The first days in Iran

This was funny. This is in the police office outside the Iranian Embassy in Erzurum - eastern Turkey. I waited for my French friend to get his visa and the police kindly invited me to stay in their house. Then this Swiss man at the left stepped in. "So, what do you do here in Turkey?", I asked curiously because he spoke Turkish. "I am a camel man", he answered. "Oh, that's different", I said. He wanted to live as a nomad and was waiting for his Iranian visa. He wanted to take his camels to Mongolia.

In Turkey I stayed in the house of three soldiers. They were really nice people. However, I made a mistake. I mentioned "Kurdistan". Kurdistan doesnt exist and every turk hates this expression - especially soldiers. I apologized and everything OK.

Wow - this was great. Very hard tail wind and that just pushed me forward in on a plain, empty road.


Galloping horse at the side of the road.



Kids saw me and my French friend from far away and are running just to get a view of us and wave.

Entering Iran. A little bit crazy at the border with people and police men shouting at each other but nothing worse than expected. It took an hour or so.

This couple was incredible. We met them at the border to Iran. They are from Holland and just retired from their jobs. Now they are cycling around the world for at least three years. They didnt have an upper limit of time. The man, William, was funny. One Turkish man stepped in the queue just in front of William and he got furious shouting in front of everyone that the Turk has to wait in end of the queue like everyone else.

This was the first day in Iran - the man in pink shirt, Bakum, stopped with his car and invited us to stay with his family. People here are so hospatible - for a Swede it is unimaginable. We had a very nice dinner at the floor of the living room with Bakum, his brother and mother. Bakum was an engineer and business man and explained everything about Iran - subjectively of course. At a moment he asked "How much would it cost for me to go from Iran to Sweden". "Well, 300-400 Euros with airplane, I suppose", I said. "Nono, no airplane, with Taxi", he said. Haha, he only used taxi in Iran and wanted to go to Sweden with Taxi. I wonder if it is possble. And imagine the reaction of the taxi driver when telling the destination.

This is how they sleep. I slept very well.

When we were eating, this family stopped their car and just wanted to take a picture with us. Then I took a picture of them. In fact there are always people stopping. I feel like a film star.

This was an amazing road that went in a long valley, just along the river that separates Iran from Azerbadjan.

Yesterday I reched 6000km. Yes.

This is from today's morning. It is the last day of Ramadan and people crowded up outside the biggest mosque of the city to pray. They all brought their own carpet. The latecomers are running.

A women inside the blue mosque of Tabriz.

So, now I am in Tabriz in Iran which is the second biggest city of the country. Tomorrow I will head further to Tehran which will take about a week. Me and my French friend will separate for this week and meet again just after Tehran because I want to see Tehran and he wants to climb mountains and go along the Caspean sea. To sum up, Iran is, as everyone was telling me, a fantastic country and people invite us to their houses and stop with their cars to give us water melons, bread and other things.