Charging in Bukhara, Uzkebistan

Posted on by eexplorer
Great hotel in a former madrasa

We had no wi-fi in our last hotel in Turkmenistan. Internet accessibility is still very low in Turkmenistan. The amount of sides that are not accessible, is on the other side extremely high. Due to no internet, we couldn’t check out any hotel ahead, before we arrived in Bukhara.

Sometimes one needs to be lucky. We were extremely lucky with the hotel we found in Bukhara. It was in a former madrasa that was beautifully renovated. In this nice surrounding, we enjoyed an extremely comfortably bed… since almost three months, we are sleeping every to every second night in a new bed. Some of them are extremely uncomfortable and make it hard (literally 😉) to sleep on them. Besides extremely hard mattresses, old mattresses with springs sticking out, are uncomfortable. I noticed that my sleep quality just depends on mattress quality and in that bed in Bukhara I slept like a baby.

Challenging charging due to heavy electricity fluctuation

We parked the Tesla behind a gate leading to the office of the hotel. There was a Schuko outlet that we could use for charging the car. Unfortunately, the electricity was very shaky. If the voltage is fluctuating too much, the Tesla stops charging. The cause of the fluctuation was probably that the transformer of the neighborhood wasn’t well adjusted to the electricity need of the people. We had similar problems in Turkey. During night, fewer people (and their machinery) are using electricity. The fluctuation is therefore lower and we were able to charge the car during the two subsequent nights that we were in Bukhara.

City-museum Bukhara

The old city of Bukhara is Unesco World Heritage. There is one architectural monument next to each other in the city. One wonders around old mosques, baths, madrasas and mausoleums. Most of them are decorated with beautiful tile-work in bright blue, turquoise and golden colors. We enjoyed this travel back in time.

Drive from Bukhara to Samarkand

The surface of the roads to Samarkand, the city we drove to after Bukhara, was only slightly better than the road leading to Bukhara from the border. We adjust our driving that way that we only go 50 to 70 km/h so we can avoid the potholes in the road.

We got stopped two times by the police on our way. Similar to toll collection booths in other countries, the police in Uzbekistan blocks in average every 100km the road. Either they ignore you or they point a stick at you and you need to stop. We started to only give copies of our documents to them, since we heard that some police could be corrupt and wants money to return you your documents. During the first police stop, they wrote our data us in a big book (the country isn’t very digital yet…). The officer at the second police stop insisted to see our original documents, but eventually he let us go. I have no idea what the aim of their controls is, so I continue to see no reason for them to flip through out passports as if they were picture books for children. I hope all the other police controls that will follow will be as smooth as the last were.

 outlet/socket  Volt  Ampere  kW  kWh
Schuko 220 volt 6 amperes 2 kW 40 kWh

Charging in Mary and visiting ancient Merv, Turkmenistan

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Mary

It was possible to charge the Tesla at the hotel in Mary. There was a three-phase connection outside the building and we just had to connect our open wires to the fuses.

 

Merv

Mary is an oasis city in the Karakum Desert. It was an important place of shelter and trade on the historical Silk Road. The city followed the streams of the Murghab river. The current city Mary exits only since about 150 years. 5 older cities with traces of village life as far back as the 3rd millennium BC. Not much is left of the older cities. The area where they used to be is now known as Merv. One can still visit the city walls and some buildings today. The areal is huge and one can imagine that Merv was in the 12th century for a short time the largest city of the world.

We visited the ancient town after a night in Mary. It was impressive, even though the sun burned down and it was terribly hot. After this visit we drove 200 km on bad roads from Mary to Turkmenabat. Benedikt had to pay close attention to the road to not drive into one of the many, deep potholes.

 outlet/socket  Volt  Ampere  kW  kWh
 connection to fuse box  220 volt  3 * 12 amperes  7 kW  45 kWh

Charging in resort hotel “Alma Tau”, Kazakhstan

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Border crossing Uzbekistan – Kazakhstan

We drove to the closest border coming from the mountains. After the border official checked our passport, he told us, the border is closed for vehicles (couldn’t he just said that right away? Or why didn’t they put up a sign somewhere?). We had no choice than to drive to the next border checkpoint that was supposed to be bigger.

To exit the country, the Uzbek border control let us unpack the entire car. Of course, such a procedure is annoying. We tried to keep always an eye on our valuables, since it wouldn’t be the first time, that somebody “lost” something at the border.

