Tehran 1

The murals painted on the walls of the old US Embassy or as its better known "US Den of Espionage"...I think I look quite well in this photo



Main round-about into Tehran...it was like demolition derby trying to get on and off the bloody thing.

After driving in and out of Istanbul I thought I had experienced the worst driving im likely to see along my trip.....what a fool I was. Lonely Planet description sum's it up perfectly: “Almost anything goes on these roads and often does. Its not unusual to see motorbikes weaving between pedestrians on the footpath in an attempt to escape the gridlock or cars reversing down the highway at speed along an expressway to reached that missed exit The sheer volume of traffic can be overwhelming and makes crossing the street seem like a game of Russian roulette, only in this game there are few empty chambers”. And seeing all this on the first night I thought for sure the car had reached its final stop as there was no way it could get out alive or at least without some major plastic surgery. Our car is no Ferrari but compared to the local shit boxes it might as well be.

An interesting facts about Tehran that I bet you didn't know. Apparently Tehran is the plastic surgery capital of the world. It is reported that more than 90,000 nose jobs are carried out each year and in Tehran alone there are 3000 plastic surgeons. This is not a joke and is really evident on the streets around Tehran. The funny thing is because the operation is so expensive for the locals, between 3000 - 4000 and with the average yearly wage far less than that, it has become a status symbol to walk around town with your nose bandaged up.........to the point where people who couldn't possible afford such an operation walking around town sporting there new bandage for no reason at all.

My first thought of all these noise jobs was that there were pointless until a girl tried to explain to me why it was so popular. Her reasoning being that when you are completely covered up by the Hejab and the only thing anyone outside your family sees is you face, your going to try and make it look as perfect as possible......fair enough but unless you have a noise like Mike Tyson or Alan Gilgar I still think its a waste of money.

The good bits of Iran so far...

Iranian women are hot and really do look quite western but should come with a hazard warning while in Iran. We heard a story about a German guy who had sex with an unmarried Iranian woman and was caught...dont know how he was caught but he was given a death sentence (wonder what would have happened if she was married...killed twice maybe). After serious negotiation they apparently released him back to Germany after 2 years in prison
We heard another story about a tourist who seen kissing his Iranian girlfriend in the back of a moving car by the police....they locked him up....down with that sort of thing Ted.

The Iranian people are by far the welcoming nation I have ever come across. People just walk up to you in the street or on the metro and say hello and shake your hand. A lot of the time they just ask where are you from and then quickly say “Welcome to Iran” and walk off. They respect your space and don't just stand there staring at you like in Turkey. If they speak English they try and make conversation with what ever English they have and to be fare a lot of people are well educated and can speak a reasonable well. But when you do have a proper conversation with an Iranian they always want to know what you think of the country, will you come back, will you tell your friends that its a good safe place to visit. We always advised to never believe what the media says about Iran. For me the people just don't match the government.........

Tabriz Iran

On route to Tehran



The facilities aka the shitter, takes a little getting used too but practice makes perfect.



Lazy day Luke




Luke just farted....a common occurrence. Its all fun and games until you have diarrhoea.

We arrived in Tabriz destroyed at about 3 am. Luke drove for the last two hours because I just couldn't keep my eyes open. We tried to find a hotel around the center of the city and strangely enough all were full, so I was told by the sleepy receptionists of nearly every hotel with the exception of one...the most expensive in the town. 80 dollars for 5 hours sleep and a crap breakfast, equivalent to more than 5 nights in our normal haunts. It had to be paid and the beds were a nice change to the rock hard mattresses and pillows we had been sleeping on. The next day we found another hotel and had a look around Tabriz for another two days. From what we seen its not the most exciting city but the people were very friendly and welcoming, as far as walking up to you on the street and shaking our hands and asking where we were from.

