Is the road, border or area open and accessible to foreigners? Is there danger?
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In the meanwhile we are Well on our way in Iran
All went very smooth in Turkey (of course military Posts all over near the border area)
And at both turkey and Iran boarder.
We heard of A Guy before us who was send back to turkey due to wrong stamps on his carnet but ours was in order So no problem. We were able to buy the care insurance (90 $) at A trade office in the border zone. Could probably have figured this out ourself via the indeed friendly tourist
Officer but the fixer made that we passed the border very quick (less then 2 hours and car was not checked) should anyone want more info do send A note
I did the crossing 3 days ago, solo with Iran visa ready, no issue at all, no agent for help, just walked across and do the normal custom procedures, there are minibus/shared taxi to connect to the nearby cities in both Turkey and Iran sides, no inspection of luggage, I arrived around 11am Turkey border there was not many people, basically no queue, less than 1 hr for the crossing
Good day ! we are a family of 4 and would like to travel by car from Dubai to France this summer 2018. I am wondering about the Iran - Turkey border (Bazargan crossing) and the situation in this East region of Turkey. Could you advise me if it is safe to travel by car in this area (Barzagan - Doğubeyazıt - Agri - Erzurum).
Thanks very much for your help !
Yves
yaubourg wrote:Good day ! we are a family of 4 and would like to travel by car from Dubai to France this summer 2018. I am wondering about the Iran - Turkey border (Bazargan crossing) and the situation in this East region of Turkey. Could you advise me if it is safe to travel by car in this area (Barzagan - Doğubeyazıt - Agri - Erzurum).
Thanks very much for your help !
Yves
No serious problems reported as you can see in the posts above and in the topic here
We got to this border late at night and needed a carnet de passage security deposit. As like everywhere in Iran people were extremely helpful. First border person we met advised us we needed this carnet but to not settle for the first price. If you need definitely hold out for cheapest price as there are lots of people/travel companies who are selling the service. We initially got given a price of 600euros for the security deposit, once we laughed it off and after a bit of stand off we got the carnet, insurance and a night in a hotel for 500dollars. There is a guy Hossein (Overland to Iran) who organises the service prior to your arrival but is a lot more expensive and very pushy once you make initial contact with him, definitely advise that you wait until you get to the border and haggle the best price
The border itself was an extremely simple passage, we got through in less then an hour. However this was because we arrived late, stayed in a hotel which gave our guy a night to draw up our carnet documents
Very few Turkish buses go (the first one at 04:30 from Otogar) to the last city before the border: Dogubeyazit. Check obilet.com or biletall.com
From Dogubeyazit you can catch a dolmus (minibus) in the otogar or on the road for 5 Lira to the border.
An Iranian bus company starts once a week on Friday at 17:00 from Erzurum centre to Tabriz for 100 Lira. The trip takes 12 hours.
Reza (05349641144) drives a private car once a week from Erzurum to Tabriz and back. He asked for 100 Lira or 15 Euro, 4 hours to the border, 4 hours to Tabriz or vv.
There are no direct flights from Erzurum to Tabriz/Tehran, only via Istanbul (3/day to Iran).
Instead, we hitchhiked from Erzurum: take blue bus K-4 (2.5 Lira if you ask any passenger to use their card for you or 3.5 Lira if you pay the driver in cash) from the centre (Havusbasi or roundabout in front of the train station) to “Otogar” (bus terminal out of town) and start hitching on the highway in front. We started quite late (13:00), but made it to the Bazargan border at 17:00.
On the Iranian side you will be approached by money changers and taxi drivers. Even though they tell you that you cannot hitchhike, you can hitchhike with trucks or cars right from where they cleared the border checkpoint. At the bottom of the hill is a roundabout where droves of drivers will approach you with and without their car, just keep walking (12 o’clock) for a few 100 metres until they back off and you can hitch a ride with normal cars to Maku (20 km). At the far end of Maku is the “Terminal” where buses leave to Tabriz from 06:00 to 19:00 for 140,000 IRR. You can take a shared taxi for 300,000 pp or get the whole taxi for 1,200,000 (4 X 300,000). A whole taxi to Marand costs 800,000. (1 Euro = 132,000 IRR)
When hitchhiking in Iran, drivers expect payment, so make it clear beforehand that you will not pay “Pul nederem” (no money).
