IRAN TRAVEL REPORT.

 VISA IRAN

The visa for Iran can also be obtained at the airport but sometimes the local authorities deny it without apparent reason and send you back home and therefore it is better to do it before leaving by following the following procedure:

go to the consulate of Iran, in Via Monte Bianco n. 57 in Milan, from Monday to Friday from 9 to 12.30, with passport (with expiry of not less than 6 months), insurance certificate (the one stipulated on the website www.viaggiaresicuri.com is fine), 2 recent passport photos, completed form , downloadable on the consulate's website (the addresses of the hotels where you will stay must be entered on the form).

After the kind employee (Gabriele) has checked the documentation, you have to fill in another form.

Then you have to pay 50 euros of fees by credit card, debit card or cash (in the latter case you must go to pay them in a bank indicated by the Consulate.

Once you have paid, if this is your first time, take 10 fingerprints.

Subsequently the employee hands you a sheet, with which there is written the date of collection of the passport with the visa which is usually ready after 3 or 4 working days. (in this period, in fact, the Consulate requests authorization from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Iran).

Anyone with the aforementioned sheet can collect their passport when it is ready.

TRAVEL REPORT

Punctual as never before, my plane of the Turkish Company Pegasus leaves from Milan Orio al Serio at 2.00 pm towards Teheran (Iran), with a stopover of 5 hours at the Sabina Gokcen Airport in Istanbul in Turkey (one-way price including taxes Euro 132 , 00).

I therefore arrive at 03:35 in the morning of the next day, Imam Khomeini Airport in Tehran, the capital of Iran (2 hours 30 'time zone, compared to Italy). I pass the not difficult Iranian border.

From Tehran's Imam Khomeini Airport, there is theoretically a minibus every hour to Tehran National Airport and Azadi Square in Tehran for a fare of IR 60,000 (you pay when you get off), but I expect it , pressed by taxi drivers, for more than an hour and I do not see him and then I get inflamed and I take a taxi (unofficial) that takes me in about 20 minutes to the Haram_e Motahar metro station at a price of IR 200,000.

 The ticket for the clean, safe and modern Tehran Metro costs IR 5,000 for a single journey, and IR 8,000 for two tickets.

The center of Tehran can also be visited with a free tourist train that passes adjacent to the Bazaar and Golestan Palace, a World Heritage Site;

The best place in Tehran to change money is Ferdosi Street where there are numerous money changers starting from the homonymous square located further north, reachable by Metro.

The Bus_e Jonoob Terminal in Tehran can be reached with Line 1 of the Metro.

From there I take one of the numerous buses that reach Khashan (Iran) every day in abundant 3 hours at a cost of IR 110,000. They offer you a snack on the bus.

The bus drops you off in Montazeri Square, on the north-eastern outskirts of Khashan (Iran). Numerous private taxis are waiting for you here. With strong bargaining I was able to rent one for half a day at the price of IR 200,000.

From Montazeri Square, on the north-eastern outskirts of Khashan (Iran), there are frequent buses to Tehran which stop after about 1 hour and a half in Qom, in Haftad Square (large roundabout) at a price of IR 50,000. You pay the ticket to the conductor.

From the large roundabout of Haftad Square in Qom, located 5 km north of the center, I hired a taxi for a short time to visit the City, for the price of IR 100,000.

Back in Haftad Square in Qom, I take one of the numerous buses that every day reaches the Bus_e Jonoob Terminal in Tehran in about 2 hours for a price of IR 60,000. You pay the ticket to the conductor.

From the Bus_e Jonoob Terminal in Tehran, reachable by metro line 1, I take one of the numerous comfortable buses that reach Mashhad (Iran) every day in about 13 hours at a cost of IR 475,000. They offer you a snack on the bus.

From Mashhad Central Bus Station, I hired a taxi for a short time to visit the city and then take me to the Meraj Bus Terminal, at a price of IR 190,000.

From the Meraj Bus Terminal I took the bus to Quchan, the small town located 100 km north-west of Mashhad. The ticket can be taken on the bus at a cost of IR 35,000. The trip takes about 2 hours. It also makes several stops in the center of Mashhad. There are frequent departures every day.

In Quchan you have to get off at the large roundabout on the state road, adjacent to the city center. Here the taxi drivers are ready for carriers everywhere, but to get good prices you have to negotiate with decision. For a taxi from Quchan to Bajgiran (90 km, about an hour long uphill mountain road trip with interesting views), I paid IR 250,000.

In the small village of Bajgiran, located about 1,400 meters. of altitude, on the border with Turkmenistan, composed of beautiful mud houses, there is a hotel located on the left at the beginning of the country. It is the Hotel Bajgiran in fact, but it is constantly closed and is opened specifically at the request of tourists who have to cross the border the following morning. Then the taxi driver, wandering around the small town, asking here and there, making some phone calls, managed to track down the owner who arrived in front of the hotel about 1 hour and a half after our arrival in Bajgiran.

He speaks almost no English but thanks to the honest taxi driver, who among other things did not ask me for any additional fees for all the additional services he has done for me (phone calls, waits, searches, etc.), I am able to make myself understood.

The Hotel is opened especially for me and the price of a double room with cold shower is IR 500,000. There are no single rooms. My passport is collected and kept in a safe. A photocopy of the same is not accepted.

The following morning at 7.00 the owner gives me my passport and at my request takes me with his van to change money in a grocery store in town. Here it is better to change the Dollars as the Euro is devalued badly.

Then he takes me to the Iranian border, located on a pass, about 2.5 km uphill from the Hotel Bajgiran (800 meters to get to the Iranian checkpoint + 1.7 km to get to the actual border).

The owner of the hotel for transportation with his van asks me $ 1.

My complete travel report with map, photographs and videos is available at this link:

https://vivendosalendo.blogspot.com/2015/09/viaggio-in-iran-e-nel-centro-asia.html