The last days in Iran

18th October 2010, Shiraz International Airport

The trip from Qeshm to Shiraz was quite interesting. On the ferry boat to the mainland a man was sitting next to me who spoke broken English and had to tell me how bad everything is in Iran, you can’t dance, you can’t drink, and Ahmadinejad is crazy, while the Shah was around everything was good, you could dance and drink and everything was good.
He offered me to take me to the bus terminal and in the car he kept lamenting about how bad everything is in Iran, you can’t dance, you can’t drink, and Ahmadinejad is crazy, while the Shah was around everything was good, you could dance and drink and everything was good.
He then got me a ticket for 14:30 h and offered to show me Bandar Abbas in the two hours until then. I thought that would be a good idea even though I was sure once we were back in the car he’d start about how bad everything is in Iran, you can’t dance, you can’t drink, and Ahmadinejad is crazy, while the Shah was around everything was good, you could dance and drink and everything was good.
For his business he had to get some signature from a bank before we’d have lunch. As banks are the ideal of a bloated bureaucracy it took two hours just to get the signature and when we sat down for lunch my bus was just leaving.
No problem, Ali said there’s another bus an hour later, however one problem is how bad everything is in Iran, you can’t dance, you can’t drink, and Ahmadinejad is crazy, while the Shah was around everything was good, you could dance and drink and everything was good.
And there was a later bus and while I would reach Shiraz only at half past eleven I was glad not having a night bus. But I was wrong.
As Bandar Abbas is really close to Oman and the UAE there’s an active smuggling scene which is why all traffic from Bandar is checked many times.

And on one of these check points the police found a box with an animal body inside our bus.
As no of the passengers was willing to admit that the box was theirs and the police couldn’t let us leave without a fine we had to wait for five hours while everybody was being questioned. Except me. And the questioning was quite friendly as well not like you might imagine.
Yet I reached Shiraz at 5 in the morning without having had much sleep.

Today I quickly went to find my first (and only) geocache in Iran and went to the airport. I was upgraded to first class as economy was overbooked unfortunately it was only for the short flight over to gulf but that was justice for the bus trip.
Now it’s another twelve hours until I finally get my breakfast.

They just announced my flight, gotta go to boarding.