Iran
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To our Iranian
friends:
Some of your E-mail addresses we noted do not work. We
would like to keep in touch with all the friendly people we met on our journey.
If you have not heard from us yet, please contact
us!
Saturday, April 3, 2004
Sunday,
April 4, 2004
Monday, April 5, 2004
Tuesday,
April 6, 2004
Wednesday, April 7, 2004
Thursday,
April 8, 2004
Friday, April 9, 2004
Saturday,
April 10, 2004
Sunday, April 11, 2004
Monday,
April 12, 2004
Tuesday, April 13, 2004
Wednesday,
April 14, 2004
Thursday, April 15, 2004
At the Iranian customs, many Iranians have to show
everything they have bought. TV sets and many other things are thoroughly checked.
In contrast, they hardly look at our luggage.
The locomotive is changed, and
the train is now hauled by a six-axled GM loco at a reasonable speed.
At dawn
the first day in Iran, we are traveling through a bleak landscape, and the buildings
we see are usually clay. We have a fine breakfast in the restaurant car, consisting
of thin bread and tea. Late in the forenoon we reach the junction with the electrified
line Tabriz - Jolfa, where the Swedish-built class Rc locos run.
We arrive
at the large station in Tabriz four hours late. Guards and armed military personnel
signal the importance of this railway: Military secret!
Inside the station
building a railway-man spot us and greets us in French. It is our luck that Till
has studied French for five year's at school, so that the railway-man can help
us (and Till must translate all afternoon and evening).
His name is Ali Kalili,
and he has a senior position (we can't ascertain his exact status) at the Tabriz
railway. He is overwhelmingly helpful and assists us in finding a good hotel,
buy tickets to Jolfa etc, and in the afternoon, he guides us through the city.
He does it all for free, and we must insist on at least to be allowed to invite
him for dinner. He can, however, not help us with receiving permissions for cab-rides
or visiting depots. We sense that this will be difficult.
Ali is a veteran
of the Iran-Iraq war, which he was sent into at the age of 14. He got wounded
five times and was a prisoner of war in Iraq for nine years. Many in his generation
was traumatized in this war, we heard similar tragic stories from others as well.
In
the evening we got invited to Ali's home and among other things he shows us music
videos from the internet with lightly dressed young women. His wife on the other
hand is more traditionally dressed and keeps a distance.
Iran really is a country
with many contrasts. Many women apparently nip small bits of freedom where they
can - but they are a long way from something that resembles equality.
It will
be a short night, because our train leaves at 6 am the next morning...
Thanks to Jonny Saljefeldt for help with translation!
In the next morning, we leave our hotel (which
is quite expensive for Iranian conditions: 40 US-$ for a two-bed room) early without
breakfast and go through snowfall to the station. The coaches are ready for boarding
at the platform, but the locomotive comes a bit later: One of the Swedish-built
locos for 25 kV/50 Hz, based on the class Rc4 and built in the middle of the 1970's.
Together with the loco comes a 4-axled steam heating car, quite a funny arrangement
for an electric train, but the coaches only have steam heating.
We take our
seats in one of the German couchette cars that must be from the 1950s, but we
actually know hardly anything about them. They are worn out, but quite comfortable
for a regional train with less than 3 hours journey time.
The railway is mostly
in good or reasonable state. The quite flat landscape in the beginning becomes
more and more hilly the longer north we come. There are quite heavy snowfalls,
cars and busses come forward only with difficulties. We see later in TV that there
was a big traffic chaos in some regions.
When we arrive at Jolfa, we realize
that there are not so many guards in the railway area, despite it is a border
station. We take some nice Iranian winter pictures. Behind the border is the Azerbaijani
exclave Naxchivan. The former passenger traffic to Russia has ceased for many
years ago, several borders in the Caucasus region are closed. Inhabitants from
Naxchivan traveling overland to the Azerbaijani mainland must take a longer way
via Iran, the border to Armenia can still not be passed. According to information
we hear, there shall be local passenger traffic and cargo traffic from Jolfa over
the border to Naxchivan, but we do not find out any details. At least one broad
gauge track shall exist in the passenger station; there is also a widely abandoned
cargo exchange station to load goods from broad gauge to normal gauge cars and
vice versa.
We spend some hours in the town, where there are nearly as many
shop signs in Russian as in Persian.
