To Mashhad

By the way, we are in Mashhad, Iran, right now...

This morning we left Turkmenistan driving from Mary to the Turkmen-Iranian border. We said a few goodbyes to Mr Merdan & to Andrew, and right away we started to see the more delicate facial features of the Persians at the border post.

We hitched a ride with an Iranian truck driver to cross the few kms of no man's land between the two countries, until we finally arrived at the Iranian border. They did not really check our luggage, but some guy checked Lorenzo's face against the pictures in his passport for a good five minutes (you always feel strange when you are afraid someone might question that you are not yourself.....)

Iran looked immediately different from Central Asia, better roads and better cars. We found some taxi driver to bring us to Mashhad for 20 euros. We stopped on the way at some shop or tea-house, where we immediately bumped into another taxi driver who was speaking in Italian (he had fled Iran after the revolution a long time ago and had lived in Venice....).

After some more time, some more lovely Iranian music, and after the taxi driver shared his tobacco pipe with us (Giulia declined the offer), we finally arrived, on what turned out to be a day of religious celebration, to the holy city of Mashhad.