Here are some portraits of the guys that I shared the cabin with on the Train from Tabriz (Iran) to Van (Turkey). These guys were very friendly but unfortunately none of us could speak each others languages. I wish i had made more of an effort to learn some Farsi!

As far as I could tell a few of these guys had bought a lot of cigarettes in Iran and were bringing them into Turkey to make some bucks

7 Comments

• At Fri 6, March 2009, BEER wrote:

  Wikid pics Adam!

• At Sat 7, March 2009, James Finlay wrote:

  Man these are wicked! Forget your day job and take up photography!

• At Sat 7, March 2009, Ramin wrote:

  Love your pictures mate, would you recommend the train ride? I'm thinking of a backpacking trip through Iran next year

• At Sat 7, March 2009, Tori wrote:

  I just stumbled on this page - phenomenal pictures and a fascinating journey. thanks so much for sharing!

• At Sat 7, March 2009, Payam - Iran wrote:

  Look at his hairy hand:) man are you partly Iranian ?

  Nice pictures and good job brother.

• At Mon 9, March 2009, Bart Verkoeijen wrote:

  Haha, that first guy looks really like Nico from GTA IV. :-)

  Great pics, especially with the high contrast.

• At Sat 14, March 2009, Adam wrote:

  @Everyone thankyou so much for checking out my blog and have a look at the photos. I am having a really great time seeing these countries in the middle east and I highly recommend you all to try get over here some time. Pretty much everyone I have met has been extremely friendly and the culture is extremely interesting. Thanks again!

I took the overnight bus from Shiraz to Tehran, checked back into the Mashad Hotel on Amir Kabir street and spent the day checking out the Golestan Palace and the Grand Bazaar.

The museums in the palace are definitely worth a look – you can either pay per museum (about 4000 rials each) or get a ticket to see them all. I have never seen such a reflective bunch of rooms – so many mirrors! Unfortunately I wasn’t allowed to take any photos in the main palace part (sorry forgot the name!), but did get some in the other museums.

The grand bazaar is indeed grand, couldn’t say if it was on the scale of JJ market in Bangkok, but it could be. I met some guys who owned a carpet shop but wasn’t forced to buy one. I think I might actually have some basic knowledge of person carpets now after the amount I have seen

I only spent the night in Tehran and jumped a bus from the east terminal to Rasht. Why Rasht? To go see the Caspian Sea. I had intended to check out the town of Masouleh which I’d heard a lot of good things about but in the end ran out of enthusiasm to get there. I met 2 lads in my hotel who were keen to show me a bit around Rasht and took me to check out the Caspian Sea. We also stopped in at Bandar-e Anzali which would be a great place to spend some time in the summer.

I was lucky enough to catch up with Tim who I met in Yazd – he’d been exploring a fair amount of the NW of Iran and also managed to get taken in by the police for taken some photos (he said they eventually let him go and it was just a formality!).

After Rasht I bussed it to my last stop in Iran – Tabriz.

Tabriz is cool.

I arrived in Tabriz at about 4:30am and most of the cheap hotels were shut or full so I splashed out and spent 4 times by 50,000 rials/night budget. Money not well spent.
Whilst checking some emails I bumped into Yann the Frenchman who had ridden his $300 mountain bike 18,000+ kms from Singapore to Iran and was continuing on back to France. What a journey!

I ended up meeting 3 great people by the names of Babak, Reza & Amir – Reza runs the cafe net and Babak & Amir are his mates. Pretty much spent my whole time in Tabriz hanging out with these chaps. They took me out the see a bunch of places, got up early to meet me for breakfast at the local breakfast place, and didn’t let me pay for anything! When they make it to Australia one day I said I’d get the bill.

5pm, 12th February, 2009

I made it. Well at least onto the Trans-Asya Expressi train that is. From here, Kayseri (Turkey), it’s a 49+ hour journey to Tehran. Today turned out to be pretty cool. I managed to wakeup as planned @ 6.30 this morning, the bus from Goreme was only 30 mins behind schedule. When I got to Kayseri I a shuttle bus from the otogar took me to the wrong side of town. 3 kms walk later I made it to the train station, got a ticket (82 Turkish lira or thereabouts), met a french dude, Joel, who is also going to Tehran. For the remainder of the wait I was fortunate enough to be befriended by a bunch of Iranian emmigrants who were saying goodbye to their parents – they said the current regime in Iran isn’t too fond of the folks who are of Baha’i faith).

Should be an interesting trip.

