Doğubayazıt − at the border to Iran

Doğubayazıt, Satureday, 18.09.2010

A little town near the Turkish-Iranian Border. A lot of military, armoured cars on the street, before every military building there are soldiers with their guns ready, leaving the city you see a battery of tanks under camouflage nets.
And yet Doğubayazıt is not without charme. For one thing there’s the might Ararat towering over the city in the northeast and there’s the main street a pedestrian zone lined with shops and restaurants.

The Hotel Tahran promised a great view of Mt. Ararat but someone decided to build a new house right in front of the hotel blocking the view. I’ll quote the mad Italian from Sighişoara: “Bastardi!!”

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the view from my window

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and what’s missing 🙁

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the main street of Doğubayazıt

Nearby in the mountains is the Ishak Paşa Palace.

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The palace with Doğubayazıt

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the dining room

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In the evening I gave my Lonelyplanet to a Brazilian couple, Marcos and Cristina. They are also travelling for a year and have been in southern Africa (South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Mozambique and Zimbabwe) and in the middle east.
They were really nice and are heading for Georgia and Armenia. After that they’ll be in Southeast Asia and I hope to meet them again.

This is the first trip where I’m not jealous of travellers with these kinds of journeys because now I’m one of them!

This morning after 45 minutes of waiting until the Dolmuş (minibus) filled up I was finally on my way to Iran. I admit I was a little bit tense but while driving to the border with the Ararat to my left I began to feel a happiness that has stayed with me the whole day. I’m still grinning as I write this.

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Countdown

The only hassle on the border was from a money changer who assured me that there are no banks in Iran until Tabriz and he’s the only one who can change money. I left him in Turkey and crossed the border.
On the Iranian side two guys asked me where I was going.
“Iran”
“Which city?”
“First Maku”
“Maku is shit, don’t stay there”
“Ok, thank you”

Then two soldiers waived me to them.
“Where are you from?”
“Germany.”
“Ah, Germany. Heil Hitler.”
Akward grin from me.
“Follow me.”

I know that Hitler’s image in Asia and Iran especially is quite good due to a lack of history classes dealing with the subject properly.

A nice and friendly tourism officer greeted me and assured me that there’s a bank right in this building.
He led my to passport control and I could pass quickly and before I knew it I had entered the Islamic Republik of Iran.

The man in the bank said I should change money with one of the moneychangers as he’s asking for a commission of one dollar. He was eager to help his black market friend.
And I left with a huge stack of money.

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3,120,000 Iranian Rials, a stack as thick as the guidebook worth US$ 300.

I took a taxi for the kilometer to Bazargan the little village behind the border. 1 Dollar, 1000 toman, 10,000 Rial. Confusion.

A toman is ten Rials. All prices ar in tomans not rials. The taxi cost 1000 toman, so I give him 10,000 Rials. What the heck?!

I haggled the price for a taxi to Maku down to 3000 toman and took off.

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Ararat form the Iranian side. Looks a bit like an islandic volcano. Luckily I’m not flying.
And two and a half hours after leaving Doğubayazıt I was in my room in my hotel (Alvand, 100.000 Rial, single, shared bath) trying to pack my stack of cash.

On one side of every bill there’s a picture of Khomeini (like Atatürk on turkish notes) but on the back of the 50,000 Rial note there are two more political statements.
One is an atom which is obvious.
The second is the words “Persian Gulf” printed on the persian gulf.
A couple of years ago the US National Geographic Society and the Louvre started to refer to the Persian Gulf as Arabian Gulf, due to arabic counties doing that as well.
Iran was protesting and suceeded now the Gulf is again called what it has been for 2000 years since the Greeks named it−except for the Arabs who still call it Arabian Gulf.

Maku is merely a main road with some buildings in a canyon but I’m still very happy to be in Iran and enjoy it tremdously.