I will get to the campground a bit later. Once underway this morning Nina started reading from the short Iran language primer that is at the end of the Lonely Planet guide book for Iran. So as we drove along we started trying to read the license plates on the vehicles that were passing us. This seemed like an achievable goal as the plates seem to contain mostly numerals. For the interested here are the numerals zero through nine - ۰ ۱ ۲ ۳ ۴ ۵ ۶ ۷ ۸ ۹. Unfortunately it is not quite that easy as there are two alternative symbols for the numeral 4 and also for 6, but I cannot find a way of putting in the alternatives.

After spending some time trying to learn the numerals it was time to learn about the refueling process. Fortunately we could follow another truck into a gas station so we did not have to try very hard to work out which set of pumps supplied diesel. Also there was a pump attendant so that also made the process a bit easier as I could simply indicate fill it up, but then it got complicated as he indicated by mime that he wanted my fuel card, which of course we do not have. He went off and a minute later returned with a card that he inserted into a slot on the pump and then the filling got underway. The diesel price was 3500 rials per liter or about US 49c per gallon.


Last night over dinner we discussed at length and without conclusion whether we would try and enter the city of Mashhad, the next big town about 100 km down the road from last nights camp. Mashhad is an important town for tourists and Muslim faithful as it has a well known shrine complex. But it is also a big crowded city and we are still unseasoned in the art of driving Iranian towns and so last nights discussion went back and forth between yes and no.

However this morning while studying our GPS maps to ensure I understood the alternative routes I happened to see a place on the southern side of Mashhad near the airport called Qadir Camp and it was marked by a tent symbol. At first I was a little sceptical; a camping ground - we have not seen a real camping ground since the US. But with nothing to lose we decided we would try to get to Qadir Camp to see what it was.

Arriving at the northern entrance to Mashhad we were confronted by a no-truck sign so we took the eastern bypass road that turned out to be a toll road as well. We traveled some distance along this toll road, maybe 30 km, until we came to a road heading west back into the heart of Mashhad. Fortunately we found no more no-truck signs and this road took us all the way into the heart of the city with its manic traffic.

As a brief aside we had been discussing during the morning whether Iranian drivers were as crazy as Central Asian drivers. The answer we concluded was yes, lane lines mean nothing, u-turns anywhere you like, and stop in the middle of the road. We did however conclude that Iranian pedestrians are a little more cautious than the Central Asian counterparts. However so far it seems that small motorcycles are much more prevalent in Iran than Central Asia and they seem to obey no rules of any description.

So after our traffic experience we arrived at the entry road to Qadir Camp and pulled up behind a European campervan. It was one of the guides from the Seabrdige-Tour group we met yesterday at the border. It seemed that the rest of the group would be along later and that the group was going to spend the night at this place. While Nina chatted to the guide I went to the entrance/ticket booth and "talked" to the guys there about whether we could camp in the place.

I noticed that there were dozens of groups of locals with tents set up relaxing in the warm afternoon sun, so it really was a camp ground - amazing.

After some discussion the answer was yes and I was instructed to "get car" and "follow me" and a group of men some on motorcycles and one on a bicycle led me through the very extensive campground to the place where they were going to put all the tour group vehicles. So for at least one night we became honourary Seabridge-Tour members - sort of.


Oh, I forgot to mention, the mobile ATM parked in the campground. Its the big box with the satellite dish on the back of the small pickup truck. But it only works for domestic banks, not much use to us.