Uliana | Chaos roaming the world

We got a 3 bed room to spread out – wohoo

Our room in Tabriz was amazingly cozy. Combined with a breakfast that was brought to your room (i.e. breakfast in bed…such luxury!), we didn’t really want to leave. Instead, after finishing the fresh bread, honey and cheese, we continued to nibble on the sweets as we had a whole pot of tea which went great with them. We also still had to post the last blog post.

Around 11am, we finally packed up. While carrying everything to the bike, we ran into the couple from twentyonesteps.net again. Not having taken a single picture of them yesterday, I asked for a bit of a photoshoot before they drove off.

this one took 165 km out of the journey from Tabriz

Today’s plan was to ride on the bridge over Lake Orumiyeh which looked like a salt lake when we approached. The lake has been almost separated by two long piers which have been connected by a rather small bridge. Riding onto the pier on our side, there was a toll booth but the guy inside waved us through: Motorcycles are free. 🙂

We stopped for a bit as we hit the pier on the other side but really there was not much to do other than look out on the water with a pink tint. Continuing on to the town of Orumiyeh, we headed to Shemaran Restaurant, a small tea house serving dizi. Dizi is a stew that you can mash to your own heart’s desire as the vegetables, at least, come in big chunks. Unfortunately, there was no vegetarian dizi…so the owner fished out the meat pieces from mine and I ate half of the stew. It was a bit strange though…

Flo enjoyed the hearty stew and we still had chay afterwards. Well fed, we started on the last 300km in Iran towards the border town of Maku. With no intention to arrive there today, the mountains about 100km from it looked like a good place for a last camp spot. With another round of lightning and thunder overhead, we tried a couple of places before settling on a not ideal spot. It was visible from the road but far away so we weren’t bothered.

: We got a 3 bed room to spread out – wohoo

: A cool couple – safe journey to them!

: forgot to fix the horizon on this one … 😉

: this one took 165 km out of the journey from Tabriz

: bridges are far less excitingt to look at from on them

: thick salt residue on the piers reaching into the lake

: the lake is only 14 m at its deepest. Most of the crossing is on piers

: hmm … a lot like good goulash

: Team awesome having dizi

: coming down into another high altitude plain

: The other side of the plateau. Time to look for a camp spot

: bad weather brewing ahead

: no good spots down this nice track

: the storm right next to us

: found one – it rained a bit while we got the tent up, that was all

: by the time the light went, the clouds had loosend up

: I admit, I ran back up to to get that shot …

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!

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

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

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 …