Blogs from Iran, Middle East - page 26

The Country So I had this vision that when we crossed the Anatolian Plateau in Eastern Turkey and entered Iran the cold would be over. After all, Iran is a hot desert kind of place, isn’t it? Well yes, Iran is a hot desert kind of place, but a bloody mountainous one. So far we have rarely been below 1,000 metres in altitude, and mostly have been at 1,500m plus. Often we hit 2,100 or 2,200 metres on our rides between places. Which means it’s not so hot in late Autumn! In fact it’s been bloody freezing. On numerous occasions we have ridden roads with snow at the sides. Hot it is not. Forgetting about the cold for a moment – not so easy to do when you’ve been wearing a t-shirt, light merino top, thin ... read more

A picture is worth 1,000 words Which means: (a) I have written a lot, or (b) I'm just getting lazy...... read more

What a difference a week makes! At about this time a week ago we were snorkelling in Kas, and lying in the sun. Today it is 1 degree Celsius. In the previous two days we rode about 1,000km, some of it above the snow line, and all of it bloody freezing. We are now in Dogubeyazit, almost at the Iranian border. The altitude here is about 1,700m, and the town is a dump. Still, in terms of ‘famous inhabitants’ Dogubeyazit holds its own, as Noah was supposed to have parked his boat just over the hill on Mt Ararat. On the subject of weather… Kas camping (14/10/11 – 23/10/11) After a week in Olympus we were getting a bit bored of ‘chilling’ in the tree houses with the ageing hippies, backpackers and curious Russian strays, so ... read more

We started from Tabriz in the morning of the 18. September in direction to Tehran. We were happy when we were out of the very stinky exhaust gases of the cars. The highway went through somewhere of nowhere and it was quite seldom, that we crossed a village, or even town. Even to get a petrol station or little shops to get some water and food was not so easy.But we have survived :) But the scenery was amazing, the dry mountains around us! One evening we stayed at a truck stop. The cook could speak very bad English but we think that he was a soldier in the Iran-Irak war. He was quite fanatic. He always made some signs as to shoot at somebody and made "Rat-tat-tat". We didnt feel very comfortable at him. He ... read more

Mashhad was always on the list to visit, not only because very few tourists make it this far eastern of Iran, and most importantly, it is also home to the Iman Reza, one of the holiest and important shrine for Muslims. Being one of the most holiest city in Middle East & Central Asia, Mashhad is very conservative. My partner, was required to wear Chatdor at all times within the complex, which is available at the entrance for free, as this city receives tons of thousand Shiite pilgrims from all over the world. My first port of call in this second largest city, of course was this huge 24-7 Iman Reza Complex, or called Hamam in Farsi (not Hamam in Arabic as in Turkish Bath), and the surrounding buildings. The main shrine, located right in the ... read more