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Statistics Iran

Distance: 3316 km
Daily Average 48 km
Days in: 70
Days on the Bike: 35
Altitude covered: 25680 m
daily Average: 734 m
Nights in the Tent: 29
Nights in Houses: 37
Nights in public Buses: 6
Breakdowns: einige
daily Average: 5,30 €
…and the journey continues in the Land of Evil:
As i arrived in Najafabad, a small city infront of Esfahan, i was heartly welcomed by Hajar, Muhammed and their Friends.
Their Hospitality and my wish to Rest let me stay there for at least a week. In this Time i visited Esfahan several Times at any Day/Nighttime, but what made the time so unique were the things happened in Najafabad. They hosted me like a lost part of family and showed me the City. I visited a Orphans-House and the Boys there were so awesome that i visited them again for two times.
In the Evenings we sat together and listened to friends playing traditional music and we went out for Dinner. When i drove around the City with Muhammed i saw all the old Mudbuildings and Ruins in the Backyards, as i asked for this Hajar organized a behind the scenes tour just for me. At the End there were all the friends and the boys of the orphans house with me. A special event…

In this week i had to extend my Visa in Esfahan, a little bit complicated especially for the people who accompanied me. I learnt that Hosting Tourists is forbidden for Iranians. This is to protect the Foreigners as they told me. So i had to bring a recipe of a hotel before they extended my visa the next day.
My Bike has also to be repaired. The Crankbearings were done again and so i found someone to change them. Hussein did a good job, i could help him a little bit and the best of it was the Price: He did it for free. I insisted, but he didn´t took money from me.
Esfahan is a very beautiful city. I was lucky to arrive at the last „wet“ evening before the river went dry for the Summer. So the medieval bridges were reflected in the water, a wonderful view in the Night.
Together with Hajar and Nassim i strolled around the Streets and Parks for Hours. A awesome place with a special flair.
But one day it was time to say goodbye and so i left the city with mixed feelings with direction Desert and Teheran. After seven days in Company i was happy to be for myself in the Tent again, so i had to decline the invitation of two Paramedics, where i took a rest. We had a long discussion about the Sense of Life and Faith, wonderful but i needed some loneliness that night…
On the second day i reached after crossing a Pass the Highplateau where Irans desert begins. The wind hitted me as a hairdryer in my face and so i was cycling with temperatures around 50° into the desert. At the edge of the Desert i visited Zavareh. There you can see the old core of a caravan-City and so i cylcled through and visited some of the Buildings.
From there my way leads north. On the Way to Kashan i crossed the Desert and reached the City that is the first bigger Oasis on the Way to Qom and so was really impressing how the Desert gets green infront of the City. In the City you can visit some traditional houses and a nice little baser. There is also a UNESCO listed park that i didn´t visited. In the Basar that is closed on Friday i had the opportunity to cycle through and so i visited some Workers that invited me for Lunch. I left the city and found a nice place for camping next to the Road.

The next day lead me to Qom. The religious centre of Iran where the most Mullahs were educated. Here Chomenei was acting and so i was curious about it. But it when totally different. Instead of the beautiful religious Places i went to the Basar. A local Carpet-Designer brought me to the places where the Silk was dyed and other little handicraft workshops. There we had been invited for tea and so it was a nice and very special afternoon in the City.
The next Day i reached Teheran.
The Ride through the Desert to the Capital was one of my most exhausting rides of the journey. The Road was very hilly, hot and long. As i arrived in Teheran i rode about 152km. I met Pedro again who invited me to his Couchsurfing Host and so i got my first Couchsurfing Accommodation on this Trip! Khayam´s House as it was Called is a little paradise! A little bit dirty but perfect for my needs. A Basement where you can be on your own. Reza the Host take a look in every second day…

Here the Central-Asia Visa Odyssey began. Turkmenistan, Usbekistan and Tajikistan has to be applied. You start with Usbekistan, where i waited a full morning to hear that i needed a Letter of Recommendation as an Original not as a Copy. In this gigantic City it is impossible to quickly organize something, so i had to come back the next day. After Applying you have to wait 8 working Days or two weeks. In this time you only can apply for Tajikistan Visa because the Turkmens wanted to see your Usbekistan Visa (to be sure you can leave the Country) before they accept your apply…

That means to be patient. I used the Time to climb Damavand but the Rest of the Time was hanging around. Teheran is a lively City but has only a few really Highlights to visit. But they take a lot of money from tourists and so we had to relieve our boredom. The Heat in the city is not the best reason to leave the house, so the name Lazy Basement was born in these Days…

What makes the story even more unattractive was ramadan. The islamic fasting month started in these days. You can´t eat outside during the daytime, you can only buy food in the supermarket. even drinking in public is a taboo. So you have to hide and seek to get enough liquid over the day. The positive aspect is that the streets are full of life until late in the night, cause they start eating and drinking short after sunset. after all an exciting Experience!

