A race to Yazd

Our escort finally turned up at the Mirjaveh border post, just a young soldier with no gun. He hopped into the back of our car and we drove the 111km to Zahedan. While waiting at the police-station for a change of escorts we decided to drive the 321km to Bam that evening to make up time lost from crossing the border so late in the day. The roads are excellent and we followed a string of fast police vehicles into the night.

They kept hold of our passports (to ensure we didn't speed off in the super fast landcruiser?) and there was a lot of frustrating waiting around for new escorts to turn up. At one stage we were stopped and two of the four police disappeared into a shed by the side of the road. After twenty minutes of waiting with no indication of how long we'd be there, I followed them into the shed to find them sipping tea. The Afghani tea seller then said in broken English 'Just 10 more minutes Amelia'. The police had obviously showed him our passports. During the long drawn out journey we got round to reading the guide book about the area, and it turns out some tourists were kidnapped by opium smuggling gangs on the road a couple of years ago. Hmmm, maybe not the best driving here at night then. We finally got to the Akbar guesthouse at 11.30pm, 10.00pm local time.

This guest house was destroyed in 2003, and 31 000 people killed, when an earthquake hit Bam. It was our first taste of how expensive Iran is, instead of the average AUD$10 a night in Pakistan, we paid USD25 for a room that was nice, but nothing special. Bam was also our introduction to the Iranian law which requires all women, including foreigners, to wear long, loose-fitting clothes to disguise their figures. They also have to cover their hair. In Pakistan, a similar style of dress was expected, and due to their less fashion orientated styles, it was easy to fit in. A baggy shalwar kameeze with a scarf was worn 24/7, and suited the hot climate. Here however, black is the dominant colour, and the head scarf can never be slung over the shoulders in frustration when it's windy, hot, or just too annoying. In Bam every women we saw wore the hejab (the chador which is essentially a black sheet wrapped around ones body and over the head, held together with either teeth or hand. I got out my black oversived manteau and maqna'e and was at once transformed.

Our first morning in Iran was a bit rushed. With a seven day transit visa our only chance of getting to see the country involved getting to Shiraz and trying to get an extension. We had heard from others that it was possible, but also that it was definitely not. The ancient mud city of Bam is the largest adobe structure on earth, and until the earthquake, was a highlight of Iranian tourism.

We still wanted to see what remained, and our guest house owner kindly pointed us in the right direction. When we headed back to the car after wandering around the ruins a grumpy policeman on a motorbike had turned up. Irritatingly the guesthouse had rang them and shopped us in. We lost the escort accidentally on a roundabout, but came across another that we were supposed to be meeting up with. Mr grumpy turned up shouting (his job was to only take us a couple of kilometers and he had mucked that up), he was not happy but it was very entertaining for us. The escorts accompanied us for about 100kms. Andrew had explained that we needed to stop for "gaz-oil", and at one stage it seems the police stopped at a petrol station and filled up themselves, but forgot about us. Buying diesel here can be a bit of hassle as it's not sold at every petrol station and a special fuel card is required to get the pump working. We need to wait for a truck who is filling up, offer him some cash (up to 20,000 rials, about USD2) and he'll give us about 100l. Officialy the cost of diesel is 165 Rials per litre which is about 1 pence per lıtre or 1.9 cents Aussıe. Diesel is cheaper than water, it is like a dream come true. In fact it is such an amazing bargain that it means we can race around in the Landcruiser at 100kph with utter disregard for fuel consumption! Good job really with our transit visa.

So when we arrived at an escort changeover and explained that we didn't have too much diesel left, our escort waved goodbye and left us with some traffic police stop in the middle of no-where. It was hot, we were tired, time was ticking down and faced with the prospect of driving back to Bam to get fuel our patience was wearing thin. Thankfully, after a bit of sign-language, a look at our 7 day visas and the fuel gauge, a friendly policeman got his juniors to chuck 20L of deisel in a jerry can from somewhere and empty it into our tank free of charge! It was enough to get us to Kerman, where we were assured we could buy more. He then escorted us a bit further towards Kerman at high speed, before waving us goodbye. That was our first taste of the famous Iranian generosity, and certainly not the last.

