I left Tabriz after two nights in order to take the train to Jolfa, in the North, right of the border with Azerbaijan, leaving already at 7:00 am, which meant I had to leave the hotel at 6.15 (imagine!!! me!!!;-) ) I got a bit stressed as formalities at the hotel check out took longer and I feared to miss the only train per day... Once at the train station and having still 15 minutes left, there was quite some confusion how it all works. To buy the train tickets, there were two long queues for one single ticket counter: one for women and one for men, men being served with priority...Seeing the length of the queues, I had almost lost any hope to catch that train (and if that queue was at Brussels Central station, I would definitely have missed my train!!) But the lady was pretty efficient, which was perhaps also easy as almost everyone else (they all seemed to be students) wanted to get a ticket for the train to the university, which was supposed to leave shortly before mine and everyone had the exact amount ready and the tickets had been printed beforehand. However, when it was my turn, she said something to me and continued serving the students behind me in line. I started to get worried because there also seemed to be a security check before getting on the train and time was starting to get short. But a women who was also asked to wait and wanted to take the same train than myself (from what I understood as nobody spoke English..) then started complaining. She asked me to give her the money for the ticket and my passport (which they always want to see when buying a train ticket..) and then she took care of everything and we got our tickets some minus later. I arrived at the security control 5 minutes before departure and the students all tried to get through as well and were pushing from behind, but one student made signs telling me that I should just go through the next gate where there was nobody (also no officer..) and that is what I did and nobody complained ... I saw other people walking through and nobody seemed to care so i could only wonder why they had this control at all.. But never mind.. ;-) People pointed me towards was an old German train (with the symbols of the German railways still on it), but with the indication Van (meaning the Turkish city I came from two days ago... ), which was clearly not the same line than the one to Jolfa. After having asked a conductor and two other people and everyone confirming that this was the train to Jolfa, I borded. We left on time and I had just made it! Oufff! Once on the train, I was clearly exotic to the other passengers. They were all looking at me, whispering among themselves, some teenage girls were giggling.. Very soon, the man opposite asked THE question: "where do you come from?" And when I said "Almaniye", everybody seemed to be happy, was smiling and the word quickly spread to all other passengers in the same coach (which I realised because I continued to hear the word "Almaniye" or "alman, but unfortunately, I did nit understand the many other questions they asked me...until an older man put his mobile phone to my ear and I heard someone speaking English. It turned out that it was his son, who asked me all the questions the people in the train were wondering about: why I came to Iran, where I am going, for how long, about my job, etc. the son then apologised for disturbing me and wished me best of luck. I passed the phone back to the older man, he got all the information and Then, again, the word quickly spread all over the coach and soon everyone's curiosity seemed to have been satisfied. At the following stops, the train started to get fuller and the conductor made me change my seat 4 times in a row in order to redistribute people in a way that I was only sitting next to men (which put the conductor into some trouble organising this the fact that there were much more women on the train and he did not seem to be the smartest. Other passengers realised this (there were always other - more logical - ways of doing it, but well...) and they complained on my behalf (at least this is what I understood ..), but the conductor was very stubborn and did not accept any kind of putting into question of his authority and so people started to smile in the end, making signs of apologies to me.
Once in Jolfa, I had to arrange a driver/Taxi for the day as I not only wanted to visit the St Stephanos Armenian church (one of the earliest Christian churches and UNESCO world heritage) but also go to a place about 150 km further along the river Aras, where there is no public transport and it is hopeless to wait for a collective taxi to fill up. This was quite a challenge. After finding someone who would do it, I had to negotiate the price very hard as they were trying to initially charge me about triple the usual price (which I had asked about before leaving Tabriz). I finally managed and off we went.
I enjoyed the beautiful landscapes of the Aras river valley, the biblical river of Gilon, which - it seems - was right at the border of paradise. Imagine, I ALMOST made it to paradise !!! It's certainly beautiful here, but unfortunately, paradise seems to have gone from here since a long time. This is even clearer when you see the border posts and barbed wire on both sides of the river: the river is the border between Iran and Azerbaijan, and a bit further also with Armenia. And 20 years ago (from 1989 to 1994) was one of the places of fighting in the Armenia / Azerbaijan war. I was told that between their direct borders, there are still minefields as both countries still consider themselves as enemies.
The church's position is amazing and there was nobody else around when I arrived, except two bored guys from the border police who - more out of curiosity than for real inspection purposes it seemed - wanted to see my passport. They were happy to see me here and we exchanged some very basic polite words, mentioned a few German football clubs and players and then said goodbye. After my visit, another car arrived and it was a young Argentinian couple who was also on the Trans-Asia Express. And this is really a permanent feature of this trip: I keep meeting people from the train all over the place, which is still surprising even if we of course all want to see more or less the same things, but to be at the same time at the same place all the time is still amazing...
