Esfahan (Isfahan) 27th January 2006 Woke up early morning as Hadi had to go for classes and he dropped me at the Imam square. I called Ali and finally he answered and we decided to meet at 9:30am. Until Ali came I sat down and wrote my notes as I was already had quite a backlog. When Ali came we went to the Manar Jomban (Shaking Minarets). Unfortunately it was raining and they weren’t shaking it. People had been stopped from going up and shaking it themselves from 2003. Instead there is a person the “minaret shaker” who goes up and [View Full Entry]

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I woke up around 7:30am and the rest of the people were fast asleep. I tried to go into one of the rooms to get my stuff and to shave and have a shower but the room was locked and I didn’t know where the keys were. I spent the next two hours with my mobile deleting text messages and updating my contacts list as I couldn’t do anything else till these guys woke up. They finally woke up at 9:30am and we had breakfast. I love this Iranian breakfast of cheese, walnuts, butter, honey and Lavash (one of the 4 [View Full Entry]

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I got into Esfahan (Iranians sometimes spell it as Isfahan too), Kaveh Bus Terminal at 8:30am. I am at this massive bus station, no guide book, no mobile phone (it doesn’t work in Iran), no one speaks English and don’t know where to go. Last but not least only USD4/= i.e. Iranian Riyals (IRA) 36,000 in my purse. Wow what a feeling. The situation gets even better as I learnt later that Iran didn’t accept travellers cheques, no ATM’s, visa card not accepted due to US sanctions and I had changed my last USD10/= bill in Quetta, Pakistan. This is situation [View Full Entry]

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Tafton itself is a very dry place with nothing interesting. I was at the back of a double cab with another Pakistani guy. The cab suddenly stopped without fuel. The driver went off and came back in a car with can of fuel. I saw him paying the car driver with Iranian Riyals. To see at the border area, since fuel from Iran is so cheap they buy the fuel from across the border. The area looked pretty deserted. The geography of the area is such that, its amazes me to think that all this was a part of India at [View Full Entry]

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The border immigration opened in the Pakistan side around 9am. At the border people were burning plastic cans to keep themselves warm. I guess the Pakistan government should run an Environmental Studies 101 in this area to make people aware of the harmful effects in what they do. Since there was no queue for foreigners like in the Wagah border I was put in front. All the while my backpack was resting on the Iranian border wall; I kept watch from the Pakistan immigration queue to make sure no one was putting anything. I think have got quite paranoid of this [View Full Entry]

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Zahedan Bus Terminal The Zahedan bus terminal is away from the city. No one speaks English and it is a bit of a pain. Fortunately two guys who came with me from the border to Zahedan helped me buy the ticket to Esfahan. It cost Iranian Riyals 65,000/= or they also call it Tumans 6,500/=. Obviously One Tuman is equal to 10 Riyals. There was a dodgy looking guy who came and started asking questions in Farsi. Then another friend I had made while being there came up to me and started talking. Then the dodgy guy went up to him [View Full Entry]

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We took a taxi from the Mirjaveh border to Zahedan. It only took 50 minutes to travel 88kms. The road was brilliant and most of it was pretty straight. On the way we went along the mountains which were quite beautiful. The brown mountains had an occasional maroon / reddish patch. The area near the mountains was very clean; we passed a dead bull on the way. The clean area disappeared at the 15km post and a dirty area appeared. Can’t imagine how so many plastic bags got there. The taxi rıde cost Iranian Riayls 30,000/= [View Full Entry]

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I got into Quetta at 12:30pm even though the train was supposed to get there at 9:30am. Once I got out of the station I took an auto and I asked them to take me to a bus that went to Tafton. Earlier, I was going to explore Quetta the whole day but as the train got late I had no choice but to skip it and keep moving. I was taken to this small shop and was told the bus to Tafton was leaving at 4pm and it costs PKR350/=. Well I felt it was reasonable so bought the ticket. [View Full Entry]

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Quetta - Tafton The bus was supposed to leave at 4pm but it finally did at 5pm. I guess I was a part of the delay as I had to go back to the exchange place and come back. The bus had rice or floor bags on the floor and everyone walked over it. I guess this is how they conserve space in the baggage area. I had sufficient space and since I had an aisle seat I managed to put my legs out, the guy next to me, I am so glad I wasn’t there he was all cramped up. [View Full Entry]

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The train left at 11:25am while Shahid Afridi was tearing the Indian bowling attack into pieces at Faisalabad. Everyone at the train station was glued to the TV's. It was quite an effort to get into the train like in India there is no queue and people just don’t give a damn about the people trying to get in. They will bulldoze their way through and get in. After much difficulty I got into the train and wow it looked very clean. Now the Jaffar express I believe is the Rajadhani / Shatabdi equivalent in India. Cannot make a comparison between [View Full Entry]

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