Room 107 (aka crossing Turkey-Iran border)

The border procedure for pedestrians is quite easy and fast at Bazargan. We had to take off from the bus, I got all of our luggage to carry and one of the guys put a strange bag to Sabina's hand to carry it to the iranian side. This was the first really strange moment. Nobody checked bags, we entered Iran. If you arrive you can exchange dollars/euros/liras to rials from stranger men. The exchange rate is quite OK, but in cities you'll get more for your money. At the border we got 3.100.000 rials for 100 USD, which means 310.000 tomans (19 Aug 2015). The next conversation was between Sabina and a random guy: "-You married? Do you need a boyfriend? -No. -And husband?" After this a french biker girl entered to Iran from the building full of bags and equipments. Alone. She was totally stressed. I wouldn't advice for women to travel alone in Iran. It isn't dangerous, but for sure it is totally stressful. Especially for western women I think iranian men have some preconceptions. We were waiting there for the bus to be inspected around 2-3 hours long. We asked a guy from our bus where is toilet, and he show it to us, but there was only Men WC. He said there isn't one for women so both of us should use this one. While I turned my back and went to one booth he insulted Sabina. This was the point where we realized that from now on we have to be more cautious, stick together all the time and emphasize that we are married. Good lesson in the beginning of the trip. After this I signed the guy that he is totally on a wrong way unless he wants to get in trouble. We waited for our bus, and started our trip from the border late evening in the dark and waited to get to Tabriz. In Bazargan they had some good Benny Hill scene-like event: Guys came to the bus and ran away with the strange bags. These motherfuckers woke us up in the at night in the middle of nowhere. Shouted to get off and get to another bus. Suddenly they wanted money for the ride, but obviously we didn't know how much. Woke up suddenly at night, barely remembered to exchange rate they made a ~50$ ripoff by just picking out banknotes from my hand. I told him 3 times in farsi that it's too expensive but these azeris speak total different farsi and obviously he didn't wanted to understand. So just a goood advice: if you are going with an iranian vehicle (except truck) always ask for the price before getting in. The best if he writes down and you have the money in hand to show him. In the big hurry of exchanging bus my old Nokia phone slipped out from my pocket. It was the first victim of the trip. The second bus dropped us at the highway around Tabriz. After getting to the centre at late night, we found a cheap hostel and decided to spend there the night. We were totally exhausted, full of bad experiences and in our room the temperature was around 35°C. I just imagined the first scene of "Apocalypse now", because the situation was similar. Except we didn't have ventillator. And the room number was again… 107.