After a good night in Abravan we left today at a more decent hour in hope of good wind. However, even though the traffic and the road conditions were slightly better than yesterday, the head wind was already strong in the morning, and my stomach was still causing some problems to me, so it was out of the question that we would cycle the remaining 140 km to Sarakhs in one day. So we decided to cycle to Shurak Maleki, a small town 30 km after Abravan and take a train from there to Sarakhs.

Waiting for the train

When we arrived in Shurak Maleki, we saw a train leave right in front of us. I somehow had the feeling that this is a bad sign, I did not expect many daily connections on this route. Nevertheless, we went to the train station (which was placed around 1 km away from the town limits) and asked an employee when the next train would leave. He said in 3 hours, so we decided to take some rest and wait. He invited us into the building to drink tea with him (and watch a movie). But after a bit more than an hour, he suddenly decided that we have to go out of the building, and that there will be no train and we should take a bus. Any subsequent attempts to figure out if there was really a train or not today to Sarakhs were without success. So we decided to go back on the highway and try to hitchhike.

Riding a truck

Hitchhiking was easy. The very first truck that approached us stopped on our request. We loaded our bikes, entered the truck and after a very interesting ride through nice mountains we descended to Sarakhs, the border city where we will cross to Turkmenistan tomorrow. Somehow it was a pity we could not cycle at least part of the route because of the wonderful scenery, but because our Visa for Turkmenistan is fixed on the 18th of April, we had to reach Sarakhs today.

Arrival in Sarakhs

As soon as we loaded off our bikes from the truck, a local stopped and invited us to his home for dinner and the night. That went quick. We were already a bit worried where we would camp for the night, because border cities are supposed to be less safe. After we went to his home, the usual program started with dinner, getting to know each other, and now, finally going to sleep.

Next days in Turkmenistan

The next two days we will most likely not cycle because we get a ride to Ashgabat, Turkmenistan’s capital, where we visit some friends and hope to get to know a bit better the Turkmen people that actually still live in Turkmenistan (compared to the Turkmen people in Golestan). For that reason, the live tracking will most likely only be enabled again on Thursday. And even though the Internet in Iran was far from good, I expect the Internet in Turkmenistan to be even more restricted, so blog posts might follow with some delay.

Detailed Track (Cycling)

This is our second last day in Iran. Today and tomorrow we have to travel around 200 km east to the Turkmen border at Sarakhs, which should be doable with reasonable wind and weather conditions. But first we needed to cross the whole city of Mashhad, because Aresh’s home is on the western side of the city and the road to Sarakhs leaves on the East. This means around 20 km of cycling on highways and roads with heavy traffic.

Leaving on highways at noon

Last night we stayed up a bit longer to spend more time with our friendly hosts, so we delayed our departure until noon. At first we were afraid the heat would be too much at noon, but temperatures today were quite comfortable. From the small street we had to find our way to a boulevard, which then ended up in a highway with 3 to 4 lanes. Even though this is not so pleasant for cycling, it is still not the worst choice because if there are several lanes, trucks and cars have enough space to pass and hence we are not squeezed between the vehicles and the side of the road. After roughly 1 ½ hours we finally left Mashhad and reached the road towards Sarakhs.

Harassments to Lucie

So far there was only one incident since Shiraz when Lucie got harassed by some teenage men, but he got beaten up by some locals. Today was the second time. When cycling through the suburbs of Mashhad, some teenagers tried to make Lucie stop cycling and one of them kicked with his foot at her bike. Luckily nothing more serious happened, also thanks to some more grown-up locals who were ashamed of the behavior of their own youth (although, for me it is hard to say if those guys were immigrants from Afghanistan or Pakistan or actually Iranians). It’s a pity that a small number of men need to take such actions which harm the reputation of a whole country. Because everywhere else where we have been, Lucie has been treated with respect and nobody even thought of harassing her.

Highway towards Sarakhs

The road towards Sarakhs is more or less the least desirable for a cyclist. No beautiful scenery, tons of transit traffic with lots of trucks on one narrow lane per direction, dust, sand, and exhaust gases accumulating on our faces. We had quite a few vehicles passing with around 30 cm distance to us at full speed. Not very exciting for us cyclists. In the end I started riding next to the road in the gravel whenever I saw that there is traffic from both sides as dangerous manoeuvers are quite likely.

