Travelling Western Iran by Motorcycle
Update 69 (August 2024)
Yadz to Shiraz to Urmia, Iran
My time in Iran was ticking by quickly. I rode down to Yadz and stayed there for a couple of days. Although I didn’t do much as I ended up a little far from the city centre and it was very hot. I just had a day chilling in the air conditioning mainly.
People in Iran continue to be super friendly. Like the wonderful lady at reception in my Yadz hotel that used her own credit card to recharge my Irancell phone account. And I have been given so many little gifts as I travel along, from plenty of cold bottled water to bread, icecream, peaches, grapes, a watermelon (I had no space to carry it though) and farm fresh pistachios.
Buying fuel can be a chaotic and confusing event. There are often long queues and I am never sure which line is diesel, gas or petrol. I would look lost (which was easy) and the station attendant would normally wave me to the front of a line.
There is only one grade of petrol. I don’t know what it was but my motorbike was fine using it. You need a special card and PIN to start the pump, normally I would wave some cash to show that was all I had and the attendant would get hold of a card and get me going. Sometimes the attendant would fill it and sometimes they left it to me.
Paying was sometimes a little odd also. They seemed indifferent about getting paid for some reason. Paying for things in Iran can be confusing overall. Most shops display the price in Toman but the cash used is still in Rial, so 1,000 Toman is 10,000 Rial. But it gets confusing about which currency the shop keepers are saying the total price in. They often will just say a one or two digit number like 5 or 10, and leave off all the zeros that help explain whether it is Toman or Rial. Once you learn the prices of common items it gets easier. Hotels will often express the price in USD to foreigners. Sometime I pay them in USD or sometimes Rial.
It took a while for me to get my head around what I was paying for petrol in Australian or US dollars, if I ever did. To confuse things, the conversion rate I would get for USD was always way better than what you see reported online. My calculations just seemed to low to believe and I kept thinking I must be wrong. Eventually I accepted that I seemed to just be paying around $1 US to fill my tank.
When I left Iran I did need to pay a fee for the fuel I was taking out of the country. It was about 30 Euro for my 16 litres. I think 30 Euro was the minimum rate. Fair enough after the prices I had been paying.
Stopping for a rest beside the highway. I did not go down this dirt road. Apart from a few short side tracks I did not take any dirt roads into the mountains. It wasn’t really appealing. One because it was so hot by now as I was riding in 45 degree Celsius heat. And secondly, it didn’t seem very smart to go wandering off-piste in Iran. I would occasionally see obvious military compounds like any country but wandering off the main track may find me somewhere I really didn’t want to be. This area was the hottest I have noticed my bike get, with the engine temperature reaching 107°C (225°F).
More hot desert. It would be a great area to visit when there is snow around. I would occasionally see signs about fitting snow chains.
My next stay was in Kerman at the Kerman Karvanica Hotel. The caravanserai was completed in 1870 and then had a full restoration in 2017 to become a modern hotel. Although I still had to bend right down to fit through some doorways.
There didn’t seem to be much else in the rest of the city. There was an entrance from the hotel courtyard directly into the bazaar and a lot of local people would come to the hotel cafe and restaurant. I just enjoyed eating in the restaurant and then wandering the bazaar which was a good one.
What was life like for people in Iran from my brief observations? As you can tell from my updates, the people I met were nice people going about their lives. I saw the occasional evidence of poor human behaviour but nothing different to what I have come across in other countries during my trip.
As you would expect, people are just trying to live their lives and be happy. And that goes for policing also. Maybe it is different in cities like Tehran but in regional areas, policing, if any is subtle and most of the time just not there.
Most women wear a hijab. There is definitely a demographic that goes against it. In most towns I would come across at least a couple of young women around 17 years old not wearing any head covering in public. Perhaps slightly older women in a setting like a quiet restaurant (no men at the table) would let their hijab fall down as they socialised.
In a quiet back lane I did walk past one young woman actually wearing shorts, boots and some rock band T shirt. Maybe she was just going around the corner to a friends house but it seemed just too early for where Iran’s social etiquette is. And the whole Central Asia region for that matter.
I did not see any Guidance or morality police. There were rarely any police around. Once in Gorgan I saw a middle age lady wearing a black hijab amira say something to two teenage women not wearing their hijab.
All people dress modestly in Iran like many other countries in regions such as Central Asia, parts of SE Asia and South America. Women in Iran seem to have a very strong fashion sense and are often beautifully dressed.
Back on the road and riding to Shiraz. I had hoped to get as far south as somewhere like Bandar Abbas on the Persian Gulf but it was just a little far and going to be even hotter. So I turned west and rode for the city of Shiraz.
Looking across at the Borouieh Wildlife Refuge.
Another fortress along the side of the road.
I had a bit of a rough start to my time in Shiraz. It was dark when I arrived and the traffic where I wanted to go was chaos as everyone comes out for the evening. I was aiming for a hotel in the old part of town, that ended up being down a maze of narrow laneways. The lanes had old paving and a slippery spoon drain in the centre and I managed to take a fall when my rear tyre slid on one (first time since China). No harm done, just a little embarassing as a couple of men helped me lift the bike.
The hotel was run by some nice people but it was overpriced and the room they put me in had a lot of cockroaches. I only stayed one night and then moved 500 metres to a much nicer hotel for a few days.
Local people coming out after another hot day in Shiraz.
Part of the Arg of Karim Khan. An 18th century fortress and now a museum. I had a look through, it was okay.
Inside the Shiraz Bazaar.
Spices for sale at the Shiraz Bazaar.
About 60 km from Shiraz is the World Heritage Site of Persepolis. It is believed Persepolis was mainly a ceromonial site that was used from as early as 515 BC. Alexander the Great came through in 330 BC and destroyed and burned much of the site.
