Khuzestan

upon arrival in andimeshk, we were, as usual, swarmed by taxi drivers. unlike in turkey, they usually leave you be if you say no, though. i notice more and more and more that it's an iranian trait to create problems where there are none. despite this, after some back and forth, we ended up taking a taxi to a spot in the city where you can share taxis with other people to cut costs for longer rides. that seems to be the way to go if there are no bus connections to where you're heading.

like this, uyiun and i met our new friend (whose name escaped me right now, he only mentioned it once). he was a man in his fourties and had come back from a family visit in andimeshk. after hearing that we weren't sure where to sleep now, he instantly offered to host us both. we were more than glad to accept.

coming into his apartment, we were greeted by a typical persian living room consisting of carpets and carpets, which makes a great place to sleep, as it turns out. he made some breakfast for us, we took a nap, and then he drove us out to the city center of shushtar, where a famous historical hydraulical system complex lies. looks cooler than it sounds.

once again, the place was absolutely stuffed and more pictures were taken of us than of the scenery. we met a really nice family that helped us with the tickets, though. also, one of the daughters spoke some korean, which is far more common in iran than you'd ever think. all thanks to k-pop.

we concluded the day by hiring a private driver for 3 hours for 6.000.000 rial (~11€) to get us to an ancient temple a bit out of the city. we came at the perfect time for sunset, when the masses were already leaving, and even if i'm not a huge fan of old stone stacks, it was really pretty. we even met the family from earlier again.

back at the apartment, our friend was shocked to hear that we hadn't had proper dinner yet, so he whipped out some chicken to prepare some barbecue skewers. the guy was really the sweetest person ever and he got a lot of joy out of caring for us. by the way, he had the average iranian english competency level, which is zero. we had the google translate servers working 9-5 for us.

the next morning, he dropped us off at the bus station on his way to work and we said our farewells. sadly, we had to wait about 10 hours until the next bus to isfahan was free, so we had a guy from a grocery store take our bags while we went to the city park to wait it out.

we chilled for a couple of hours, surprisingly saw people smoking weed on more than one occasion (and were even offered a hit) and had some lunch before heading back to the terminal. the bus wasn't the newest, and uyiun next to me was sick from running around in crocs in the rain, but we survived and made it to the hostel.Read more