One thing that always strikes me with travel (especially from Australia) is how it really just a series of 'waits'. Waiting to go through security, waiting to board, waiting to take off, waiting to land, waiting to disembark, waiting for security checks, waiting to be assigned a gate, waiting to board... and repeat for each flight. As it was 3 flights to get here, I have definitely mastered the art of waiting over the past 30 hours of travel.

I flew through Doha to get to Tehran. Doha's airport may be covered in a perpetual layer of grey dust dulling its shine but it proudly claims to be state of the art technologically and environmentally... in stark contrast to Imam Khomeini which feels like an unloved 80s ghost. There were so few people at the airport that my wait for the visa on arrival was only slowed down by the pace of the officials who liked to wander around a lot with only occasional interruptions of any activity. From my flight there was a grand total of 4 of us getting visas which turned out to be far simpler and less rigorous than I'd been lead to believe. After securing my entry, I sat in the empty, echoing airport to wait for Tom's flight which was 2 hours after mine with just as few people getting visas, which severely cuts down on the wait time with no queue for passport checks or customs.

We took a taxi into Tehran as we had a few hours to kill before our next flight. What with bags, Tom's self inflicted tiredness from too much Romanian fun and my woebegone exhaustion from jet lag and sleep deprivation, we were reasonably hampered so all we did was head to the Teahouse in the central City Park (Park-e Shah). It was a good introduction to Iranian life... like the airport, the pace was relaxed, we experienced the famed Iranian hospitality for the first time when a woman sitting with her Shisha and tea insisted on me having a cup and refilling it, and we were chased by the waiter for absconding on the bill because of our currency confusion.

The currency would (and, I'm sure, will) befuddle me at my sharpest, which given the aforementioned sleep deprivation and jet lag, this was not. Not only is it all in such high numbers it becomes meaningless (ie 1 AUD is roughly 25,000 rial), there are two different currencies in active use, both use the same coins and notes but are quoted differently when asking the price. There is an official currency - rials - and there's an unofficial currency - tomens. So if you go to pay, you're quoted the price at, say, 21 which you then confirm means 21 thousand, and everyone agrees. Only when you hand over 25,000 expecting change, the guy looks at you as though you're trying to take the piss... only to remember he quoted in tokens, you're paying in rials so you need to give him 250,000.

We both keep mucking it up, causing consternation and suspicion. The only upside to all of this is that for the next week on a humble budget we are both billionaires!

Really this is just a long winded way of saying that Tom and I successfully found each other in Tehran and we've got where we need to be. Today we'll start to explore the area...

This morning we went out to Kandovan, marketed as Iran's Cappadocia. Our hostel organised a lovely driver who made random stops to show us apricots drying in the sun, a thousand year old tree that onced housed a man, a ghost village next door to Kandovan that had the hill fall in on it 200 years ago and to meet his friend who offered tea, samples of his wares and much appreciation that we were from Australia.

But I really should start from the beginning...

Yesterday afternoon after Tom's beard massacre and my recharge, we headed to a park in town that Tom's new Tabrizi friend from our flight had told him about. Tom will tell you more of that I'm sure, I was so jet lagged on the Tehran > Tabriz flight I only half paid attention and nodded politely every now and then.

As with the other parks we've seen it's well utilised, full of picnics and lounging. Though unlike the City Park in Tehran there was no sad zoo in the centre. This one had lots of fountains and a hill. The park had a pond in which you could peddle large plastic swans about or take a short joyride in a speed boat - it was really very odd!

So when I last left you, we were in Tabriz. Yesterday we jumped on a bus to Zanjan (using the time to publish the last post). We arrived here in the earlier afternoon to discover the two hotels we had in mind had substantially higher prices than reported in the LP. In fact, we are pretty sure whoever wrote the LP entry ended up confusing Tomen and Rials because the quoted pricing makes little sense.

As we were searching for another mentioned in the guide we were rescued by two lovely men asking if we were looking for a hotel and assuring us there was one much nicer than where we were heading. Iranian warmth and hospitality winning out again because we were brought to a great little hotel, run by a young, enterprising Iranian with a reasonable level of English who has done everything to make our stay comfortable - arranging a car for our day trip, exchanging money, etc.

After dumping our things, I plotted out a taster of downtown Zanjan - very loose but all within a km or two of the hotel. We started by walking through the bazaar looking for a restaurant known for its Dizi Sangi (or dizzy sandwich), a rich lamb stew with various accoutrements and a ritual for how you eat it. We thought we stumbled across it but instead found something even better.