Iranain border

Got to the Iranian border in good time, arriving about 2 pm. We quickly realized that something was wrong as no traffic was moving...the border was closed. After talking with some Iranians at the gate we were told that it should open up again at 8 pm. Six hours later and everything went a bit crazy. Only one gate opened and about 100 cars and buses all tried to get through the gate at the same time. The Turks and Iranians don't seem to know what queuing is and instead of taking there time two idots blocked the gate trying to get through before the other. It was bumper to bumper stuff. I literally had to touch the bumper of the car in front of me so that no other fool could cut me off and this game continued until we got through. I don't know how the car wasnt scrapped or damaged in some way. Absolute kayos is the only way to describe the border crossing with I don't know how many army and police were just looking on.

We got over the Turkish side and into the Iranian border control where unfortunately things got a little worse for us. Firstly we stupidly trusted some guy that told us he was an Iranian Tourist guide working for the Iranian government to help fast track tourists through the border. I think he screwed us and I am just sickened that I didn't see through it sooner.
The other more serious problem that we had was that the Carnet de Passage (car Passport) had the wrong registration number on it. A mistake I never noticed before then and made by the RAC in the uk who produced the Carnet. Instead of 98 MO 5314 the carnet showed 98 MO 5315. This caused of a few problems at the border but thankfully they let us through with a little persuasion. They quite easily could have sent us back to Turkey but we got lucky again. A few Euro lighter and a Carnet that was almost useless we drove into the night to Tabriz our first stop in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Van in Turkey

Luke in Van on our car

After Iraq we we all stayed in a city called Van in the east of Turkey. Not a very exciting place but we did meet some locals who took us sightseeing one of the days. Van was the last stop with us for Thomas and Seje as we were all heading different direction to continue our travels. We had a few beers the night before we all split up and had a good laugh about all that had happened. The following day myself and Luke hit off for the Iranian border and all the problems that that brought.

Iraq photos

"Welcome to Iraq" I thought it was very nice of them



Thomas,myself, Luke and Seje



Old town in Erbil, in the early stages of the war 2-3 thousand people lived here, now they all have nice new appartments. It will probably be a major tourist attraction in the future.....there isnt much else to see.



2km line of trucks waiting to cross the border



Seje onroute to the Iraqi border



In Turkey On the road to the border. Family sitting in there car on the back of a truck on the motorway...funny as hell when we seen it

Iraq

We were all very brave men when we were telling everyone that we were going to Iraq but as we came closer and closer to the border a little bit of worry/panic started to set into us all. Nervous laughs and jokes was the order of the day. Seje was the worst by far and to be fair he had good reason being an American and standing out of a crowd like he did didnt help the situation. I have to admit I was worried he might attract some unwanted attention to us which could escalate into something more serious. We had a sneak preview of this when we stopped for breakfast in a small town just before the border. We were walking around looking for something to eat and getting the normal stares and laughs from the locals but when I stopped and asked some kids for direction to a restaurant, within minutes we were surrounded by lots of kids and some adults which was fine but then someone in our group shouted to get the hell out of here and I was happy to drive up the road a bit away from the crowd. Nothing bad would have happened, the people were only curious but when we all sat down for breakfast you could tell it had freaked us all out a bit.

We got to the border and it was funny how straight forward it all was, well on the Turkish side at least. We had never intended to drive in Iraq, the plan was to leave the car in a town close to the border and then take a taxi in. I wasn't so happy about how safe the car would be in the town we passed and thought it could be damaged or even worse stolen so decided to try and leave the car in no-mans land between the borders. After talking to some of the people at the border in the little English that they had this didnt seem possible so we had no choice but to cross over ourselves.
The boys got there visa's within and hour but the car was a total other ball game. Nobody spoke English and being Iraq nothing is computerized, everything written by hand and has to be signed off or stamped by what seemed like 20 different people who all had offices in different parts of the complex and decided to take lunch or go for a good old prayer and a cup of tea when I needed them.
I did get kind of lucky dough. I meet an Iraqi guy who lived in Germany and was temporally importing a car like me so I basically followed him around the place.
To import the car the number plates had to be changed, I had to stump up 500 dollars for a security bond and hand over my passport so that I wouldn't leave the country via another route. I then began to have images of being stuck in Iraq with no passport and down 500 dollars.

