Cycling to Asia, week 10

Here we go again! OH how good it is to feel the air in my hair, yes the wheels are turning, the legs are doing their job... we keep on moving east, well this time a bit more southeast. We decided to make a small detour and check out the biggest highlight of Iran: Persepolis. Our plan was to cycle down there, see the old Persian city and cycle back up to Yazd, but well we underestimated the Iranian distances (and the map we have... is really crap!). On the second day of cycling from Esfahan we have found out that we're not gonna make it. Because its more than 800km of cycling, plus sightseeing, plus catching the bus to the Pakistan border and all of this just in one week... impossible. So what we gonna do?
It's simple just let the karma work for it self, or let the Iranians do what they are best in: be hospitable. At the end of the second day, after cycling some good 100km there were these two guys with a truck having a rest on the car park area on the highway. They showed us to stop, as many of them did before... sometimes we do, sometimes we don't... depends on our mood. This time Dusan had a good intuition and we stopped... YEAH all the Farsi questions: "Where are you from?" and "Are you cycling from Slovakia?" and "Where are you going?" and "OH India!!!" as hundred times before, but this time we also told them we go to Persepolis and they eagerly said that they do as well... so here we go, we have a good 300km hitch in the truck all the way to the sight. Funny part was that after they have found out that our Farsi is really limited just to the basic five questions they wanted to kick us out... but hell no! You said you're gonna take us, so you gonna take us, full stop!
How was Persepolis? Imaginary, original, majestic, monumental, reveling, useful... just imagine how much effort they put to create this original majestic stone city just to find out that nothing last for ever. Even the biggest or strongest monuments are impermanent... What a trust the locals must have had in the King and it didn't last even two centuries... this is useful thought for everybody I ques...
Cycling back was probably the best cycling in Iran. There were nice towns, mountains, deserts, friendly drivers, stupid drivers, hospitable people and beautiful mountain passes... Since we wanted to see bit of Yazd we cheated a bit again and hitchhiked. This time it was proper hand showing process, just that we had to be really picky, since we could accept just pick ups or trucks... it worked after a while... why did the driver asked for ridiculous 50$ for a 100km ride we do not know, but well we gave him a fiver and wished him to recover from the stupidity... Generally the hospitality of the locals is incredible, but on the other hand quite a few tried to rip us off... so our feelings are quite mixed. The good ones definitely overwhelm the bad ones, just that the negative memories are more sticky...
Now we are in the mud-wall ancient city of Yazd, just chill in before some crazy 14+14 hours of bus riding all the way to Pakistani Queta... we met here the other cyclists and decided to cross the border together. So now we are 5 europians heading east...