Today we leave Turkmenistan and cross the border into Iran. We have about a 35 km drive out of Ashgabat to the first exit gate from Turkmenistan where we have our immigration paperwork processed.
After this we have about a 15 km drive through lovely mountainous countryside with look out towers on the tops of hills and border control soldiers standing in the middle of know where. When we arrive at the second Turkmenistan e it gate we have to have all of our luggage out of the car to be X-rayed and we have our final processing of passports to exit the country. The boys take the cars to another area for processing while the girls take the bags an start the immigration process into Iran. While the cars are being processed we girls get to sit in comfy air conditioning arching a replay of the French open while we fiddle with our head scarves trying to get used them. The cars go through the carnet process into Iran smoothly and we then just have to wait for the Iranian immigration process. The border crossing takes us 4 hours to complete, so not too bad. We meet our guide Hesam and we start our 250 km drive to Mashhad on a fabulous MG road through the mountains and there are no potholes!
When we arrive at the hotel we are met by Mohammed and Ali from the MG Media Centre who sell and service MG’s in Iran. They will accompany us on our trip through Iran.
After we arrive we catch a taxi to the Ferdowsi mausoleum which is interesting. Ferdowsi was a famous Iranian poet.
Tonight we go to a large indoor/outdoor restaurant for dinner with the girls looking lovely & colourful in their head scarves! We have our first kebabs served on skewers the size of swords.
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