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.