Tehran

Dan from London leads the way today.

Wow, I am in Iran !! It was an emotional day when it finally came. The effort to enter Iran with your own motorcycle was incredible, but with out question it was worth it. The standard questions , where are you from, my name, what city do you live in, the motorcycle, and so on,  start at almost every place I stop at. It may only be a brief stop for a bottle of water , but someone is going to see me and want to know more.. The people tooting there horns , smiling  and a wave as they drove past me on the road made riding in the Heat a lot easier .. Tehran is a big city in excess of 14 million people, traffic is as you would expect, but I can say I have seen worse !

Soltaniyeh, the worlds 3rd largest domed building 1303 AD

I hope you enjoy seeing more photos of me, I have been told it would be nice ... The first night was at Hosseins guest house not far from the border, then off to the Capital. Its going to be a faster visit than I would like, so its a busy schedule of riding early before the heat, and visiting the many sites in the evenings.

The photo here is in front of the old American Embassy ... Its a large compound surrounded by walls of graffiti . The graffiti is what it is, but does NOT reflect the general feeling of most people in Iran. I have been told just today that they wish for better relations between the countries, including Canada.

In Esfahan I was taken below the bazzare to see the dying of cotton, how they used camels to  turn stone wheels grinding spices, the making and repair of carpets , and hand painting of fabric . Esfahan has a long trading history as part of the silk road to Bagdad. .