Today we decided to leave the hotel early, we stopped to get some bottled water from the only shop we found open that early.

The roads were better than yesterday, but still not good for cycling. Either way, we made it.

We encountered a young foreign couple from a distance, they waved at us. We got to know later that they were German, from their motorcycle' licence plate.

We had Donars as lunch from a stall, and we tried to relax by laying down on two chairs per each, but the guys there, didn't allow us to do so. Niether, our tired faces, mud-splashed jerseys, sun-burnt thighs nor google translate were enough for them to understand and empathise with us. We left excitedly to reach Iran!

On our way, there were many children selling blackberries and strawberries on the road sides. But what we actually saw, was children with no education, being forced to work in a country that it's GDP per capita is above the world average.

Despite many of the cities, towns or rural areas which we crossed through or passed by, not having a proper infastrcture i.e. roads. It is also important to note that, aside from the Pulblic University of Ganja, the number of schools we have encountered in Azerbaijan throughout our journey, is very little.

At around 4 o'clock, we stopped at a gas station to buy some refreshments. Jerry found himself the perfect ice cream to remind him of home. It had a panda logo on the cover. -Chengdu, his city is well known for pandas!

We entered the Azerbaijani border with no trouble. Nevertheless, the guy who was checking our passports to stamp it, took longer than usual to proceed. From his narrowed eyes and puzzled face, I believe he was finding some hard time trying to confirm my current mud-covered face with my photo on the passport.

Later, we reached the Iranian border where they welcomed us warmly, and one guy from the main office started asking us questions about our Silk Road Biking proiect with curiosity rather than in an investigation forum.

The same guy offered us food (bread and dates) when he knew were starving after our long day.

We finally made it to the hotel at 10:15 pm.

~Raghdan

Apologies for our delay - we've been having technical issues in Iran!

We left our place of stay in the morning, we went downstairs to prepare our bikes and put our bags on, like always. We met several men in the lobby who were very excited to meet us, and were checking the bikes curiously. One guy was really keen on introducing himself and taking a picture with us, apparently he also met the 57 years old, Gou Huanqiang who cycled from Portugal to China through similar journey, and whom was an inspiration for our project ever since.

Such a small world!

We later stopped at a shop near by to get some snacks for our breakfast and some water bottles. All the products in the market were locally made. It seemed that Iran has put an immense efforts on boosting their local industry after decades of economic sanctions.

After cycling for hours on the roads of Iran, it was apparent to see that the country has invested in their infrastructure i.e. highways, bridges and roads as part of their strategy to strengthening their domestic industry by facilitating the transport of goods from the producer to the Iranian customers.

With the view of the Caspian sea on the left side, and the green mountains on the right side, It was absolutely refreshing to cycle through such area.

For our lunch break, we stopped by a restaurant on the roadside. The owner of the place thought that we were asking for water, but with our humble Persian vocabulary and after repeating "Ghaza = غذا" which means food, several times, we were able to get our first authentic Iranian lunch. The food was a delicious stuffed chicken, bread, homemade pickles and some side salad. Iranian cuisine has absolutely one of the most flavorful food, they know pretty well how to use different seasonings and ingredients to create a well-balanced meal.

Aside from the deliciously-made lunch, the location of the place was something else. There were no chairs nor tables in the restaurant, instead, several platforms of 2 feats raised level surface were placed in the property. The surface of each platform was covered with a traditional Iranian carpet and several cushions, in order to create comfortable setting which people can have their meal on.

We stayed there for 3 hours, and it felt like heaven. A herd of several cows passed by us before we left the restaurant, it felt just like home, back when I once lived on the hills of the Western Ghats in India.

We headed back with our bikes to the road, getting even more excited than before to see more of what this country can offer.

One thing that we have noticed in Iran that was very similar to Azerbaijan, is the huge number of flags and posters of their political/religious leaders. It was Hayder Aliev in Azerbaijan, and Ali Khamenei in Iran.

We reached the town of Punel in the evening, to later realize after talking to a young girl who happened to be fluent in English and another Old man who also happened to speak good English that Punel is an industrial town and it has no places which we can spend our night at, therefore we were advised to cycle for extra 7km to the next town of Rezvanshahr which according to the locals, had some hotels where we could stay.

