Overall I loved Iran, Bron may disagree as she had the restriction of having to wear the scarf whenever, wherever we stopped and I know that was difficult for her. The highlight for me was the people.Iran
The first painful 24 hours.
Well the exit from Turkey wasn't exactly ideal. The ride from Dogbiscuit was uneventful and the final view of Turkeys wonderful scenery was a beautiful as ever. Then the bite came at the border. As we got to the border a guy, seemingly official came out from one of the booths and waved us across to the side. He checked our papers then advised us about the process of getting out of Turkey and the formalities in Iran. He seemed really nice. Then he offered to change some money. I thought why not, it is a pretty easy exchange rate to work out, but we wont exchange all of our money. (thank christ) Then we proceeded with the negotiations and came out with an amount he would give us for our Turkish Lira.
The problem came with the good old decimal point. The Iran rial is 6.600.00 to 1 lira. So we had a couple of hundred lira to exchange so we should get 1300000.00 rial. Well what he was giving us seemed like heaps, but alas after crossing the border and buying our first lot of fuel and drink it wasn't going to go far and we realised our mistake, a couple of hundred bucks down the drain.

We got the the Iran side without any hitches but then the to organized the carnet a bloke just took over. Again he seemed official as all of the other staff seemed to know him but he ended up being a fixer who wanted money for his services. He only got us 10 days on our Carnet when I wanted 21 days ( he told us it was 21) and then tried to make us buy insurance for 70 euro (I said no) and got quite annoyed with him and his pushiness. Then he put his hand out to be paid and was pissed of with 20 lire.
Ahh well we got across the border and down the road and then purchased fuel and realised our mistake with exchange, so put a dampener on the initial excitement of getting into Iran.

The initial ride into Tabris was nothing exciting and a bit depressing because of the hassles but we were trying to put a positive spin on things but it was somewhat difficult due to half of our budget for Iran disappearing in one fowl swoop and knowing we couldn't do anything about it.

Tabris was an ok city with nothing to exciting to write home about. Hotel staff were nice, crazy drivers but we were somewhat used to it from Turkey, good street signs. The bazaar was nice, everywhere we stopped we found ourselves swamped by Iranians asking us where we come from etc etc so a bit overwhelming initially. Then we put the bike into a underground carpark and I discussed with the guys there, where to park the bike where it would be safe and would not be touched or moved and parked and left the bike. Then due to Ramadan we had to wait till 8.30pm before any restaurant would serve us (we were starving) so we were glad to get into bed and settle down for the night. The next morning we exchanged the rest of our money (and saw how much we should have got) and I went to pick up the bike to take it back to the hotel. We it was not where I left it, in fact it was not in sight. Dont half recon I found things a bit difficult for a couple of minutes. After searching for a couple of minutes I found it about 50metres from where I left it, around a corner shoved up against a wall (not on any stands). I checked it out and didn't find any noticeable damage but when I rode up to the entrance to the car park and the person there asked me for the money I think that he figured out pretty quickly that I wasn't happy. After discussing the issue I had with about 20-30 people and the management of the car park I rode of in without paying. I discussed this with the clerk at the hotel on return and she said that i had done the right thing due to the lack of respect they had shown me. We rode out of Tibriz not feeling great about what lay ahead but hopeful of some improvement in our view of Iran.

After riding with the crazy drivers all day, being run of the road once and feeling a bit hungry we got to Divandareh. As it is only a small town we found the one and only "hotel" pretty easily. I went inside ( as the people at the desk wont talk to Bron) and had a look at the rooms and negotiated a price. Before I said yes I went outside to talk to Bron about the conditions inside ( pretty basic but ok) well she had about 20 blokes around her and the bike, asking her all sorts of questions. Fortunately for us one of those people said " you can come to my house and stay with us".

