From Manoj's Journal

Manoj is safely back in Doha, and shares some of his photographic diary...

Day one of getting the Land Rover Discovery from Doha to Budapest.

Sir Peter Theisinger & Sir Manoj Fiennes took off at 03:55 on 6/01/09 with the objective of meeting up with Sir Brendan Shakleton in Istanbul, 4000 km by road in Istanbul on 9/01/09.

Pete in Green Village compound at 03:30, fully loaded.

Cockpit of the Discovery with no less than 3 different GPS devices.

KSA, Hufhuf

Small town past Hufhuf, where we saw one of the best desert camping shops. Everything you could want and cheap as chips.

Crossing a railway line.

Cooking Pete's egg sandwich.

Pete washing down the sandwich with some tea. Filling up the car was sweet - 40 litres of diesel came to 8 Saudi Riyals or 1.60 GB Pounds.

Saudi is not all desert. There were loads of oases and some freshwater lakes as it rained recently.

Hotel in Turayf, KSA. Outside temperature: -2 Celsius. Price for a twin room for 2 persons 200 Saudi Riyals, which is about 40 GB Pounds.

One of the desert pools of freshwater.

Looking back... Day 2 from Manoj's journal

Day two began at 5:30 am in Turayf, KSA. Then across the border to Jordan, past Amman to the Dead Sea for a dip, back past Aman to Syria near Daraa. Then a drive through Damascus via Homs to Lattakia close to the Turkish border. Total 800 km by road up to 1500 m elevation near Homs.

GPS showing an elevation of minus 345 m as we descend towards the Dead Sea coast.

Dead Sea coast. Just managed to get rid of one of the guys out of the Chemical Brothers music video by giving him a slice of the Bloke's Cake. Much to Manoj's dismay.


Pete in the middle of the Dead Sea - he tried to swim to the other side - but was put off by the guns.

Marriott Hotel, Dead Sea - salmon & cream cheese bagels with tomato pastries washed down with some ice cold orange juice (know what I mean Taz).

The morning after. We didn't manage to take any photos of the drive between Damascus & Homs, which was done in the dark, through a thunderstorm with psychotic Syrian drivers trying to trail us like heat seeking missiles.

Pete applying some TLC to the Landy. We lost some oil in the 2600 km covered so far.

7.56pm

Pete writes "We are currently at 1450m and climbing."

7.38pm

Pete writes "Damascus: a shit hole of mammoth proportions."

5.55pm

Pete writes "We have just gone through Syria border. En route to Latakia 4.5 hours from now. I did swim properly in Dead Sea. I was the only one doing this. All systems green."

1.47pm

Pete writes "Just swam in the Dead Sea Jordan."

9.03am

Pete writes "Just got through Jordan border. Off to Dead Sea. Minus 2 degrees. Cake holding out."

8.18am

Pete writes "We are in Jordan. Minus 2 outside."