2 Up Adventures

Quiet day here in Tehranville, waiting for the clock to strike Wednesday morning so we can mosey on down to the Embassy and get our visas.

Received word back from the Pakistan High Commission in Camberra this morning – we need to enter Pak before the 23rd August, and can then spend 30 days there. We’ll get our India visas on the 19th and stay that night here, then on the 20th ride from Tehran to Yazd (640km), on the 21st ride from Yazd to Bam (560km), and then on the 22nd ride the 320km or so from Bam to Mirjaveh (Iranian border town), cross into Pak and then hopefully push on the additional 300km to Dalbandin, for an overnight camp at the police compound there.

I’ve done a bit on the GPS – dropped in the ‘India’ SD card I bought in the UK (1/3 of the price in Australia); plugged in the GPS co-ordinates of accomodation places in Yazd, Bam, Dalbandin, Quetta, Sukkar & Multan; contacted BMW New Delhi (again) to try and arrange a service for when we arrive; etc etc, and did some more reading of an e-book I downloaded the other day – Stephen King & Peter Straub’s “The Talisman” – an oldie but a goodie.

Karen is just waking up from an afternoon nap now – we had a late night last night watching “The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” on the laptop – that’s all part of our preparation for India you know (and we thoroughly enjoyed the original “Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”). The sequel seemed a little contrived in places, but it was still entertaining.

In this state of suspended animation we’ve been in recently we’ve managed to crunch through the latest season of ‘Big Bang Theory’ AND also ‘Game of Thrones – Season Five’ – though I was peeved with the ABC the other week as in one of their news articles re GoT they published a massive spoiler and hadn’t issued a spoiler alert at the start of the article – bad form ABC !!!

Late in the afternoon we caught a taxi out to the Milad Tower – also known as the Tehran Tower – the sixth tallest tower in the world. Brought online in 2009, this tower is a modern celebration of Iranian design, engineering and artistic skills, and dominates the skyline whe you look north forwards the mountains.

Copy and paste this link for the Milad Tower website – http://www.tehranmiladtower.ir/en/

‘Copy and paste this link for a cool brochure on the Milad Tower – http://www.tehranmiladtower.ir/images/milad.pdf

I bought our 2 x 350,000 IRR tickets to go to the top of a Sky Dome, and we made our way past the food shops in the ground floor area (including ‘Fresh Way’ – a Subway lookalike), up the escalators and along the forecourt to the tower proper, and then up the elevators to the Sky Dome. We had an amazing view over all of Tehran, and had timed our arrival so that we could watch the setting sun.

Everyone was ushered out of the Sky Dome before sunset so we went downstairs a few levels (the Tower has a 12-storey head structure perched near the top of it) and walked around these levels, one of which featured wax works of famous Iranian poets, professors (including Albert Einstien’s favourite student), musicians, soldiers, athletes (a wrestler who first won gold for Iran in Melbourne in 1956), and authors.

Another floor featured the Municipal Museum of Tehran, and which showed off gifts such as plaques and other momentos given to the Mayor of Tehran from other countries.

We watched the sun set over the mountains, and watched the lights of the city start to twinkle below before we left the head structure and caught the elevators down to the concourse, which featured a music show and many small craft stalls set up in the gardens. We enjoyed a crepe each for dinner – Karen had Nutella and banana in hers whilst mine was a cross between a hotdog and a crepe, before grabbing a taxi for the night ride back to our hotel.

Iranians are proud of the Tehran Tower and rightly so – it’s a wonderful place to visit, and lays all of  Tehran beneath your feet.