Tag Archives: nap

Day 56 – Slow paced

Today, the weather seemed to be okay. No more tent attacks were anticipated.

We got up and somehow, breakfast just went on and on while we decided if we have enough energy to move. Or just to make plans for today, really. It was very nice just to sit and watch the kids.

Around 11 am, we’d decided to go on a short walk through the nature park today. However, with lunch and kids’ naps coming up, we pushed it to the afternoon.

Both kids were fascinated by the horses next to our campsite

Flo made another round of his silky scrambled eggs for lunch and then, it was bedtime for a few of us. Number 3’s nap was rather short with 45min but Mini van Bartang slept well over an hour and a half.

Afterwards, it took two cars to transport four adults and two toddlers to the sand dunes in the natural park near Harskamp. The landscape was surprisingly similar to the Schwanheimer Dünen back home, probably as they are both relics from the ice age.

There is a restaurant close by where we headed for a drink after the walk. Well, a “drink” turned into a piece of cake for me. XD We spent a good hour there just chatting while the kids explored or munched on some raisins. And from here, we also went straight to our restaurant for dinner. 🙂

The kids were really quite hungry so we opted for this early dinner. Flo and Peter both chose the three course menu so we enjoyed dinner and I even got a dessert that I didn’t order…ice cream with stroopwaffel.

Back at the tent, when both kids were asleep, we still sat and talked until the sun had gone down. What a great relaxed Sunday full of food and friends. 🙂

  • It’s a good way to spend some time 🙂
  • Both kids were fascinated by the horses next to our campsite
  • Horse with foal
  • Seats with a view
  • …keeps the hunger away
  • Waiting to be picked up for a walk
  • Thirsty Number 3
  • “What could this be? Looks like a small one could ride it!”
  • My drink after the walk turned into something more solid…
  • Going for the prawn cocktail
  • And then, Number 3 found a steed
  • Once the kids were in bed, we talked until the sun was down

Day 293 – The end is neigh

The meadow was full of poppies and yellow flowers

The meadow was full of poppies and yellow flowers

We did good yesterday, in terms of distance. That meant that we only had two hours to go to Tabriz, giving us ample time to upload 6! blog entries and do a bit of sight-seeing as well. The first guesthouse we aimed at was jackpot, right away.

I came into Darya guesthouse only to stumble over two German overlanders in the process of checking out. They had only good things to say – the price was right and the parking safe. Meanwhile Nina got into a little chat with another young couple staying at the guesthouse. We booked in without much hesitation, unloaded the bike and got it parked safe and sound in a chicken coop in a backyard around the corner.

Cream-filled puff pastry! Success!

Cream-filled puff pastry! Success!

There were a couple of hours of light chilling and blogging, including a good afternoon nap. At about 4 pm we made our way to town to do a bit of sightseeing still. The main draw for us was the UNESCO world heritage bazaar, which also had the money changer that we needed. Once again, the bazaar was a really cool experience and with far less motorcycle dodging than Esfahan’s. Shame on me though, I forgot to re-stock our date supply.

After that, we felt like some more relaxing and went to look for a recommended tea house in another shopping street. It turned out to be hard to pin down, but as always in Iran there were helpful locals all around who could lead us around the corner to the back-alley entrance. The tea house was super cool – a brick vault with a fountain in the middle. Judging by the people around, this was just our crowd. Heaps of “slipping” hijabs …

Cozy seats around the fountain and real daybeds further up

Cozy seats around the fountain and real daybeds further up

Tea and baklava were good, but by now we needed something more substantial to fill the hole in our stomachs. So off we went in search for another recommended restaurant, but this time in vain. We passed the spot three time, but not even the friendly locals were able to find it for us. We did, however, find two more stragglers in search of food. Giona and Uliana, the young couple from earlier at the hotel, were looking for the same place. Spontaneously, we decided to join up and try our luck together at the next place.

Sadly, this one was closed as well. People told us earlier that today is an Islamic holiday in Iran. That might explain it. Uliana knew that the kebab shop next to our hotel would do vegetarian kebabs, so we defaulted to that place. What was lacking in the taste department was more than compensated by the good company. Uliana and Giona are overlanding in a 4×4 campervan from Europe to Mongolia and back. It was also refreshing to chat with more “global citizens” with a more complicated idea of home. There were at least seven languages spoken between us, with English and German as the lingua franca of choice.

Tabriz had some very particular shapes for their cookies...filled with lemon jam...yum

Tabriz had some very particular shapes for their cookies…filled with lemon jam…yum

After dinner, we had to pay one more visit to one of the many sweet shops in town to restock Nina’s supply before retreating to bed for one more blog post …

 

… not yet. I keep on forgetting to write about a big looming cloud that is constantly at least on my mind. We continue to travel and do things as we have done them and so write blog posts that are probably similar to Australia or Asia. But every day now, my thought wander to Germany. Where money was our big worry in South East Asia, re-integration is it for Iran. We have not lived in Germany for years. A lot has changed since then, mostly for us and our outlook on and expectation of life. Every second interaction with Europeans is a dreadful reminder of the reasons we left in the first place.

So I keep on worrying, scheming and planning. What route to take from Istanbul? What about health insurance, warrant of fitness for the bike. Will I find a job? When to start applying? How to do a German style CV … on and on it keeps on encroaching on my everyday thoughts. Tabriz was the last city in Iran, from tomorrow on we will head for the border. In two days, we will be in Turkey, the last country we will travel in for this trip.

