How Many Men Does It Take To Change A Tyre?

Casey writes:

Iran

How on earth do these women do it? They've perfected the art of perching their scarf perilously on the crown of their head, and of course it doesn't move. They walk around looking like this, go shopping, sleep on a bus, hike up mountains and even play badminton in the park, and whatever the activity, when they're finished, they look just as glamorous as when they began. Me, on the other hand... disaster. I look up, scarf falls off. I bend forward, scarf falls off. I eat, scarf in food. I use a squat toilet... and I won't even begin to explain the calamity of scarf in toilet. Good grief, I feel like the laughing stock of Iran.

But regardless of this, Iran is a beautiful country with beautiful people, and after eight days, we are already making plans to return to see more of what it has to offer.

Border Crossing #1

After initially being dropped at the wrong bus terminal, and then making a frantic dash across the city of Tabriz to reach the bus in the nick of time, we settled into our VIP seats for the 30 hour journey to Istanbul. The drive was calm enough, except for the 1.5 hour delay on the side of the road when we stopped to help another bus with a blown out tyre. It seemed that all of the men on both buses felt it was their duty to stand around the tyre and scratch their heads, but none seemed to know quite what to do. The women stayed on the bus, performing their womanly duty of staying out of the way of the 'men's work'. I didn't dare break this gender stereotype, and sat patiently on the bus; however, Richard - the rebel that he is - did not even pretend to hide the fact that he didn't know the first thing about changing a bus tyre, and also sat dutifully next to me, feigning ignorance and claiming he had no idea what was going on. Fortunately, eventually we were on our way again before most of the men even noticed that they were one man down in the head-scratching, grunting, tyre-changing group outside.

The border crossing was both pleasant and unpleasant. It took us next to no time to exit Iran, with no forms to fill out and a quick bag scan. Given that it was 1:30am and we were tired, we were optimistic that we'd soon be back on the bus and on our way. Nope. Upon reaching Turkey Customs, we were told that the silk carpet we had bought in Uzbekistan could not be brought into the country. The first reason we were given was that we had no receipt. We produced the receipt. Then we were told it was too expensive to import and that we had two options: to take it back to Iran or to leave it at the border and enter Turkey without it. We'd  paid too much money for it to just discard it, and knew that something wasn't adding up, because the customs officers had shown us no official documentation regarding this rule they were imposing on us. We were preparing ourselves for a long stand off when an English speaking Iranian man stepped in to help us. He bluffed the officials, telling them we were with him and that we were all researchers at a university together, and that if we couldn't bring our carpet through Turkey, he'd take it back to Iran for us. Suddenly, the customs officers, realising they weren't going to score a free silk carpet afterall, gave in and with a frustrated wave of the hand said 'take it'. We removed ourselves from the border as quickly as possible and were relieved to get back on the bus and on our way. We are still eternally grateful to the man who helped us, whose name we never learned and who didn't think twice in helping two foreigners at great risk to himself.  

We reached Istanbul at 1:30am the following morning and after arriving at our hostel (and waking up the other 9 people sharing our dorm), collapsed into bed for a glorious proper night's sleep.

Istanbul

This was my third visit to this unique city, and I still haven't tired of seeing the magnificent city skyline full of mosques and palaces. It was great to meander the Sultanahmet sector without 25 students in tow like the previous two occasions. I was excited to show Richard the parts of the city I love the most, and we spent two days simply being tourists at our own pace - something we haven't been able to do for over six weeks.

The Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque were both spectacular as always, and listening to the echoing calls to prayer from these adjacent buildings still sent shivers down my spine. The sunset cruise along the Bosphorus River sounded so romantic when we booked it earlier in the day, but we arrived to find a mob of tourists following a man waving a sign, in scenes not dissimilar to the Pied Piper. We were herded onto an overly crowded ferry, with screaming hyperactive children and Muslim women desperately reserving all of the seats for the other thirty members of their family, and forcefully pushing us foreigners off the seats when we tried to sit down. Putting that aside, the views along the river were wonderful, and although the cruise was by no means peaceful, it was entertaining to say the least.

Topkapi Palace was yet again grand, and the Basilica Cistern was again intriguing... even more so when the lights went out and people began screaming. Just as I thought pandemonium was about to ensue, some basic lighting returned and a sense of calmness again swept over the crowd. And finally, the Grand Bazaar was chaotic, but the perfect place to buy some Turkish delight and baklava, which I'm afraid to say has already been devoured.

We spent the rest of the afternoon lazing on the rooftop terrace of our hostel, drinking Efes and admiring the spectacular views of the Hagia Sophia and the Bosphorus.

Border Crossing #2

After fighting our way through peak hour traffic on a tram and a train, and getting angry looks by many commuters (including Richard being purposefully hit in the face by one particularly vulgar man who felt that we weren't entitled to ride the tram with our backpacks), we arrived at the bus terminal in preparation for our overnight journey to Bulgaria. Upon boarding the bus I was elated to find that it had free wi-fi... woohoo! But minutes later I was wishing I could swap this luxury for something slightly more essential - seatbelts!  Fortunately all was fine and we arrived in Sofia at 5:30am as scheduled.

Bulgaria

Neither Richard or I had a particularly long 'must see' list in Bulgaria. We had planned our stopover in Sofia more of a means of getting to Belgrade than as a sightseeing destination. But in hindsight, we are rapt that we dedicated two nights in such a lovely city. Sofia doesn't have the wow-factor or mystery that many other eastern European cities have, but it has its own unique charm, and its laid back, sleepy atmosphere made us feel very much at home, and reluctant to leave.

I had only read about the Rila Monastery about three hours before we jumped in a car to travel the two hours into the Rila Mountains to see it. Built as a hermitage for a lonely hermit monk, the site of the Unesco listed monastery is stunning - perched in the mountains and surrounded by lush green trees. Our visit coincided with a huge Christian festival, so we had to beat the hundreds of pilgrims off in order to see some of the sights, but this was only a minor inconvenience (we were probably more of an inconvenience to them!)

In Sofia itself we participated in a two hour free guided tour and enjoyed the sights such as the Aleksander Nevski Church, St George Church, Presidential Palace, plus many Roman remains scattered throughout the city. We visited the Unesco listed Boyana Church independently, a fresco-covered quaint little chapel, run by a groundskeeper with very odd mannerisms. 

We'd heard that Sofia's nightlife was entertaining, with many excellent bars and pubs... so, despite a few apprehensions, we joined a Pub Crawl being offered by our hostel (it's been ten years since my last one!) We were a bit sceptical about the night, and had plans to ditch the group at the first bar if we found ourselves surrounded by hyper-active 18 year olds intending to become inebriated as quickly as possible... but we were pleasantly surprised. The three bars we visited had calm atmospheres, and we met a couple of Scottish blokes who were interesting and fun to chat with over a few beers. Far from being a crazy night, we enjoyed a relaxed roam around the city streets, and meandered home at about 3:00am.

The European sector of our trip is now in full swing, and we are excited to head to Serbia and then Bosnia from here.