To enter Kazakhstan, Benedikt and I had to split up (again). He went through the passenger control and I imported the car into Kazakhstan. Since I am the official car owner (my name is in the car documents), it seems to be easier, if I do the entire bureaucratic procedure. After about 2 hours I drove the car through the border gate.

A Kazakh resort hotel

Our destination was a resort hotel east of Shymkent. Shymkent isn’t known as a very attractive city. Therefore, we had no precise ambition to go there. It sounded good to us to have nature around us and a pool in front of us. We found a resort hotel in the middle of nowhere. The hotel was nicely maintained and for what it offered good value for money.

We got extremely well taken care of by a receptionist (the only person speaking a few words of English in this hotel), who even drove us in a golf cart around the grounds of the hotel. When we sat down in the golf cart he said, “this is an electric vehicle!” – you can believe that we started laughing and replied that we also have an electric vehicle. He helped us find a Schuko, where we fully charged the car during the 1.5 days that we stayed at Alma Tau.

The only real downturn for us was, that the hotel was playing club music with the strongest beats the whole day long. We had a room facing the pool and could feel the vibration of the bass while laying on the bed. Kazakhs seem to have a different definition of relaxation ambiance than we do ;-).

 outlet/socket  Volt  Ampere  kW  kWh
Schuko 220 volt 6 amperes 2 kW 40 kWh

Charging outside of Ashgabat, Turkmenistan and having a crazy border-crossing

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Exiting Iran

It was a few minutes past 9 a.m. when we arrived in Bajgiran at the border between Iran and Turkmenistan. We were supposed to meet an agent of Hossein (Hossein was the one bringing us into Iran at the first place – see this post). We only found him after already having passed through the first police checkpoint. A confusing process to export our car from Iran started right away. I had expected a short wait and quick-and-easy process (we just wanted to leave the country…), but I got proven wrong (again). Benedikt and I criss-crossed the border buildings, always following that agent (who only spoke Farsi). We waited and waited, went downstairs after a while and finally got exit stamps in our passports. After that was done, we couldn’t find the agent anymore.

It was probably over 1.5 hours later that I finally found him. He was at a very particular clerks desk. A guy there started to explain to me that we have a big problem. Our customs paper indicate that we would leave Iran at the Nordooz border to Armenia and not to Turkmenistan, where we are right now. The paper also stated the car is grey, even though its main color is black. The people from the Bajgeran border already contacted the customs officials in Nordooz. Everyone is waiting for a letter of the border boss in Nordooz that indicates that we can leave Iran towards Turkmenistan. I was told that this can take 1, 2 or 3 hours or a day. A day?!? I started to be really concerned. We had to get to Turkmenistan that day. Our whole trip, including guides, hotels and visa, was planned that way that we should enter Turkmenistan on the 17th of June (it is obligatory to have a planned trip with a guide in Turkmenistan if you enter the country with a tourist visa).

At around 1 p.m. we got informed that the letter of the border in Nordooz arrived! Ufff…. Because every border official had to type our customs form in their computer with a slow two finger method, it took another hour till we could leave the building. At 2:30, after about 5 hours at the Iranian side of the border, we finally left Iran.

Entering Turkmenistan

The Tesla had to wait in no-man’s land, while Benedikt and I got our Turkmen visa in the police building (we only had letter of invitations from a tour company). I was taking the passenger way, while Benedikt got the car registered (btw: we had to pay petrol-tax even though we tried to explain that we will not use petrol – it wasn’t understandable for them). We met our first tour guide and driver, Mr. Zadar, who was already patiently waiting since 11:00 a.m.

Compared to the Iranian side of the border, the border process on the Turkmen side went extremely smooth – until the final step… We waited and waited and nothing happened. Only afterwards, the tour guide told us that the color of our car (black), tinted windows and colorful stickers of our Tesla were too much for Turkmenistan. The border officials weren’t sure if it is allowed in the country (their president has a strong preference for white cars…). After many discussions, some official decided that the car should not enter Ashagabat, but would be allowed to transit Turkmenistan. In Ashgabat, everything is marble white, and so have to be the cars. It was probably the strangest city I have ever been to.

Ashgabat and a long drive to Mary

Our guide found a parking spot for the Tesla outside the city. We charged at a Schuko in a small car wash in that parking lot. Unfortunately, the tour operator arranged a price for the electricity that was way too high (electricity is in most occasions free of charge to the people in Turkmenistan; petrol only costs USD 0,30 and gas is free as well).

