Stomach Problems

The night before, we ate some of the fresh cheese that we received from the family in Badianly as a good-bye present for dinner. It already smelled a bit weird, looked also a bit weird, but we thought, well, it can’t be too bad and since we did not have too many other things available, we still ate it.

Well, we regretted it very soon. Both Lucie and I got serious stomach and digestion problems with the accompanied symptoms. So my night was not very relaxing. And the next morning we were both feeling completely weak and postponed our departure from the farm until after lunch time. Then we decided to at least cycle the 17 km to yesterday’s target Ashkhaney. We were both very exhausted and from then on we took motorized transportation directly into Mashhad.

State of the art bus ride

We were glad to be able to ride on a bus and let petrol do the work for us today. But the bus ride was everything else than relaxing. First, the driver had a 15 minute dispute with a potential passenger instead of driving, then the AC or even the fan of the bus was not working and temperatures outside were at around 30°C.

We expected to be in this bus for 2.5 to 3 hours because Mashhad is 300 km away, but in the end we spend 6 hours in this bus. The reason is that at every smaller city, the bus stopped and was trying to acquire passengers for around 10-20 minutes. Because of that we only reached Mashhad at night, and Mashhad for sure is not a bike friendly city.

Overnight at a Warmshowers.org member

Luckily, we found a host on warmshowers.org, which is a platform similar to Couchsurfing, but for cyclists. Arash was very friendly and picked us up at the bus stop with the car and transported us including our bikes and luggage to his home, where I took a quick shower and more or less went to bed directly. I was still very weak from my stomach problems.

Detailed Track

Leaving Golestan

After our rest day in Golestan, we started today our path towards Mashhad. And Golestan National Park remained tricky terrain for biking. It continued going up and down for the first 30 km through wonderful green fields and small canyons. And then suddenly the climate changes. Only a few km after the last pass in Golestan we found ourselves in desert climate again. Everything was dry, water was scarce (even in the toilets). It is impressive to see how the humid air that gets transported from the Caspian Sea gets rained out on the hills of Golestan and afterwards it is very dry climate.

Uphill through the Steppes

After another 30 km through steppes the region got a bit greener again, there was obviously water to be found. We cycled through a wide valley which was full of agriculture and a beauty to watch. The only problem was, we had head wind and the road was climbing steadily for at least 30-40 km, letting us advance at speeds of 15 km/h. Not optimal to reach our daily target Ashkhaney.

More Police Controls

Today did not pass without any police controls either. In Golestan, we were first contacted by a civil police car, who then called the police. They turned up in a pickup and ordered us to follow them. The only problem: the police post was on top of a hill, so we followed them with 5 km/h uphill. Apart from stealing us important time, it also stole some of our energy. This ascent was not planned. The control itself then was harmless and we were even offered some tea. Through the steppes then another civil policeman stopped us and accompanied us with 15 km/h for at least half an hour. I still don’t understand what the problem is, but also this was harmless.

Night on a Farm

Due to the tough conditions, we did not make it to Ashkhaney unfortunately, so we asked some local farmers if we could set up our tent on their fields. And while doing so, a customer of that farm who bought some eggs and a live chicken (that was meant for dinner), offered us to stay in a room in his own farm. This was very welcome after a very hard day of cycling.

Detailed Track

Planned Sightseeing and Change of Plans

After last night’s busy evening we decided to start cycling only in the afternoon so we can do the hosts a favor and stay a bit longer with them. Therefore we planned to visit what they call the “jungle” of Golestan in the morning by car. Jungle sounded great, we were thinking of dense rain forests, maybe some animals. However, once we started driving around, we realized that what they refer to “jungle” is equivalent to a European forest. It was still nice to see all those trees in this beautiful landscape, but having been in a jungle in Colombia and Brazil, it was a bit of a disappointment.

