Christmas Eve! And a short ride today into Qazvin, only 60km and here we would stop for the rest of today and tomorrow, Christmas Day.

Sort of uninteresting ride into the city. Long flat busy roads next to lots of empty fields, not much to look at but good conditions for riding fast. And a tailwind to boot.

In a small satellite town outside Qazvin we got invited into a car dealership where we sat in a glass-walled office and drank tea with the owner and his friends. There was the usual token Kurd there, the friendly guy with the cheeky glint in the eyes as normal when we can’t communicate we end up just naming the places we’ve been before but that always seems to please people enough.

Next door to the car dealership was a kebab place where we went into eat. A very friendly guy ran this place on his own. He showed us photos of when he was in the army. We understood from some pretty impressive miming that these days he liked to just run his shop and practice karate.

On the cycle into the city we were stopped by a friendly local who gave us directions on how to get to the city center. We thanked him and followed his directions and he drove off. A few minutes later he returned, pulled up Ali g side and and handed us some oranges he had gone off to pick up! We the got his phone number ‘if you need any help call me in Qazvin’.

We found a decent cheap hotel, but for us a bed inside was five stars either way.