We spent two nights in Ashgabat in the most luxurious hotel of our journey. On our third day in Turkmenistan, we left Ashgabat and continued a long journey to Mary (380 km). Benedikt and I were a little worried about this leg of the trip, since it really depended on the weather conditions how easily we could make it (the distance was quite far). Luckily, there was almost no wind. We drove slowly (around 70 km/h) and sometimes behind trucks. With 24% left we reached Mary. Way more than expected!

 outlet/socket  Volt  Ampere  kW  kWh
Schuko 220 10 amperes 2 kW 35 kWh

Charging in Shirvan, Iran

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Why we went to Shirvan

The city of Shirvan is only 60 km away from Bojnurd. We found in Shirvan a hotel that had good reviews and offered rooms for a fair price. Since we didn’t really like the hotel in Bojnurd, we didn’t mind moving on. We planned to spend two days in Shirvan only to relax and get the car and electronic equipment ready for the upcoming border crossings. We read online that border controls in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan will be quite intense. Having a good structure in the car and knowing where what item is, seemed essential for us to cross somehow smoothly these borders.

The hotel in Shirvan

The hotel we stayed at was quite ok. We had a large room, didn’t get distracted and the owner/manager of the hotel was nice. He even spoke a bit of German. Besides the fact, that we felt as guests welcomed, the hotel was strange. On the first floor, there was a women and men reception hall for weddings. I couldn’t really figure out, if that is a thing here, to celebrate sex-separated weddings. It wouldn’t surprise me though. For the festivities, they had a large kitchen that was probably the most disgusting kitchen I saw so far. It was greasy, somehow dirty and smelled awfully. We saw the kitchen, since we used a socket in the kitchen to charge the car. The socket was only a normal Schuko, but since the car was still well charged it was enough to recharge. The next charging will be in Turkmenistan.

A surprise-visit from the local newspaper

As I mentioned above, we wanted to use our days in Shirvan only to relax and reorganize. On a day, where we didn’t really wanted to see anybody, the local newspaper appeared at the hotel in the evening. The reporter didn’t speak any English, but the hotel manager served as a translator. Every second question was on what we think about Iran and Iranians. We just said what the reporter wanted to hear. In the end, it was mainly the hotel manager and the reporter who talked to each other. I would be really curious what the content of that article will be.

 

Bye-bye Iran, welcome new adventurous

After 4 weeks in Iran, both, Benedikt and I, are really excited to move on. Iran was a major goal to reach and now the most challenging part of the journey starts. We don’t really know what to expect from the upcoming countries. But we are looking forward to drinking a cool beer in Ashgabat and to not having to wear hijab anymore. Let’s hope everything goes well, meaning we continue to find three-phase electricity and the quality of the roads stays decent.

 outlet/socket  Volt  Ampere  kW  kWh
Schuko 220 10 amperes 2kW 15kWh

Charging in Bojnurd, Iran

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Invitation and setting up charging in Bojnurd

A TV station invited us to come to Bojnurd. They wanted to do an interview with us. That’s at least what we understood. Again, it all came a bit different.

About 7 boys at the age of 16 to 18 welcomed us at the hotel they booked for us. One of them was Mehran (who, with his neat briefcase, looked much older), our initial contact in Bojnourd. After a rest in the hotel the group of boys picked us up in the evening to bring us to a building complex where some of them lived. There was a 4-pin CEE-32 outlet in front in the house entrance of one of the houses (which was awesome!). We (and them) took pictures and left the car to charge. A pleasant walk through the city with the whole crowed followed.

An evening with a crowed of interested boys and a helpful girl

There was also one girl coming with us. She was supposed to keep me company (I guess they felt uncomfortable with me being the only female in the group or thought I would feel uncomfortable with boys only. But, probably contrary to them, I am used to this since I am little). We spent the afternoon walking around the city of Bojnurd and Benedikt arranged to get a haircut (which we deemed highly necessary, considering our upcoming border transits first to Turkmenistan and later to Uzbekistan — none of them is known to be easy and a good appearance might simplify things).

When the sun was setting, me and the girl returned to the houses, where the Tesla was waiting. A dinner to break the fast (everyone seemed to be strict Muslim, following Ramadan) with the neighbors was set up outside of the building (right behind the Tesla). It was a fun evening with the entire neighborhood community. Unfortunately, the charging of the car didn’t work out as expected. Probably the connection wasn’t strong enough for 32 amperes. The charging process stopped after only a few kWh charged. Since we didn’t want to make a big hassle, we charged the rest of the electricity that we needed at a Schuko in the parking garage of our hotel.

