We had a nice and relaxed day off in Shiraz and after the obligatory laundry and bike maintenance, we had a hair cut and visited the Vakil bazaar and Karim Khan Citadel.

 

The day was completed with a dinner in our hotel restaurant Quattro, where a group of other Dutch people were joining us. The day after we moved on in the direction of Bandar Lengeh.

The altitude of Shiraz was already lower and the average temperature accordingly higher, but we were still very much surprised to see a lot of palm trees and Mediterranean sceneries on our way to Lar.

It was almost too good to be true to set up our tent under the palm trees, but at the first knock on the door, we were warmly welcomed by Ahmed

(the palm orchard boss and the proud owner of a self constructed BMW), where we stayed for the night in his cottage.

That night we ate fresh palm dates, almonds, walnuts and pomegranates with Amal, the Afghane employee. What a taste!!

Yesterday we had a nice day of biking, got invited for lunch and could have stayed for the night with at least 3 different families…, but decided to search for a nice camping spot in the middle of nowhere.

Until a motorist passed by and as curious as the Iranian people are, the guy inspected our tent, kept speaking in Farsi (not our most developed language yet), and witnessed how we prepared for diner. Only after Ronald took of his trouser and started changing clothes, he disappeared as fast as lightning and we finally got our privacy back?.

This morning a herd of 150 goats, 1 donkey and 1 herdsman woke us at 6.30h, our regular time to get up.

We had again a perfect track, met a lot of people underway and found a nice hotel in the new town of Lar (yes there is also an old town of Lar…).

The shower was refreshing, the internet terrible as always and the pizza and chicken a nice variation to all the kebab from the last days. The owner of the “Pizza Hut” spoke fluent English, as he worked in Qatar for 14 years, and refused any payment for our complete dinner and drinks; that’s the Iranian style from head to toe. They are really eager to modify the wrong (negative) image abroad and like to discuss this with every foreign visitor or tourist.

By the way, coming back to our previous post about the white Peugeots and blue Nissans… Underway you also find a huge number of Mercedes Benz trucks (usually with a orange nose) from before 1979 on the road. That was the year Khomeini took the power…