In the early afternoon, we begin our journey
back to Tabriz. Before departure, we talk to the engineer who speaks a little
English. We are allowed to have a look inside the cab for a minute, but we feel
that the engineer is nervous - this is strictly forbidden! We see that the alarm
panel contains a warning lamp "Steam heating car". We do not want the
engineer to get into trouble for us and leave the cab quickly.
Now during the
journey back, we can see the scenic line in good daylight, and in the many curves,
we can see our "RC4" from the compartment.
As we come back to Tabriz, Ali is waiting for us. The night train to Tehran
is sold out, but Ali finally manages to get two tickets for us that seem to
have been returned. It's 2:nd class, which makes the expenses for the 736 km
(460 miles)-journey quite bearable: 3 US-$ per person (no, we have not forgot
any zeros).
Ali introduces us to Babak Habibi, a psychometry
student from Tehran, who is going to take the same train as we and who speaks
well English. This way, we have help with translations when necessary, and we
learn a lot of interesting details about the people's everyday live in Iran -
and vice versa.
Before it is time to go to bed, we learn to know a specialty
of Iranian Railways: There is a prayer stop of 20 minutes. Many people go to the
little Mosque of the railway station, while others stay in the train.
One thing
that we find remarkable is that there are no separate compartments for women and
men in Iranian overnight trains, although there is a very extensive sexual segregation
in the country's everyday life otherwise.
In the morning, we are still a long way from Tehran
as the train is running quite late. It is almost lunchtime when the train enters
the representatively expanded central station.
Babak helps us to purchase tickets,
which turns out to be difficult due to sold out trains. Finally we succeed in
getting tickets to Khorramshahr at the Persian Gulf.
We have lunch at an Azerbaijan
restaurant serving traditional food from Barak´s native region. After lunch
we visit a railway administration building in order to investigate the possibility
of getting photo permits and visiting depots. On one wall hangs a large photograph
of a painting depicting one of the Nohab-built locos going up a gradient with
rake of brown and crème painted cars. It turns out that we will have to
visit an international press-centre, which we will do the next morning.
Instead
of going by train to Khorramshahr we check in at a very inexpensive hotel (7 US-$
for one room) opposite the railway station. The hotel is very simple, with toilet
and shower in the corridor, but it is adequate. A few hours later we meet Babak
once more, and he, together with his girlfriend, guides us around the city. Among
other things we get to see a nice park where we can relax somewhat from the nightmare
traffic of Tehran. The Lonely Planet guide-book is undoubtedly correct when it
says: "If you try to cross a main street in the same way as you do at home,
you will be left at the curb until your visa runs out."
In a park we see
a rollerblade arena where youngsters of both sexes have fun practicing inline
skating to western music at high volume. They try to get some freedom where they
can...
Also this day's travel report was translated by Jonny Saljefeldt
In the morning, we take a taxi to the international
press center. At that address they do not know what to do with us, they phone
around, we are allowed to use the phone to talk to someone who has a better English
than the guys at the reception. At last we are told that the press center has
moved to another address.
After another long taxi ride, past some heavily guarded
government buildings, we arrive at the office where they extend visas. We fortunately
don't need that since we already have 30 day visa. However, we find one English
speaking officer and try to explain our wishes to him. He doesn't understand the
problem since according to him rail photography is allowed from public places
unless forbidden by signs. We ask him to write that for us in Persian or get a
copy of the part of the law that says so but to no avail…
Bengt visits
a railway employee that we met the day before at his office to try to get an official
photo permit but no luck. We decide to use our cameras anyhow.
The cruel reality
in Iran seems to be that RR photography is FORBIDDEN , Photo permits to railfans
are not given and local exceptions are not made since the local stationmaster
is scared to brake the rules. Unless you have connections with the very high places
in the administration there is nothing to do.
Meantime, Till meets with Babak
who helps us book tickets at a travel agency that use a German ICE1 (without pantographs)
as its logotype.
Early Tuesday afternoon, we enter the night train to Bandar-e Abbas. This being
a first class only train we have to stretch our budget a little more than in
the night train from Tabriz: US-$10 per person for a 1368 km (855 miles) one
way trip. The cars are German style couchettes with 6 bed compartments, but
with AC. The AC is really needed in this part of the world. The cars have builder
plates with the ANF logo and year 1980. This seems a bit strange, have DB/DR
bought them from a French company or are they used DB/DR cars refurbished with
AC in France?
Included in the train is a large 8 wheel car with 3 Diesel
generator sets providing HEP for the train. Those wires are known as the train
heating line in Sweden, but here it is the opposite. The connection is marked
3000V, 800A but we don't really believe that. The loco is a six axle GM loco.
