144. Day of travel
7.320 km
On 05.09. my first day in Tabriz I slept long, because I was tired of cycling eight days in a row. Then took me Mehrdad into the city, he shows me the “Blue Mosque” (there is also a Blue Mosque in Istanbul that I visited) and an ancient grave with very old skeletons. His wife cooked for us an delicious iranian meal with rice. In the evening we went to the El Goli Park for a walk and got a good view over the city. On 11th august, there was an strong earthquake near to Tabriz that destroyed several villages and killed many people. Mehrdad told me all people from Tabriz slept in her tents for a week, because of the aftershocks. He also slept with his family for a week in the park.
At the next day, I drove with Mehrdad to Kandovan, this is in an unique village where people live inside of rocks. I was very impressed about that village, it looks great. There is also another village like that in Cappadocia (Turkey), but there are no more people living inside. In the evening arrived Guillaume with his bike. We lost each other in Armenia and didn’t saw us for a week. He got in trouble, because he runs out of money, couldn’t buy food in Armenia and chosen a very bad road to visit to monument of Tatev (I didn’t went there). Finally he passed the border to Iran one day later then me and enjoyed also the iranian hospitality. Mehrdad invited us with his family to an kebab restaurant and after that we took a hubble bubble in the El Goli Park, it was very funny.
On friday is weekend in Iran, it is comparable to sunday in Germany. All banks, government institutes and the the most shops are closed. Then the week starts on Saturday. We hung around, playing with Mehrdad and his son table soccer. Then in the evening we visited a big shopping mall that was opened.
Saturday was our last day in Tabriz. Guillaume and me went alone with the bus into the center. We visited the Blue Mosque and this old grave, because Guillaume didn’t saw it. Then we visited the Azerbaijan Museum, it was very interesting. After that we went to the old bazar. Here we changed our money and getting millionaire in iranien rial (1 Euro = 28000 Rial). We like this bazar and bought 2 kilo of the delicious honey, Tabriz is famous for that. We get addicted by this honey by our host, because he served us this delicacy for breakfast. In the evening we said goodbye to Mehrdad and his family and continued our trip towards Tehran.
This is my second article in English it is dedicated to Mehrdad. Many thanks for the good time in Tabriz.