However, it turned out soon that showing us the jungle was not the main purpose of the trip, but they showed us first a Koran-school where Lucie could observer for half an hour girls learning the Koran, then after a one hour drive through some beautiful remote valley, we stopped at an Islamic Culture Center, where I had the honor to join the noon prayers together with about 30 other men of all ages, the same for Lucie with a few women less. Fair enough, that was interesting to see once, but then things took an unexpected turn.

Interrogation by police

After the noon prayer one member of the mosque was asking for my passport. I was really surprised why they would ask for my passport inside a mosque, and as nobody spoke proper English, I even was concerned more. I cooperated and gave them the passport. When they returned with the passport however they were asking me for Lucie’s passport, which of course was not in my possession. I was wondering why they ask me that and I tried explaining them that they should get the passport from Lucie directly, but she was in the other building with the women. After about 30 minutes we all went together to Lucie and it turned out she left her passport at the host’s house. After forwarding at least a digital image from her phone it seemed to be ok. I then went to the police officers and had an interrogation of around 20 minutes with some standard questions, but also questions like “How is it with the Turkmen” and “Did you get bothered by anyone?”. Side note: The Police officers were not Turkmen, but Fars (Iranians). After answering all the questions, I could leave the room.

Being special guests at the Islamic cultural center

After that unexpected police appearance it was time for lunch. We were special guest at the cultural center and got a delicious lunch served in a separate room. We ate for quite a while. The food was typical Turkmen food, which is a bit different from the Iranian food we enjoyed the last two weeks.

After lunch, we had the honor to talk to the head of the cultural center in his office. We spoke for quite a while, and suddenly 3 non-Turkmen persons entered the room. We first had no idea who they were, we just accepted their presence.

Second Interrogation by civil policemen

After these men joined the group, they started asking the same questions as the other policemen before and wanted to see our passports (again). I was very surprised to hear that these guys are civil police (I guess detectives) who were coming from quite a bit away to meet us. Officially, we were told that they want to make sure we are safe and were treated accordingly, but I think there is more to that, because otherwise they would not have come with 3 persons from far away. I started to get worried a bit, because I had the impression the first police interrogation went well. But after another 30 minutes of interrogation, those policemen left again. After that we could finally go back to Badianly where all our luggage and Lucie’s passport was. It was a strange and unexpected experience today, because so far we did not notice anything about the police here in Iran for the past 20 days. Of course this additional delay also meant that we won’t cycle today anymore, so tomorrow we get up at a decent hour and try to catch up a bit. We should be in Mashhad in 3 days, but I doubt we manage to cycle 400 km in this hilly terrain, so most likely we will have to go for another bus transfer.

Analysis of the situation

Lucie and I of course discussed today’s events a lot. We are not sure why we created that much interest to the police, but we have a theory. Since the Turkmen are an ethnical minority I can imagine that here are some tensions between them and the Fars (that’s how the Iranians are called). Even though they both are Islamic, the Turkmen are Sunnites but the Fars are Shiites. Usually in Iran we always saw the portraits of the two leaders of the country (Ayatollah Khomeini and President Rhamenei/Rohani). We did not see any of these portraits in any of the Turkmen home or in the Islamic Culture Center, instead two other portraits. Therefore I assume that there are religious differences and therefore the Fars are suspicious or pay special attention when tourists visit the Turkmen to make sure we are not Journalists (which explains also why they asked for our occupation and future travel plans). Well, for now it seems everything has been sorted out. I hope we will not meet any police again regarding this matter, even though they were always friendly and had a neutral position towards us.

Lowe and the waterfalls

After our host offered us fresh bread for breakfast, we went on a short car ride into the hills for seeing Lowe waterfalls. Wonderfully embedded into the green forest it was a lovely place to start the day. And because it had rained during the night, the colors of the leaves were even more vibrant and the hills were partially wrapped in clouds.

Iranian Dishonesty

After we returned to the house where we spent the night, the host asked us to pay for the room. However, we already paid for the very same room on arrival, but he assures us that he did not receive the money. When we paid the driver yesterday, we have him 500’000 Rials for the ride and 500’000 Rials for the apartment, which we thought he forwarded to either the host or his friend. So in the end, he asked for another 500’000 Rials, which we were not willing to spend, because the price for the room was already at the upper bound of what we were willing to spend.