Just south of Teheran we come to the central Iranian desert, a sharp contrast
to the 5000+ meter snow covered peaks in the north. We share compartment with
a family with two sons who speak a little English. The father turns out to be
a locomotive driver (our luck!!!). In his opinion, the GM locos are the best,
but later, a younger driver tells us that the new Alstom locos are very good machines.
Kenny Ericson translated this section for us. Thank you!
On
our way south, we pass first through still quite flat desert landscape, which
becomes hillier the closer we come to the coast. The quite modern line crosses
the mountains with numerous tunnel and bridges. Shortly before the railway terminal
of Bandar-e Abbas, the very end of the European - Middle East standard gauge railway
net, the cargo tracks to the important harbors of the town diverge. Then we reach
the quite small station with, however, a large station building. We see that in
many places in Iran: Only one or two pairs of trains leave and arrive here every
day, but the station has quite extensive facilities. Most of the day, everything
lies idle, while there are large crowds around the few departures and arrivals.
We rent a taxi for a few hours and look first for the outermost buffer stop of
the standard gauge net. What we find is - a loop track! Very practical.
We
continue to the city. It is an interesting mixture of peoples with strong Arab
and African influences. Some African women wear face masks and clothes that cover
most of the face and the body. The bazaar of the city lies directly by the Hormuz
Strait, which forms the border between the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean.
Already now, in April, it is about 30 degrees warm in the morning.
Then we
continue to go to the container harbor. There we need a permission to pass the
well-guarded gate. We are advised to a small house with a control post, where
we explain what we wish. Bengt finally talks to the very friendly chief security
officer, who gives us permission to visit the harbor area - bur we must leave
our cameras and passports behind at the control post.
We find some remarkable
railway cars, for example a six-depressed center flat car built in Germany, which
is apparently only used internally inside the port area. This car kept its buffers
and its couple hooks, but the screw coupler was removed. The latter seems to be
an indication that the car is no longer used in general traffic. The car is coupled
to a car that has both buffers and a SA3-coupler by means of a loose screw coupler.
This one fits to a hook of the SA3-coupler.
On the way back, a misunderstanding occurs as we look at some cargo cars standing
on the track to the harbour - Bengt believes that we are close to the passenger
station and decides to walk there, while Till continues with all the luggage
by taxi. The distance is, however, at least 15 km (10 miles). So we loose contact
with each other due to the lack of mobile telephone connection and miss the
train to Tehran in the afternoon. We sleep in two different hotels, and it takes
until the next morning for us to find each other again.
After we met again, we get to the station in order to purchase tickets. The way it works is that we are told the train is sold out, but we should leave our passports and wait. After a while we actually get tickets. It seems to be correct that there is some kind of reserve seats for tourists. An Iranian, who has both a German and an Iranian passport, becomes furious to the ticket salesman. He shows his German passport and wants to know why there is no ticket for him, while we get past all queues. This special treatment we experience feels somewhat embarrassing for us, but we take it as an expression of Iranian hospitality. We have still some time until the departure of the train, which we spend in the city. Then it is time to return to Teheran. We are pleased to see that the German-Iranian finally also got his ticket and is on the train together with us. Also a US American, who emigrated from Iran for many years ago, is in the train and can help us to translate when necessary.
Back in Teheran, it is Friday, the Islamic holiday.
Traffic is only slightly calmer, and many food shops are opened. At least in the
larger cities, it is no problem to supply yourself with food and other stuff you
need on travel on Fridays. We look for an Internet café, but when we are
there, the taxi driver says something about "police" and points to a
car in front of us. It is a civil car with two persons in it, and at least the
one who talks to us has no police uniform. In addition, he refuses to present
his ID card. Since the taxi driver seems to be sure that these are real policemen,
we do what one should never do in such a situation: We show our passports and
money as he demands. One should always insist on making this at the nearest police
station, bogus policemen then usually disappear. He claims being on the search
for drugs, and that heroin was found at a British tourist recently. He could easily
have robbed us, but we get everything back. Therefore and because the driver wore
at least a part of a police uniform, we believe that they actually were policemen,
who should take a refreshing course in how a correct police control should be
made.
In the afternoon, we take the night train to Khorramshar at the Persian
Gulf. We go first on the newly built double-track line southward toward Qom, the
same route as the one we took to Bandar-e Abbas. Then the line to Khorramshar
diverges to the southwest, before we stop at the main station of Qom. This city
is the religious center of Iran with several important universities. People with
high religious positions are usually trained here. We see quite many people who
are very conservatively dressed on the platform. In a group, we see some women,
who wear nearly completely covering veils, which we only saw occasionally at elder
women. These seem, however, to be younger or middle age, as far as we can judge.
