Filling up with petrol & oil, we found that there was one price for the locals & one for foreigners. Locals pay 40cents per litre, we pay 70cents, very cheap to what we have had to pay elsewhere. The proprietor inserts a card into the petrol stand to change the price. There are very long queues at most service stations & they are few & far between so we fill up when we can. It is a very entertaining exercise being in the queue. Locals abandon their cars & head for ours. Most ask politely whether they can photograph themselves with our car. Men, women & children are all curious about the car & about us & all want to know where we come from.
As our route surveyor was delayed in Istanbul getting a visa, we were without GPS navigation into Tehran. Tehran is a huge city with vast expressways criss-crossing the city. We had the address of the hotel but no map so we were in a dire situation. We stopped several times to ask police but it was pretty hopeless. Next we tried the landmark of the Milad Tower & after finding ourselves back near it three times, began to despair. Finally we got on the right expressway & backtracking from going down a one way street eventually found the hotel. What a relief! This hotel had a pizza shop in its entry so that would do us for dinner tonight!
All this driving was in rat race traffic which got heavier as the hours passed, we were driving around Tehran’s one way street system for 3 hours till we finally arrived, and took Targa type concentration the whole time. It’s not at all unusual to see a driver swerve over three lanes and just make his exit ramp on a freeway, cutting across cars and all at 80-100 kmh. This of course is happening whilst those who find they have gone off the wrong ramp, reverse back down it and re establish themselves on the freeway.
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