Date: 23rd of April 2011
Places: Mashhad
Temperature: 27 (day) / 20 (night)
Progress: 900 km (starting from Teheran)


The morning really reflected, that we were after all on vacation, and everybody slumbered and started reading until a little before ten, when I took a shower and got shaved. The small bakery right outside the hotel had just opened, and with the addition of jam we had a very civilized breakfast again with hot bread, which was hardly 60 seconds old. After breakfast we discussed how to get to the Turkmen border, and after a few ponecalls, we partly had two offers. Wanting to see the famous carpet museum, we once again went down to the shrine, but was once again asked to wait for a guide. When he finally came, he could tell us, that the carpet museum was closed due to restoration, and so we continued towards Nadar Shah's mausoleum. On the way we came across a minibus, and after five minutes discussion, we had ourselves a ride for 100$. Great! The Nadar Shah mausoleum turned out to be quite nice, and though he was considered a tyrant by others in Central Asia, Mashhad probably liked him, because he made it the capital of the empire in the middle of the 18th century. We continued down to Melli Park, where we relaxed and sat reading in the shade for about an hour without doing much else. The technical highlight of the day was trash bins, which powered by solar cells would thank you (in farsi), when you threw trash into them. Having gotten hold of stamps, we looked for postcards, but didn't succeed until much later, in a shop which only had one postcard (of the Imam Reza shrine, of course), so we bought ten of the same. We also tried to find a place with a view over the shrine, but this also turned out not to be so easy. Having circled the shrine, we returned to our hotel via the bazaar, where I managed to get a 1$ shoe shine, while sitting on a staircase reading and watching people go by (being watched myself equally much). After an hours relaxing and more of the wonderful hot bread and tea, Christian and I went down to the shrine again and managed to get the most out of the "blue quarter" with our cameras. Finally, we went eating at the same great joint as the night before, and went back to prepare for the very early 5am departure for our journeys real destination and heart land... Central Asia.