Central Iran (August 2013) A 2 week trip taking in Yazd, Shiraz, the Zagros Mountains and Esfahan

I changed $100 USD at Tehran airport and got 26,000,000 Iranian Rials back, which would be helpful for all my small change needs.

[2137] The journey by train from the Tehran terminal to Yazd is about 225 miles and takes anywhere between 5.5 and 9 hours. It runs mostly across dirty, scrubby desert, with very few towns, villages or half-completed building works in between. Our train was half full, mainly of middle aged women in dusty burkas slumped asleep. We joined them straightaway and only woke at a handful of unexplained jolts, before the train arrived early into Yazd around lunchtime.  As we dropped down onto the platform we were set upon immediately by half a dozen taxi drivers, who had the desperate air of men who relied heavily on the trade of only the very occasional out of towner. They all streamed into the toilets after us and so I headed into a cubicle, leaving Rich at the urinals with 3 or 4 drivers still urging him to choose them. The drivers jostled us all the way out front to their cars, before we just chose one at random and scrambled in quickly. The rusty lada swung away at speed in the direction of our hotel.