Whoever we ask, everyone agrees. The island of Qeshm is a must-see. When we tell someone here in Iran about our plans, their eyes immediately light up with joy. It seems to be the dream destination of all Iranians. They either have fond memories of this island or they want nothing more than to come here one day. We are talking about beautiful nature, miles of white sandy beaches, turquoise blue water, dolphins, turtles, a summer holiday feeling and shopping.
The latter confuses us a little, as we are not exactly shopping fans. But as far as we understand it, the island is a free trade zone and many products seem to be cheaper than on the "mainland", as they affectionately call the rest of the country. We can't control it, we don't know how expensive steamers, air conditioners and all kinds of electronic kitchen appliances are. We also don't care about perfumes, cigarettes and cosmetics, neither here nor anywhere else in the world.
So I guess we'll have to make do with the beautiful nature - what a joy!
First we have to take the ferry across. Easier said than done. Because we're actually ferry professionals: buy a ticket, get on and that's it. Not so here. We have to do a bit of paperwork because of the free trade zone. So I trudge off with all our papers and try to get an island permit.
(We have realised that, as a woman, I am treated very politely and perhaps a little more courteously. That's why I often take on this part).
Smiling and shrugging my shoulders helplessly, I stand in front of the official. He nods, leads me into a cubicle that looks like a container, and there they take my passports, visas and our Carnet de Passage, our "passport for our Felix", to copy everything in triplicate. While I'm waiting for my copies, I unexpectedly get breakfast. A lady rolls pita bread into sandwiches for the men in the office and for some reason I'm handed one too.
I wonder if she knows that it will take even longer and that I'm still without breakfast.
Meanwhile, Gerd has moved up in the queue of cars and is told that he'd better pull over until I'm finished. Together with my copies, we are now taken to an office where everything is neatly sorted, checked and filed. Our papers are compared with Felix's engine number and we go to office numbers two and three. With stamped papers, we are taken back to office number one.
We are amazed at how friendly and, above all, relaxed everything is here. We don't understand anything about the procedures, smile, go along with everything and, as so often, are given a very friendly welcome by everyone.
During a waiting break, a trucker comes out of the queue in front of us, hands us another breakfast through the door and wishes us lots of fun on the most beautiful of all islands.
At some point we have all the papers together, everything that needs to be stamped is stamped. They give us a friendly nod and ask us to join the queue again. The next ferry is ours.
There isn't really a timetable, the ferry leaves when it's full. This suits us because we are just before the holiday season, there are plenty of cars and lorries here and the next ferry shouldn't be long in coming. So we push forward metre by metre, only to realise just before the ferry, really just a metre before, that we have forgotten the most important thing: We don't even have a ticket!
Gerd now slowly pushes his way back through the crowd, to the side, somewhere. There is friendly honking, we are overtaken from both sides, and yet nobody takes offence at our chaotic reversing. We are helped again. A young man emerges from the crowd, takes Gerd with him and they both race back to the ticket office on an old motorbike: Gerd buys a ticket for us and our Felix, they both race back and as our ferry has long since left, we are now in pole position in the queue for the next one.
After a few minutes, the race for the ferry begins. Only someone who knows the traffic in countries like Iran, Tunisia or Italy can understand why, although we started from pole position, we only ended up in midfield. It's not about coming up properly, it's about being first! This completely overlooks the fact that man, and I deliberately write man instead of man, falls back from first place on the way up to last place on the way down. Well!
On the ferry we make new friends again, where to, where from, the usual. We really stand out with our motorhome: We are significantly higher than all the other cars and vans, we have a number plate with Latin letters and: Our "cloud of fog" Felix is not white. Simply disappearing into the crowd doesn't work so well here in Iran. So we do what is probably the smartest thing to do: we smile, say hello, answer the many questions, make the young people happy when they can practise their painstakingly learnt English phrases on us and are always available for photos.
Oh yes, the island: more on that later. And I can already promise that we'll really like it on the island and that we'll still leave it a bit hastily at some point after two weeks.
Photo info: Of course there are no photos of all the "border events", we don't think that's desirable.
Merci for "travelling with us
We are thinking about taking another break from travelling in the summer and visiting our families in Germany and Switzerland. One of the ideas is to organise a Lecture about our long journey to the Persian Gulf to prepare. If you would like to, what would interest you the most? We will also tell stories here that don't find a place here on the blog. We're thinking of the Bern and Berlin area - simply because we have family there. But other places are also conceivable. Feel free to write to us.
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Mum Mia......
It all sounds pretty chaotic.
But also exciting 😉
I'm very curious to see how things will continue.
Best wishes from the fresh Bavaria from Racheli