Day 9 - We arrived in Tehran

Scout Tour: From Venice to Shanghai (July 24th to August 19th)
31.07.2017
Tehran/Iran

After our overnight stay in Qazvin we moved on to Tehran. Notably, we slept in the car – the Volkswagen Tiguan was our motorhome once again. It can accommodate three persons: two sleep in a reclining position on the front seats, and one on their side on the rear bench. Of course, you would rather stretch yourself out and straighten your legs. Yet the car provides the sleeping capacity and even lets you have a good night’s rest.        

When leaving Qazvin early in the morning, we saw an imposing monument in the spirit of our journey as it was directly related to the Silk Road! It depicted merchants leading a camel train to the fortress gate! Qazvin is regarded as the cradle of culture and art of the Iranian civilization. Qazvin was also always located at the crossroads of trade caravan routes providing a solid connection between the East and the West. They say here "Qazvin shining like a diamond on the Silk Road". To demonstrate Qazvin’s historic role and commemorate its great past, the city administration installed this grand monument in 2016 at the entrance to the city, right at the place where the Silk Road lay. It is truly impressive...      

When going through the outskirts of the city, we decided to take a look at a CNG filling station for passenger cars. Remarkably, it was located side by side with a regular petrol filling station, which is probably not so common for Russia, for example. In Russia CNG filling stations and regular petrol filling stations are typically spaced wider apart.    

First thing we were due for a reception at the German Embassy in Tehran. Tehran met us with heavy traffic jams and busy traffic. Indeed, it is a huge metropolis with whole blocks made of glass and concrete, high-rise buildings, multilane highways - all against the background of majestic mountains!     

We were in a hurry for the reception at the German Embassy and fortunately arrived on time. We would like to thank the German Ambassador for supporting our project. We had an official photo shoot with the German Ambassador. We also had a brief meeting with the main Iranian mass media and answered various questions relating to our great journey and the expected world record. 

This day began very early for us and was filled with various meetings and events. Of course, we got tired a little and decided to return to our hotel a bit earlier to have rest and regain energy for our further ventures. Tomorrow will have a relaxed schedule. The day after tomorrow we will move towards Turkmenistan – we are not even halfway through our route! We are looking forward to the exciting things ahead!

 

Author: Pyetr Bakanov

 

#Shanghai2Venice

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