Western Iran 20 Oct

That's how we travelled to the border arriving at 2:45. Brian went off to try and change our 30TL into dollars, but got no joy, and told the man where he could put himself. Then we deposited our passports (the passport office was virtually in darkness) and were told that there was an hour's wait so we went and brewed some coffee.

The Ford arrived as we put the kettle on again and we told them to get their passports in there quick. A few moments later they came out with theirs and said ours were ready too. Next we had to go through customs where I filled in car forms and had the Turkish stamp deleted. The others had their coffee and we drove through the border after yielding our passports so that they could be sure we had visas before we crossed.

Then the pantomime started all over again! First passport form, then car form and carnet de passage, then the customs man came and made me get my case out (there was my diving knife), then some talk of insurance, but we had already got that. Finally, when everyone reassembled, we headed for the gate out of the compound - but once again passports, and finally we were out.

It was now 6:15, though the clocks went forward 1½ hours, thus we had been there 2 hours altogether. It was now dark, and a new country. The first town is Maku, so we stopped there for food; the only petrol station would not allow us to park on its forecourt so after we had eaten (kebab and chamois leather, with an onion 20 rials each) we drove out to a parking place some way out where we had coffee - and gave three locals some.

Happily, they then offered us tea and all except Chris and Ian went across the road to their dwelling. One of them has a Mercedes bus. They had a fluctuating number of wives. Later another character came in who was said to have four wives (even five by some accounts). The money is a disaster, the coins do not have their denomination stamped on them. One and two are all right, but bigger ones we don't understand yet, despite the locals trying to help us. Iran has its quota of cadgers and gawpers, and the food prices in Maku appear to be set to hit the passer-by flat. I hope it's not expensive all the way through. It's now quarter to midnight local time, must sleep. The "dwelling" had a large bench and table, several "beds" and a sort of square pool in the middle of the room.

The Road to Tehran 21 Oct

Woken about 7:30 by tractor ticking over outside, eventually got up about 8am and tuned stove which Brian had lit, but which was failing to boil the water. The whole group had coffee or tea, and we took some photos. Once again we set off with Chris, and Ian followed in the campervan. The Aussies were going to stop in Tabriz. We got there first and it was raining, we'd come 4000 miles to get a typical English October day.

Lake Urmia is a major body of water about 40km west of the road into Tabriz. It's about four times as salty as sea water and it used to be about 150km long and. In 2008 a 12km causeway and bridge was completed across the lake to shorten the journey from Tabriz to Urmia by 100km. Combined with dams on the rivers feeding into the lake and depletion of ground water the surface area of the lake is about 12% of its size in the 1970s. It's a shame we didn't have a look at it.
More recently, in a Guardian article from September 2025 we are told that the water in the lake now has a depth of only half a metre, and that it is possible the lake will no longer exist by the end of the 2025 summer.