ASIANOVERLAND.NET LONDON TO SYDNEY  DAY 308: DOGUBEYAZIT,  TURKIYE TO TABRIZ, IRAN

Iran, also known as Persia, is one of the world's oldest civilizations, beginning in the fourth millennium BC.

Iran was unified by the Medes, an ancient Iranian people, in the seventh century BC, and reached its territorial maximum in the sixth century BC, when Cyrus the Great founded the Achaemenid Persian Empire, which became one of the largest empires in history and a hegemonic superpower.

The Achaemenid Empire fell to Alexander the Great in the fourth century BC. An Iranian rebellion established the Parthian Empire in the third century BC, which was succeeded in the third century AD by the Sassanid Empire, a major world power for the next four centuries. 

Arab Muslims conquered the Sassanid empire in the seventh century AD, leading to the Islamization of Iran, which became a major centre of Islamic culture and learning, with its art, literature, philosophy, and architecture spreading across the Muslim world and beyond during the Islamic Golden Age. Over the next two centuries, a series of native Iranian Muslim dynasties emerged before the Seljuk Turks and the Mongols conquered most of Iran.

In the 15th century, the native Safavids re-established a unified Iranian state and national identity, and converted the country to Shia Islam.

At the start of the drive from the Turkiye/Iran border to Tabriz, I decided I should befriend our supervising Iranian policeman (it's a long drive from Turkiye to Pakistan), and started playing backgammon with him. Backgammon is the most widespread of table games, dating back 5,000 years to Mesopotamia and Persia. After a few aggressive, theatrical games of backgammon, the Iranian policeman opened his briefcase, pulled out a bottle of Johnny Walker Scotch Whisky, and proceeded to pour two glasses for us to enjoy and sip while we continued playing backgammon through the mountainous Iranian countryside. I was enjoying the backgammon, the whisky and the drive through Iran, when we made a sudden, unscheduled stop, and aggressive Revolutionary Guards boarded and inspected the bus. Our supervising Iranian policeman and customs officer seemed to satisfy the aggressive Revolutionary Guards, who disembarked, so we proceeded on our way east. But one of our female punters was extremely distressed and said that, during the bus inspection by the Revolutionary Guards, the Iranian policeman had put his bottle of Johnny Walker scotch whisky on her bed under her pillow!!!. The pep talk I’d given the punters the day before about a complete alcohol ban, and stoning as a standard Iranian punishment, had obviously gotten through.

I didn’t say anything to the Iranian policeman when we resumed our extremely competitive games of backgammon. However, when his bottle of Johnny Walker reappeared, I stopped the polite sipping of his whisky and started to drink more quickly, helping myself to his whisky and giving us both large pours at the end of each game. It’s a dirty job, but someone’s gotta do it!! The bottle was empty before our next scheduled stop at Tabriz.

Tabriz contains many historical monuments representing Iran's deep history, with historical sites belonging to Ilkhanid, Safavid and Qajar, including  the grand Bazaar of Tabriz, a World Heritage Site. 

From the early modern era, Tabriz was pivotal in the development, movement and economy of its three neighboring regions, the Caucasus, Eastern Anatolia and Central Iran.  As Iran's closest hub to Europe, early modernisation in Iran began in Tabriz. Prior to ceding the Qajar dynasty's Caucasian territories to Imperial Russia following two Russo-Persian Wars in the first half of the 19th century, Tabriz was at the forefront of Iranian rule over its Caucasian territories.

We stopped at a coffee shop in the main street in Tabriz and the toilet was an outhouse at the back of a large garden full of the largest marijuana plants I had ever seen. Iran was full of surprises and it’s only Day One!!

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