My longest trip for Jeff, around 3 months door to door,
Pity i opted for Trip Money not wages,
Simple enough looking load,
A bit for Damascus, half a load for Amman, rest for Doha.
No probs,
This was when i used the Volos-Tartous ferry as often as i could to avoid Turkey,
But politics got in the way just before i got to Volos,
Syria would not let me in to unload in Damascus with a Jordanian load on board!! something kicked off between countries way after i left London,
A couple of days kicking my heels in beautiful downtown Volos (remember when you had to park a mile or so inside docks and walk for an hour or so back to Shipping Office in town?) it finally dawned on me i wasnt going anywhere, and back to UK was totally out of the question, paperwork got me trapped,
Communication to Simon office was a hit or miss affair back then, but comments were ‘see what you can do, thought you had been there, done that, and let us know’.
I knew a guy in a shipping office in Athens that had helped me when delivering to Greek Islands the year before, and he spoke excellent English,
So, off to Athens for a chat, after numerous phone calls he figured he could get me a Ferry to Cyprus and another one onto Beirut in the Lebanon,
He could arrange a local Lebanese Tonka to load Syrian stuff in Beirut and leave me to make my merry way into Jordan, apparently it was fine to ‘Transit’ Syria from the Lebenon (try making sense of that?) i had to drive through Damascus!!!
All he needed was ‘Money’, ferries are not free,
That took the best part of a week to get hold of Jeff and get money transferred,
He was quite happy i found a solution, and the cream on the cake was ferry was cheaper than Volos-Tartous,
All looked good until agent mentioned a Lebanese Visa, bugger
No way to get one in Greece for some reason, But i ‘Could’ get one in Cyprus, maybe,
So in at the deep end, destination unknown, got onto an almost deserted ferry in Pireus bound for Larnaca,
I thought i was going to Limassol■■?, Get off Ferry and park on docks, i was not allowed to drive in Cyprus,
Taxi up to Lefkosa and Lebanese Embassy, dead easy i thought, nobody mentioned the ‘Peace Line’ to me (Turkey/Greece, not best of friends)
Embassy closed when i arrived,
Shabby (Cheap) Hotel for night, On doorstep of Embassy at sparrowsfart, they opened door at 10, zillion papers to fill out, have photo taken, come back tomorrow (whats new?)
Next day, wait and wait, come back tomorrow FFS
3rd day hooray, VISA, worried about truck parked in dodgy docks, mad taxi back to docks and book on next ferry to Beirut, luckily next day.
I thought it odd that great big ferry had about 10 trucks onboard, 8 Tonka’s, a Frenchman and me, frog was tipping in Beirut and had been there many times.
From about 20 miles out i saw lots of smoke, must be a big fire somewhere, as we got closer the ‘Big Fire’ appeared to be most of the docks!!
Ferry Captain didnt mess about, straight upto dock wall with ramp halfway down, when close enough he just dropped it, no tying up or any nonsense, all 10 trucks off in 2 mins and he was away at a vast rate of knots,
Total devastation, not a building standing, Not a fire at all, it was a WAR, we were shuffled to corner and parked under curfew for 3 days, docks had been mortared only a few hours before we docked,
Being young and stupid i thought this was all very exciting,
On 4th day it was thought safe enough to let us wander out of docks, but be back by 6pm curfew,
Frog and i walked for hours amongst ruins, loads of guys with guns, everyone staring at us, they must have thought we must belong there, no trouble at all ( act innocent, look innocent and no one notices)
Try that today in Middle East, we wouldnt have lasted 2 mins,
Count the bullet holes, they were everywhere, what were they shooting at■■?
Frog looking quite relaxed, said it was a fantastic city before war, just like Nice & Monaco
Shot of Famous Hilton Hotel with Mortar Bomb or Tank shot, through 11th floor
Blown up Tank in Hilton car park entrance
This wasnt Disneyland, but i was wandering streets looking like a tramp, and got away with it,
Took a day or so to get Damascus load onto a Tonka, and i was ready to go, but low on fuel, guess what? virtually no diesel left in whole city, max you could buy was 50Ltrs,
I looked at map and figured Syrian border was no more than 50 miles away, till Tonka driver (spoke French) told me i needed Full tanks to reach border, Beirut surrounded by mountains, Tonka man pointed up at top of nearest mountain and said thats where road go’s, 10 Hrs minimum, about 10 miles away on map,
I scraped up about 400Ltrs from here there and everywhere and set off, sure enough it was 10hrs of low range hairpin after hairpin to top.
At top of range i came across loads of British Squaddies dug in both sides of road looking down on city, got a cuppa from them but no way could i have any diesel, what they were doing there is beyond me, very very covert methinks,
Rolled into the most shambolic customs i have ever seen, on fumes, park anywhere you want, no barriers, one bloke for each side if you could find them and their magic stamps, if only all ME borders were like this! Tonka Tanker parked on side of road more than happy to fill tanks for US Dollars.
2 or 3 hrs later into Damascus and back to reality,
A month and a bit and i hadnt yet reached my tip in Amman,
In your picture you have two Astran trucks behind you. One in the queue and one following you. Was one the late Robert Dodds-Brown? Im sure I have seen some old pics of his own truck in those Astran colours and im guessing it was around the same time. Good pics and memories, keep em coming1
