A long (600+km) drive today from Shiraz to Bandar-e Abbas, the port where we’re due to leave Iran from by boat tomorrow.

We broke the journey by stopping at Sarvestan, briefly as the traffic was held up be the sacrifice of a cow on the main road into town in honor of the Leaders (Ayatollah Khamenei) visit. We then stopped at the Sasanian Palace, just outide of Sarvestan, a lovely domed building from around the 5th Century CE.

Afterwards, the trucks pwnd the road. We saw hardly any cars for 300km, but loads of trucks heading to and from Irans main port. Ironically, being in Iran, there were no gas stations and we arrived at our final Iranian destination running on fumes…

After enjoying the night at the Caravanserai hotel, we wandered around Sheki, and visited the amazing Khans Place.

After sending some postcards, we drove to the mountain village of Lahic, founded over a 1000 years ago by a retiring Persian Shah in a beautiful setting among steep-sided valleys.

Famous for it’s copperworks, we wandered around the small centre, browsing and talking to the coppersmiths. We ended up buying a small oil lantern (yes, we rubbed it, it’s sans-djinn), and talking to a guy who showed us a small museum above his shop.

It was getting late and we had a long drive to Baku, but I couldn’t resist the sight of the old guys of the village drinking tea and playing dominoes, so we joined them.

We got a few strange looks, but we ordered “chai” and started playing dominoes together. A crowd soon gathered, tea was delivered and then the shopkeeper challenged me to a match! We had a few good games, and I held my own but lost on the tie-breaker… Not bad for a first-timer though! Kristy then had a few games, and the sight of a woman playing dominoes was clearly too much as a bigger crowd gathered around to watch! We had a great time in Lahic, with great people, but we had to get back to Baku…

Kristy took the exciting night-driving shift, and it was a long drive. We didn’t have a place to stay, and as luck would have it we passed a “Ramada” sign after by-passing Baku, and pulled into a huge new hotel.

About 200 rooms and we were the only guests! We were very spoilled! We’d missed the restaurant (although the manager was about to call the chef and wait-staff back), so we went to the nightclub. Blaring music, locals dancing and flashing lights made to an entertaining and surreal end to the day…

I highly recommend “Russian Standard – St Petersburg” vodka, as smooth as a good scotch!

Ramada Baku

http://ramadabaku.com

Salyan Highway, Shikhov Beach, 1023 Baku, Azerbaijan