the city reveals all kinds of charms, not least the roadside hawkers selling the best falafel rolls you've ever tasted.
My advice to the Ozbusers, indeed to anyone trundling along the road less travelled, is to embrace the things that go wrong. These are the moments that will define your trip and stay with you for the rest of your life. I can't remember a single thing about a bus journey I took through southern Iran other than it was comfortable and hassle-free. But I remember the overnight journey from the border through the Baluchistan desert as if I'd just staggered off the bus, hot and dazed, yesterday. An unusual band of locals had encamped on my designated seat and when they were forced to vacate it, they got their kid to shit on it.
I'm still dining out on that story over a decade later.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2008
