Earlier that guy smiled to me, I smiled back and next thing was showing me this message written on his phone, as he couldn't speak any word in English. I was shocked. I typed that it would be nice but I didn't know how we were going to communicate. "I have a teacher friend. She will help me." I was not really understanding what was all about but just kept typing on the phone and all the bus trip was like that until we reached Kashan.
We spent two days in Kashan, a small town south of Tehran where we could fully experience the real Iran and its people's hospitality. And really, even if people tell you Iranians are really hospitable, until you don't experience it by yourself, you don't realize until what extent. "Do you want to be my friend? I am from Kashan and I can show you everything about it. You can type on my phone". That was what I read on a smartphone a young guy showed me in the 3-hour bus ride on the way from Tehran to Kashan.
Earlier that guy smiled to me, I smiled back and next thing was showing me this message written on his phone, as he couldn't speak any word in English. I was shocked. I typed that it would be nice but I didn't know how we were going to communicate. "I have a teacher friend. She will help me." I was not really understanding what was all about but just kept typing on the phone and all the bus trip was like that until we reached Kashan.
Comments
A guy in Armenia said: The best thing you can do in Tehran is leaving it. Totally agree with that. Unless you have to apply for a couple of Central Asian visas. Then you are likely to spend a few more days than what you wished in this bustling, polluted, noisy and not pleasant city. But not everything is bad: a few beautiful shrines and especially people make you have some good memories of this otherwise forgettable city. As Internet is mostly blocked in the country, I was unable to update the website at all. Even if using a VPN to avoid the blockage, the Internet speed is so slow that it was totally impossible to do anything.
This first post is about Tehran, where we spent one week in two different visits to get the visas for China, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan and this way being able to continue the trip over Central Asia and into China. So, let's get started! Just one day sightseeing Yerevan to have a small taste of Armenia on the way between Georgia and Iran. Not really an interesting city, but ok to spend a day wandering around and having the last beers before heading to abstemious Iran. What are you doing in Yerevan? You want to visit Yerevan? Yerevan is not Armenia! It has nothing, it's just a Soviet city! You should go to the countryside, to see the real Armenia, the churches, the mountains... Armenia has the biggest concentration of monuments in the world after Italy!
Back into civilization after Svaneti. 4 days in the Georgian capital to find out that it is quite an interesting town, a mixture between Soviet and European city with a cute Old Town but being slowly spoiled by modern "chill out" cafés. Arriving to Tbilisi's main railway station after some days lost in the mountains was like being back to civilization. The train station is big and bustling. First thing we did was to try to book a train ticket to Yerevan, but unfortunately there were not tickets for the day we wanted to go there, so we decided to go and find the hostel we had booked and go to Yerevan by marshutka.
Earthlooping wishes you all a Happy Christmas from Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan. After more than a month without decent Internet to update the website, soon all the missing posts and pictures are coming! Hello back!
After one month in Iran, 5 days in Turkmenistan, 3 days in Uzbekistan and 3 days in Tajikistan with no option of updating the website (in Iran it was banned and the speed of internet made it impossible, in Turkmenistan there was no internet at all and in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan we had no material time to do it), now we are in Kyrgyzstan with kind of decent internet, so in the following days all missing posts, pictures and guides will be coming little by little. As an advance, saying that we have been in magical cities such as Esfahan, Yazd, Bukhara or Samarkand, in weird places such as Ashgabat, we have been invited home by Iranian families, visited the Iranian desert and applying for 4 visas on the road, among other stories, so stay tuned because really soon all these and much more is coming to earthlooping.com! For now, you can check our updated route map, top 10, videos and visas information sections! |
AuthorBorn in Barcelona and raised in Olot, I've been interested in travelling since I was a child, when every Summer I crossed Spain from coast to coast with my parents. Listening to my siblings' stories about their trips all over the world also helped, as well as watching Around the World with Willy Fog on TV :)
As I grew up, and while I was still studying... read more
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