We arrived in Kerman mid afternoon, only to find that there was no diesel for sale. Iranian cars are all petrol so only big trucks run on deisel and these have no need to enter the city centres. We had to backtrack 30kms to find a town with working pumps and truckies kind enough to let us borrow their deisel card. We payed about $2 US for nearly 100L. Bargain. We camped in the rear carpark of the large and fairly expensive Akhaven Hotel, paying for the use of a toilet and shower. Apparently it is around Kerman that opiate smuggling camels are trained. They are taken over the Pak/Afghan border where they have the drugs surgically implanted in their humps and are left to wander back to Iran, evading all the satellite surveillence around the border areas. Ingenious! We met a nice Chinese guy who came with us to the main bazaar and introduced us to our first Iranian 'tea house'. Seated amongst hanging carpets and other Iranian paraphanalia, we listened to some traditional live music and enjoyed some of the famous rose-water ice-cream.

Up early the following day we headed straight for Shiraz where we'd been told our best chance of extending our inadequate transit visa. Once we arrived in Shiraz we headed straight for the Zand Hotel after reading it had parking for overlanders. Unfortunately they wouldn't allow us to sleep in the tent, and charged us 120 000 rials, (about $12 USD) for a very ordinary room. Shiraz is noted as a culinary capital, however Ramazan has put an end to our exploration of Iranian foods. Unless we wait until 10pm at night when the locals are out and about breaking their fast, we have to find bread and tomatoes, cook 2 minute noodles or find (usually by accident) a tea house or kebab shop that is serving food to those Muslims who cannot fast for one reason or another. Eating, drinking or smoking on the street during daylight hours is not just socially unacceptible, it is against the law for muslims during Ramazan.

We visited the beautiful Aramgah-e Shah-e Cheragh mausoleum, me having to don a chador, then we walked back towards a traditional restaurant hoping it would be open by 8pm. It was not, but a lovely elderly gentleman walked us to a great place. Walking back to our hotel we passed some tiny rooms off the alley-way that had been closed earlier in the evening. Now open, we could peer inside, one little room housed an old woman surrounded by more second hand books in one small space than we'd ever seen before.

The visa extension was simple, we filled out some forms, deposited some money into a bank account, photocopied our visas etc and fairly soon after we had an extra 7 days in Iran - hooray! Feeling more relaxed we ventured into the under cover bazaar and enjoyed our first dizzi - a wonderful meal where meat, chickpeas and roast vegetables are served in a gravy-type soup in a pot with fresh hot bread. You pour the soup out into a bowl, break up the bread into it, and eat that, keeping a piece of bread over the pot as a lid to keep it warm. Then using a morter and pestle sort of instrument, you mash the vegetables and meat in the pot so it can be eaten with the leftover bread. We left Shiraz and drove to the ancient city of Persepolis. Camping at a 'tourist village' under some trees so that we could have a shower and toilet, we were only 1km from the site and were able to visit it in the cooler early-morning sun, instead of the sweltering midday heat. 4011Old grafitti from the British army can be seen on the towering main gateway, one even by a G.Briggs from 1800... Leaving before it got too hot, we headed north-east to Yazd. Even before Marco Polo passed though, Yazd has been famous for its silks, carpets and rugs.
The old mud-brick town is magnificent, with large cooling badgirs on the roofs. These catch breezes and promote air circulation over water to cool the houses beneath, an ancient form of air-con. The hotel we stayed in had a great courtyard with trees, tables, couches and an excellent menu. We met other travellers and all remarked at how few of us there seem to be in Iran at the moment. Andrew was once again torn between two carpets, and we ended up staying an extra day while we agonised over which ones to buy.
Unfortunately that fateful decision, whch also saw us move from a private room into the cheaper dorm, resulted in me getting bitten by many mosquitoes and my right eye swelled and closed completely. Not handy in a left hand drive country when I am the co-driver to help overtake on the roads!

We loved Yazd but with only 5 more days on our visa we needed to head towards the Turkish border, next stop Esfahan.