Our trip from Kashan to the village Abyaneh was really well worth it. Tiny alleys and beautiful old red mud brick houses with ornate balconies. What a contrast to city noise and pollution. It’s incredible that people have been living in these buildings for at least 1500 years. Time stands still here where old men with hats and walking sticks sit chatting on benches in the sun and women in colourful chadors with flower prints sit around in separate groups. We wish we could have stayed in Abyaneh overnight but there isn’t really any accommodation there. So we headed back to Kashan and took an early bus to Tehran the next morning. Taking a long-distance bus in Iran is a luxury affair. They’re super comfy but dead cheap. As soon as the bus leaves you get a little box filled with cake, biscuits and chocolate bars. On top of that you get an ice cold fruit juice and can help yourself to as much as water as you want during the trip. If you take more than one bus a day you could almost open up a small sweet shop. We often ended up filling up on this junk and skip a proper lunch during bus rides in Iran. Now it’s detox time from sweets 🙂 Catching a bus from a big city terminal is total mayhem with bus companies’ employees running up to you as soon as you get to the terminal, shouting destinations at you, then guiding you to the right ticket counter and rushing you to the bus if it’s already there waiting to leave. Although this may feel a bit stressful at first it does make independent travel incredibly easy.

From Tehran we took a very scenic bus ride via the Alborz Mountains to the little Caspian sea town Noshar. It was really weird to see the scenery changing so quickly as soon as we had lost sight of Tehran. Literally from one minute to the other there was no more dry, rocky desert but lush green mountains and forests where the leaves were starting to drop and change their colour. It was like a time lapse driving from summer into autumn. We had read that for a lot of Iranians the Caspian coast is a really big thing because the scenery is so different from most other parts of the country. The mountains are definitely nice but we must admit that we found the coast pretty dreary. Maybe because the weather wasn’t so great or maybe because there are so many half-demolished or half-built buildings along the coast. It just didn’t do it for us so we decided to make our way straight to Masuleh, a village in the mountains further West. This meant that we had to take our first “savari” (shared taxi) in Iran. Where there are no buses they are your best best and often cover longer distances. Savaris also leave from designated areas and sometimes there is even a little ticket booth. If they only go to the next town or village they leave from anywhere, somewhere under a bridge or from a street corner. They can be sometimes hard to find but usually people will help you and even guide you there. Yes, good old Iranian hospitality. We will surely miss it! What we won’t miss is crazy drivers like the one from Noshar to Rasht. We weren’t sure if we were in a car or we lost touch with the ground. The drive felt like being in “Grand Theft Auto” and there were many moments where we held our breath. But we got to Rasht surprisingly without a scratch in the end. It took two more savaris to get to Masuleh with a brief stop in the the pretty town Fuman. Though waiting for the seats to fill up is half the fun it usually doesn’t take too long and there is always enough time for dozens of people to come up to you for a chat or to offer help.

A local told us that Masuleh means something along the lines of “rainy area” and it really did rain a fair bit in the afternoons with some spectacularly loud thunder. But we didn’t care, especially since we’ve barely seen any rain during the last few months. Masuleh is very popular among Iranians particular in summer and on weekends. And for a reason. Masuleh is set in a picturesque valley and the thousand year old houses where the roofs of each house from at the same time the tiny alleys of the village make for great pics. It’s quite touristy but we enjoyed staying overnight, strolling through the little alleys and chatting to the locals. From Masuleh we then headed down the mountain again to the little town Fuman where we had to walk from one end of the town to the other to catch a savari back to Rasht. We attracted a lot of attention with our big backpacks and we weren’t alone for long. James walked to the savari stop in the company of a nice man who wanted to practice his English and two young women joined me a little later to chat. You’re never alone in Iran.

From Rash we drove over the mountains to the city Zanjan where we went to see the Oljeitu Mausoleum in the little town Soltaniyeh. Zanjan isn’t really that interesting but the the trip to Soltaniyen was a nice detour and broke up the journey to Tabriz, our last stop in Iran. Tabriz lies in the province East Azerbaijan which was a bit confusing for us at first. We didn’t know that the majority of Azerbaijani live in Iran nowadays and it was interesting to see different minorities living in the area. Especially in the more rural parts you see a lot more traditional dress (long colourful skirts, blouses and triangle head scarfs).

Tabriz is one of those cities which take a little while to grow on you. But once you’ve spent a couple of hours walking around you can see past the crazy traffic and noise. You come across nice corners and a fantastic old bazaar with brick domes dating back to the 15th century and, I know I’m repeating myself, incredibly nice people, like three Iranian girls we bumped into at the Blue Mosque and got chatting to. If you ever go to Tabriz you should also pop by at the Tourist Information and drink tea with Mr Nassar Khan. We rarely think of going to any tourist information offices but it’s well worth doing in Tabriz. Mr. Kahn will overwhelm you with information and most importantly knows fantastic places to eat cheaply. He also organised a ride for us to the village Kandovan where people still live in troglodyte homes – a bit like in Cappadocia in Turkey. This trip definitely gave us a taster for Turkey and we were looking forward to crossing the border the next day.

Our last evening in Tabriz was the perfect end to the fantastic 3 1/2 weeks we spent in Iran. First we had some “ash”, a delicious Iranian vegetable soup, in a local place with Mr Khan and a Swiss and a Danish traveller who had joined us on our trip to Kandovan. Then we said good bye to Mr Khan and headed to a local tea house which was full with only middle aged men smoking qalyan (the Iranian sisha pipe). We were a bit hesitant at first whether women would be welcome but everyone greeted us with curious big smiles and “where are you from” questions and soon four glasses of tea where put in front of us and refilled when empty. When we left the men were waving us good bye and the owner threw his hands in the air and shouted “Tomorrow, you come back!”

But the next day it was time to finally move on and cross the border into Turkey. We weren’t too keen to do the whole land border thing again but the Iranian border crossing was one of the easiest we’ve ever experienced. We were welcomed with the usual “welcome” and a big smile. Then it took about 30 seconds to have our passports checked and to get the leaving stamp. Before we were finally allowed to leave through the gate to the Turkish side a friendly military guy checked our passport once more while his partner was laughing and waving all the time at James in the background. I don’t know how many times we had the police or army stopping in the street to just say “hello” and smile. Honestly, would you expect that? On the Turkish side we got a bit of a fright at first because the passport officer there asked us for our visa stamp but we knew we could get it on arrival at the land border. There was bit of a commotion and he closed his office much to the frustration of the people queuing behind us and led us into a building, through various corridors to then arrive at a little hidden away window where you could buy your visa on arrival stamp. Interesting system.

After what we’ve experienced it’s hard to reconcile the everyday, friendly and beautiful Iran with the fact that there are such horrible human rights abuses which are obviously inexcusable. But politics aside we can highly recommend a visit and would come back any time. Forget all this dangerous talk and the propaganda talk of certain politicians. The Iranian people are really the most welcoming and generous people we’ve ever met. So generous that we often had to insist several times to pay our fair in shared taxis because the other passengers wanted to invite us all the time. The only regret we have is that we didn’t manage to cross via Turkmenistan to Iran and missed out on the North East and the South West because we didn’t fancy having to backtrack and then travel all the way back to Central Iran. We simply have to come back one day and see this part of the world.