A much needed soothing photo to start the day!
At 4am the alarm woke us. Up out of bed and ready for the
conference call. JY joined form tassie but Chris and JGB were
unavailable.
John
noticed a mess in his locker, the liquid clothes washing soap had
leaked. What a mess. We saved what we could out of the plastic box
and sieved it back into it’s container. The cloth items that were
soaked in it, I did not wash out, but left to use in the next wash.
After cleaning up and having breakfast we headed back down the
track. I stopped to photograph some flowers. When we reached the main
road we had a welcoming party two cars. The police car with 4
uniformed cops and the other plain car with 4 plain clothes military
guys……
They
wanted to see passports and camera. The cop looked at the photos on
camera and was OK with them but the military guy was not - and he
deleted 2 photos off the camera taken looking out over the city.
There is a military factory down the bottom of the hill where we were
duly led.
John
stayed outside the compound with the passports and I went inside with
camera and laptop. I was given biscuits then left alone. I sent a
quick message to family and my location just in case...After 10
minutes I went outside to see where John was.
We
were both ushered back to the room with a military personnel. We were obviously waiting for someone, we were given a plate of sealed
bickies and a can of soft drink which neither of us touched.
Chris
sent me a message so I asked if I could call my son. No problems - I
went outside and chatted to him and was ushered back inside still on
the phone.
We
explained to the guy with English that we needed to get to the
Turkish embassy that that is why we were in this town. They let us go,
while they kept my laptop and camera.
We did
not have much success at the consulate as they do not have an
official translator and john was not allowed to sign a Turkish document
without it being translated and having the translators stamp and
signature even though it was a direct copy of one he had already
signed but with a different date…… Bureaucracy!!!
The
young lady was very helpful but could only suggest we get it in
English - translate it to Persian sign it with a notary, then consulate
can stamp it and in turkey have it translated into Turkish……..
Lots of work, or try another consulate maybe in Uzbekistan.
Back
to our “friends“ at the military “factory” . Here we were
delivered a lunch of chicken and rice, and tea.
John
was delayed coming to the room and the guy who had good English
asked me some questions but once John arrived I was ignored to the
point of being spoken over. He said he was trying to speed the
process for us. He made several calls to ask for out stuff to be
returned. Back at the vehicle he rang our visa through to someone
and asked if first time in Iran we both replied yes. He turned to
me and asked again I replied yes then he proceeded carefully to say
that some one with my name had been here in 2004 and 2016. I denied
again. I cant imagine there are many people with my name. Anyway it
was all cleared up, someone with a name similar to mine…
He
had another appointment so left, finally we received our laptop and
camera back and left.
We
let family know all was well.
It
was now late afternoon. We tried hard to get an oil change but no one
had a filter. Tried also to buy dried fruit but failed there as well.
We
headed out on a yellow road that headed east towards the border of
Turkmenistan finding a lovely camp overlooking a dam and a neat cliff
face.
A relaxing place to de-stress.
101km
101km