After seeing a sign with an image of the stew pointing down an alley off the bazaar, we walked into a tiny stand which was effectively a kitchen with two narrow benches. The rear one was taken up by some men already so we slipped into the one on the side wall. We asked for Dizi and after some confusion found out it had run out (or he doesn't make it or... well, whatever it was, it wasn't available). In the meantime I'd eyed off what he'd made for one of the other men - some shakshuka (or, omelette, as he called it). So we greedily pointed at it and asked for what he was having.

We settled in with some chai as tomatoes, mushrooms and shallots all got chopped and fried in front of us. It was served with a huge plate of wager thin bread which you form into little bite size parcels with some of the eggy tomatoey mixture. It was hands down the best meal we've had in Iran (so good, in fact, we went back today!). We quickly became the star attraction with people heartily welcoming us to Iran, wanting to know if we had babies (no), had been to <insert hometown here> (no), if we had Skype or whatsapp working (no) and if we'd be in selfies with them (yes)!

We travelled down to Qazvin by bus, the network here is so efficient and there are so many of them that we haven't needed to book in advance, merely show up and find our way on to a bus. Similar to the buses I caught when I was in Myanmar - the VIP buses have large seats like a business class domestic flight and more legroom than I know what to do with!

Yet again, the drive took us through spectacular landscapes and scenery. I can see why Iran makes a good location for filming.

After sorting our hotel and dropping our bags, we went for a wander into the bazaar for lunch, finding a great version of the local cuisine qimeh naser - a beautiful lamb stew, served inside a mound of rice covered in sliced pistachios, orange rind and barberries. Insanely tasty and jewel-like to look at.

We decided to spend an extra day in Alamut when it turned out the incredible guide we'd hired for the Castles also organised what he called a Lost in Paradise experience - time in a village and a homestay at the other end of the valley.

Unfortunately Tom was sick but I got to enjoy a couple hour hike in the mountains around the village - walking up from the nut and fruit trees at the bottom of the valley to the arid areas at the top. It was beautiful walking through the orchards and we were lucky enough to bump into some people who were picking apricots so we're invited to join in, then enjoy the haul under the trees.

Old landslides were evident along the route, at best this meant paths that skimmed the top of what was essentially a cliff edge, at worst there were homes you could still peer into, though morbid seeing bones in there that haven't been retrieved.

It was a quiet day, nothing big or notable happened but I really enjoyed it, again I was struck by the generosity and hospitality of the Iranian culture. Each village we walked through came with offers to come and sit for chai, women wanting to show me their handicrafts and men wanting to welcome me to Iran.

A last look at Iran

We've come to the end of our time in Iran as we did at the airport ready to fly to Yerevan for our Lada adventure through Armenia and Georgia.

Yesterday was really just made up of making our way back to Tehran where we went to the former US embassy (now called the US Den of Espionage) - unfortunately closed - before going out to Darband Mountain which is a mountain at the end of the metro trainline. There are long taxi cues to take you to the top in ridiculous traffic. Once up there, it's about 1-2km of mountain side that is terraced and covered in teahouses and restaurants along a stream. It has potential to be spectacular but instead the workmanship is shoddy, rubbish is building up in the stream and the stalls are selling cheap imported tat. Despite this, there is a wonderful variety of people drawn here - the walking/mountaineering group who have their retractable poles, ropes, helmets and the earnest hiker look; hipsters making their way to the open areas at the top for shisha; trendoids wanting to be seen, taking selfies in the middle of the stream; and domestic tourists at the end of their sightseeing days.

I was pleased to have an experience true to today's Iran to finish, especially as it was relaxed and gave time for some reflection. I'm very glad we reduced our time in Tehran, it's an entirely charmless city rivalled only by Jakarta in my experience. The traffic is solid and once it gets moving would rival any South East Asian city for chaos and disregard for others. It's the first place in Iran we negotiated with taxi drivers, were overcharged or felt like targets (is walking wallets), unlike what we experienced in the North, there's a sense of competition at the expense of others. Not uncommon in large cities and to be expected but was an uncomfortable transition from the relative ease we had experienced elsewhere.

[warning: the next bit is overly verbose, long winded and really just random thoughts rather than anything thought through... in other words, feel free to skip if entirely!]

