It’s a sunny day and we set off early to Kars, some 230 miles North. As we leave the Eastern end of Lake Van the scenery is amazing with snow capped peaks descending almost to the waters edge and the clouds reflecting in the aquamarine water. Its all about to change .We go over a 2700 metre pass where lava flow filled the entire valley to our left and the road has been built right at the edge of a perpendicular wall of congealed lava. One of the wildest and most remote places we have seen. Then suddenly it was there…Mount Ararat, 5200 metres rising out of a flat plain. As you can see from the photo we were lucky enough to photograph it on a rare day when the summit was unshrouded by clouds. The early part of our route took us close to the Iranian border, only a couple of miles away, and close enough to see the watch towers that run down the top of a line of hills. Later we get even closer to the Armenian border, just 200 yards in one place and again it is his and her watch towers. As a result of the sensitivity of the area we are stopped 7 times at road blocks on our journey, always by Jendarma or Kommando, gun toting youngsters, backed up by armoured cars and, in one case, a tank. Actually they are very polite to us and shake our hands. At one road block there are plastic flowers on the oil drums that block the road…weird or what ?When we arrive in Kars we immediately like it as it is very European with wide pavements, wrought iron balconies and substantial buildings. In fact it was occupied by the Russians from 1872-1921.
On Tuesday we ventured out into the steppe to visit a deserted city called Ani, that in its day (10th-14th cent ) rivalled Constantinople. There are 3 wonderfully preserved 10th cent Armenian churches, one with colourful frescoes still adorning the interior. There is a cathedral, a fort and a wall…and then there is its location. Ani was built along a 500 foot deep gorge that contains a rushing river. Snow capped peaks are all around. And the other side of the gorge is Armenia, and the watch towers and machine gun posts. On our side friendly Jendarma stroll around with rifles or lounge against church walls smoking. Later in the day we go really off piste to find another early Armenian church and a fort. Found the former but not the latter. It was in a farmyard and full of farm supplies. In the yard were 3 of the most vicious dogs I have ever seen….large, off-white, with yellow eyes and fangs. They didn’t so much strain at the leash to get at us, but flung themselves at their chains repeatedly while barking furiously. Your correspondents made their excuses and left. A word about the locals. They live in one story farmhouses with turf roofs and cellophane ( not glass ) windows. The children have pinched narrow in-bred faces ( think Deliverence )and seem to like to throw stones at our car. Fortunately they miss…its only a 3 ton Landcruiser after all. Could they keep wicket for England, I think ?
Wednesday we leave Kars, after a short visit to the fort, which amazingly we find open. We drive South, past the same roadblocks, mostly waved through without stopping. I think we are probably odd enough to be remembered. After lunch we arrive in Dogubayazit. Those of you with memories will recall that this was where, a couple of months ago, 6 or so locals died of avian flu. So its KFC ( Kurdish Fried Chicken ) for dinner then. The town is revolting…voted by us as shit-hole of the trip. Fortunately our hotel is 5 km out of town, but when we do go in we find that 25% of the town is an army base. Oh well, Iran is only 23 km away and we are off there day after tomorrow, so blog may be irregular for a bit as we don’t really know if the Mullahs dig internet porn, if you know what I mean. Tomorrow its Noah’s Ark and a gentle stroll around Mt Ararat. Will report if time.
Thursday.While Dogubayzit retains the Bum-Hole Award, and moves ınto first place for the 'most Army bases in one town' prize,the area around has redeemed itself somewhat. İts a sunny day and Little Ararat is almost, but not quite, cloudless. We set off and find what is supposed to be the fınal resting place of Noah's Ark. İ am sceptical to start with, but when İ fınd that the visitor centre is funded by some Mid-Western prayer group...well,you know what İ mean. Lunch and its chıcken...we feel that worrying about avian flu ıs for wimps. PM we drıve up the mountain behind town and visit the İshak Pasha Palace. İts a fairytale 1001 nights palace in a stunning setting. Photo to follow. So its one more evening,then İran. Both of us feel that weve really spent too much time ın Turkey and want to move on and even though the Eastern part of the country has produced the most memorable sights in the form of Nemrut Dagi and Ani, the food and hotel standards have gone way down of late. My whısky store has been eked out to the point where İ have just one really big one left for a pre-prandial tonight, then its de-tox Republican Guard style. Gule Gule from Turkey.
Crossed into Iran with surprisingly little hassle.The Iranian tourist official asked us a number of normal questions like our favorite football team,what we thought of Iran's nuclear programme and whether we or the Americans would attack Iran. He said that most Iaranians think the English very intelligent. Shows he hasnt met many.Drove into Tabriz,POP 3 million, but roads deserted as its a Friday. We met our guide, a very pleasant young man called Reza and went out to dinner and had lamb kebab with piles of rice, boiled, and a pat of butter on the side. Unfortunately, as we were to find out , this is the stable fare of Iran. Its served with sour milk, like lassi...not the dog, but the Indian drink.
Next day we went to the Tabriz bazaar, which covers 35 km of brick lined passages. Its wonderful and noone hassles you. Even carpet vendors wait politely for you to approach them and you are allowed to leave their shop without and argument. Also there is little haggling. In the same situation in Turkey, you would have been gang-raped by carpet sellers. Anyway I bought a beautiful antique Heriz and paid a deposit as it would be cleaned and repaired and delivered to Mashad in 5 days time....1800 km away. Will it arrive you say ? Wait and see. We drive 200 miles to the Azeri border and discover two things. One, diesel costs less than 1p per litre, which means that the car costs less than 1 quid to fill. Secondly, Iranian drivers are quite literally insane. Take the aggression of the French, the speed of the Italians and the fatalism of the Indains and you almost have the full horror of the situation. Even the pedestrians seem indifferent to their fate. At one stage when we were descending a mountain switchback road in a pea-souper fog, cars with no headlights would overtake uphill towards us around a blind corner. On is required to swerve on to the hard shoulder often by two lorries coming down the road abreast. Weirdly this coloured our whole trip in Iran ( together with the boring food and no booze ) especially as we drove 6 days in a row long distances.
Hotels in Astara on the Azeri border and Rashtar were huge communist style Peoples Hotel No. 5 and were empty. In fact we were driving from Brighton to Bognor along the South Coast out of season in a permanent rush hour and with permanently drunk drivers everywhere.One poignant note is that every town you go into has 3x4 ft portraits on bill boards of young men, some with only a faint line of moustache, all of whom are martyrs in the 1980-88 war with Iraq. The Iranian women wear either what you would expect, a black ground length scarf, clutched in one hand or the teeth, with all or most of the face showing, or just a little scarf or hood, pushed well back on the forehead and a lot of makeup. This hejab goes over quite a figure hugging knee length gown called a manteau, which is usually dark, and is over jeans and sneakers. This is the interesting thing about Iran, the contradictions that are everywhere apparent in society and even more so when not apparent. I'll let Alex do more on this interesting subject, but in the 3 days covered here we saw little of interest except for the bazaar in Tabriz and a village called Massouleh where the houses were built on a hillside so steep that the rooves of one row were the street and terraces of the row above.