We reached Rezvanshahr and started asking people about hotels, till someone showed us a place where we could stay, it was a hostel known as Khans, in which only the locals go to, we started talking to someone who works there about the possibility of renting us a room, despite his excitement and curious questions that he endlessly asked when he got to know that we were a Chinese and a Syrian, We were denied entrance to the Khan because someone who had rented a room there with his family, expressed his resentment about our shorts and how this can be alluring to the women there.

We left the Khan/hostel half perplexed about the whole situation, and half disappointed for not finding a place to sleep tonight. Nevertheless, we kept asking the locals about possible accommodation options in this town, till one guy offered his place for rent on us.

He drove his Saipa car ahead of us, and we followed him with our bikes to his place which was in the outskirts of the town. It was a bit risky experience, however we took all the possible security precautions, and eventually everything went just fine, and the guy was nice enough to offer us tea in the next morning.

~Raghdan

The man, who we were staying at his place, offered us some tea before we headed to our daily journey.

We cycled for a few miles on a vehicle-free road. It felt way less stressful to have a short break away from the highways which are heavily populated with huge trucks. Nevertheless, having most of these vehicles acknowledging us either by a gentle horn or by a wave from the driver, is what makes us feel safe cycling on such chaotic roads. Hey, at least they can see us on the roadside, that's something!

The environmental surroundings were changing drastically every few miles. From a strong sand storm, clear sunny view, to some unprecedented humid. However, one thing that we experienced all the time, was the sweltering heat.

At noon, we stopped by a gas station and had 2 ice-creams per each, inside an AC-powered supermarket to escape the vehement temperature outside.

Jerry won the challenge of being the true explorer by choosing the most authentic-looking Ice-cream, even though he regretted his choices later on.

We continued on our journey under the strong Iranian sun, while keeping our eyes wide-open to observe the surroundings thoroughly. We saw dozens of pictures of people on the roadsides and in some town squares, whom we later learned were pictures of the victims or "martyrs" -as the locals referred to them- who died during the 8 years Iraq-Iran war in the 1980s.

We found these pictures to have an underlying purpose more than merely to revive their memory as victims of the war. Because, considering the fact that the war broke out only one year after the Iranian revolution ended and while the Khomeini's government was still going through some political unstably. Thus, getting out of the war without any lost territories, was considered as a victory of the Khomeini's government. That's why we found some Iranians referring to the same war as "The Holy Defense" which shows the pride the Iranians have of such "victory" under the Khomeini's leadership; Therefore, such pictures and posters are essentially used for propaganda purpose to indirectly praise the post-revolution leaders.

We stopped at a restaurant on the roadside where we had some delicious kebabs and rested for nearly two hours.

At 3:00 PM, we headed back to the road and continued our ride. At some point we had to stop on the side of a highway because we saw some signs which didn't permit bicycles to drive on the highway. Howbeit, after asking a group of trucks drivers, we were advised to "ignore" the sign, and to just drive carefully. So, that's what we did. It was actually risky, but definitely worth it.

At around eight in the evening we reached the city of Rudbar!. The place was well illuminated, colorful neon signs were everywhere; While the smell of fermented olives embraced the whole city. Making it the place of the best-quality olive in the whole of Iran.

People in Rudbar are well invested in producing high-quality olives, and literally everything in this city is centered around olives. Even the hotel where we stayed was named "Zaitoon" which means... Olives!

We had our dinner at a near by restaurant, and then went back to the hotel to take a shower. However, just before I was heading to the shower, the whole city experienced a water supply outrage. We had to buy 7 water bottles of 1 liter each, to shower with. Opening one water bottle after the other, It was shocking to realize how much water we consume on such activities like showering which we take for granted. It made us experience 5 hours of what the people of Capetown are going through on daily basis. This was absolutely eye-opening and should teach everyone of us something about the sustainable use of resources.

~Raghdan

We woke up early in the morning, and went downstairs where we had an authentic Iranian breakfast which -since we were in the olives city- had a good variety of olive dishes.

We left the hotel late in the morning aiming to reach our destination of Qazvin city. We cycled on the trucks heavily-populated road, we had to keep a relatively fast pace of 21km/h on the highways. It was a bit challenging considering the fact that we were climbing up. (The elevation in Rudbar was 250m, and it was increasing as we go further (

Today was probably the most challenging day, as there were no ups or downs, we were just climbing up.