Visting an Iranian middle school and giving an “interview”

The next morning Mehran picked us up to bring us to his old school. We only noticed then that he just recently graduated from school and is doing the interview with us as a student project. Since he was really attached to his former school and teachers, we did the interview there. The school (only for boys) was nice, even though I couldn’t really get the concept of parting boys from girls. We were guided through the rooms and I felt a bit like Angelina Jolie, doing some charity work. Everyone wanted to show us something (like a tiny baby fetus in a glass in the science lab) and tell a story. I was surprised to hear that 30% of the lessons the boys have are religious class in that school. What an impact that must have on the little boys.

After the walk through the school, we had the interview with Mehran. We could feel the impact the religious lessons had on him… From his point of view, you can clearly see why a head scarf is great and necessary on women or that the fasting during Ramadan makes people commit less crime or lies. Mehran will have a fruitful journalist career in the state-controlled media.

Meeting Mohsen, initiator of the facebook group “Overland in Iran”

We know Iran as always offering us something of both extremes. It felt like almost no surprise that after having spent the morning Lost In Translation (and inbetween cultures), we met Mohsen for an evening tea in his home. He is curious about the world and travelers from different countries and, in order to meet even more travelers, initiated the facebook group “Overland in Iran” that I joined shortly after entering Iran. We had a wonderful and deep conversation with him and it felt like we found a friend in Bojnurd.

 

 

 outlet/socket  Volt  Ampere  kW  kWh
4 poles CEE-32 230 3*32 amperes 22kW 20kWh
Schuko 220 6 amperes 2kW 40kWh

Charging in Gorgan, Iran

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Convincing the hotel to let us charge

The city of Gorgan is situated between rich farmland close to the Caspian Sea and hills, covered with the “jungle of Iran”. We intended to stay in a hotel close to the green hills (we were so happy to see green trees again, after the hot and dry landscape in the south of Iran). Some bargaining helped to lower the room rate to a reasonable price. Our initial question, whether the hotel could offer us three-phase electricity, was denied. The hotel complex was too large, as that we could believe this. We talked to the receptionist for about 20 minutes. Pictures of other hotels helping us convinced him finally. It’s important to not give up!

Yeah – the car is charging

After a missed try at some cable that the hotel’s technician suggested (there was no electricity on it), Benedikt found three-phase connections in a tiny hut, outside the hotel building, containing the hotel’s water pump. The technician helped him to connect the wires. After a bit of forth and back, the car started charging at 10 amperes that evening. That way it was fully-charged the next morning.

Hike in the woods

That upcoming morning, the car was ready and we were ready to finally move our legs again. The hot weather in the south made it impossible to walk for a longer time. We enjoyed a wonderful hike in the green hills and later a visit to a beautiful waterfall.

 

 

 

 outlet/socket  Volt  Ampere  kW  kWh
fuse box (extension cord from hotel) 225 3*12 amperes 8kW 60

Charging in Qom, Iran

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Arriving to Qom

After a night without much sleep in the awful hostel of Naein (see this post), we spend a few hours on the road, direction north. It was hot outside (up to 42 degrees Celsius), matching to the desert like nature, we were passing through.

In the afternoon, we reached Qom. Qom is considered holy by Shiʿa Islam, as it is the site of the shrine of Fatema Mæ’sume, sister a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad. The city is the largest center for Shiʿa scholarship in the world, and is a significant destination of pilgrimage. Neither Benedikt nor I were excited to visit the city, but the Tesla needed energy.

Electricity at the hotel’s basement

Remembering our “tragedy” in Zanjan (see this post), I was already expecting not much help from the first hotel that we approached. I enjoyed it so much to be proven wrong. The receptionist offered us tea while we were waiting for the answer of the electrician. A little bit later Benedikt drove the car via elevator in the basement of the hotel. There he set up a charging connection with the connections hanging on a wooden board. It seemed like they just waited there for us to connect. The hotel’s electrician helped.

We enjoyed a rest at the. The next morning, the elevator luckily lifted the Tesla up out of the basement again (I wasn’t so sure about that – the Tesla weighs 2.3 tons). With a fully charged car we continued our journey towards north – destination the east shore of Tehran.

 

 

 outlet/socket  Volt  Ampere  kW  kWh
 connection with three-phase wires  220 volt  3*32 amperes possible

3*6 amperes used

  4 kw  50

Charging in Nain, Iran

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One more ripoff in Caravanserai hotel

It was already dark when we left Isfahan. Our destination was a Caravanserai on the road to Naein (east of Isfahan). Again, and again there are things happening in Iran, that are hard to imagine somewhere else. Our experience at that specific Caravanserai was another strange occurrence in Iran: The first impression we got of the Caravanserai was good. It was a nicely renovated building.