Then, Europe. A crazy sprint through Eastern Europe and then the culture shock of being back. Stopping. Resting. Building a life once again. In a place I am not sure I want to live in again. The end is neigh …

Day 284 – Sweet, sweet Hamadan

Set timer, run ... smile!

Set timer, run … smile!

Not having to camp meant that we slept in a little. Fereshteh made us an early breakfast as other members of the family were still sleeping. Afterwards, when everyone was up, we took a round of photos as we hadn’t taken enough yesterday. Packing up was comparatively quick and we were good to go on the “short” ride to Hamadan, about 180km away.

Bisotun, the ancient inscription site, lay on our way. Again, we had to pay the standard price of 400.000 rials as tourists (about NZ$20) to gain entrance. The site is big though.  We started with a short hike up to a rock which has carvings of human figures on three sites. One is identified as a king while the others are not as clearly marked.

charming greek decor

charming greek decor

Further into the park, you pass a Hercules statue. Hercules, you might ask? Yes. Well, the Greek left it as a “hah, we conquered you” gift. Originally, there was a lion statue depicted there; the Greek then added the Hercules on the back of it, making a rug out of the lion. Charming fellows all around.

There used to be a Parthian relief of Mithrades II next but it has been defaced with a giant inscription plate in Arabic. I didn’t even take a picture of it.

Sadly, all hidden away behind scaffolding

Sadly, all hidden away behind scaffolding

Next up was the main attraction: Darius as a bas-relief with inscription panels in Elamite, Akkadian and Old Persian around the scene. This was an utter disappointment. Almost nothing of it was visible as a scaffold told of renovation efforts. You could only take a picture from far, far away or have only the scaffold on it. I even hiked up to the beginning of the closed off zone to see if there was any way of getting a look but nope. Especially Flo was disappointed. He didn’t feel too well to begin with as I might have given him my sniffles.

The site stretches out quite a bit after Darius but we were hot and tired already. So we walked to Farhad Tarash to have a look and then turned around. Farhad Tarash is a huge, cleared area on the rock face some 200 meters long which was dedicated for an inscription which has never been done. So now, it’s just a huge, smooth, vertical surface at the bottom of the cliff. So odd. From here, we also had a view to an old caravanserai but didn’t go anymore.

He gave us a free lunch because we are guests

He gave us a free lunch because we are guests

Time to head back to the bike and get on the road. Our excursion had lasted longer than we expected. Hunger caught up with us before we reached Hamadan and we stopped at a roadside eatery which advertised a burger on its door. When we went in, two guys just bought ice cream. There was a little kafuffle when they left and one of them pointed at us while refusing to take his change. So the next thing that happened was ice cream, appearing in front of us. Those guys had just shouted us ice cream! How nice is that? We still needed real food though and went with falafel sandwiches. When we wanted to pay, the owner didn’t take it. Instead, he showed us a word in Farsi on an app similar to google translate: Guest. What were we supposed to do? We thanked him for his kindness and felt really good about the world and its people. 🙂 Not much else you can do after that.

Now Hamadan was only a hop away. The Lonely Planet listed some cheap options and we found the perfect place in the Ordibesht Hotel. A spacious room (3 beds), clean toilet facilities and even a small kitchen with a samovar providing hot water. If we could have exactly this place in every city, we’d be so happy.

Nina's normal reaction to a cake shop

Nina’s normal reaction to a cake shop

Flo felt off so he got to have a two hour nap while I updated the blog and commented the photos for it. At 5.30pm, we left in search for dinner. Right next to the hotel, I stumbled upon a cake and sweets shop. Everything in here looked delicious. The owner didn’t speak any English but speaking with hands and feet we got the information that he would close at 8pm tonight. Enough time to go for food, come back to choose a dessert and go back to the hotel.

Searching for dinner was a tedious thing. Both restaurants we wanted to go to were closed (Friday). So we wandered back towards our hotel, looking for food and ended up in a fast food joint at Imam Khomeini Square. The fast food was Irani for once so I got to try the large “samosas” (that’s how they look like to me) filled with potato and herbs while Flo had a bun filled with salmon or some kind of sausage and a very meaty looking pizza pie. My food was really yummy so this is something I would go for again.

Hamadan in general was nice to us. The sun was shining and while wandering around looking for food, many people smiled at us, greeted us and welcomed us in their city/Iran. Some even stopped for a conversation. One young lady must have followed us for a bit (I think) as she had three questions which sounded like she spent some time thinking on how to phrase them. She was lovely, as were all the others. Hamadan doesn’t see that many tourists so the feeling of being famous or a rockstar returned.

Nina struck gold :)

Nina struck gold 🙂

One last thing needed to be done…buy dessert! Going for the smallest available box, I was slightly overwhelmed with the choices. I got cream-filled puffs, chocolate cupcakes, slices of a creamy looking cake, cookie sandwiches and dry cookies where I had no idea what they were. My box was full to the brim in the end. And the owner wanted to give it to us for free. Trying really hard to pay this time while buying “luxury” for us, the owner only accepted half the money it would have cost us. Leaving the shop with a box full of sweets that I bought for NZ$2.20. That’s maybe a euro fifty for you European folk.

Everything in it was yummy though one thing needs to be singled out as heavenly. Flo had spotted the cookie sandwiches and I am very grateful for that. Between two crumbly cookies was a gooey marshmallowy cream which had softened the cookies a little bit. It had something of an overly large macaroon but with marshmallow in the middle. Divine!