I spent a few hours wandering around the site. It is pretty dry and desolate now but with a little imagination it is amazing to think of what it may have been like with some greenery (there was a water supply system) and the colour of the local people and events. It’s best that you search the internet if you want to understand more about the photos.
While in Shiraz I realised I was still quite a distance from my Iran exit point and needed to plan out my time left. There didn’t seem to be that much to see on the western side of Iran so I decided to push along the pace. It would have me spending three days in Tabriz, then one day in Urmia near my exit and then have me leaving with one day to spare on my visa.
I took a different route north and called into Esfahan and the same hotel again.
Back at Naqsh-e Jahan Square again.
This time in Eṣfahān I visited this building in Naqsh-e Jahan Square. It is Aali Qapu Palace and was opened in 1597. For a small fee you can tour the building and go up to the verandah area for a great view of the Square.
The ceiling of Aali Qapu Palace.
There is a great view of Naqsh-e Jahan Square. The evening prayers that echoed from the nearby Shah Mosque added to the atmosphere. There’s a short Video below.
Naqsh-e Jahan Square.
I rode on after a few days and stayed in a good hotel in a town called Kermanshah for a couple of days. After Kermanshah I had a huge day and rode almost 600 km to Tabriz.
But, when I arrived at my hotel in Tabriz at 7pm I could not find my passport. I didn’t have it. I never got it back from my Kermanshah hotel. The Iran Government has a rule that all hotel guests must leave their identity papers with the hotel reception during their stay, locals and foreigners. When I had left the Kermanshah hotel they had wanted to do photos and getting my passport back just got missed. This was the second time this had happened but the first time I realised after about 20 minutes.
I rang the Kermanshah hotel and confirmed they had my passport. I also got her to speak with my Tabriz hotel that wasn’t letting me stay without a passport. That went no where and a copy wasn’t good enough. The manager was a stickler, no actual passport, no checkin.
So I rang a couple of hotels and found a smaller hotel that was more relaxed about the rules. I eventually checked in around 9pm and they made me a nice dinner.
What to do about getting my passport? The Kermanshah hotel was offering to post it or arrange a driver, but I just wasn’t comfortable if there was a delay. There was only about 3 days before I needed to leave the country. And it wasn’t just me, the motorbike had rules to follow also.
So I played it safe and turned around the next morning and started riding back 600 km to Kermanshah.
Much of the road was four lanes but there are some long stretches with just two lanes. I haven’t mentioned it but from my experience Iran driving is up the with the world’s worst. Iran drivers will often overtake towards me, directly into my path, normally I predict it happening and flash my lights and pull aside if necessary. I am not shy about using my horn either. In one section I had a lapse of concentration and just didn’t see this guy coming, he missed me by centimetres and I probably had the closest near miss of my two year journey.
Iran Intelligence Police
About two hours from Kermanshah I went through a checkpoint. They are fairly common and I had never been stopped previously. Not this time, of all the occasions it had to be the time when I did not have my passport. The officer waved me down and asked for my passport. These are not normal local or traffic police. I didn’t really work it out but locals I spoke to called them something like Intelligence Police. I ended up in his little portable office and things went downhill from there.
He did not speak any English. I was a little worried. If you listen to western media and internet chatter, this is where the Iran government gets hold of foreigners to use as bargaining chips for hostage releases. And I was probably breaking some law by travelling without a passport on me.
From my experience in situations a little like this, it is best to communicate well, answer the questions clearly, but only offer up what they ask for, not more.
So the questioning began. I had no choice but to use my phone for translating. He asked all the typical questions and more. He ended up going through my phone. It was all about determining whether I was legitimately in the country and was I a social or intelligence threat. He wrote everything down. Aside from the standard documentation it was all about where I had been before Iran (so we translated all 35+ countries which kept him writing for a while), who did I know in Iran, who had I been communicating with, where had I stayed, where was I going etc. He went through my phone calls, messages etc. Who was each of them. I certainly had nothing to hide and he didn’t find any details with close friends or family anyway.
Another different type of police or intelligence officer joined in, and an armed guard. It was all professional and calm but a little tense for me. Only because the imagination can run wild after all you read in the news. The other officer called someone else and was having discussions.
This continued for an hour but the mood did change and relax. Whoever they were speaking with seemed to give them some comfort I was okay to clear.
Using the translator the original officer apologised for delaying me. I said I understood he was doing his job (which he was really). He smiled and put his hand on his heart in a typical local gesture and said thank you. I was free to go and rode off to Kermanshah and my passport.
Leaving Iran
After a night in Kermanshah I rode back north again straight to Urmia, about 50km from the Turkiye border. I stayed there for a couple of nights and then it was time to leave Iran with one day to spare on my 27 day visa.
Part of the Temporary Carnet de Passage (CPD) arrangement with Hossein from Overland to Iran was that he also assists with the exit of my motorcycle from Iran. He lives in Urmia so I had pre-planned to exit from there.
Hossein met me in the morning and I followed him to the border about 50km away. Leaving was simple. I paid about 30 Euro for the petrol I was taking out of Iran. It seems that was the minimum rate for the government fees. I completed the immigration formalities and Hossein took care of the Customs paperwork. There was a brief chat and check with the Border Police and it was time to leave Iran.
It was good to meet Hossein in person and it made me more comfortable with spending the money. If you do need a Temporary CPD for Iran I would definitely recommend contacting him.
The Turkiye border gate was about 20 metres away and I was in Turkiye.
Below is a video of Naqsh-e Jahan Square taken from Aali Qapu Palace back in Eṣfahān. It was taken during the evening prayers. It’s self hosted so might be a little slow to load.
Tehran to Esfahan, Iran
Update 68 (August 2024)
Crossing from Iran into Türkiye
Update 70 (August 2024)