Unfortunately, I did not really see much of the (admittedly few) places of interest in the Aras valley as the communication was very difficult and he was not very keen to honour the agreement I thought I had with him to stop in certain places on the way. When I tried to tell him to stop, mentioning the name of the place, he just said "yes, yes" and drive on. He was in a bad mood because his back was hurting and he kept pointing to his back and complaining, because the many curves on the mountain road made it hurt even more. At some point he stopped the car, was loudly complaining and trying to make me understand that he cannot drive anymore and that I should drive the car (about 80km were still left...) quite a strange thing to do for a driver. I felt pity for him and was actually quite intrigued by the idea of driving myself in Iran, but thought in the end that it was not really a good idea and refused... The driver did not hide his dissatisfaction and the mood got really bad.. He started speeding to arrive as early as possible at our destination, the city of Kaleybar, where I wanted to hike the next day up to Babak castle. And so we did at around 15.30, while I thought we would arrive only in the evening. There I was stuck in a not so nice place, in an ugly and not so clean "guesthouse" (according to the Lonely Planet the best option there...). Quite depressing as there was not even a nice place to sit down and have a tea or some snack and it was too late to start the hiking tour... But I survived ! ;-) (so far - and I write this almost 2 weeks later and after a total of already one month travelling - this was the worst moment during this trip...) the next day, The hike up to Babak castle was very steep and tiring (many many steps, which was not good at all for my knees), but really worth the effort: the mountain views were just great and I was almost alone throughout the hike... Beautiful! But for the Azari people (meaning the Azari/Turkish speaking population of the Iranian province of Azerbaijan), the castle from the 9th century is a pilgrimage place as Babak fought against the anti-Shiite rulers of the time and is - as the Lonely Planet puts it - considered as someone between Robin Hood, King Arthur and Yasser Arafat (!!! ;-) ) On top of the castle I met the Spanish couple again.. And on the way back two groups of Iranian young guys. They had warm words of welcome to their country and we had the usual small talk and then they wanted to take pictures with me (yes, I really sometimes feel like a rock star here: everyone notices you, welcomes you and often they want to take pictures and exchange email addresses or phone numbers...)
Once in Jolfa, I had to arrange a driver/Taxi for the day as I not only wanted to visit the St Stephanos Armenian church (one of the earliest Christian churches and UNESCO world heritage) but also go to a place about 150 km further along the river Aras, where there is no public transport and it is hopeless to wait for a collective taxi to fill up. This was quite a challenge. After finding someone who would do it, I had to negotiate the price very hard as they were trying to initially charge me about triple the usual price (which I had asked about before leaving Tabriz). I finally managed and off we went.
I enjoyed the beautiful landscapes of the Aras river valley, the biblical river of Gilon, which - it seems - was right at the border of paradise. Imagine, I ALMOST made it to paradise !!! It's certainly beautiful here, but unfortunately, paradise seems to have gone from here since a long time. This is even clearer when you see the border posts and barbed wire on both sides of the river: the river is the border between Iran and Azerbaijan, and a bit further also with Armenia. And 20 years ago (from 1989 to 1994) was one of the places of fighting in the Armenia / Azerbaijan war. I was told that between their direct borders, there are still minefields as both countries still consider themselves as enemies.
The church's position is amazing and there was nobody else around when I arrived, except two bored guys from the border police who - more out of curiosity than for real inspection purposes it seemed - wanted to see my passport. They were happy to see me here and we exchanged some very basic polite words, mentioned a few German football clubs and players and then said goodbye. After my visit, another car arrived and it was a young Argentinian couple who was also on the Trans-Asia Express. And this is really a permanent feature of this trip: I keep meeting people from the train all over the place, which is still surprising even if we of course all want to see more or less the same things, but to be at the same time at the same place all the time is still amazing...
Unfortunately, I did not really see much of the (admittedly few) places of interest in the Aras valley as the communication was very difficult and he was not very keen to honour the agreement I thought I had with him to stop in certain places on the way. When I tried to tell him to stop, mentioning the name of the place, he just said "yes, yes" and drive on. He was in a bad mood because his back was hurting and he kept pointing to his back and complaining, because the many curves on the mountain road made it hurt even more. At some point he stopped the car, was loudly complaining and trying to make me understand that he cannot drive anymore and that I should drive the car (about 80km were still left...) quite a strange thing to do for a driver. I felt pity for him and was actually quite intrigued by the idea of driving myself in Iran, but thought in the end that it was not really a good idea and refused... The driver did not hide his dissatisfaction and the mood got really bad.. He started speeding to arrive as early as possible at our destination, the city of Kaleybar, where I wanted to hike the next day up to Babak castle. And so we did at around 15.30, while I thought we would arrive only in the evening. There I was stuck in a not so nice place, in an ugly and not so clean "guesthouse" (according to the Lonely Planet the best option there...). Quite depressing as there was not even a nice place to sit down and have a tea or some snack and it was too late to start the hiking tour... But I survived ! ;-) (so far - and I write this almost 2 weeks later and after a total of already one month travelling - this was the worst moment during this trip...) the next day, The hike up to Babak castle was very steep and tiring (many many steps, which was not good at all for my knees), but really worth the effort: the mountain views were just great and I was almost alone throughout the hike... Beautiful! But for the Azari people (meaning the Azari/Turkish speaking population of the Iranian province of Azerbaijan), the castle from the 9th century is a pilgrimage place as Babak fought against the anti-Shiite rulers of the time and is - as the Lonely Planet puts it - considered as someone between Robin Hood, King Arthur and Yasser Arafat (!!! ;-) ) On top of the castle I met the Spanish couple again.. And on the way back two groups of Iranian young guys. They had warm words of welcome to their country and we had the usual small talk and then they wanted to take pictures with me (yes, I really sometimes feel like a rock star here: everyone notices you, welcomes you and often they want to take pictures and exchange email addresses or phone numbers...)
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