Corican

On the border between Armenia and Iran we had to help the border control people with our passports, because they had never seen UK passports and didn't know what to do. Joe ended up behind the desk, putting our information into the computer system, guessing at what information goes where.

Shortly after this we were forced to line up at gun point. It turned out that the guards just wanted to look at our piercings (my friends and I have facial piercings - eyebrow, gauged ears (not too big), etc...) The guards were cringing and giggling like girls whilst looking at them. They thought it was hilarious and gross that I had a 1 cm hole in my ear. Strange to see a man with an AK hiding his face in his hands and giggling like a school girl....

We decided that our favorite country was Iran, because it was such a pleasant surprise.

Whenever we would tell people that we would be driving through Iran, they would always ask "why would you do that? its so dangerous! You will get killed!!!!!!!!"

But when we got there we found that it was, by far, the most friendly and welcoming country we had ever been to. We would constantly be swarmed with people wanting to shake our hands and welcome us to their country, telling us that they are so happy to see us. Out of every ten cars that passed us, nine of them would wave at us, lean out of the window to shake our hands and welcome us to their country.

At one point we were driving along the highway to Tehran, when a family pulled up next to us (our small car with loads of bags didn't exactly race along...) and the driver leant fully out of his window, pouring us tea from a teapot on his dashboard, whilst his wife in the passenger seat continued to steer the car whilst reading a book.

It was such a beautiful country, with such lovely people. I would highly recommend it to anyone that has the chance to visit.

As for your second question: the friends I went with and I have all been best friends for many years, and so we didn't have any major problems. Just a few little snaps here and there when tempers were short. But they were quickly forgotten.

We had more than our fair share of near misses on the roads (especially in Romania-those people are crazy), but the one that stopped my heart for the longest was driving up the Transfagarasan highway (rated the best road in the world by Top Gear UK), we took a corner too fast and felt the wheels lift up off the road, we thought for sure we would tip and roll off the edge (no barriers, of course), but thankfully the insane amount of weight in our car kept it safe. We proceeded -slightly- slower from then on.

Thanks a lot buddy, I've actually been here two months, working in Chillout Hostel and falling in love with a girl that works here. Tomorrow I am moving on with my travels. I'm heading to Morocco. I will be sad to leave the city, and sad to leave her.... :(

It was one man, doing everything, there was about 50 of us waiting in a tiny hot room. Halfway through he just walked out of the building for an hour for his lunch break.

Fun times with bureaucracy.