We went from southern India to New Delhi to Lahore to wherever on the other side of Pakistan by train, missed the right spot by a few miles and had to backtrack to the bus connection by horse cart. That really felt like Kipling, The Phantom Rickshaw movie, clopping along a dusty road in a golden (because of the dust!) dawn. Most of the buses around there were more like our school buses, about 20 to 30 seats. The Bus, the one that made the overland journey to London, used double decker retired red city buses. Too mountainous for trains until Iran. From Herat we took an Irani-run bus to Meshad, and after that a train all across Iran. This was pretty civilized by comparison, as the Shah was still running things and Americans were allies against the Russians on the north. Read Anabasis - The March Up Country by Xenophon on the way and thought about what a soft life we have now. It is mountainous at the western border with Turkey, where we switched briefly back to these death trap buses. Canyons sprinkled with old buses. It's all a lost world now.