I've been reflecting a lot on Iran, what we've seen and trying to put together some coherent thoughts. In no particular order:

- cars and vehicles are great indicators of relative wealth and this was very true across the four towns/cities we spent time in. In most areas and particularly outside Tehran, Paykan rules the roads. The Iranian made vehicles are clearly what happens when your country is embargoed and you quickly need to start producing your own. Personally, I quite like the look of them and if I had the skills to modify engines and gearboxes, would happily take a body home. Most are in terrible condition. From there you have the knock offs - Saba (Saab), Peuge (Peugeot), Jac (Jag) and BWM (BMW). We saw some of these in Tabriz but there were even more in Qazvin as we got closer to Tehran. And then there are the 'brand names' - Kia, Peugeot, Renault, Toyota, etc. These were most common in Tehran. We didn't see many luxury vehicles even in Tehran - and largely these were BMW.

- there's a shoddiness to a lot of the craftsmanship across the country. Whether it was traditional crafts such as silk weaving, knife grinding or carpentry, or modern construction/manufacturing. Everything was just poorly constructed, a lack of care or attention to detail. One of the reasons I loved the caravanserai in Qazvin was the proliferation of local modern designers who were evidence of people putting time, effort and skill into creating objects of beauty. The need for beauty is a human thing but in a culture that reveres poetry and the arts, it feels sad to be buying manufactured crap that will fall apart immediately.

- from what I've read and heard, Iran has a long history of progressiveness and liberal thinking, and it would appear some of this is filtering back into the culture. There was a Guardian article published while we were here about women removing the hijab in cars in Tehran, but we also saw it here. Hijabs are loose and in some cases cursory, ankles/wrists are on show even in more conservative rural areas. No one blinked an eye when in answer to their question about our religion we said 'no religion'. And there is a respect and aspiration for learning and education. English was spoken widely with many speaking 3 or more languages and people studying for higher degrees, or speaking of friends studying abroad

- there is a warm and seemingly genuine love for australia, I've never been gladder for my citizenship. So many we spoke to wistfully expressed a desire to come to Australia anda few were already making plans

- while I've always felt travel highlights the difference between citizenry and government, it was stronger and starker here than I've experienced. It meant the local Iranian people we spent time with would not only distance themselves from government policy but they also pass this on to others. There is a deeply ingrained understanding that these are separate points of view and aren't to be confused (understandable given their history).

- picnicking is the national sport and every Iranian appears to be an elite athlete at it. Carpets, shade cloth, kebab grills, butane, etc. are all lugged up hills and into parks for long lunches. The only other place I've been that comes close is South Korea but even they pale in comparison!

- as a gross generalisation, Iranian women are the most elegant on earth. The attention to detail (matching shoes/trainers to scarves or details in their chameez, scarf tying/folding, mixing of patterns etc) and the pride in appearance leave me shamed

Finally, it's no surprise that gender has been on my mind since being here. I've always found Muslim countries are more visibly male - on the street, on transport, etc. you see more men than women. But this is further confounded due to the dress laws. I've whinged about the scarf and made jokes about it, but in reality it goes deeper than that (of course). While the dress rules are grounded in modesty, the experience of having to follow these rules and wearing the hijab was, for me, constantly distracting and an overt reminder of needing correction.

By constant distraction, I don't mean the irritation of a fly buzzing around and distracting you lightly. I mean the girl in the nightclub in a dress that is too tight and riding up so she's constantly pulling and tugging and playing with her clothes. It's a constant stream of thought that is policing the placement of the fabric - how it is wound around your bag handle, if it's stuck on the chair back, has it dropped off completely, is it choking, etc. Now, I'm the first to admit that some of this would become second nature with longer term use but it's never something women are unaware of. So few carry bags and their hands are often hovering either actively fiddling or ready to catch it if it falls. For me, I've felt this hampered the way I processed where we've been and what we've done. In both my photos and my memories there's a distance, I haven't quite been there. For my photos I've fought this hard to try and really focus and grab opportunities but I'm really feeling it in my memories which feel removed rather than fully lived.

On the other hand, the dress (along with cultural behaviour) have made me more aware of the overt differentiation of being female. That sense that in being female there is something 'not quite right' at best and downright immoral/incorrect/disliked at worst. The dress and behaviours compound as overt symbols and reminders of this 'lesser-ness'. I see it in the women here as well, they are friendly, generous and gracious but shyer, engaging less readily than the men. The men when they approach us speak to Tom directly, glancing at me. In some ways it suits me because it puts me more in the role of observer which is where I'm comfortable... but it also is muting. And it's there in micro-interactions as well. Where western men will often make space for women, here it's men nudging women aside or standing in a way that pushes me into a corner or out of the way. I don't have an answer in terms of which is 'better', there are issues with both - any system that is based on constituted differences rather than mutual respect feels destined for problematic power dynamics to me. But the change from one system (covert) to another (overt) has made me more conscious (for now) of my gender and what that signifies to others.