4pm, 13th February, 2009

Last night I was lucky enough to meet Farbod, a funny guy from Tehran who just finished a trip with his wife to Istanbul, He tried to educate me on a little of Farsi and explain the difference between Shi’ah and Sunni Islam. He said that he likes to drink beer and that Iranian girls are far prettier than Turkish.

I woke up today and looked out the window to see snow that covered the ground to the horizon. Wow!

10 cups of tea later here we are in Tatvan. At some point here I think we and our train get onto a ferry that will take us across Lake Van to Van.

My cabin mate, Ali, seems like a really nice guy. From what I could understand he is involved in IT and has something to do with networks between Turkey-Iran-Azherbaijan.

Watched 2 excellent movies – “Zack & Miri make a porno” & “the curious case of benjamin button” – if u haven’t seen them make sure you do!

3am, 14th February, 2009

We arrived in Van and got onto the Iranian train. A bit of a difference. The trains are dressed with some nice Iranian upholstery and the staff seem to speak more English than the guys working on the Turkish train.
Today was cool. Met so many lovely folks. Pretty much everyone has been very friendly – asking about where I’m from, am i married, what did i study, what do i think of Iran and Iranian people, why am i visiting Iran, etc… I am really hoping this will carry on into Iran. Will see!
From what i have heard/read this seems to be the case.

Beware! Forget about all the xenophobic, anti-Iranian propaganda dominating the media. What they say about terrorism and your life being in danger in Iran is absolute hogwash (I have no idea what that word means, but I like the sound of it: hogwash…). If anything, all that Iranians can be accused of is excessive hospitality. So, when traveling to Iran, beware of innocent looking situations which could turn into the experience of your life. Kind of like walking into The Twilight Zone.

source: http://www.digitalroom.net/index2.html

Passport control – entering Iran was a far quicker than exiting Turkey. Smooth.

6.30pm, 14th February, 2009
Apparently 5-10mins from Tehran!
This has been an excellent adventure – recommend it to everyone!
Amazing countryside to see!

How I discovered this train? The man in seat 61 – http://www.seat61.com/Iran.htm

Now to see what Tehran has got in store…

8 Comments

• At Thu 19, February 2009, Lisa wrote:

  Im so jealous!!!!!!!!!! do you think i could fit in your backpack?

• At Thu 19, February 2009, Lisa wrote:

  really nice photos too

• At Fri 20, February 2009, Bart Verkoeijen wrote:

  I like the posting. Great that you kept a day-by-day log, so we can feel your excitement along the way. Much better than a review. Keep on going, have a lot of fun, and keep on virtually writing to us! :-)

• At Fri 20, February 2009, Adam wrote:

  @Lisa - haha! thanks! ummm, my bag is kinda full, but maybe when it gets warmer i'll chuck my jumper out and that might leave enough room?

  @Bart - cheers dude, am a little behind with my blog/pics so have some catching up to do. The net in Iran is pretty average, and no WIFI so far! help!

• At Fri 20, February 2009, Bart Verkoeijen wrote:

  Haha, back to the 56k era where you can plug your notebook in every widespread telephone jack. Who needs WiFi? ;-) Or get a super hi-tech advanced ultrasound satellite network connection. Down-link only, and you might never know (newsfact) if the Russians or Europeans crash into another satellite to break your connection... Modem over GSM/GPRS would be cheaper anyway.

  Or it's another good reason to go to an internet café and get a beer while surfing. Or.. er.. a malt beer? ;-)

  P.S. I really wonder if you have some insider facts on whether people in Iran brew their own liquor and if it tastes good. :-)

• At Sat 21, February 2009, warwick wrote:

  simply excellent!

  my few days in tehran were also full of excessive hospitality. it's wonderfull you can get around N see it all in Iran

  post some more stuff

  yeah it's a pity those septics and CNN post and report so much bullshit about these places

  enjoy and report!

• At Wed 16, June 2010, Travel Bucket List: Trans Asya Ekspresi | All Is Optional wrote:

  [...] Because my obsessive behaviour precedes me, here are some people who have already taken the journey: Crazy Guy on a Bike News from Above: the Trans-Asya Expressi [...]

• At Fri 10, June 2011, Travel Bucket List: Trans Asya Eskpresi | All Is Optional wrote:

  [...] behaviour precedes me, here are some people who have already taken the journey: Crazy Guy on a Bike News from Above: the Trans-Asya Expressi This entry was posted in Travel and tagged alternative travel, international travel, Iran, [...]