It is the first time since my arrival in Iran 2.5 weeks ago that we run in these issues. At least one of the three involved persons (driver, host, or his friend) has a different understanding of honesty as we do. We ended up resolving the situation by giving the host some additional money so at least his expenses (bread, water, etc.) were covered, in case he was actually honest and did not receive the money.

Cycling Through Golestan National Park

At around 10:30 we hit the road. We followed 10 km the busy highway until we finally reached the steep but low-traffic gravel road into Golestan National Park. It was a relief after many days of driving on a highway with dozens of trucks to finally hear nature again when cycling.

We started with a steep 10% ascent for about 800 altitude meters. It took us around 2 hours to manage this climb, but the view on the green fields from the top of the hill back into the valley where we came from was wonderful. After a short lunch stop on the hill we descended into a more remote valley in the park, however, it is not comparable with the remoteness of National Parks I know from the US or Switzerland. There were many villages, farmers, children on their motorcycles, etc.

Up and down – left and right

The road through the valleys of the park are treacherous. Over the long run they are flat and follow the valley, but on a local scale, they go up and down the whole time. Basically, each village was in an elevated position, and between the villages we had to descent to a side river which carved a valley into the landscape and climb again to the next village. A quite exhausting experience, we did that at least a dozen times today. But the landscape was just stunning, so it was still worth the extra effort.

Turkmen people in Iran

Golestan is inhabited mostly by the Turkmen people who, as I was told, migrated from neighboring Turkmenistan during the war in 1881. Turkmen are different from Iranians in the sense that they speak their own language in addition to Farsi and that at least the ones that I met are Sunnites instead of Shiites like the rest of Iran. When cycling through their lands, you realize that they are different from the Iranians, they seem more secluded, but that does not mean they are not as welcoming as the Iranians. See next section.

Arriving in Badianly

After countless ascents and descents with the bike, when going through a village called Badianly, we decided to stay around there during the night. The village has only 300 human inhabitants (and 500 sheep as we were told) and does not exist on Google Maps, we could however see on the satellite image that there are a few buildings. When we entered the village with our bikes, the children immediately stopped playing football and ran towards us. In no time we were surrounded by at least 20 children and also some adults who followed us through the village. I wonder when that village has seen the last tourist. It was then a local family who invited us for a tea which we happily accepted.

That’s when one of the most memorable evenings here in Iran started. As often when being invited for a tea, we were afterwards invited to stay for the evening and the night at the house. This was very welcome because it was getting dark and cold outside.

Badianly is a village on the countryside where religion still plays a central role. Therefore Lucie got dressed up by local women according to their dress code (see picture in gallery), then she was taken around the village to be photographed with other families, while I enjoyed a moto ride on the hill too see the hills in the evening. For dinner we were asked if we would like Kebab from fresh sheep meat for dinner. We agreed because we both felt like eating meat again.

Getting the meat for Kebab

What we did not realize when agreeing for Kebab is that fresh meat means, that the sheep was still alive when we were asked the question. Only when they showed up with a living sheep in the garden and a giant knife we understood what is going on. They are killing a sheep extra for us to show us their hospitality and feed us with meat! Even though we both felt a bit sorry for the sheep, we both knew it was pointless to convince them not to kill the sheep. They were very proud to sacrifice one of their three sheep for us and would have been very disappointed if we changed our mind.

So things went how they went and two hours later we ate very delicious Kebab from the grill. I don’t remember if I ever ate mutton, but I have to say, the meat was excellent. They were so proud of their meat, they even offered us an extra portion when we were already in bed. We refused however.

Religious evening program

After dinner, it seemed that half the village assembled at the host family’s house. At some point there were around 60 people in the two room measuring 20 m2 each. As it is a traditional Islamic village, Lucie spent her evening with around 30 girls and women, while I had the pleasure to spend my evening with the same number of boys and men.

