As a nervous person, I woke up early, because still I was more than 250km from the port where I should leave at 21h (and be there at 17h). So, my bags were packed soon. At 7:30, Majid started packing my bike in the car and with a lot of ropes, he achieved a stable construction.
At 7:50 we sat down for breakfast and at 8:20 the whole family was in the car – they had decided to take a day off to go with me to Bandar Abbas!
Majid is a fast driver, the kilometres were melting and I was glad that there was no reception most of the time, so he could concentrate on driving.
I was waiting to see camels but when Majid showed me some, it was on the other side, so, no photo (it would have been a bad one anyway).
We reached the city shortly after 11
but the city is big (the second biggest Austrian city, Graz has less than 300000 inhabitants, Bandar Abbas has >500000), it took 30min to get to a beach near the city center. The boys ran to the water, the family wanted to stay there for a while,
and I started to unleash my bike to drive to the office of Mohadeseh. On couchsurfing, she originally had offered me to stay in Bandar Abbas but at that time (and until a few days before), I had not expected to come there. Now, there was a chance to meet in person and talk a little in German as she had started learning that language.
Majid offered to bring me there and so here was a goodbye at the beach from Taha and Matin and Sedigheh who had cared so much for me and now had tears in her eyes.
And 10min later, a second goodbye with Majid with 3 kisses on the shoulders.
Then, I was alone after a week of family life, my last and in a way most intense week with one of those incredible families in Iran…
I took a deep breath to cope with this situation of goodbye and leaving. Then I contacted Mohadeseh, she came to bring me up to the office where her nice colleague and her boss greeted me, and we sat down in her room to talk for a while. She also had ordered lunch, 3 different kinds of this Iranian food I love. Her friend and co-worker joined as for some bits.
She most of the time was without headscarf, smoked some cigarettes and had 3 tattoos on her arm what is a bit surprising even at the end of my Iran-days full of “aha-experiences”
Mohadeseh was shy to use her German, I tried to talk in German but after a while we ended up in English.
We had 3h time and packed them with different topics, from culture to agriculture, but then I realized that I would have to do 15km to reach the port and that I was late. It was a nice meeting and maybe it was easier to go because of time pressure but it was another goodbye so short after getting to know.
On the street, I didn’t find the route to the port on Mr.G and in slight panic I tried to connect phone and Mr.G to get the route. An old beggar approached me, and I would have loved to give some money and tried to say to her she should wait until I am ready with my tools which were making me mad. But the guard of the office came and send her away. When I finally was ready, I saw her in the wrong direction.
On the way, a motorcyclist came near me, asking where I am come from. After my answer he said good bye and drove on. After a minute, he let me catch up for another piece of conversation. He did it four times, always asking 1-2 question and the driving away! Then he asked me for my number and while driving saved my contact. Then he went on. After a while, he was here again, because something was wrong with the number. Then it was done, and I could concentrate on traffic, To add to my tension, Mr.G made a little detour with me and it was getting dark. My front light did always work only for 3-5min although I was going at least 20km/h all the time. But at 17:30, I reached the port. The use of being there so early (What minutes before I had considered as late)? Waiting…
First, I wanted to get confirmed that there is no problem with my Bandar Lengeh-ticket in Bandar Abbas and there was no.
A bit more relaxed, I went to the waiting area, looking for a good place to “park” my bike when someone called my name. It was Daniel, (day 078) sitting to another foreigner, Tomasz from Poland and a couple from Linz (Austria). We had not met in Shiraz, what would have been easy and as we had agreed and now we met in Bandar Abbas, because his and my plans had (been) changed.
Before sitting down next to them, I wanted to get something sweet. I regretted to be in a hurry and not buying something in a confectionary (I like them!) and there was a little kiosk selling tea and some small things to eat. In my wallet, I had some notes summing up to ~50000 and one 500000. I chose two small cakes and after shortly hesitating the shop keeper was ok with the small notes.
We “foreigners” sat together for a while, exchanging news and experiences. Daniel wants to get to Oman without any detailed plans and also Elisabeth and Harry were on their way to Oman with their self-customized old Landrover.
And then, around 18h, some movement around the passengers started. So, we also queued up. But then an officer took Daniel and me with our bikes aside and said we should wait there. And there we were standing for the next 1,5h, all the other passengers should pass before us.
In the end it is not so important where you wait, inside or outside.
Finally, we came to the x-ray which means to put all the bags down and after that put the bags back into their places to continue to the passport control. There some men wanted to enter the line in front of us, but Daniel told them to queue up at the end of the line. I don’t know if this is right or wrong, but I liked the situation with a German putting through what he regards as one of the basic universal rules and some Iranians perplexed by that but going to the end of the line and even telling some others that they should do the same, because of the tourists. (I guess, because I only could understand the word tourist and saw people going to the end of the row.)
After passport control, there was another x-ray, so again the bags had to be disassembled and then put back. After that, there was the next waiting area, but not for long this time and Daniel and I were in the middle part of passengers going to the ship. Someone showed us a place at the side of the ship to put the bikes and said we should leave the bags there, so we just grabbed a few things and went up to the passenger’s room. We had tickets with seat numbers but should just go to the back side (men’s side) and everyone chose a row of 3-4 seats for himself
First was tea time and you could see how important this was for most of the people! At 21:00 the ship didn’t move, but dinner was served. I didn’t try to eat extra fast but even if I would have, the Iranians were faster.
Around 23:00, the last trucks and the one car of Harry and Elisabeth were on board and the ferry took off. I wrote some good-bye messages before I would lose connection and then fixed my SPOT GPS railing to get some marked spots on my travelling map.
I was tired enough to try sleeping but the seats made this a bit difficult.