Friday, October 16, 2009

Dubai


Bus stops with air condition and electric slide doors.


This is the tallest building in the world - Burj Dubai. It measures 818m.


I was so unbelievably lost when I came to Dubai. I had the address of my couchsurfer and I thought "well, I just ask people when I arrive to Dubai", just like in Iran. But it doesnt really work like that here. First, Dubai consists of huge highways where it is impossible to find people. Second, everyone comes from abroad and doesnt know their city. Third, the roads go everywhere - underground, on bridges. On the picture above is me when I thought I was on the right road but the road ended up in a huge parking house. Well, finally, after about five hours and after dark, I managed to find to my couchsurfer.


Intellectual names on the parts of the city.


Here is me in the Dubai Men´s Collage. I visited this collage and held two lectures for the first grade students in their course "Global Awareness". I told them about my trip and they were all very curious about it and had so many questions.

All of them were locals from Dubai and most of them were dressed in turban. That was really cool. When I asked them what they know about Sweden they all said "Ibrahimovic!!".


Me with some of the students after the lecture.


They invited me to participate in a meeting that the student council had. The topics were a bit different than in Sweden, like where they should put the sixth room for praying. They were also discussing whether music with love lyrics should be played at the national day in school. All the meeting was in English.


They have huge artificial islands in Dubai. Here is at one of the palm islands. This hotel is unbelievably huge and was build by Donald Trump.


After my visit at the collage one of the students, Ibrahim, wanted to show me around the city. He was a funny man. When we got out of the taxi he told the taxi driver to stop and wait for us because he was too lazy to get a new one when we were finished. So three ours later we retured back to the same taxi driver.


This is in Emirates Mall. It has an indoor ski slope.


The day after the visit two other students wanted to take me out to show me the city. Then they wanted to take a picture with me and the bike to put in their local newspaper of the collage.


The guy to the left on the picture above, Meshad, gave me this watch as a gift because he was so impressed that I had cycled all the way to Dubai. They all thought I was gonna be in Guiness World Records so I had to explain that I am not unique and that there are a lot of cyclists out there in the world.


Anyway, I have never seen anything like Dubai. As the guy I´m living with now, who is a stock trader, said: "This is capitalism at its finest". Well, to me Dubai is a little bit too extreme. It was really cool to see, but I would not want to live here. It is to superficial. Tomorrow I am heading to Oman and in a little more than a week I hope I will have cought the flight to India.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

The last part of Iran

Starting in Esfahan. A dry river due to regional troubles in Iran (some neighbour region is blocking the water to reach Esfahan or something).

The famous Imam Square at night.


It is funny how they load their cars. This is just one of numerious examples.


This crazy farmer was so exited when he saw us that he almost fell of.

First camels we saw by the road.


So, this is Persepolis in Iran - probably the most popular touristic attraction in the country. It is a very old town (i think it was 1000 before Christ), but I am not really interested in those kind of things.


All the walls were covered with motives scratched into the stone like that.


The lion at the entrance.


Here is in Shiraz. Me and the French cyclist stayed with the sister of my mothers collegue. She had birthday so here is an Iranian party with traditional dancing etc.

The last couple of hundred of kilometers we cycled in the dessert. Houses like these are not uncommon.

Yes, now at 8000km since I left Mölndal in Sweden.

Camel sign.

Cooool road.

Mafia.

Out of balance after cycling 180km in one day. OK, dont be scared off, it is a joke.


Here arriving with the ferry to Sharjah in United Arab Emirates. There were unbelivably many oil tankers in the persian gulf.

Now I am in Dubai however. My French companian has gone home to France so now I will continue alena. Yesterday I found out that I have to stay here for at least one more week to wait for the visa to India. Well, the city is very cool, but I like to be on the move. But I will try to make the best of the time. Two days ago I visited a collage and held some presentations. I will write about in my next post. That was it for now.

You can comment the post here.


Friday, October 2, 2009

Sleeping.




This is a sandwich made by some "restaurant" by the road. Just a potato and an egg and then smash it into bread.

I stayed at a very cheap hotel (about 3 euros for a room) in a small village. This is the toilet.




At the same "hotel". I pointed out that my room smelled shit so the guy of the hotel was very proud of his solution. It helped for maybe five minutes. I could not stop laughing when he so proudly came with his spray.



This is the stick I carry to protect myself against the dogs that attack me.




Such a nice family. The guy in the blue tshirt is a couchsurfer and let us stay with his family.





Stopped by the road for buying some water melon and ended up like this. Hehe, the people have their shishas everywere.





This is the Sharif Univeristy of Technology in Tehran which I visited during one of my days in the capital.


This is my friend Behzad which I stayed with in a city close to Tehran. He became a great friend of mine and I stayed with him and his family for four days. Here some shisha again in the Darband district of Tehran. Thank you Fayezeh, dentist of my father, who gave me the tip to go there.



The farther of Behzad with their bird.



This is the Darband district of Tehran again.



The Tehran metro system has wagons especially for women.



In Tehran I met up with my French friend again. We will go together now to Dubai. Here with Behzad and his mom.



This equipage passed us on the road. I am not sure if the sheep is dead or alive.




Abbas, an Iranian cyclist we met. We camped together in a park outside a town. It is really great to cycle with a local because they can ask for everything so easily. Unfortunately the next day we had to split.

Abbas is sleeping in the sleeping bag. He didnt have fancy things like a tent.


Here me and my French friend camped. I don’t know what this is actually but it was a nice building just at the side of the road.


Yesterday morning. This is how happy you get when you realize youve got strong tail wind to expect for the journey.



Yesterday I took part of some group gathering in Iran. The political situation in Iran is very complicated and many of the young people wants to leave the country. They told me that those gatherings are illegal because men and women should not interact like that.


Now I am in Isfahan which is what I have heard the most beautiful city of Iran. This is a very impressive mosque.
This is Imam square which is a huge and very nice square in Isfahan. The second biggest in the world after Tianman square in Beijing they told me. Now I looked it up and it is not true. It is number 10 or something. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_city_squares_by_size.


Those tired carpet sellers logically wanted to sell us carpets. When we said we are going by bike they realized they have no chance but invited us for a cup of tea in their store anyway.
To sum up, the political situation for the people in Iran is very hard but I have to repeat that I have never met so friendly people anywhere else. I get surprised everyday. Iran is amazing. Anyway me and my French friend are heading south and will hopefully cross to Dubai next Monday. That was it for now!
You could comment my post here.
You can see a map of where I slept sofar here.