When we entered, a guy sitting on the bench, not speaking English, was highly confused that guests entered the hotel. He went into his office, talked to someone on the phone for about ten minutes. After he finished some friends of him appeared. We first thought, “great, he got somebody to translate”, but none of his buddies were speaking English. 5 minutes later, the guy handed us hotel-registration papers to fill out. There has been no conversation so far. No one told us if the hotel has a room available, what kind of rooms there are, what it costs… at least, we wanted to know what we should pay. The guy typed into google-translator 200 Dollars. If someone wants to fool you in Iran, they try to sell you a hotel room for 200 bucks. When we were almost leaving, one of the friends, toothless (sometimes the quality of teeth tells a bit about the background of a person) tried to lower the price to 2.000.000 IRR (roughly …) But even that is for shady people like that way too much. We left and only heard the guys laughing back in the office. I guess we’ll never learn, what is so funny about disturbing your potential guests.

Finally rest in Nain

It was already 10:30 p.m. when we called the next guest house. Due to no guests, it was closed (we should have called earlier…). The owner of the guest house advised us to go to a hostel in Naein. We went there, but the place was awful (old hair on the bed linen and a disgustingly smelling bathroom/toilet). Since it was already past 12:00 and I was really tired we ended up staying anyways. At least the hostel gave us a Schuko-outlet to charge (we had to pay for electricity though).

 

 outlet/socket  Volt  Ampere  kW  kWh
 Schuko  220 volt  6 amperes  2 kW  about 30

Charging in Kashan, Iran

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Hotel offers – two extremes

We put a post on Instagram asking for help to charge our car with three-phase electricity between Tehran and Isfahan. That evening (Wednesday, 31st of May) we received 2 calls from hotels in Kashan.

The person on the first call wanted to sell us a room for 7.000.000 Rial (IRR). That is about 190€. The standard of Iranian hotels is in average quite low and so far, I didn’t see any hotel that was worth 190€/night. Somehow some people in the Iranian tourism industry didn’t understand yet, that tourists are neither dumb nor do they like to be fooled with. We experienced it several times, that we are asked a lot more (meaning up to 5 times more) to pay because we are foreign tourists. An other example are entrance fees of monuments. They always cost 200.000 IRR (5,50€) for non-persian speakers and 30.000 IRR (0,80€) for Iranians. I think this price discrimination is not only disproportional, but is also harming the Iranian tourism industry in the long term.

The second call we received this evening was another hotel manager, who was advertising his hotel and confirming that they have three-phase electricity. After a while Benedikt asked politely how much all of this will cost. He answered that it won’t cost anything for us. The owner of the hotel wants to give us a night for free, since she is a nature lover and appreciates that we are doing our journey with an electric vehicle. That is the other side of Iran. Some people are so generous and hospitable that we sometimes can’t believe that this is happening to us.

Beautiful renovated estate welcoming us for a night

We agreed with the hotel manager that we would arrive the next evening at his hotel. After we left in the afternoon Tehran and its traffic, the Tesla was nicely cruising along the high way towards Kashan. It was still very hot there (above 35 degrees Celsius). Kashan is almost in the Maranjab Desert and looks like a “desert town”. Small, one story high buildings out of loam are typical of Kashan. The hotel manager opened an old, unspectacular door when we pressed the doorbell to one of those loam buildings. Already the first sight into that old house was breath taking. Due to the hot climate, it is not build up in the air but two floors deep. On the ground or deepest story, there is a pictures inner courtyard with a squared pond in the middle. The whole building was renovated with so much care for detail that we almost felt like staying in a museum.

We spend a very calm and relaxing evening in the above-mentioned courtyard and enjoyed that the heat of the day slowly vanished. That evening we also met the lady, who owns the building and invited us. She herself is the architect who renovated the property. One could feel her love for good design and the nature. We were absolutely honored to be her guest.

Charging on a newly installed three-phase outlet

The hotel manager organized in the evening that an electrician would install a three-phase outlet at the fuse box that was right at the entrance door. In the morning, we charged the car from the newly installed plug for about two to three hours. Once more, we left an hotel with a fully charged car.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 outlet/socket  Volt  Ampere  kW  kWh
 Montenegro outlet  220 volt  3*20 amperes  16 kW  about 50