The topics were the same for me and Lucie: Religion. I was basically facing 30 Muslim men, all strong believers, and was interrogated about my religion, played me recordings from prayers, made prayers every now and then. It was a quite challenging situation. Even though I am still member of a church, by no means I live religion the way they do, and when they asked me, how I believe life on earth was created, it was basically impossible to explain them what the evolution theory is and why I don’t believe that God created the world in 7 days.

However, I have to clearly point out that even though I don’t share their religion and views at all, they always respected my opinion and at no point did they judge me about my beliefs or try to convert me in any way or mobbing me for being different. The Islam as it is lived by the Turkmen here in Iran is very conservative, but in accordance with the Koran. And the Koran asks of every Muslim to be tolerant.

Detailed Track

Visa for Turkmenistan

First the good news of today. My transit visa request for Turkmenistan got finally approved. Which means that I will start crossing Turkmenistan on April 18 and should leave the country again on April 22. So I have 5 days for 500 km. As the visa is strictly bound to the indicated dates, this means that we should leave Iran in 7 days from now. And from Amol, that’s still around 850 km of distance. Definitely too much, considering that we also want to spend at least one full day in Mashad. Since the roads and traffic here in the north of Iran are not very bike-friendly and the weather was windy and rainy, we decided to skip 350 km today with public transport and by hitchhiking. The goal was to reach Golestan National Park in the evening.

Lunch break in Behschahr

The first bus we took in Amol ended in Behschahr, and we planned to continue right with the next bus. But as soon as we got off the bus, we were approached again with invitations for tea and lunch. We tried to resist, but failed. The result was, we had lunch at a very nice house of a local family. It was clearly obvious that they were not poor, and I was told later on that his father was boss of a bank, and his father’s father as well. Even the son aged 28 had more savings on his bank account than many Swiss in that age. Needless to say that this lunch took its time, and we only continued with the next bus at 15:00. But it was worth the stop, the family was very nice and because the guy is an English teacher, for once we could have some deeper conversations than the usual “Where are you from?” and “How do you like Iran?”

Hitchhiking in Azadshahr

The next bus ended in Azadshar. But unlike in Behschahr, almost no buses went further on, and after trying to hitchhike for 45 minutes, some local guys organized a pickup with driver which took us too Lowe, a place with famous waterfalls and at the edge of Golestan National Park. We were passing at countless green and yellow fields, forests and grass, completely unlike the vegetation of the other parts of Iran we have seen in the past few days. When we arrived in Lowe it was already dark and instead of camping outside in the rain, our driver organized some cheap accommodation in a local home. This time not completely free, but for a good price. Tomorrow we will start exploring the national park which is supposed to be very beautiful. I will then hopefully also have more photos to share.

Leaving Alborz Mountains

Around 40 km were between us and the Caspian Sea when we stopped yesterday after almost 140 km and stayed the night at a forest camping. The night was not particularly quiet because the camping was right next to the highway, but we were tired enough to get the sleep we need.

In the morning we left the Alborz Mountains and reached the town Amol, in which we found a bakery with fresh bread, and hence our breakfast. After that, we continued our ride to the coast of the Caspian Sea and reached our goal in less than 1 hour after Amol.

Caspian Sea – or Lake?

A little background research: It is still disputed whether it is a sea or a lake. The reasons are of economical nature because the Caspian Sea is rich of natural resources. By international law, a Sea’s resources are split by the territorial slice of the Sea it borders, whereas a Lake’s resources have to be shared among all littoral states equally.

Anyway, for us it did not matter. The water is salty, that I can confirm, and it is also not very warm at this time of the year, so my swimming session was limited to about a minute. In addition, the beaches unfortunately are also polluted with garbage and not especially beautiful. All in all I can say that I cannot recommend that beach to any beach-tourists, but it was still nice to reach the Sea once in my lifetime.

Overnight in private apartment

We spent already many nights with local families, but tonight is special: The family actually left us their whole apartment and went to a relative’s apartment overnight. I was really surprised how much they trust us foreigners. I would never let someone I have met during the day alone in my apartment overnight. But it is again a clear proof of the Iranian hospitality which I love so much.