Finally, it's not that the men we've spoken to have left me out or shown me disrespect - I'd never want that to be misunderstood. In fact most, especially Sharrom and Hosein, went out of their way to open conversations with me or draw me in to what they were talking about with Tom. These observations are based more on the accumulation of things - rather than one off examples.

The last couple of days have seen us settling into Armenian life. Yerevan was a blessed relief after Tehran... cleaner, more charming and easier to walk around. Yerevan is a mix of early Soviet elegance and later Soviet brutalism. All crumbling and fraying at the edges.

We spent a couple of days in Yerevan, going on a walking tour, visiting the Armenian Genocide museum and going out to see nearby monasteries, I think we've started to get a sense of it. A few things stood out pretty quickly -

1 Being the oldest Christian country, monasteries and religion is BIG here

2 Armenia has been disputed ground for centuries and almost always seems to be under the rule of another power

3 Armenia has a serious Mercedes fetish - I've never seen so many in my life

4 And Yerevan takes parks very seriously

Yerevan gave Tom the opportunity for a beer again - though the first one was a significant disappointment. And for me, it was just a wonderful city to walk around and admire. The street life ramps up after dark, every street seems to be lined with outdoor cafes.

Yesterday after having our dear Lada Gaga delivered to the hostel, we headed off to Dilijan via monasteries at Garni and Gerghard.

Garni is from the 1st C BC and is the only of its kind in the region. Armenia had declared itself Christian in 300BC and was the first country to do so. What is left is in relatively good condition, it seems this is thanks to some USAID spent here and at Gerghard.

As you'll have read in Tom's post, I followed in his footsteps by getting gastro. Although unlike him, I didn't choose a day when I could lie in a bed and wish death upon myself. Oh no, instead I chose to do it the day we drove and drove and drove down some terrible, terrible roads. I don't have (m)any photos from that day except the videos Tom has already shared. But I will say, don't fear... the roads have got worse since then as well.

The day after the first epic drive, we headed to Vardzia down yet another glorified sheep path that clung to the sides of a mountain and zig zagged so tightly that the GPS couldn't decide what part of the road we were on. Vardzia is a cave monastery full of ascetic monk cells but also remaining frescoes and the remnants of fuller living quarters. It was largely abandoned after the Ottoman takeover in the sixteenth century but in the past 10 years it has started to operate as a monastery again, though we didn't see any monks.

From there we went on to Kutaisi where we rounded off our day of Christianity by going to see the Kutaisi pillar where a monk lives on offerings at the top of a pillar of rock.

We lucked upon another hostel that made us dinner from their home grown produce which was one of my favourite meals of the trip so far - not that I could eat much!

So we had had little hints over the first couple of days in Georgia that this a country that seems to like its rules and procedures. At the border, Tom had followed the car ahead of us into the Georgian passport area and both cars had passed to the left of an empty guard post. The border guard standing near the passport office angrily told both of us to turn around and come back through on the right hand side of the empty post... despite the fact we ended up in exactly the same spot as we had been.

At Vardzia, we paid for and were given tickets at the booth and then 2m on another man checked our tickets and let us proceed.

Well today we were going to find out that this emphasis on protocol and bureaucracy is ingrained to an extent we've never seen before. And I've travelled in India where they really do love their protocols and procedures.

But I am jumping ahead slightly. We started the day off slowly, heading into the city to check out the produce market (unfortunately the fruit was not as good as it has been in Armenia and Iran). From there we went to the Prometheus Cave which is the biggest cave found in Georgia. It was discovered in 1984 (though I have some trouble believing no one came across them before then) and has since been explored and opened as a 'natural wonder' of Georgia. It is certainly large, the walking tour covers roughly 1km through the main body of the caves and the larger caverns are immense.

While the cave was impressive, it has been 'dolled up' for tourism with brightly coloured neon lights and piped music making for a very odd experience. There was a sad boat ride at the end that really just followed a tunnel for 300m barely pausing so you couldn't really really see anything.

After this, we ended up on a 3hr diversion pursuing a look at the Okshan Canyon, involving the worst roads to date (neither of us have ever seen anything like them) and a bureaucracy mad ranger who scuttled us at the last hurdle. It started off relatively harmlessly, with a 'maps.me special' path sending us down gravelly roads with tight corners and steep gradients. Nothing we hadn't seen before on this trip, though the rocks were both larger and looser making it reasonably hairy.