On
the way to the Persian Gulf, we come close to Iraq and can actually see it south
of Ahvaz - we come to the delta of Euphrates and Tigris, which forms the border
here. Several old tanks can be seen in the landscape, apparently as memorials
of the Iranian-Iraqi war, which raged very violently in this area. Many military
installations show that this is a very sensitive border.
A few seconds, we
even get in contact with a mobile telephone network, probably a signal from the
Iraq. Otherwise our telephones always show strong signals in the Iranian cities,
but due to the lack of roaming agreements, we cannot hook up to the Iranian operators,
and there are no suitable prepaid cards for short-time visits either. It would
cost approximately 60 Euro to hook up us here.
We reach Khorramshar, a city
that is apparently so boring that it is not even mentioned in our travel guide.
The region is the hottest in whole Iran with summer temperatures up to 50 ºC,
but today, it is a moderate around 25 ºC. We do not find an English-speaking
taxi driver, but a gentleman explains to a driver what we wish. We go to the neighboring
city Abadan, where Iraq is as close as 200 m over the river. We make s short stopover
for a snack at a small fishing port, and we are surprised to see only a few soldiers
here directly at the border. At other places, there are none at all, and we can
without problems take some photos of Iraq.
We continue to Bandar-e Imam Khomeini, the largest port of this region. It is
80 km (50 miles) straight road over a flat landscape with some isolated industrial
plants. At the harbor again, a longer procedure begins in order to receive a
permission to enter; we are let in, but it is forbidden to take photos as it
was in Bandar-e Abbas. The harbor is huge, maybe bigger than the one at Bandar-e
Abbas, and there is heavy truck traffic. Over this port, minerals are exported,
in other parts of the harbor, containers are handled, partly delivered by rail.
Later, we continue to the passenger station, from which only regional
trains to Ahvaz depart. As many times before, we experience the great Iranian
helpfulness. Although we do not in any way actively look for help or ask for it,
an English-speaking gentlemen approaches us and helps us to purchase tickets,
also for the connecting train from Ahvaz to Teheran.
We board the train - now we go Danish. Former DSB regional coaches, now equipped
with air-conditioning, are very comfortable for us, who have seats - a couple
of travelers, however, must stand. The train terminates at a station in the
outskirts of Ahvaz, from where out we must go by taxi to the main station, in
order to continue to Teheran. This time, we travel in luxury class with TV in
the compartment and meals at the seat included in the price. We must pay around
12 US-$ per person, for a distance of 816 km (510 miles), which is relatively
expensive for Iranian conditions.
Back
in Teheran we use the hotel, I which we slept before, as shower and luggage deposit.
We do not notice so much of it that it is Easter Sunday, but coincidentally, there
is a religious holiday in Iran as well. Normal Sundays are, however, working-days
in Iran. Today traffic is indeed significantly calmer than normal.
After the
"large" investment into the luxury compartments, we are in need for
cash - foreign credit cards are as good as worthless in Iran. The official exchange
offices are closed, so that we must change on the street on the black market.
We
succeed in filling the remaining days in Iran with two further beautiful trips:
One to Esfahan, which is famous for its rich Islamic cultural heritage. In addition,
we get tickets to Sari close to the Caspian Sea. The railway line there crosses
the large mountain range north of Teheran and goes through a very scenic landscape.
In
the evening, we take the night train to Esfahan, so that we can be a little cultural,
and do no longer need to explain to Iranians in the future "No, we we have
not been in Esfahan, we only look at railways."
It
is still very early as we arrive, therefore, we wait a while in the station, until
it dawns. It is far to the city, fortunately, a taxi driver who speaks some English
spots us and offers to drive us around and to guide us. His name is Mohammad,
and he has recently finished his studies of road and water infrastructure engineering.
It is, however, difficult to find work in Iran, so that he earns some money for
himself and his young wife by driving taxi.
We see several of the beautiful
bridges over the river Zayandeh Rud and a beautiful park. We notice that the city
has many tourists for Iranian conditions, it is with its parks, street trees,
and pedestrian areas, it is an oasis compared to Teheran. For the first time in
Iran, we meet western tourists, among them a group of travelers from France and
a British couple. The British woman lived as a child in Iran and speaks fluently
Persian.
