Bandar Abbas is a port. Some ports, like Fremantle, can be fascinating places. Others are just ports, places where sea containers get shuffled around. Bandar Abbas is very much the latter. However after our marathon day with customs that finished after dark we had no other options but to find a hotel. The picture on the right is our car parked out the front of our hotel. The other picture that I took as we came into port is a type of traditional wooden ship used to ferry goods around the gulf. It is being loaded by hand. The men on the right have formed a human chain and are hand loading the melons one at a time. It's an incredibly antiquated process but it was really nice to see that it is still done in parts of the world. Containerisation has certainly made shipping things easier and cheaper but it has also lost some of it's romance in the process.

The path to Shiraz and Persepolis took us through the south of Iran which is a desolate place. It is however blessed with some spectacular mountains. They look like giant rocks rather than the sand and flora covered mountains as we are accustomed too and this gives them a spectacular grandeur.

This is a typical little town that borders the main road. As there isn't any elevation it's hard to get a good shot that illustrates the place well.