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Name that country


JaiDee

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Yo have the approximate region. Do you know what red is most popular in Australia?

 

Shiraz (Syrah) is the top drop here. Sunshine in a bottle is how I describe it. And the answer to your first question is Shiraz in Iran. Your clue about your favourite wine not being available there refers to it being a Muslim country. What a waste! All those wonderful old vines & none of it can be used for wine making. 

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Shiraz (Syrah) is the top drop here. Sunshine in a bottle is how I describe it. And the answer to your first question is Shiraz in Iran. Your clue about your favourite wine not being available there refers to it being a Muslim country. What a waste! All those wonderful old vines & none of it can be used for wine making. 

Of course it is Shiraz..

I have started to plan an overland trip from Melbourne to my hometown in the UK using only public transport,

As things stand at the moment there will need to be three short fights. Darwin to Bali, Rangoon to Kolkata and Karachi to Shiraz.

It won't happen for a couple of years yet,but I think I will need to get in training for Iran by trying to have a couple of AFD's (alcohol free days) a month.

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I have started to plan an overland trip from Melbourne to my hometown in the UK using only public transport,

As things stand at the moment there will need to be three short fights. Darwin to Bali, Rangoon to Kolkata and Karachi to Shiraz.

It won't happen for a couple of years yet,but I think I will need to get in training for Iran by trying to have a couple of AFD's (alcohol free days) a month.

 

When I did that trip we could only buy alcohol in India on Wednesdays. And you had to apply at the local police station for a permit. Then when you got a beer it wasn't cold. Things are a bit better today.

 

With the attitude in Pakistan being so hostile towards westerners I'm not sure I would recommend you going to Karachi to catch that flight. I would fly from either Delhi or Kathmandu to Iran & give Pakistan a wide berth. Do you really want to risk being held hostage by the Taliban?

 

As for the Rangoon to Kolkata flight, I have done it twice, only arriving at the second attempt. The first time we were in the air before the pilots could communicate with India & they turned us around as there was a cyclone in the Bay of Bengal. Rangoon airport had no way of contacting Kolkata before take-off. The one positive that came out of it was I got to spend another 3 days in Rangoon at the expense of the government. We were put up at the best hotel in town & all meals were supplied. There was no chance of getting fat though, I think they were told to keep the servings to a minimum. 

 

On the second time on Burma Air I was seated next to a westerner & mentioned to him I didn't like the look of the large dent in the leading edge of the wing. He said it was OK, he was an inspector travelling the world looking at the safety procedures on third world airlines. He told me Burma Air was one of the worst ones but not so bad they needed to shut it down. He said some of the national carriers in Africa were terrible & he wouldn't risk flying on most of them. 

 

The worst airline according to him back in the 70's - Zimbabwe Airlines. He thought it a miracle everytime they landed one of their planes safely.

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Well the Scottish flag outside the church must be a red herring, so what European Country has a Church of Scotland? the trolley wires suggest Eastern Europe, but I'm going Helsinki Finland.

No not Finland.....the Scotland flag is indeed a red herring-but it is a Scottish church in a surprising city......here's a couple more from the same city....Eastern Europe is correct....

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Here's my question - name the city on the shores of a lake in Nepal where all the hippies used to go to back in the day? And it wasn't a city when I was there, it was a village. A Nepalese waitress told me it is now a big city complete with traffic jams, everything. Don't you love progress?

 

I didn't think that was so hard. The place I was after is Pokhara. It was a delightful village catering for tourists when I was there. To hear it is now a large city today came as a shock.

 

I must return.

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It's actually the old city in Bern, the capital of Switzerland.

 

Well I never. I spent time in Bern visiting a girl friend years ago & I never saw the "old city". I don't even remember seeing a river. I will open Google Earth & have a look at where I was compared to where this is. Can't believe I could have been there & not known this.

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Well I never. I spent time in Bern visiting a girl friend years ago & I never saw the "old city". I don't even remember seeing a river. I will open Google Earth & have a look at where I was compared to where this is. Can't believe I could have been there & not known this.

 

Paccie, we've all been places and not known things. You're a big boy. Get over it. 

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I didn't think that was so hard. The place I was after is Pokhara. It was a delightful village catering for tourists when I was there. To hear it is now a large city today came as a shock.

 

I must return.

 

  Didn't see the question about Pokhara, Paccers; I would have gotten that one for sure, I was just there 3 years ago.

 

 

Lovely place, I would hardly call it a large city though.........good luck getting gas around there!

 

BTW.......the city I posted was in fact Kathmandu.

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When I did that trip we could only buy alcohol in India on Wednesdays. And you had to apply at the local police station for a permit. Then when you got a beer it wasn't cold. Things are a bit better today.

 

With the attitude in Pakistan being so hostile towards westerners I'm not sure I would recommend you going to Karachi to catch that flight. I would fly from either Delhi or Kathmandu to Iran & give Pakistan a wide berth. Do you really want to risk being held hostage by the Taliban?

 

As for the Rangoon to Kolkata flight, I have done it twice, only arriving at the second attempt. The first time we were in the air before the pilots could communicate with India & they turned us around as there was a cyclone in the Bay of Bengal. Rangoon airport had no way of contacting Kolkata before take-off. The one positive that came out of it was I got to spend another 3 days in Rangoon at the expense of the government. We were put up at the best hotel in town & all meals were supplied. There was no chance of getting fat though, I think they were told to keep the servings to a minimum. 

 

On the second time on Burma Air I was seated next to a westerner & mentioned to him I didn't like the look of the large dent in the leading edge of the wing. He said it was OK, he was an inspector travelling the world looking at the safety procedures on third world airlines. He told me Burma Air was one of the worst ones but not so bad they needed to shut it down. He said some of the national carriers in Africa were terrible & he wouldn't risk flying on most of them. 

 

The worst airline according to him back in the 70's - Zimbabwe Airlines. He thought it a miracle everytime they landed one of their planes safely.

Can't argue with your observations on Pakistan Paccers, Also Katachi is a shithole irrespective of the risk levels. I know Lahore is nice and also safer, but going over the border near Amritsar for a few days in Lahore before flying out is not practiacal. Pakistan has got to be one of the least desirable countries for non muslims to vist, and yet getting visas seems to be inordinately difficult and pricey. and the air fares from Lahore to Shiraz are about twice the price of flying from New Delhi. The trip is still two or three years away so lots can happen before then, maybe it will be possible to cross the land border between Myanmar and India.

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The writing is certainly Cyrilic text, so I guess Seven is on the money, although Russia is not the only country where russian is the language, old soviet states that became independent after the cold war,

Yep-Seven was right.....Moscow it was....the tube station gave the game away for sure

 

The Cyrillic alphabet is used for other languages - not just Russian. Azeri, Bagvalal, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Chechen, Chuvash, Kazakh, Kurdish, Macedonian, Moldovan, Mongolian, Montenegrin, Ossetian, Serbian, Tajik, Tatar, Turkmen, Ukrainian, and Uzbek are just the best-known - there are at least a dozen more, possibly two dozen.

 

 

However, I'd guess that the pics show Moscow.  My addled memory is telling me that the statues are in Gorky Park.

The statues  aren't in Gorky Park,but in a little residential square near the centre.....I found this tableau fascinating,Heironymous Boschian figures in the middle of a residential area.....it's titled "children are the victims of adult vices"....each figure represents a different vice.....

 

Interestingly -the cyrillic alphabet is named after one of the monks who brought writing to Russia ,,,Brother Cyril.....hence Cyrillic....i shit thee not.......

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