Singapore - Netherlands 2 (1969).

After the pass and Kabul we entered the desert of Afghanistan. It was time for the nomads to set out for the mountains we were leaving behind. So every day we met a few caravans, hundreds of camels carrying the meagre belongings of the people.
The desert was not too lonely. Each night we managed to reach a small village, a few houses in nowhere.
"Do you want to sleep?" asked the teashop owner very surprised, as if there were plenty of good hotels around, but always offered a place on their typical carpet, as furniture is unknown, where we spent the night in company of countless fleas.
Afghanistan is a very strict muslim country. No woman went around unveiled, but no man ever troubled me, all were polite and friendly.
The first city in Persia, Mashad, holy city for the Persians, was very modern we were told, so we cycled into it in shorts and I didn't bother to put on long trousers as usual, when approaching habitation. But when we came near to the centre, where a beautiful tiled mosque was a pelgrimage place, the police stopped us, crowds of unfriendly people gathered around. "You cannot go further in that outfit", we were told, "you 'll get killed there!" Followed by all these staring people we were quick in finding a hotel and changing. But even though I always covered myself completely with clothes, we still had troubles keeping men from touching and pinching me in crowded streets.
In villages people were nice and friendly though. We were about to enter a small mud hotel, when two English speaking high school boys invited us to their home. The mother at first shy to see us and apologizing for the bad food she offered (it was delicious), was shown much respect by the sons and visitors, who stood up when she entered.
East Turkey is a very isolated mountain area; each day there was a high mountain to climb over unpaved roads. One of the best kitchens in the world was our reward in the evening, always there was good food to enjoy. Women still were traditionally kept inside, so we faced the same problems again with the men. This was of course very irritating and it culminated once in a fight, nearby farmers joined in with rakes. We were taken to court by 5 armed policemen and judged by a real white wigged judge. It was a dark and horrible experience, but some people were nice ande consoled us with a big glass of ayran, a yoghurt drink. Our Turkish was poor and an interpreter had to be found. The first one spoke French and just said: "Say you are guilty". So we pretended not to speak French. When an English speaking one was found, we told the judge that the men were bothering me and that was immediately sufficient to be discharged.
In Istanbul we entered Europe. The 2000 miles trip to home we made into an enjoyable holiday journey of 4000 miles through Greece, Italy, Austria and Germany, a fairy tale of castles amongst coloured autumn leaves, to arrive in the Netherlands when the leaves began to fall.
We had a nearly rainless journey; the day after we finished it started to rain and it became cold, we arrived just in time.