We stopped by a shop to get some water, the man there was supper nice and genuine that he offered us water bottles for free. We sat on in front of his shop and had a small talk with him. We get to know that he had been to Syria in 2007 before the civil war, and that his cousin has died in Syria in 2015. I could see the sad sparkles in his eyes; he was still traumatized for his loss.

We headed back to our bikes, a bit relaxed and overwhelmed by the Iranian kindness, but we felt ladened with sorrow because of that gentleman.

We encountered our first long tunnel after 4 hours of cycling, it was absolutely hair-raising sharing the relatively narrow tunnel with two other trucks going in both directions. The air was very thin, and the tunnel was going up, and the trucks engines would scrunch louder than ever. So yes! It felt like having an adrenaline rush.

The temperature was vehemently hot, so we tried to take a very quick break at a gas station. The staff there were very curious to know more about us, one guy invited us to an AC-powered room inside, and we some kind of a talk with them about our biking journey and where we are staying in general etc...

We continued cycling, but it was getting harder and harder with every mile we cycled, and with the striking sun rays. We were getting tired faster than before.

Therefore, we stopped again under a tree, to be surprised by a hospitable Iranian family who -for our good luck- were having a picnic just few meters away from us. They offered us cold water and a huge watermelon chunk. It was exactly what I and Jerry were craving for in such weather.

We talked with the man briefly, he knew decent English, and we managed to communicate properly. He even invited us for lunch to his place in Karaj.

Later on we cycled for around 15 km, till we reached the town of Mulla Ali, where we found the perfect restaurant to spend our launch break at. There was a water stream crossing the property which kept the place refreshing.

We extended our stay in the place for another 30 minutes, because we genuinely had some hard time deciding to leave.

We left the restaurant at around 4:30PM, fully refreshed and immensely motivated to reach our destination.

We kept cycling in the mountainous area, enduring the challenge with every cycle we made. A car with two married couple, they seemed in their 50s, stopped by us and offered us some apricot, and fresh canerik.

We reached the elevation of 1630m in the late afternoon, however, It was getting dark, and we were around 20km away from the city of Qazvin. Therefore, since there no proper lights installed on the road sides, coincided by the fact we didn’t have proper torches as well, we decided to stop by the nearest town of Dodahe.

A man in a car stopped us and he told us that he's a big fan of cycling "I don't cycle, I just love seeing people cycling on their bikes" he said. We asked him if he knew any close by hostel. Unfortunately, he confirmed that there were no hostels nearby, however he would help us finding a place to sleep at. And sure he did.

We found a restaurant, whose owner is one of the nicest people I have ever met, he agreed on hosting us for free. We had our delicious dinner there, and then we went to sleep in a room inside the restaurant which is designated for praying.

~Raghdan

We left the restaurant -the place where we spent our night at- after having a glutted breakfast there.

Our longest ride per day started now, we went back to the road, it seemed much calmer than usual, maybe it's because it was still early in the morning.

There was an obvious motivation that was driving both of us to our final destination, Tehran! However, there was a hidden skepticism within us about the possibility of reaching our final destination today. Despite all the encouraging words we would throw to each other every now and then, our eyes were letting that skepticism out to be seen.

The elevation was starting to decrease as we go further; it was a crucial factor that we used to increase our speed, which sometimes reached 54km/h.

We cycled for miles, and with every sign indicating "Tehran" with the number of miles left, we were getting more and more excited.

We encountered a man who didn't seem like a local, and from his overloaded bicycle we knew he was a traveler just like us. Jerry initiated the talk with him while all the three of us are cycling on the city busy roads. We got to know that he was French and he arrived one day ago to Iran and he's planning to tour in Iran on his bicycle.

I remember when both of me and Jerry looked at each other with a mild smile wondering if he would make it with more than 10 bags hanging on his bicycle from the four directions. "He will throw away most of them as he cycles further".

I think the previous weeks of cycling have gave us a clear idea about most of the challenging aspects someone should consider while cycling, and over packing is defiantly one of them.

We cycled through the city of Qazvin; it seemed such a great and historical city. Both of us were reluctant to leave and wanted to spend some time there, but time is sharper than a knife, so we needed to keep going. Driving through the city center was absolutely an experience! Despite the properly built roads, traffic signs and lights, Iranians don't really follow a fixed pattern while driving; instead, it's pretty random sometimes!

We stopped by a market and had a quick launch break, we decided to make this break strictly short to save up sometime and reach Tehran before night.