Not too apprehensively for me but I know with lots of apprehension for Bron, we went along with Edris to his family home at the edge of town. His mother (Maryan) and younger sister (Sohoyla) were there and were really pleased to have us. Then his younger brother (Milad) and elder sister (Soraya-very good english speaker) arrived and the discussions really took of. Later his father arrived (Esmaeel) and it was a beautiful experience to have a family like this looking after us so well. The hospitality was so nice and the Kurdish Iranians are apparently like this throughout this area of Iran. The questions and information kept on flowing late into the night. The giggles at my hopelessness of sitting cross-legged on the floor eating and trying not to spill my food and drink brought a smile to all. The family unit here is so strong and the affection in the people is wonderful. We all went for a walk around the town after our meal and it was nice talking about how the family interacts and answering questions about how we are as families in Australia. The similarities in how we think towards our families is striking, we just do some things differently.

How fortunate are we? Such a wonderful experience.
But wait it gets better. Unfortunately my infected ear was getting worse so we asked Edris if there was a doctor in town. He said he would take me to the hospital and help me see a doctor. When we got there he spoke to the security gaurd who spoke to a nurse, who spoke to a doctor and I was taken into a room where the doctor was in the middle of treating a patient. (unheard of in Aus) The patient and the doctor kept on with the consultation ( it was nice to see how they interacted) and then when the doctor had finished with the other patient he checked out my ear, took me to the pharmacy and got me my ear drops etc all for free and it only took 15 minutes. Wonderful. |When I asked the doctor how much he said " this is Kurdish hospitality, no payment".

Then back to Edris's house for the goodbyes and giving of presents. It was such a lovely experience, I was on cloud nine for most of the day ( I got of cloud nine for a while when a bus passing a truck ran us of the road). The friendliness of the people here is far beyond what I could have imagined. Initially they are a little reserved but a smile and a nod and they always smile back and say hello. The 20 people around the bike whenever wherever we stop is out of curiosity and caring, the hellos and do you mind talking to me in english is always to help us feel more welcome. It is so different to what the media portray of Iran and particularly the Kurds.

We headed to Malayer and got there after a long ride through a fairly desolate landscape. Everywhere we go the people are friendly and always have a greeting for us. The horns of cars passing us are always beeping to say hello. It can be a little overwhelming at times because when we are hot and bothered and we just want to stop on the side of the road and rest, to immediately have a crowd around you can be a little tough. It can sometimes be tough to put the smiley face on and answer all of the questions. I have been tempted to be grumpy and pretend we are from Austria but cant bring myself to be like that to such friendly welcoming people.
We are having similar hassles with the drivers here as we had in Turkey, they are bloody crazy at times and it seems like it is more important to pass in some idiotic spot than it is to get anywhere.

The cities so far have been ok, Esfahan is by far prettier than any other city that we have seen here as well as it is far more westernized. The cityscape in Esfahan has been developed around some beautiful attractions and monuments.

There is heaps of greenery (unlike most of the other cities) and the proliferation of western clothing shops leaves any Westfeild to shame. There is far more take away in Estafan than we have seen in all the other cities combined and it feels like every second person that walks past says "hello" and asks where we are from. So many people we talk to have said, oh we met some people from Australia yesterday, or half an hour ago, so there must be some other Aussies here as well.

We are staying in an upmarket hotel here as we have been roughing it a bit lately. This high class hotel is $80 Aus a night so we thought we would bite the bullet. It is so nice to have a couple of luxuries. Our own real toilet, fridge Wifi and aircon.

The hotel we stayed in at Malayer (Aus $15) had a shared squat toilet that was a dry wretch waiting to happen. Neither of us wanted to put our feet on the floor because it was so dirty. It had potential but needed some TLC. The transition to Iran has been made easy by how wonderful the people are here. The fuel price is fantastic as well. Locals pay 10c Aus a litre and tourists pay $40c. So a fill up in Turkey was costing around $40 aus now it is costing about $5-6. Food is costing us somewhere around $15-20 aus a day, so spending time here is cheap. We are still doing things like boiling the kettle in our hotel room and filling up the thermos for the day but this is just as much for convenience as for saving money.