We see the large Meidan e Shah, a complex of mosque, bazaar and other
buildings, which enclose a large market place. Here, there are even real tourist
traps, but we manage not to buy more than some miniatures, painted on camel bone
disks. Here one can even use - otherwise worthless - foreign credit cards, because
many dealers have direct contacts abroad. However, heavy fees are surcharged,
so we decide to pay cash.
In the late afternoon, we get back to the station
and look at a nearby workshop, that manufactures among other things ballast cars.
Some Russian bogies are stored outside, accessible without a fence, and Bengt
takes some photos of them that are definitely completely worthless from the military
point of view - after all, these are parts manufactured abroad! The personnel
spots us, and this time they do not only shout "No photo", as guards
usually did so far. They drive us with a car to the station and hand us over to
the safety personnel there. One of them speaks some English, and Bengt shows him
the pictures. He is satisfied as Bengt deletes the pictures in front of his eyes,
they were not especially valuable for us anyway. There are plenty of Russian bogies
in Iran and elsewhere. And then we take the night train back to Teheran.
We
arrive at Teheran very early, and the city has not woken up yet completely. In
front of the station, we meet some very friendly Iranians - unfortunately they
are physically not able to give us any help, because they are too drunk... As
we hear later, alcohol is easily available on the black market, it is delivered
to anywhere in Tehran within half an hour if you just know the right number to
call.
Some hours later, we take a day train to Sari, situated northeast of
Teheran not far from the Caspian Sea. The line crosses the large mountain range
north of Teheran and must one of the most beautiful in the country. We board a
trainset formed of Danish first-class compartment coaches, probably from the 1950's.
In the corridors in the coaches, there are still Danish railway maps from 1985.
The interior is quite worn out, but one can open the windows to take photos, that
is the main thing! The train crew organizes a compartment on our own, and then
we depart.
Shortly after departure, we see the French "Turbotrain"
in the depot, but too shortly and from an angle that we have no chance to take
a photo. According to the timetable, this train goes three times in the week from
Teheran to Mashhad and back as day train.
We follow first the line to Mashhad
eastbound, before we diverge to the north directly toward the mountain chain.
Soon a very spectacular ramp begins, starting from the plateau of Tehran at around
1000 m altitude up to approximately 2000 m. We cross through a harsh landscape,
which reminds us to Arizona. The mountains, which once were the bottom of the
sea, form bizarre stage mountains. The rise with numerous tunnels and tight curves
takes about two hours, before we reach the crest of the pass. During the trip,
we get lunch in the coach which is partly rebuilt to a buffet coach.
After
we passed the crest, we see much tighter vegetation while we go downhill on the
north side of the mountains. Moist air from the Caspian Sea makes the region,
to which we come, the most fertile one of Iran. At this altitude, however, there
is only grass and bush vegetation, and so we have a fantastic view on the line,
as it descends in serpentines. Often, we se the line two or three times further
down on different levels, better than most that we have seen in Switzerland. At
one time, we have the valley to the left, then the train passes through a loop
tunnel and leaves it, now with the right side to the valley. It seems that this
mountain railway has not drawn much attention from abroad so far, it was completely
unknown to us. A charter flight journey combined with a ride on the mountain railway
should be possible to be arranged at a reasonable .price.
The difference in
altitude downhill to the Caspian Sea is much more than on the southern side of
the mountains, because we get to approximately sea level - the Caspian Sea itself
is actually under the sea level. The ramp is now many more steep than upward,
the Danish cars were certainly never braked so hard in their homeland. A second
four-axled locomotive is coupled to the train near the crest to help braking with
its resistor brakes. We do not hear much noise from the Diesel engines, but from
the brake resistor fans...
Also here in the countryside, there are police at
many stations who become nervous when people take photos of railways, especially
bridges, but other passengers convince them that we only take photos as private
memories.
In Sari we have several hours of time, so that we take a taxi that
brings us to the Caspian Sea. We go to two beaches and a small port.
Back to
Teheran, we take the same trainset overnight. Again, we have a compartment on
our own for most of the journey, so that we can sleep not to badly although there
are no sleeper cars.
Very early, around 4 o'clock, we arrive at Teheran.
We go to the hotel in which we were in our first night in Tehran, but there are
no free rooms. We can, however, sleep some hours in their dormitory and use the
shower.
We try out the very modern and well-maintained metro. New trains for
an extension are ordered from China with electrical equipment from Bombardier
in Västerås - Till's department is working on it at the moment. We
take the metro to a station which is situated in parallel to the railway mainline
to Mashhad and above the surface, so that we can photograph both railway and metro
trains.
