(Insert hilarious kebab pun here) - Our Time In Iran

It's been a while since our last post, so let me bring you up to speed.

We had to head back to Australia quite urgently for a family funeral. When we found out, we just happened to be in Khorog, which is a town in the middle of bum-f*ck nowhere on the border of Tajikistan and Afghanistan. Now as the crow flies Khorog to Tajikistan's capital Dushanbe is only 500km, but it for some reason took us 3 days to drive there. This was mainly due to the "road works" and horrendous condition of Tajikistan's roads. Anyway, we made it back to Dushanbe and had our flights booked and ready to go. We had given ourselves 4 hours to connect in Dubai, and thought we were pretty awesome for finding such great flights.

However, as luck would have it, our flight from Dushanbe to Dubai was delayed by 3 hours causing us to miss our flight from Dubai to Adelaide. After parting with $500 and physically restraining KG from leaping over the Emirates connection desk to murder the staff member who foolishly suggested that she should 'calm down', we booked ourselves a new flight via Melbourne.

After spending an additional 8 hours in the Dubai Airport our flight from Dubai to Melbourne was delayed by 90 minutes, which caused us to miss our flight from Melbourne to Adelaide. So, after another 2 hours of waiting in the Melbourne Airport, we finally got on our plane to Adelaide. We eventually arrived in Adelaide around 18 hours behind schedule... fun times! After 3 weeks in Australia, we re-embarked on our journey flying to Iran via a brief stopover in Dubai.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is a country where we had absolutely no idea what to expect. Everyone we had met who had been there said amazing things about the people, the food and the sights but we were still quite unsure of what we would find. But straight off the bat we absolutely loved it - the people are incredibly friendly, the food is fantastic (although we did get 'kebab fatigue') and there is a massive amount to see and do.

Our trip kicked off in the capital, Tehran, which to be honest was a little bit 'meh'. Being the thorough planners that we are, we didn't realise that Islamic countries have their weekends on Thursday and Fridays (we landed on Wednesday afternoon) so pretty much all of the major sites were closed. Nice. We strolled around the city for a few days, trying to get used to the absurd number of zeroes on their currency and being constantly approached by friendly locals asking where we were from.

Dried fruit & nuts in Tehran - delicious!

Archways at the Golestan Palace.

Golestan Palace

The Azadi Tower in Tehran by night.

After a few days in Tehran we hopped aboard a surprisingly comfortable VIP bus (short for 'very important passengers' of course) and headed to the much smaller town of Kashan. It was here that we felt we had made it to Iran. The small dusty was city was home to some beautiful old mansions, a centuries old labyrinth of a bazaar and some incredible mosques. KG had managed to master the art of the hijab (head scarf) by this stage but was discovering that there were some logistical issues when it came to eating - namely, she kept finding pieces of food amongst the folds of her scarf when she took it off at the end of the day. It was also in the heat of Kashan that I made a foolish quip about not being able to wear shorts - after an ear-bashing from KG (who need to be covered head-to-toe whenever she left the house), there was to be no more complaining about the heat from me from that point onwards.

The ceiling of a caravensari in the Kashan bazaar.

Masjed-e Agha Bozorg (Mosque) in Kashan

Katherine with a finger in her ear.

Katherine without a finger in her ear.

The Hammam-e Sultan Mir Ahmad (bath house) in Kashan.

The Shrine of Hilal ibn Ali - KG showing off her chadoor game.

The desert city of Yazd was our next stop, renowned for it's winding alleyways of mud brick buildings, another centuries old bazaar and a religion we had never heard of called Zoroastrianism. We spent two days admiring the beautiful mosques, meeting the locals and eating a silly number of kebabs. It was here that KG decided that Zoroastrianism might be a religion she can get behind due to the large amount of feasting involved. A true believer in feasting herself, she seemed to see the benefits of the monthly Zoroastrian feasts of dried fruit and nuts. The part where you have to leave your corpse on the top of a mountain to be feasted upon by vultures did turn her off a little bit though.

The main entrance to Masjed-e Jamah in Yazd.

The minarets at Masjed-e Jamah.

The Amir Chakhmaq Complex

Selfie at the Bagh-e Dolat Abad gardens (note:Katherine's thumb made it in to the photo).

This fire at a Zoroastrian Fire Temple has been burning since the year 470!

From Yazd we jumped aboard another amazingly comfortable bus and heading to Shiraz. You would think that being the home of the famous grape you would be able to score a sneaky bottle of two, but not in Iran unfortunately. No drinkies allowed. We went full tourist and hopped aboard a half-day tour of the ancient ruins of Persepolis and Necropolis. Persepolis is over 2,500 years old and sections of it were built by Xerxes, that giant bald guy with heaps of gold in the movie '300' (Editor's note by KG: the movie with all the buff, half-dressed Spartan men. It was a good one). It was an incredible day out, the ruins were really well preserved and quite fascinating, However, the half day trip took it out of us and we spent the rest of the afternoon napping. KG has been working hard on increasing the number of 'double nap' days on this leg of the journey, despite accusations of me 'nap shaming' her.

KG in an archway at the Masjed-e Nasir-al-Molk in Shiraz.

The incredible dome at the Aramgah-e Shah-e Cheragh shrine in Shiraz.

Another shot of the dome with a bit of archway action going on in the side.

One of the main gateways in Persopolis.

The ruins of the Palace of Darius I in Persopolis.

Carvings of different civilisations bringing gifts to Xerxes I.

The "Gate of Nations" - all the different civilsations holding up the Emperor.

Standing above Persopolis.

The Necropolis, with the tombs of Xerxes I and Darius I.

Next up was Esfahan, the tourist capital of Iran! Esfahan was a maze of stunning Islamic architecture, full of mosques, shrines, bazaars and palaces - you would think we would be over it by now but we really weren't, it's quite amazing to look at! Our tolerance for kebab reached it's limits here though. We ended the monotony with three straight meals at the fast food shop around the corner, and feasted on deep fried goodies and BBQ chicken.

The main archway to Masjed-e Shah in Esfahan.

A caravanesari in Bazar-e Borg.

Masjed-e Jameh (Jameh Mosque) in Esfahan.

To change things up - this is inside a CATHEDRAL!

KG in what should be a river...

Our final stop in Iran was the northern town of Tabriz. To get from Esfahan to Tabriz we had to catch an overnight bus. There were two major issues with this bus. Firstly, we couldn't find out how long it would take - we had reports of anything between 9 and 14 hours (very handy). The second problem it stank of armpits and kebabs.  And just to top it off, the driver was turning the cabin lights on and off like a Blue Light friggin' disco and the guy in front of was farting endlessly. Needless to say, not a lot of sleep was had, and the bus took just over 14 hours. It was also in Tabriz (thanks again to our sensational planning) that we ran into the second biggest religious holiday in Iran which meant that not a single restaurant was open for two days. Our lunch/dinner of kettle chips, bananas, cake and Coke made us feel like we were in the first episode of The Biggest Loser when they look at the contestants' diets and all the trainers start crying at the tragedy of it all. Except we were the ones wanting to cry.

From Iran we head off to Armenia! So bring on good wi-fi, red wine and some form of protein that isn't a kebab!