May 6th: Can you believe it …. it is already the 10th blog and we are not even half way there. After an early breakfast in the famous Hotel Kohsan we got ready for the next 650km to Teheran.
We started as usual to pack the car and faced our first challenge: we had to turn the car in a very narrowly street of the old town. What an exercise for early morning 😂. Martin was filming Matthias turning it…. will be an amazing video on YouTube.
Early morning traffic was Okish and after 20 min we left Yazd behind us. The landscape changed after Yazd into a desert area. It really looks like some areas of Dubai. Martin and myself felt a bit being back home again😃. Driving through the desert is not very scenic and we were looking forward to a change in the landscape. However of the 650km you will spend at least 350km in a desert environment before it changes and you see some mountains again. Make sure you have enough stories to tell in the car otherwise the driver might fall a sleep…. .
When you reach Gnom two things are changing: the landscape and you get onto a brand new highway. What we did not know you have to pay toll every now and again… and those stations have the very same impact on the traffic than anywhere else in the world: they create a traffic jam. At one of the toll stations we stopped we asked as usual which amount we would need to pay. The guy in his small little box asked us very polite : where are you from? ( everyone is asking that😂) we said from Germany and we got the following back: ah from Alemania … no money … go! And Off we went! What an experience…
Watch out on the new highway the speed cams …. they work… we have the proof. As short before Teheran the police closed all lanes and walked through them to compare the number plates with what they had written on their hands: the numbers caught by the speed cams😂😂. Also a way to do it no doubt. We were not on the list … I believe the main reason was that Martin was the driver and not me.
Getting closer to Teheran you have a fantastic view: you see this city direct in front of a mountain panorama which has still snow on the top…. unbelievable beautiful… do not miss out on that view.
The traffic in Teheran is crazy. You need a driver that is relaxed, fully focused, able to go with the flow and is able if needed to put his German character on the road: now I am driving and nobody else😂.
We stay in Eskan Hotel very nice. I would compare it to a standard European business hotel. Polite people, underground parking and relatively central. After we checked in we decided to walk a bit around in the city. 35 degrees! We walked to the old ex embassy of the U.S. in Teheran. The people a bit older will remember what happened their some decades ago. Today it is a museum reflecting on what happened. We took the chance and went in. We were even allowed to take photos. As this blog is free of any political statements the only thing we can say is that there are always two sides of the coin.
Leaving the embassy we went into a local supermarket to buy some stuff for our next trips. Later we go for a nice dinner. Tomorrow we will make a tour through Teheran with a guide.