On the way back, unaware of the fact that sexual segregation applies
on the metro as well, we accidentally board one of the cars reserved for women.
We only have to travel three stations and intend to stay in the car for this short
trip, but at the second station, a station guard orders us to change to the right
car. While there are empty seats in the ladies' cars, the gentlemen's cars are
quite crowded now in the morning rush-hour.
Despite it was published in a timetable,
the French-built Turbotrain does not leave for Mashhad this morning. So we return
to the station without a photo of it.
During the day, we learn that we have
to change our travel plans for Turkmenistan. Our central Asia specialist David
Berghoff, a German living in Almaty in Kazakhstan, reports us that the timetable
of the train from the Turkmen Seraghs to the capital Ashgabat has been changed
once again, so that the train now leaves on Friday and Monday morning instead
of in the evening. In addition, he found out that the train is fully booked for
a group of oil workers. Fortunately, the ticket question works out later, but
to catch the train, we have to cross the border on Thursday afternoon instead
of Friday morning. This means that we can not take the local train from Mashhad
to the Iranian border town Sarakhs, as it arrives when the border is already closed
in the evening. David arranges a guesthouse on the Turkmen side of the border
for us.
We meet our friend Babak one last time before we leave Iran. In the
evening, we take Iranian Railways' most luxury train "Simorgh", named
by a bird, to Mashhad. As each time we travel from Tehran, we have to show our
passports for visa control at the little police station besides the access gate
to the platforms. The policemen are, however, polite and correct as always.
The
train is even better than the one we had from Ahvaz to Tehran - the compartments
are even more spacy. The crew wears special uniforms, and the name of the train
is printed on lump sugar, salt bags and other. We better don't write too much
about the on-board TV program; the worst thing is that the volume control does
not work properly, so that the volume is either much too high for us or too low
for our compartment mate who watches interested the many people killing each other
in the US-produced action film.
In the early morning, our trains makes a prayer
stop in Neyshabur - the town, that became known world-wide on February 19 for
the sad reason that a runaway cargo train exploded in a devastating blast. We
pass by the location of the accident some kilometers east of the city at low speed.
Tracks that have been exchanged when clearing the site are besides the line. Some
burned-out wreckages of excavation machines still stand there as well as some
railway wheelsets, but generally, the site is cleared up well. Nevertheless, one
can still get some imagination of how devastating the explosion that killed many
people must have been.
Later, we arrive in Mashhad where be also see some cargo
cars damaged in the fire. As it is arranged to meet our Turkmen guide the same
afternoon, we don't have so much time. We make a walk around the railway area
which is unfortunately surrounded by a high wall. The city maps are contradictory
in whether there is a track triangle or a loop track; despite the bad insight
due to the wall, we dare to claim that it is a loop track.
We take a taxi to Sarakhs at the Turkmen border, approximately 180 km (110 miles)
away. According to the information we get later, the international passenger
train inaugurated in 2002 made only one trip from Teheran to Almaty and back
and was a disaster - in Uzbekistan, stones were thrown onto the train and all
windows broken, but we do not hear why.
On
the way, we see a cargo train from the taxi - sometimes one must have good luck!
The railway line can only be seen from the road on some s shorter sections. Shortly
before the town, we see the border station with the gauge change infrastructure.
it is not possible to get inside, but we take some photos from a distance.
The
taxi driver drops us off at the Iranian border post, which looks quite modern
and well-maintained. In the customs hall, we come to a counter, where we have
to leave our passports and wait. We are asked for custom forms from entry, but
we did not get any - finally, it works without, and we don't have to fill out
new ones either, and there is no luggage control either.
For a while, nothing
seems to happen, perhaps the officer must call to Tehran and ask about this exotic
country we come from. Here, there is mainly truck traffic across the border, about
half of them Volvo trucks, we as European backpacker tourists are probably quite
exotic here. After approximately one hour, we get our passports back with the
exit stamps, and we are led to a very old worn Russian bus, which brings us to
the Turkmen border post.
In the gear and the motor suspension, there is an
unbelievable play, which causes a medium earthquake when the bus starts. After
a few hundred meters, we come to a brook with a small steel bridge across it -
the brook is the boundary line, on the one side, there is an Iranian guard, on
the other, a Turkmen. The bus drops us off on the Turkmen side of the bridge,
and we are standing on Turkmen ground!