Detailed Track

Across the Alborz Mountains

The Alborz Mountains are between the capital Teheran and the Caspian Sea. These mountains have several peaks above 4000 m, the highest of them is Mt. Damavand (5604 m), a volcano. At this time of the year there is still a lot of snow in these mountains, making them a wonderful scenery when looking at them from desert-like areas like Teheran.

Climbing to 2700m

There are only a few passes that cross these mountains, we chose the one that goes closest to Mt. Damavand. After leaving Teheran on a busy highway we had to climb around 1600 m to reach the pass. Unfortunately, even the road up to the pass had a lot of traffic so climbing it was not as relaxing as it could have been. We were rewarded however by wonderful views into the valleys and snowy mountains in perfect weather conditions.

Descending to sea level

After a short lunch we started our descent towards the Caspian Sea. There were still around 120 km so it was unlikely we make it there today, even though it was constantly going down. 7 km after the pass we could finally see Mt. Damavand. We did in total another 80 km from the pass through wonderful valleys, going from Alpine climate down to desert climate and closer to the Caspian Sea to humid climate with green forests and rivers. The scenery was just amazing.

Dangerous traffic and road conditions

While the scenery for our descent was one of the most beautiful and diversified that I have ever seen, the traffic after the pass was mostly a nightmare. There were at least a dozen of narrow tunnels, some of them illuminated, some of them not. In the bidirectional tunnels the ventilation also did not do its job and the exhaust gases from the hundreds of trucks going through those tunnels every day made breathing hard and reduced the visibility considerably.

And there was this constant traffic. I did not count, but in average we got passed by at least 5 vehicles every minute, around one third of them trucks in all sizes. Despite from being dangerous because of the narrow roads, some truck and bus drivers also were passing us with 15-20 cm distance with full speed. I am not so sure if that was controlled or just luck that we did not get hit.

The only positive point: It was constantly going downhill, so the tunnels and dangerous passages went over quicker and in steeper parts we could keep up the speed with the vehicles.

I am not sure if I would recommend to other cyclists to take this road, but for sure I would not recommend this road to anyone in the other direction towards Teheran because of the tunnels, crazy drivers and the low speed when going up.

Campground to ourselves

When the sun was setting slowly, we reached a rest area along the highway where we could rent a small bungalow in a camping. It was very welcome to have a warm showers, cleaning of all the dust and truck exhaust gases from our faces. It was a long and exhausting day with lots of impressions, but now it is time to sleep.

Detailed Track

Catching up by bus

Because we have to enter Turkmenistan on April 18 due to Lucie’s visa, we had to accelerate things a bit to reach the border in time. Therefore we travelled the roughly 400 km between Esfahan and Teheran by bus.

Cycling in Iran’s Capital

Once arrived in Teheran the first surprise: we did not arrive at the expected terminal at the eastern city limit, but at the south Terminal. And because we wanted to skip Teheran for sightseeing anyway and proceed towards the Caspian Sea, we had to cross half the city towards north east. As Friday is the equivalent to Sunday in Switzerland, there was luckily not that much traffic on the roads, I don’t want to imagine the traffic during rush hour on a work day. Nevertheless, the smog in Teheran was horrible. I could feel it in my eyes and lungs.

Where to camp?

Since we only started cycling at 15:30, we had planned to cycle out of the city and camp in the national park that was right at the city limit. However, once we got there 30 minutes before sunset, it turned out that the national park was in fact a military area where foreigners are not allowed, so camping was impossible. And otherwise there was also no inviting place to set up our tent. The best option might have been under a highway bridge, but that was not so inviting. So Lucie had the idea to go to the building of the emergency rescue in the hope we could stay there overnight. Unfortunately, that was not possible, but the guys there helped us finding a room in some municipality building were we can stay for the night. We are both very happy about this solution because in the meantime several thunderstorms hit the area. And it even had a kitchen and decent bathrooms in the building.