One funny moment was when the cashier at the market, tried to fraud us by overpricing the snacks, which already had a price tag on them indicating a fixed price, exploiting the fact that these numbers were written in Arabic. I mean how would these two foreigners know how to read these numbers. Well, the little he knew, because Arabic is the native language for most Syrians. So he got caught and we managed to save some cash. Yes!!

We continued on our road to Tehran, and passed by a huge Oil refining plant. It was very ironic to drive one of the most sustainable means of transport, a bicycle, right next to the world's biggest contributor in the Global Warming issue.

We reached the outskirts of Iran in the evening, and after cycling for another hour the iconic Azadi Tower, The Freedom Tower, appeared in the horizon from a distance.

Yes, we couldn't believe that we have actually made it! I think the encouraging words we were throwing to each other earlier, were stronger enough to prove our skepticism wrong.

Later on, we went on another journey looking for a restaurant in the crowded city. Luckily, we find a Falafel place where we had a delicious meal that we both were longing for.

Tehran, here we are!! We can't wait to explore your places and meet your people.

~Raghdan

I arrived in North Korea, well, the one in Middle Asia—Turkmenistan. The only difference is that Turkmenistan is much richer with its natural gas.

Before I arrived, I stereotyped its people, imagined they weren't aware of foreign culture, they were stone-cold (opposite of its dessert weather), but, everything changed when I passed the border:

So after giving cash to my previous Syrian cycling mate-Raghdan to return home safely, and paying the post office to send our bikes, I only had 72 dollars in my pocket.

I spent 55 dollars for the Turkmenistan transit visa, 11 dollars hotel in Mashhad, 4 dollars food, 1 dollar for the train to the border, I only had 1 dollar in my pocket.

Before departure, I was informed that I needed to pay the Turkmenistan border 14 dollars as an ”Entry Tax.”

I know it’s not smart to have only 1 dollar in countries like Iran (no Visa or Master card supported) and Turkmenistan, but I had many plan Bs:

1. There is one exchange shop in Mashhad which accepts Visa and PayPal;

2. I can somehow find some Chinese tourists to get some cash via WeChat wallet;

3. I might find tourists at the border for help.

But unfortunately, the exchange shop was closed, I didn’t find single Chinese in the entire city of Mashhad, nor did I find any tourists at the border.

So here is the challenge: how to enter a country with only 1 dollar in my pocket, when 14 is needed.

If you don’t know the answer, neither did I. They led me to the counter to pay the entry tax. In the beginning, I pretended to not understand what “Entry Tax” is, and tried to enter without paying. For sure, this is not how it works in this North Korean country.

So later, I went back to the waiting room before the counter and opened my bag to see if I had safety cash.

I took all my bags out, and surprisingly, I found money! But it was Bosnian KM - 30, equals 15 euros, which should work, right?

But you might have never heard of Bosnia (and Herzegovina) as a country, well, neither did the border police. So after inspected the 30 KM in every possible way, they gave it back to me.

I returned to the waiting room, wondering what I could do now. If I cannot enter Turkmenistan, I also have no money to return to Iran. So I will basically be stuck in the border of two countries unable to enter either.

At this moment, a Turkmen woman, who I talked to on the bus to the border, came to me. She wanted to know what happened, so I showed the number of 14 and my empty pockets.

She seemed to understand and returned to her friends, asking each of them for money : "1 dollar, 1 dollar, 1 dollar, 1 dollar.."

She returned to me, giving me these old, folded-many-times dollars. The rest of her friends also looked at me friendly. At that moment, tears were swimming around my eyes. I didn’t expect these women, to be so kind to help me pass the border.

I tried to ask for her bank account number so I can return the money to her later. But she waved her hand and led me to the border counter.

On the way to the counter, I felt the money I carry was so heavy and so precious. Though I had so enough money in my bank account, none of that was of any use - sometimes the kindness of strangers do.

After paying, I shared my Azerbaijan and Iranian food with these women, but they only took a little, and close the food package. The woman, using her very little English, said: “Take this with you boy. Welcome to Turkmenistan!”

I looked back on them. Their red faces, their smiles, and their 14 dollars will always stay in my mind.

Spasibo. I waved them goodbye.

Do you want to know how I continue my trip in Turkmenistan without cash? Please follow our page and we will tell you more stories on the Silk Road.

~Jerry