After 6 hour of fun at the border it was 8 pm and we pulled away in to deep dark Iraq. We had no map, had a general idea where we wanted to go but we didn't think it was a good idea to just drive off into the night by ourselves in case we came some land mines or get shot at by some locals. To think things out a little we stopped at a gas station to get something to eat and to claim the nerves a little as we were all a little edgy at that stage. I knew I would have to drive through the night so I slepted a little in the car and let the boys do what ever. When I woke up the boys still weren't back so I went to look for them. They had had a stroke of luck which always seems to happen when your in the shit while traveling. They got talking to the owner of the gas station who had a friend willing to drive us to our destination through the back roads, which would prevent us from being killed on the first night there (He forgot to mention how bad these back roads were and how fast he would be driving). For 130 dollars we were happy out. The owner of the gas station could only speak Kurdish and Swedish.......(lived there for a few years) and as we had a Norwegian with us (Danish,Norwegian,and Swedish are very close and they all understand each other) we were sorted. While we were waiting for our guide to arrive we were brought in for tea and made feel very welcome. Within the hour our guide Mohammad arrived. He had perfect English and had worked for the US military as a translator during 2003-2006 and only stopped working for them because he was able to get better money working for International companies trying to get a toe into the Iraqi market. For us the most obvious of such companies are the American car giants Chevrolet Chrysler Ford etc. Nearly all the new cars, 4x4s and trucks we seen on the roads are American built and it was unbelievable the amount of trucks we seen loaded up with new cars on route to the different parts of Iraq.
We left the gas station after the customary cup of tea, photos and lots of hand shakes oh and the last minute fish sandwish which was fairly good. It turned out that Mohammad didn't really know the road to Erbil that well but he had a friend that did. I cant remember his name so ill just call him Steve. I tried to explained to Mohammad that his 6 cylinder Chevrolet was a lot faster than our fat Passat and to take it handy on the road.....well he didnt. Driving at 80 -90 mph on back roads in Iraq was an experience especially without any road markings or cats eyes to help see where the edge of the road was, just two read break lights that I had to keep up with.
Along the way we were stopped by several security checkpoints. All went well I think only two of them asked to see our passports, mainly because they were bored sitting in the middle of nowhere all night.
We arrived in Erbil at around 11:30 pm and soon realized that we couldn't get a hotel for the night and that we had to sleep in the car. We arrived in Iraq at the end of the Muslim fasting period of Ramadan, after which you have Eid ul-Fitr.

“The Islamic holiday of Eid ul-Fitr (Arabic: عيد الفطر‎) marks the end of the fasting period of Ramadan and the first day of the following month, after another new moon has been sighted. The Eid falls after 29 or 30 days of fasting, per the lunar sighting. Eid ul-Fitr means the Festival of Breaking the Fast; a special celebration is made. Food is donated to the poor (Zakat al-fitr); everyone puts on their best, usually new, clothes; and communal prayers are held in the early morning, followed by feasting and visiting relatives and friends. The prayer is two Raka'ahs only, and it is optional (mustahabb) prayer as opposed to the compulsory five daily prayers. Muslims are expected to do this as an act of worship, and to thank Allah (God).”

As Kurdistan is one of the safest regions in Iraq, during the 4 day holiday of Eid half of Iraq flocked there. Syria also closed its borders to Iraq that week so we were just shit out of luck with regards accommendation. That night we slepted in the car in a hotel car park which was not very comfortable.
The next day we organized a guide to give us a tour of the city Erbil. It was obviously his first time doing such a tour as his top tourist attractions were the airport which we weren't allowed into( we were so disappointed cause id never see one before)....and the supermarket, it sold food and clothes just like you would expect. There wasn't mush to see and do as you would expect from a city that was almost completely flattened during the early stages of the war, so we were told. But it was cool to have a look around for a few hours. That evening as we had no place to stay in Erbil and we really didn't want to sleep in the car for a second night we moved back up the road towards the Turkish border. Unfortunately there was the same situation of no place to stay in that town as in Erbil. As none of us wanted to sleep in the car again and not to mention how unsafe sleeping out in the open could be there, the decision was made to get back over the Turkish border and in to a nice bed. Our Iraq trip was short but we were all glad we went.

The rest of Turkey

Cappadocia







Istanbul