No one says anything about it, but this process seems to be in place for a long time.
When exiting from Iran to Turkey - they will charge you for any fuel that you have in your fuel tank!
Going price is 7200 Rial per 1 liter. Everyone pays it equally - locals and foreigners. Here’s the process:
Before getting exit stamp on your Carnet you need to pay for fuel and get a paper confirmation. They call this process PETROL.
Start from the far right. When approaching the customs terminal, there will be a road barrier on the right. Park there, walk on foot under the barrier and climb into second office on the right. Bring a copy of your CDP with you, they need it here. If you don’t have one - go to the shop with cigarettes, they make it there for 1000Tomans.
In this petrol office they will ask you how much petrol do you have. Say as little as possible. I said 40L, although I had a full 80L tank. THEY DO NOT CHECK THE CAR TANK. They just take your number. In their system they will check how big petrol tank is in your car. So play smart. I had no dial left so I negotiated down to 30L, and they say they cannot put less than 30L on the invoice. So even coming with empty tank won’t help you - they will still charge you for 30L minimum. You can pay only by a local card. There’s always someone to help you with that, that person seems to be with the customs. They will take $ or € equivalent in cash from you. I paid 34$ (mix of $ and €), I think about 3.5mil. I saw other receipts and it varied between 4.5 - 9 mil rial. So it seems it’s a legit process.
Once you have the petrol invoice - go the the far left entrance in the terminal. This is Departure. Go as far as you can and show them Carnet and Petrol invoice. Then normal process starts. They’ll check your car, stamp CDP, you go through Passport control, go back to the car and drive through the barrier to the other side. Turkish side everything was quite easy, except 1h extra for full machine X-Ray of our van. Apparently lots of vans smuggle drugs from Iran, so expect lots of police and military stops on Turkey side asking for cigarettes or drugs.
All the process on Iran side took 3h, and maybe 2h on Turkish side.
No one will speak English to you, forcing you to use the touts. As usual customs folks just get a kickback. Just stand your ground. If in doubt - look for uniform officer and ask for help, they seemed most helpful.
Be wary of the touts. They literally swarmed me like flies. They speak good English and promise to help you. They surely will, I don’t know what’s the price. If you wish to avoid the hassle - pay whatever they ask, and they’ll do it for you. But I always avoid the whole scam process and do it myself. Go to hell scammers.
Crossed in March that border and many of the infos are outdated.
There are several more buses going from Erzurum to Dogubeyazit than shown online. E.g. there are at 12.30 and 15.30. I took the 15.30 and arrived at around 19.35 in Dogubeyazit. The bus was full, so better to book ahead by phone - ask your hotel or to direct to the Bus station (K4 bus goes there from the center/railway station, 5TL).
Stayed the night in Dogubeyazit and then headed to Gurbulak, minibuses seem to not leave from the bus station but only from the center - at least several local people told me so. Arrived at the „station“ in the center at 8am. Only at 9 we left by minibus to the border (even if it was half empty!), another guy was waiting since 7am! So no need to get there early (maybe during Iranian holidays or after arrival of a bus from Erzurum etc it works more quick?).
Price is now 25TL, I paid 30 and didn’t get any cash in return, so better to have the exact amount! (Didn’t complain about it as I was already happy to leave finally).
Took 30mins to the border.
Then at the border had a bit of a problem with PCR as written in another topic. Best to have only max 48hrs old and be sure that there is a QR code on it!
On Turkish side they seem to not speak English - luckily an Afghan guy living in Turkey translated for me.
On the Iranian side they speak decent English.
At 11.50 Iranian time took a taxi from Bazargan (not direct from the border, there was another taxi needed, but don’t know the price - the Afghan guy paid that short trip) to Maku. Costed 1 Million Rial for the car.
Arrived at Maku bus terminal at 12.30. There was no bus to Tabriz until 14.30. price for the bus was 370.000 Rial. At 18.50 arrived near the railway station.
Wasn’t expecting that it would take so long… but due to limited availabilities of buses, seems you should count in a full day to get from Dogubeyazit to Tabriz (but if you are lucky it can work out much faster as well).
And something general: entry prices to museums in Iran on wikivoyage are completely outdated… mostly it is now 1.000.000 Rial, for some you can get in for 500.000.
