Overland to London - Isfahan to Dogubayazit

 

Stork's nest on a mudbrick village on the road to Tehran

Wed 24 March                  ISFAHAN – TEHRAN                                                                                                                                                          442 kms                        

    We left Isfahan around 8 am and headed back towards Tehran, this time without mishap,  following the same route  as the outward journey. This time we stopped, in a small mudbrick building to  photograph a stork’s nest and, later, at the site of an old village which had apparently been abandoned because of lack of water. The desert is slowly eliminating all traces of the village - perhaps it was due to the failure of an underground qanat system. While we were there another dust storm blew on which emphasized the ephemeral nature of these desert villages and their reliance on a permanent source of fresh water. . We arrived  in Tehran at a respectable hour and are staying at Goh-i-Sahra camping ground once again. 

Thu 25 March                          TEHRAN

        Tehran in the largest city and capital of modern Iran, having been the capital since 1786. Although the town has been known from antiquity, being a stop on the Silk Road between Europe and Samarkand, it had always been overshadowed by the nearby ancient city of Rayy, now absorbed in the urban sprawl of Tehran. After the Qajar Shah, Agha Mohammed Khan, selected Tehran as his capital, the city began to grow in size, especially in the 1920s and 30s when Reza Shah essentially rebuilt the city from scratch, systematically demolishing a number of old buildings and replacing them with modern buildings, influenced by classical Iranian architecture. Tehran is close to the Elburz Mountains, which lie between  the city and the Caspian Sea.

USSR & Iranian flags adorn Ferdowsy Square, Tehran

As our Iranian visas have to be extended, it seems that we will be here for a number of days. This morning, after some initial trouble with language, a group of us reached the city centre around Ferdowsy Square. There were several Iranian and Soviet flags fluttering around the Square and the surrounding streets. It appeared we had just missed a procession in honour of the Shah and Nikolai Podgorny, then Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, who was on a state visit to Iran.  Getting a bus back to the camping ground proved to be a mission! Nobody spoke English and we were directed to several different places before, finally, after three buses and a couple of hours, we reached our destination. Decided we would have a party tonight at the camping ground.

Fri 26 March                           TEHRAN

         A lazy day today at the camping ground. Several of the group are making arrangements to hire a mini-bus for a ski-trip to the Elburz Mountains tomorrow.

Sat 27 March                      

  

Shemshak skifield in the Elburz Mountains

 Today we set off in a hired mini-bus for the ski resort of Shemshak in the Elburz Mountains It was a two hour drive through spectacular and beautiful scenery to our alpine destination.

Icicles at Shemshak

I was pleasantly surprised at the facilities at Shemshak – there are two hotels, both modern, a chairlift and a T-bar tow, but no slopes for beginners, as I was to find out later. Not many people were here and there was no queue for the chairlift. After being deposited at the top of the ski run I, with an Australian girl, started the descent, which took us all of two hours compared with 2 or 3 minutes for the experts. Parts of the slope were close to perpendicular, much too steep for me to ski and I was soaking wet by the time I reached the bottom. I found out later that ‘Shemshak has classically catered to more advanced skiers. The slopes are quite steep and many of the runs are mogul runs.’  Despite this, it was  a good day, capped off by impromptu table-dancing, by an Armenian and a Jew, much to the delight of their families and, of course, us.

 Sun 28 – Mon 29 March               TEHRAN

Two more days at the camp site waiting for visa extensions to come through.

 Tue 30 March                   TEHRAN – TABRIZ                                                                                                                                                      624kms

        We left Tehran  at about 8.00am and  headed into Qazvin. Alamut Castle, in Qazvin Province, was the  home of Rashid al-Din Sinan, the legendary 12^th century Moslem leader known as the  ‘Old Man of the Mountains’. He  purportedly exploited his followers while they were under the influence of hashish, hence his sect were known as the Assassins, later to become the branch of Shia known as Ismailism. His main protagonist in the 12^th century was Saladin, ruler of Egypt and Syria.   Remains of his fort can still be seen in the Elburz Mountains.

