To get to Esfahan we had to go through the Zagros mountains. The long winding road was good quality bitumen and we made it into Esfahan on sunset. Before I left I had this great idea that we would drive in the morning and get in around lunch time so we had plenty of time to deal with unplanned events. I don't think this has happened once. Most days we are getting in on sunset, racing the setting sun. The Zagros mountains where beautiful in a desolate way. Very few people live out here.

Esfahan is beautiful. This was a hotel that we could only afford to have breakfast at. The Persians love their gardens and we really haven't seen much of that since leaving Singapore. As a budding gardener (okay I have a few pots) it was refreshing and uplifting to be able to wander through some proper gardens again. The Persians also have their own very distinct architectural style which translates very well into modern buildings. The colours blue and green are used extensively in their buildings as they are calming and natural colours. Mosques almost always use blue and while tiles in their palette. The golden inlaid tiles on the interior pic are very typical of this area. There is a lot of detail in the interior design, sterile minimalism in definitely not apart of their design philosophy but nor is baroque excess. I find it to be a very pleasing balance. The courtyard layout incorporating symmetrical wings and repeating Persian arches creates a peaceful vision that is perfectly complemented with the planned garden.

This is a very early palace in Esfahan. I'll write more on this when I get more time. Sorry!

One night, while we were walking back to the hotel a man came up to us on the street. This isn't unusual in Iran. For most of the rest of our trip we would have presumed that this would be someone trying to sell us something but not in Iran. He spoke broken English. He explained that he had tried to go to Australia... by boat. He then explained with a mixture of charades and English that the boat sank. He then said that he tried to stay in Australia but that it was "not possible". He shrugged, shook our hands and left. It was a surreal moment. Throughout this trip one of the things that has been special for me is that world affairs have become real for me. They are not something in the news happening in other parts of the world but something that we are driving through. Elections in Malaysia while we were there, a civil war in Thailand that we had to detour to avoid, lethal flooding in India that made us choose a new route, violence in Pakistan and Taliban controlled roads that forced us to go to the Arabian peninsular, consulates closing in Yemen to avoid expected Al-queda attacks kept us in the North of Oman, fall-back plans if Israel bombed Iran's centrifuges while we were there, Syrian refugees in the south of Turkey that made us keep to the North, and today, in Istanbul as I type this, I visited Taksim square, the origin of the protests in Turkey.