Pars Tabriz

... byla prilepena izolepou na skle, dvere spolujezdce se nedaly dovrit a tachometr nesel. Na misto jsem ale dorazil bez problemu a byla to opravdu parada. Vydutane domy do skaly s okny a dvermi. Tak jsem se nad nimi prosel, kolem me se pasly ovce, jen byl pak problem se dostat dolu. Tak jsem se musel sklouznout skoro po tech domech/skalach az jsem se ocitl primo u vchodu k jednomu, ale bylo to vsem jedno. Zit bych tam nemohl, kdyz by mi tam furt nekdo ...

... s místním, který nás již poslal správnou ulicí.
Při vstupu na pěkné nádraží jsme byli překvapeni, jak bylo letišního typu (checkin, rentgenová kontrola zavazadel). Mile nás také překvapila parádní pomoc zaměstnance, který nám anglicky sdělil vše potřebné a zařídil nám nákup jizdenek. V nádražní a liduprázdné restauraci jsme si dali něco, co nevíme co bylo. Ale byla tam rýže ...

... office overlooking the square surrounding the bazaar. We exchanged pleasantries and were soon sitting on the couch with tea in hand discussing our next few days in Iran. Nasser was Iranian but had spent many years in Europe, so had a bit of a German/Iranian/English accent. His advice was excellent and by the time we left we'd made a plan that took us to visit the historical city of Kandovan, on an overnight bus to Rasht and a visit to the stepped village of Masuleh.

Before ...

... had happened. Why Dragoman had not sorted out crew visas, I do not know.

Iran however is almost empty of sights outside of the towns apart from a few very scenic places. The Caves at Ali Sadir are one of these. South of Tabriz, the caves were off our track but they needed a visit if only to calm the passengers down.

Negotiations were concluded based mainly on force of personality from one couple with the crew and non committal ...

... Card. For trucks this costs 500 euro. Errkk. So we did not buy one and we forced to "ponce" for another trucks card to get fuel.



This proved to be surprisingly easy. Mussa simply sidled up to each truck and asked if we could use their card. What was in for them? Well we would pa for their diesel no matter how much they needed. How could we afford this after paying around $1.80 USD a litre for diesel in Turkey. Simple, diesel is about $0.02 ...

... get to this ice cream, half of it immediately dropped onto the floor. In a fit of panic (and despair, and apparently petulance) I angrily threw the other half into the bin... before running back to buy myself another, much to the amusement of the rest of the group.



Before this, we had bumped into Andrew and John. They had made friends with an Iranian girl in the afternoon that had been really eager to take them out to dinner. She was certainly not the ...

... développé, économiquement au dessus de ses non-copains arabes, et surtout terriblement urbain ! Une ville un peu comme chez nous, en Normandie ou en Alsace je ne sais trop quoi. Mais quelque chose de proche. Les hommes ici, de plus, sont tous habillés de la męme maničre : costume complet parfois au dessus d'un pull, le plus souvent d'une chemise. Pas de ...

... Would you have dinner with a woman who was married? The questions didn't stop coming. It was as if they were waiting for my last night to ask me all these questions. I answered them the best I could. The one about what wild sex was was a bit difficult to answer. How the hell do you answer that? Since it was my last night in Iran. Ali Reza asked if I wanted to go out to eat or eat in. I said I wanted to eat in as I didn't want the guys to continue to spend money on me I knew ...

... was pretty cool. He offered to let me keep it as he had several uniforms but I said no for a couple of reasons. One, how would I explain having an Iranian military uniform at the border if I ever got checked. Two, Ali Reza was a super small guy and although I have lost a lot of weight on this trip his uniform was still a bit too tight on me. After having lunch on the floor of his apartment (it is the norm here), we walked around downtown. There wasn't much to see. Most of the ...

... a woman before you could even think about jumping into bed with them. I wanted to kill this stereotype that western women were easy. I have heard of so many stories of western girls being harassed by men in some parts of the Middle East thinking that they are easy and they can't stand it. I can't blame them. It bothered me. They also asked questions like what we would do on a typical date back home. This was interesting to them as men and women can't be seen together in ...