The ride from Esfahan to Yatz was pretty uneventful. The landscape was sheer rugged mountains without any vegetation cover at all. The highway was duel lane and the wind was ok. The temperature hovered in the mid to late 30deg c which was a bit draining. As the ride to Yatz was a fairly short run (240km) we had a good look around after arrival. The locals are friendly like normal and the old part of the town with its adobe mudbrick buildings and amazing architecture were beautiful in the evening light. Date palms and some sort of salt bush surrounding the town and en route to Bam (the next main town we chose to visit) were the main attractions for the next few hundred clicks but the heat the next day was amazing. I have ridden in hot weather before but the whole next day it stayed over 40deg C and hit 46deg C for a while.

Bam was and still is a frontier town. Its existence was based around it. It feels like a frontier town still. We went up to the old Adobe mud brick fort that was all but destroyed in and earthquake in 2003, (so was the town of Bam) and they are slowly rebuilding it as it was. But it will be so difficult to get it looking original, its hard to put a few hundred years of weathering into the rebuilding.

With the rebuilding that has been completed it is easy to see how impressive it once was. I am sure they will do a great job of the reconstruction and I would love to visit it once it was completed.

So on from Bam to the border of Pakistan. We planned for the trip to the border (about 420km) to take until mid afternoon, then we could cross the border to Taftan/ pakistan and continue towards Quetta the next day. Well all good plans can fail. From Bam the police here insist, very strongly, that you have a police escort. Well I was ok with that, I would rather be safe, but when we headed of with police ahead, they were initially sitting on 90kmph and I could cope with that, but then after about 20kms they stopped and did the first changeover, (which to 10-15mins) when we are sitting there with no shade and 45deg C heat, I didnt feel really comfortable, after this happened the third time in 60kms, I just kept on riding, then they pulled us in at the next police check and the next escort was a policeman on a bus (at least the bus was doing 110kmh), then the next escort the car broke down so we were finding it all far too hard.

We just kept going and let them fit with us for a while but they eventually caught up with us and at the next police check we were pulled in and they confiscated our passports. Well that settled things a bit but at the next checkpoint about 220kms into the trip the police just stopped outside a big tin shed and went inside. Well again we were stopped with no shade in 45 deg heat, these blokes were 20mins and things ( we ) were starting to feel the heat.

I went inside the shed and here are the police eating lunch and drinking cold drinks. I discussed with them the inappropriateness of this and asked for our passports back, (numerous times) the police became annoyed and seemed to eat slower. So Bron and I decided that we would ride on without our passports, and keep on going to Zahedan so we could get some food (We were quite hungry at this stage also but no food was on offer). Well that reeeeeaaaalllyy got them fired up. They caught up to us just outside Zaheden and took us straight to the local police station.

They were really pissed, but when we got there the local cop could speak english and he sort of told the guys of after we had explained the situation. He arrange for a police escort around town to get fuel and groceries. Then we spent the next half hour waiting for the next escort for the next 20kms. Then we spent another half hour waiting for the next escort. Then they nearly ran us of the road. It started to get ridiculous. And we didnt ask for the escort. The last escort became farcical when they got a young cop with no gun into a private car at a checkpoint, and he escorted us the last 30kms to Mirjaveh/Taftan. As we had planned to get to the border with only a little money left, (Pakistan has cash machines Iran doesn't have any that dispense to international cards) and the Pakistan Border was closed (closes at 5pm) we had to stay another night in Iran with bugger all money and no time left on our Carnet.
All a bit disappointing, Iran is and was so hospitable. We had to rush it a bit due to the Carnet restriction of 10 days, but what we saw we enjoyed. It is difficult because I know that the police are only trying to do the right thing with their escorts. I just think that they could organize it all so much better. And it leaves a little bad taste, most of the police were fantastic, it just goes to show that a few bad eggs and some disorganization can spoil lots of things.
Overall I loved Iran, Bron may disagree as she had the restriction of having to wear the scarf whenever, wherever we stopped and I know that was difficult for her. The highlight for me was the people. Being invited into someones home with the welcome we received was what I will always remember. I dont think there was a day went by (except the last one) that we were not invited to someones home to stay or for a meal. The friendliness of the people on the street, that is Iran for me. Sure there is some beautiful sights, some nice terrain but the people and their welcome are far beyond any sight for me. Wonderful.