So, here I am, face to face with Sheila Rauch Kennedy, the vindictive, embittered, loose cannon of an ex-wife who has US Congressman Joe Kennedy’s political career in ruins. Turkish buses are on average twice as quick as trains, and there are daily direct buses from Istanbul to Tehran (about US$30 one way; the trip takes two days or more).The route from Erzurum through Dogubayazit to Tabriz in Iran by bus and taxi cost the author about US$22 (pounds 14) in total.In Iran, train tickets with sleeper reservations in four-person compartments can be bought at short notice and are very cheap; for example, the one- way fare from Tabriz to Tehran (a 12-hour journey) is about US$5.Return flights between London and Tehran on Iran Air (0171-409 0971) range in cost from pounds 425 to pounds 521; a one-way flight costs pounds 340 There are three weekly flights each way.. An Inter-Rail ticket valid for one month and covering all zones to Turkey costs pounds 245, while the Inter-Rail 26+ costs pounds 215 for 15 days and pounds 275 for one month (1996 prices). Tickets are available from BR International at Victoria Station in London (0171-834 2345) and from travel agents.Inside Turkey, comfortable first-class sleeping berths (yakatli) can be reserved for about US$8 (pounds 5) to Erzurum, using the Inter-Rail card. I had come a long way from Waterloo.The JOURNEY from Waterloo to Turkey begins with Eurostar (0345 881881) to Brussels or Paris. Inter-Rail and Inter-Rail 26+ passes can then be used to travel right through Europe (not France or Belgium in the case of Inter-Rail 26+) to the far east of Turkey.

In the corridor loitered soldiers, mothers in black and girls with hair spilling out from headscarves. Strangers thronged to help me buy my ticket and wish me bon voyage.An hour later I was on the Tehran train, ensconced in a carpeted compartment with three moustachioed men sitting cross-legged and eating saffron rice and chicken from silver trays. The railway station, despite its huge forecourt and cavernous hall, had an oddly languorous, deserted air. At the ticket window, I found a man reading a newspaper surrounded by a crowd of half-sleeping customers “Sorry,” he explained, “We are praying.”I had no objection.

Indeed, when prayer-time was over, a cry came down the line that the foreigner should be served first. “You are going all the way to the nearest train station?” “A private taxi all the way to Tabriz? You know how far that is?” The collective cheek-blowing and rubbing of fingers and thumbs seemed to suggest colossal money, but nobody wanted more than US$15 for the 300km journey. In minutes I was roaring along a smooth, empty road through the craggy deserts of western Iran.By Tabriz, three hours later, a warming breeze had set in. No one would leave until the Turkishsmugglers with their fake cut-glass ashtrays and wall clocks had paid their baksheesh.When I finally emerged into blinding sunlight, taxi drivers homed in like wasps at a picnic. For me, going east, this last glimpse of shelves stacked with whisky felt like a terminal moment. The next step was through a door with Ayatollah Khomeini’s portrait above.

I took that step – and found the door promptly locked behind me.This was Iran. A jostling mass of unshaven men in a cell-like room, lined by tired women in black. The smugglers were alarmed: “You take whisky Iran? Very, very problem!”Being the first alcohol stop this side of India, the bazaar was presumably for travellers heading west. Ararat, guardian of the passes to Iran! Travellers have been mesmerised by this sight since the days of Cyrus the Great.

I approached the border with a gang of Turkish smugglers in a taxi, before being escorted on foot into a series of duty-free shops selling liquor by the crate A whisky bazaar? An odd introduction to an Islamic republic I made as if to pick up a crate. I awoke to find the town under a layer of smoky fog, with the colossal peak of Mount Ararat filling half the sky. Dogubayazit itself – the last bus stop in Turkey – was deserted except for a stubby armoured personnel carrier charging round in the darkness.At dawn the traders emerged. The only available food seemed to be the piles of gigantic cabbages by the roadside, fodder for the winter. Erzurum, when I finally disembarked, felt like humanity’s last line of defence. I boarded the first bus to Dogubayazit, five hours away, with some anxiety.Were there Kurdish separatists hiding in those dark, craggy hillsides? The road to Dogubayazit ran through snow-covered fields that gave off a sinister light long after nightfall We passed miserable villages huddled in wreaths of smoke. Outside, the skies of Eastern Anatolia were brilliant blue, and patches of grassland – the Central Asian steppe – had begun appearing in luminous streaks Snowy peaks towered from the edge of the valley.