14 May - Dogubeyazit (Turkey) to and in Iran

The town of Dogubayazit

Before leaving Turkey we were told of the things that could not be taken into Iran. These consisted of knives, pictures of improperly dressed women (shoulders covered) in pictures and on book covers, drugs and alcohol. What books were on the truck were checked and some thrown away. All alcohol was drunk! With the ladies properly dressed we were ready to go to Iran.

The ladies just before entering Iran

On the way we passed Mt. Ararat which looked quite regal in the morning sun, the weather being quite different from yesterday.

Mount Ararat

It was 0830 hours when we arrived at Bazaran, the border crossing point for Iran. We arrived at the Turkish side of the border at 0830 hours and it was 1045 hours when we left the border on the Iranian side. Here we picked up Mohammed, our guide whilst in Iran, and who will stay with us the whole time. At the border most of the men were dressed in suits (sometimes with a waistcoat) or jacket and jeans, the same as anywhere else, and not what I expected. These were mainly the money changers who were shouting their exchange rates on the Turkish side, in no-mans land and on the Iranian side. There were a few women about but they were dressed as expected but not all were totally covered. The duty free shop on the Iranian side only sold electrical items such as kettles, irons, hair dryers, curlers and hair cutters, a real strange mixture. One local lady did make a comment about the way our ladies were dressed asking why they were all in black as it was so dowdy, that other colours would have been aright  Can’t win! Later we were told that the Iranian customs had picked one bag at random to open, and that belonged to Stephanie with no contraband being found.

The clocks were moved forward by one and a half hours for Iran.
The drive from the border passed through Maku with us heading for Tabiz. Compared to Turkey the countryside, towns and villages were clean with very little litter about. Our guide said that this was because the mayor of each place was responsible for keeping everything clean, and they certainly do a good job in that respect. The journey was through narrow valleys with high hills and then wide flat valleys where most of the farming occurred, this consisting of animals, fruit trees and food production. There were not so many quarries, gravel pits and block plants as on the Turkish side of the border.

The road was sealed and not very bumpy though each town, village and crossroad had speed bumps in the road which were very effective in controlling the speed of vehicles. Where there was a mosque at the side of the road this was indicated by a road sign, not that it was needed as the mosques could be clearly seen. Here again road signs in the countryside were powered by solar panels. There were signs telling people to ‘belt up’ when driving but as in other places some people obviously do not agree and one sign had been ‘graphitized’. It’s good to think that the graffiti artist exists here! Speed limits were signed as 95 kph during the day and 85 kph during the night.

We were stopped at a police roadblock to be told that the truck papers were not correct, that the law had changed nine months ago. UKTOOZ had a contact here to arrange all the necessary paperwork and they had not been told of the change. The police officer appeared to be quite nasty and wanting to fine our driver and turn us round back to the border. He indicated that while we were in Iran we had to visit 25 police stations as we passed each one and have our documents stamped while only travelling on an approved route. At the moment our route was been chosen before we left London. We were let past the road block and after ten minutes pulled off the road and parked for the night in a dry river bed.

After we had eaten it was noticed that the truck was slowly sinking into the river bed and after some effort it was moved and parked on the road for the night. Although we expected it to be cold in the night it was actually quite warm which will help as I have a stiffly nose and cough to get rid of now after the cold dampness of Mt. Nemrut and the rain of Lake Van.

My tent (the middle one)

Going home for the night