Romantic stop at Gas Station?

After 4 hours of head wind we stopped at a gas station to get some rest. Not much later, an employee of the gas station started talking to us, offered us tea and even took a carpet out of the local mosque so that we don’t have to sit on the stone at the gas station.

The employee seemed to like Lucie a lot. When I went to the bathroom for some minutes, he gently invited her in my absence to have an erotic adventure with him and his friends in the nearby mosque in the evening! Basically breaking all possible rules of Islam. It seems that despite all the repression here, some people are not that religious after all in Iran.

Another night at a local family in Abravan

Needless to say that Lucie kindly denied and we went on cycling until we reached a village named Abravan. There we found a family which lets us stay in their house overnight. 5 minutes after we arrived at their home and were shown around in the house, everybody left because they had some affairs to take care of in Mashhad. So basically we were alone in their home for a few hours. We could help ourselves with the food and drinks. I really admire how much the locals trust us.

Detailed Track

From the religious point of view, Mashhad is the most important city in Iran. During Iran’s public holidays such as Noruz (New Year, comparable to Christmas), hundreds of thousands if not millions of pilgrims travel to this city, and this not only from Iran, but from all Shiite countries. Therefore the city center around the Imam Reza Holy Shrine is targeting the pilgrimage tourism with all the ups such as diversity of stores, restaurants, and annoyances such as aggressive beggars, vendors, and so on.

Getting Visa from Turkmen Consulate

However, before sightseeing, we started the day by visiting the Turkmen Consulate, because from the Embassy in Switzerland we only received a letter of invitation (LOI) by e-mail (while already travelling in Iran). We wanted to convert this LOI into a real visa here in Mashhad to reduce the time at the border, where this would also have been possible. The process went extremely smooth. Just like in the Embassy in Geneva, the Turkmen employees of the Consulate were very friendly and helpful and against Lonely Planet’s information also speak English. It took us 20 minutes in total and we had our visa printed in our passport.

At the consulate we also met Olivier and Herni, two French guys who are travelling with their camper from France around the world. They also managed to get the Turkmen transit visa, which, as we heard, is unfortunately not always so easy. We heard stories of many cyclists whose visa requests got refused, or they had to apply three times to get the visa.

Visiting Imam Reza Holy Shrine

The main attraction for me as tourist is the Imam Reza Holy Shrine complex in the city center. It is a collection of many courtyards, mosques, museums, tombs and a library. When starting our visit, we were first asked if we are Muslims. Because we were not, we were had to wait at a special entrance for a guide who took us through the facilities. Also, we were not allowed to bring in cameras, however smartphones are allowed to take pictures and videos. This is beyond my understanding, but the consequence is that most of today’s pictures are not of the same quality as usual.

Once Lucie was cloaked in her Chador, we entered the first courtyard which had enormous dimensions and hosts 100’000 people during holidays for praying. After that we went on to more and more courtyards, each of them a little different. And we also visited a relatively newly built mirror room of gigantic dimensions which was very impressive.

However, we as non-Shiite were refused entry to the tomb of Imam Reza. Our guide, who was critical of the whole system in Iran, let us know that this rule was introduced recently by one or two persons, despite all the guides trying to convince the management to do otherwise. So much about tolerance for other religions which always gets praised.

On the other hand we got a special privilege as a tourist: We were lead into an office where a well-educated Islam expert was justifying the Islam as it is lived in Iran to us for almost an hour in perfect English. The guy was an excellent speaker and well trained in convincing people and finding answers to all kinds of questions. I have met such guys before, not just in Islamic countries, but also in Europe with other religions. The best is to not start arguing with them, they are trained better than I am. In addition, I had enough contact with police lately already, therefore I refrained from asking critical questions about the linking of the religion with the political system. We were left with a nice present in the form of a booklet from the Department of Propagation and Islamic Relations. Maybe I am going to read it on the next bus right – maybe not.

Evening program

After that, we enjoyed an evening with our French friends in a local restaurant. My dinner consisted of bread and water because I still had problems with my stomach, the others had some typical mutton ragout which actually smelled good, but I didn’t want to risk messing up my stomach again because in the following two days we have to cycle a total of 200 km to the Turkmen border.

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