Picking up the Visa was´t that easy… On day one they asked me to come back tomorrow and then there was a sign on the door that embassy is closed today… So i came back the next day very early but there was a big queue infront of the door. Short after 12 i got my visa, yeah!
Now there was only the Turkmen Visa left. But the embassy was already closed for that day. Another night in the City. Foolishly i applied for my second visa-extension on that last day and they told me that it would take 4 Days to extend it… So i decided to extend in Mashad and went on to Turkmenistan Embassy. After Applying i left the City in the Afternoon.
But i didn´t get that far, because a guy on a motorcycle invited me to visit a Open-Air Theatre in the Outskirts of the City. Why not, and so i followed him. I wasn´t clear about the Show for a long time. Just that it was a big thing was obviously...
It was organized by the Army and 5000 spectators were expected. On the Set there was Noahs Arche and the Hills around the Theatre were full of trenches… Confusing…
As the light came down the Show started. It was a Show about the History of Islam, technical perfectly enacted, with mass-scenes on the Stage and Multimedia-Projections in the Back. From Noahs Arche it went directly to islamic Revolution and the first Golfwar (the Trenches!). A perfect example for Propaganda…
After the Show i was overwhelmed. As they asked me for a interview i didn´t really know what to say. to offer criticism was the wrong way so i tried to talk about the good moments of the Show without supporting the Propaganda. I´m curious how they will missuse my words…

I slept on the Area and starte into the mountains on the next day. On the Road i met some cyclists that i met before in the Roads of Teheran. So we cycled together for a while. I took a rest with them and continued afterwards. The climb was hard. I climbed first to the Ski-Resort of Shemshak where i took a rest. It took longer than expected and afterwards i started to the pass. As i reached the pass on 3300m it was dark night and i was totally exhausted. Someone offered me a soup but i wasn´t able to eat it… I pitched my tent and felt asleep immediately… As i choose this route i didn´t know how high the road will lead me… so i crossed the highest road in Iran and the highest point on my trip by accident ;-)

The next day rewards me for the Work. The view from up there was wonderful and there was a long way down from the Pass, started with a lot of Hairpins and a nice decent before i had to climb a last 10km to the Tunnel that leads me to the northside of the Alborz Mountains…
On the other side i rolled down into a weather i didn´t expected… Fog! It was so cold that i had to wear my jacket the first time for the last 2 Months… The view gets better after a while and i could enjoy a beautiful ride over several hairpins down into a gorge and through this towards the forests down at the caspian sea. The deeper i got the more humid the air gets. Extremely Sticky! Except the Ricefields along the Road the Landscape looks like Home… In this time it was also extremely hot in Germany so i could feel the conditions at home a little bit…

Three Days i followed the Caspian Sea before i had to take an unusual kind of transportation in Gorgan: The Bus. To extend my visa i had to go to Mashad from here to apply for it. In the Time it took i wanted to ride the rest of the Distance. That was the Plan.
But the Day i took the Bus i experienced that there was a holiday the next day. So i contacted Babak a member of Couchsurfing and hang around with him for another day.
The next day police told me that they keep my passport and i am not allowed to leave the city. That was totally against my plans… After thinking about it i decided to go back to my bike without permission. After another nightride by bus I reached Gorgan and started cycling to Mashad as fast as possible. Police expected me to collect my passport after 4 Days…
I managed to cycle the 600km to Mashad in 4 Days and ended up with an aching Butt. To save some Time i put my bike in a taxi for 40km to cross a steep Mountain. On the Way there where a lot of advertisings that correlates with Imam Reza and the Holy Shrine in Mashad.
As i reached Mashad i went to Police the next morning and got my extension without any problems. I headed directly to the turkmen Embassy where i wanted to pick up my applied Visa. But this doesn´t work at all. The Officer just said „Your Visa is refused“ without giving any reasons. This started the biggest challenge of my journey… How should i go on?

With the Bicycle there were only two options, a Plane to Usbekistan or cycling around Turkmenistan, through Afghanistan. I don´t wanted to fly so i started asking around about the Security Situation in Afghanistan. All these i did together with Thomas and Melanie two Motorcyclists from Germany who got the same Problems…

There were several Holidays in the next few days so we decided to collect the Visa for Afghanistan before we did more research about the Country. So 28 Hours Bus-Rides and some Hours in Teheran later later we got a Afghanistan-Sticker in our Passports and were back in Mashad…
It was difficult to get some reliable Informations about Afghansitan and our optimism got lost while we collected. At the End we quit the Project. Nobody we asked really want to give a pure positive answer and so i started searching for a flight out of Iran while Thomas and Melanie decided to ride around the Caspian Sea to Kasachstan.
The last Days in Mashad i did some Maintenance on my Bike and visited the Holy Shrine of Imam Reza. A gigantic Area in the Heart of the City build around the Sarcophage of Reza the seventh of twelve Followers of Mohammed. The Shia believe, opposite to the Suni that there are 12 Imams after Mohammed. Around the Shrine there is always some kind of Panic… There are always so many people around that even this gigantic Area is crowded all around the clock… Next to the Shrine it is a kind of Ecstasy in the Air. The Inside of the Buildings is covered with little Mosaics out of Mirrors and the Dome on top of the Shrine is made from Golden Bricks (!) A wonderful deep view in the Faith of the Shia Islam…

I decided to fly from Teheran to Almaty via Baku in Aserbaidschan. So i had to cycle around 800km until the first of August when i have a appointment in Tashkent…

After i booked the Flight i took another Nightbus to Teheran and organized the shipping of my Bike to Centralasia. There was a Holiday in Iran so i couldn´t talk to anyone to ask about the conditions of the Bike on this flight. The Box i got in the City was not in the Format the Airline accepted it as a Bike-Box, so i had to pay around 200€ to get it into the Plane. In Baku i changed the Airline and the guys wanted another 150€ from me… I explained that it is just a Bicycle and they reduced the price to 50€.
Expensive Hobby to travel with a bicycle…

On the Evening of 20. of July i was standing in front of the Airport of Almaty in Kasachstan , but this is another Story i will tell you the next time!

All take a look at my Resumee about Iran that you can find here