Detailed Track

Running Errands

Today we needed to take care of some things in Esfahan. Lucie needed to get a visa extension, and I needed to get my camera sensor cleaned as a result of the dusty and sandy conditions in the past few days. And of course we wanted to see a bit more of the city because yesterday’s sightseeing session was rather short.

Visa extension

Extending a visa is a long process that started on 7:30 a.m. and ended around 4 hours later. Countless interviews, running to the bank for making the payment and returning the receipt are some steps involved. But in the end Lucie was successful and her visa got extended by another 30 days, which will be enough until we cross to Turkmenistan.

Shopping in Esfahan

Unlike in European cities, shopping in Esfahan is straight forward. Shops of the same kind are usually grouped and along the same streets. When I was walking to the photo store for the sensor cleaning, I first passed by dozens if not hundreds of car repair shops. Once I reached the street of the photo store, basically all shops were selling electronics. During the day, we also discovered streets that sell household items. So basically, if you know in which street you can get what, you basically have all the shops in one cluster. This is actually very convenient.

Sightseeing

Today we were not a group of 8 for sightseeing but only Lucie and me. This gave us much more flexibility and we could actually visit the mosque we saw from outside yesterday, we walked through the famous Bazar-e Bozorg and spent some time over lunch in one of the beautiful parks in the center. Unfortunately we arrived a bit too late at the famous Jameh Mosque so we only could see it from outside.

Another family evening

For the third evening in a row, we were up to 15 people. Unfortunately I was not at all in the mood for it today, I was tired from a whole day of walking through the city, did not sleep much the nights before and would have preferred a calm evening. Also, going to sleep early was not possible as we only had dinner at 22:45 because some guests arrived late. I guess this is the downside of staying at locals, but still, I don’t regret it, as you really get to know a lot about Iranians.

Next steps

Tomorrow we will leave Esfahan however and go north with the bus. As we should be in Turkmenistan in 12 days, it is impossible to cycle the remaining 1500 km. We will most likely go up to the Caspian Sea and then follow the coast line towards Gorgan and finally towards Mashad.

Even though Esfahan calls itself bike-friendly, we decided not to use our bikes today. First, because we live at a local family 30 km away from the city center and second because the traffic especially in the suburbs is everything but not bike-friendly. So we went there by car together with the host family and some friends of theirs. In total we were 8 persons.

Spring time in Esfahan

We reached Isfahan at a very good time of the year. The Zayandeh river was carrying a lot of water (which is not normal, I saw pictures from 10 days ago when the whole riverbed was dry!). Also, the parks at the riverside were green and the flowers were blooming. The temperature was with 15-20°C also perfect for sightseeing.

Historic center

In addition to three historic bridges over the river, yesterday’s highlight was the Naqsh-e Jahan Square. After Beijing’s Tiananmen square the second largest in the world with more than 500m of length and 150m wide. Compared to the Tiananmen Square, the Naqsh-e Jahan Square is howoever much more beautiful because it is surrounded with mosques, palaces, and has beautiful fountains and green on it. The pictures were unfortunately taken at noon, so the light is not that good, but I will try to go there again tomorrow to get some better shots towards the evening.

Sightseeing in a group

I really love the Iranian hospitality, but for sightseeing in a city like Esfahan it can also be an annoyance. The main problem is that first, all family members and friends want to spend as much time as possible with us, which resulted in a group of 8 people. Sightseeing gets quite inefficient like this because there is always someone to wait for. And the second problem was that for locals, sightseeing does not have the same meaning as to us. So after two hours in perfect weather, one guy suggested that we go to his home to have lunch. The home was 30 min away by car. We could convince them to stay in the city center for lunch… but only until after lunch, when they took us back to the village. So in the end there was not much sightseeing and we spent the whole afternoon at their home drinking tea and just “being” there.

I am really glad that tomorrow we have another day in Esfahan. This time I will go to the city alone with Lucie and will appreciate the hospitality again in the evening when returning to the village.