We stopped for a chelow kebab lunch in the small town of Zanjan.  The afternoon drive was through featureless semi-desert countryside broken only by a chain of small mountains and the Qizil Üzen River where we came upon the ruins of the 17^th century Kiz Bridge. The damage to the central arch of this bridge is recent; in 1946, in the aftermath of World War 2, Communist separatists of the Democratic Party of Azerbaijan, blew up the central arch in a futile attempt to stop the advance of the Iranian Army who were re-occupying this area of Iran which had been occupied by Soviet troops since 1941.  

Ruined 17th century Kiz Bridge over the Qizil Üzen River

19th century depiction of the same bridge by French traveller Eugène Flandin

Tabriz is the 5^th largest city and one of the former capitals of Iran. It is now the capital of the Eastern Azerbaijan Province.  We arrived just after dark and are staying at the newly constructed camping ground, on a rather attractive artificial lake.    

Wed 31 March                  TABRIZ – DOĞUBAYAZİT                                                                                                                                              304kms      

        We left Tabriz at about 8.30am and headed to the border with Turkey. The drive was again through semi-barren countryside surrounded by snow-covered hills. A  stop was made in Marand where I bought some tasty cakes. Just before the border we arrived in the town of Maku, a peculiar little town, a section of which sits under  rocky overhang in the surrounding cliffs. In one place what appears to be a relatively recent rock fall had ploughed into a group of dwellings and in other places large, scattered rocks had dropped from the crumbling cliff face  among the mudbrick houses.

The precarious rock overhang in the town of Maku, Iran

It is just a short drive to the border post at Bazargan. The border here is in a courtyard enclosed by buildings with a brick wall running across the centre, a chain and two guards, one Iranian & one Turkish, let vehicles through when each side has finished their formalities. The Iranians took two to three hours, but the Turks were relatively quick, with the result that there were many cars and trucks on the Iranian side, but hardly anything on the Turkish side.

The twin peaks of Greater & Little Ararat from the Turkish border

 Biblical Mt. Ararat dominates this section of the Iranian-Turkish border. This mountain is a compound volcano with two major peaks, Greater Ararat is the highest peak in Turkey with an elevation of 5,137m (16,854ft) and Little Ararat has an elevation of 3,896m (12782ft). According to Biblical tradition it is on one of these peaks that Noah's Ark ran aground after the Biblical flood. See Genesis 8:4: ‘and in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest upon the mountains of Ararat.’  But if the passage is scrutinised closely, it says the 'mountains of Ararat'. From the mid-9th century BC, all the area of Eastern Turkey, centred around Lake Van and including the two volcanic peaks, was part of the Kingdom of Urartu which existed until the early 6th century BC. The name Ararat has its origins as Urartu.

Greater Ararat from Doğubayazıt

Tonight we are camping in the grounds of the Kent Hotel in the town of Doğubayazıt, which is known to the Overlanders as ‘Doggy Biscuit’. Another Penn Overland group, eastbound, is also staying here, as a party was in order. 

Later in the evening we had some trouble with some of the locals. A number of men, mainly Kurds, had turned up at the Hotel when they knew a large group of foreigners were staying the night. One of the locals got drunk, began  molesting a girl from the other Penn tour and was subsequently hit by the Hotel manager. This Kurd threatened get his mates and we were told that a bunch of Kurds, fuelled with alcohol and intent on revenge, can be nasty customers. The party was at full swing when suddenly the hotel manager sent all the Penn Overland females upstairs, leaving we menfolk to defend the fort. After a tense 30 minutes or so nothing had happened, although a few stones were thrown at some tents, but the party was stopped. Things did not end there however. The manager hired a local to act as a nightwatchman and to keep an eye on the tents, but during the night a young lady from the tent next to mine, had to answer the call of nature.  First, she went by herself to find the loo but was grabbed by the guard. It was a frightening experience for her and my tent mate, who was still out,  heard her crying. He then escorted her to the toilet, but had to chase off the guard. In the morning the manager was told what had happened. To the young lady's shock the manager, after confronting the miscreant,  then asked her if she would like the man to be flogged publicly or privately! She declined to oversee either punishment, so the erstwhile nightwatchman was let off with a warning.

text & photographs ©Neil Rawlins 

Instagram accounts  @dustonmyfeet     and    @antipodeanneil

My paperbacks and ebooks on my Overland travels in Asia, Europe & Africa in the early 1970s and the experiences of a tour guide on the Asian Overland routes & leading Camel Safaris in Rajasthan in the 1980s are available from Amazon.