After taking us down to the river and trying to send us across a pedestrian swing bridge (even Lada Gaga couldn't take that on), we finally ended up back on relatively normal roads (by Georgian standards). We passed a small village before finding a turn off from the bitumen onto dirt that would lead to the canyon. After navigating barely visible tracks we finally found the way down. The first nudge of the nose down the 'road' it looked rocky but potentially do-able but within a couple of metres both of us were silently praying the road would be a loop and we wouldn't have to come back. The road was tight and the rocks so loose that there was nothing to do but commit to it as we went down incredibly steep gradients on rocks that wouldn't stop moving. There was a slight reprieve going through deep puddles and mud before an even steeper, looser descent. It was a nightmare, especially as the 4wd system (like trying to get her into reverse) is extremely finicky and at that stage Tom hadn't been able to turn it on despite much playing with the lever so all he had was the low range.

Despite all of this, we did make it to the car park for the canyon, greeted by some bemused and at times amazed Georgians! We gladly rocked up to the pathway that would lead us down into the canyon to be told we needed a ticket. The ranger spoke no English so called someone who did, we politely pointed out that the ticket booth was empty but were told we needed to go to the visitors centre. We had passed no visitors centre so asked if we could go through and pay on the way out... or pay the ranger... or...

We went back and forth but there was no budging Georgian bureaucracy, the visitors centre we were told was 1km away back up the horrific road we'd come in on and we'd have to go back get a ticket and then come down again! We tried everything but there was no budging him.

We trudged back to the car with the faintest glimmer of hope that maybe we'd somehow missed it on the way down and headed off. Going back was worse than coming in. The Pajero ahead of us was sliding so badly on the first steep ascent we all had to reverse back and start again. Then there were 4wd and tour buses coming in the other direction that sent us reversing back down these impossibly tight laneways. It felt never ending. Thankfully in this, Tom finally managed to sweet talk Lada Gaga into 4wd and between that and low range he managed to get us out.

We never found the visitors centre, though it must be there somewhere. And neither of us could face it all again (even being a passenger was stressful). It was gutting that after 3 hours spent finding it and then the horror of the road, the ranger drunk on what little power he has wouldn't let us in or help us out.

It made for a quiet drive north to Mestia, now pushed for time and still on shitty roads where 60km feels like highway speed. This is further hampered by the sheer number of cows... turns out bureaucracy is not the only thing Georgia shares with India. There are cows on every road, sitting, lying, standing nonchalantly flicking their tails and sending clouds of flies into the air. It's an extra little surprise to find yourself facing 6 cows, 2 lying in each lane and the standing around so you have to weave in between them.

Needless to say, finally arriving in Mestia was an amazing feeling. Especially as we were greeted st the door by two gorgeous puppies vying for attention!

Today has been a bit of a break from the intensity of the past few days. We had a late start and then walked up to the nearby glacier where we met a lovely Swiss couple who will come with us to Ushguli tomorrow.

Apart from an incredibly disappointing museum in one of the blood feud towers there's little else to report... I'll let the photos do the talking for this one!

<ADD LOCATION: Zagara Pass>

Tom's description of the drive to Ushguli and down to Kutaisi says it all really, so I'll just add some of my photos. So get ready for some self indulgence...

My expectations of Georgia were largely centred around it being a former Soviet state, I hadn't considered the longer history. I still don't know very much of Georgian history but I think today helped put some of it in perspective. Our drive back to Tbilisi took us through Gori which is the town where Stalin was born and then Upstiltske where there was an abandoned cave village.

The Stalin museum in Gori had actually been under construction when he died. The first thing you see is a large almost Mausoleum structure which is a shelter for the house Stalin was born in. They brought it here and reconstructed it. It's small, it was shared with the landlord, Stalin's parents rented the front room and his father had space in the basement for his cobbling business.

Lada Gaga's last day allowed us to add a bonus expedition to our itinerary - a drive up the Georgian Military Highway to the Kazbegi area.

The drive is beautiful, following the river and lakes north towards the Russian border. We ended up again surrounded by peaks over 5000m though fewer glaciers from what we could see. We ended up going out to Trusso Valley, seeing how far Lada Gaga could go on terrible roads and, as usual, she took us to the end - a tiny border post with Russia overlooked by yet another ruined fort.