After reassembling the bikes and attaching the luggage we were already far behind the rest of the bus passengers, who had already passed the Armenia control. The officer instructed us topass the luggage through the x-ray machine, but thankfully didn’t require the bikes going through! Stood in the queue we drew some strange looks from locals, as seemingly the only forgieners around and with our mountain of luggage. After the officer had had agood look at all the stamps we passed through and were left on our own to walk/cycle the kilometre to the Iranian border. Not sure where to go, or where our bus party had gone, we nervously approached the most obvious looking building.
3 cheery army guys pointed us inthe right direction, welcoming us to Iran. On handing my passport over the young border guard shook my hand, offering me another welcome on the country. I nervously waited, wondering what would happen next.
When applying for the Iranian visa, i’d applied for the required reference code through tour agencies. One of which had followed up with a series of angry emails chasing payment. As they hadn’t done anything and I’d eventually gone with the other company I wasn’t about to cough up another 50 euros for nothing. The emails got angrier and angrier and eventually sent me an email claiming the had contacted the consulate to give me a “bad consular file”. It’d heard it was a load of rubbish, but even so it added to the uncertainty when trying to cross the border.
“No problem” said the officer, handing me back my passport and ushering me to the next window. The next officer asked me the same questions i’d filled in on the visa applicaion; “Father’s name”, ”Occupation”, “Place of Birth”. Before handing my passport back to the first guy who, after waiting for Xavier to go through the same process, led us to another room.
To my relief there was no more questioning, no accusations of us being spies or no other ridiculous scenario my paranoia had dreamt up on the bus. We had to give some fingerprints before being led through to the large luggage scanning machine. The atmosphere with the border guards and officers had been relaxed and jovial and they decided our luggage didn’t need to be scanned, waving us through and wishing us a good trip.
The bus hadn’t had such an easy border crossing and we had to wait an hour with the other passengers. An Iranian couple we’d spoken to on the bus had kindly invited to their house if we passed and tried taking a photo of us, before the police abuptly stopped them. We kept our cameras deep in our bags until we worked out where was safe to snap.
In the week before we entered Iran the Iranian currency (Rial) had plummeted, the US and EU sanctions on the country creating devestating effects to the Iranian economy. Dropping 25% in a week,followed by another 10% in one day there had been riots in Tehran protesting the government’s mishandling of the situation. The sanctions also mean that it is impossible to use mastercard or visa in the country, meaning we had to carry all the money we would need in dollars into the country. trying to guess how much was needed (with adequate contingency) was tricky, as all the people i’d spoken to who had travelled in the country claimed seemingly impossible low spending of $200-$300 per month.
The rapidily changing currency meant that when we cameto change money on the border we had no idea of a fair rate against the dollar. Checking my Iphone app informed me that I should receive 12,000 rial per dollar, but the price on the board offered a confusing 28,000. We checked a close by cafe for a price of coke but were none the wiser. I changed $20 at 28,000, hoping it would be enough to get a hotel for the night and I could confirm the fair rate in Tabriz in the morning.
The bus stopped shortly after the border and we bought our first meal in Iran. Chicken and rice (we’d be eating a lot of that in Iran!) came to $3 each with a drink. We later found out that this was near double what we would pay for the same meal the next day!
Our entry into Iran had been a friendly one; We’d had no trouble across the border and already been invited to stay in the homes of two families on the bus. It was late into the night by the time the bus stopped and I couldn’t wait to see what was in store in another new country!