Iran - Curious, Interesting, Remarkable Part 2

The other way round

At first you don't realise it, but at some point I am amazed because we are constantly running into people. Museum tours, buffets and the like, where people move in one direction, are "walked" anti-clockwise here. We suspect that this has something to do with the direction of reading. But we don't know. Or, as we can well imagine, nobody cares and they just do it the way it suits them. Nothing to do with our usual over-regulation.

Presents on the motorway

We drive on the motorway. Okay, not fast - our comfortable travelling speed is due to the road conditions and our Felix - about 75 km/h here. Of course we are overtaken. At some point a pattern crystallises, people overtake us, look to see who is sitting in the foreign car. Waves. Slows down, we have to overtake again. We are overtaken again, they wave again. During the next overtaking manoeuvre, the windows are opened and bags full of oranges, biscuits, dates or chilled bottles of water are held out to us. People laugh, shout and point to the side of the road. We stop (motorway, yes, so what?) and so do the little white cars. A large family gets out of two small Peugeot 405s and we are presented with fruit and nuts and lots of conversation (with loud Persian music playing on both car radios). Selfies here, Instagram there. After 10 minutes, we all happily get back into our cars and go our separate ways.

Magic traffic lights

"You can drive!" says Erfan. "It's red." "Yes, but after red comes green again, that's for sure." We learn that you can assume that a traffic light will turn green again at some point anyway. So you could actually always drive. So why are there traffic lights at all, we ask. Yes, nobody here knows exactly. But it's important for us to keep a close eye on who is coming from the right or left. Because we can't rely on the fact that nobody is coming from the "red" side even when the lights are green. But that should be feasible. That's what everyone does.

Lanes

Yes, there are rules for that. But nobody knows them. Nobody could tell us exactly why two lanes are marked. Maybe for orientation? Or as a centre line? We ourselves suspect that these lines were drawn on with magic paint and that only foreigners can see them. This is because we observe that Iranian drivers are line-blind.

And we learn that those who stick to the lane markings are more of a disruptive factor in the flow of traffic. And lives dangerously.

Roundabout or circular chaos

Roundabouts are there for turning. That means you can turn at roundabouts, you can drive against the actual direction of travel, you can pull out from the innermost lane two to five lanes ahead of us to the right, where you wanted to go anyway. Then we just have to brake and use the time to watch the hustle and bustle. People park at roundabouts in rows of two, three, four and five. Buses stop in the middle, taxis are parked directly behind them waiting for passengers. It makes perfect sense that vegetables, fruit, sweets and chickens are sold on roundabouts. And the so-called customer car parks are, of course, on roundabouts.

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Merci for "travelling with us

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