We started the day by visiting the money exchange office to collect the funds that had been transferred over from Australia. It was a big relief to be flush with cash once more, knowing we were comfortable to get the rest of the way through Iran.

Once we had organised our finances and packed our belongings into the panniers of the bikes it was time to move on. Fariba, Kamran and Babnan had been fantastic in their hospitality and Kamran even tried to have us take two small hand made Persian rugs with us! This simply was not possible due to the constraints of being on the motor bike.

We hit the road around mid day and it was sad to go.  The ride out of Karaja and around Tehran was nothing but bumper to bumper traffic in 36deg heat which ended up causing trouble for the bikes as they are air cooled and require forward motion (at a reasonable speed) to keep the engines cool. Finally after many km’s my bike reach a point where I was not comfortable riding with the temp so high so we made it to the side of the road for a well earned break. After approx 20 mins the bike was back down to normal temp so we got back under way only to find the traffic free up only a few hundred metres down the road!

After  making it around Tehran we headed south towards Qum. The road was a dual laned highway and the and vegetation was more scarce as we headed south. It was very hot reaching 45deg at one point. We also witnessed two major car crashes on the ride today, both probable fatalities.

We arrived at  Qum to find a deeply religious city with most women in full black hijab.

The air conditioned hotel room was a welcome hiding place after such a hot ride.