Shiraz to Esfahan, Iran

26 -28 May 2008

Atmospheric Imam Square

Having invested time yesterday to smooth the way for our departure today, we reckoned we’d only need about an hour at Shiraz Airport, so we arrived at 8 a.m. for take-off at 9 a.m. We couldn’t have been more wrong! Upon arrival the friendly and helpful terminal manager called the briefing office for departure clearance, and I was informed that I had to go back as they had made mistakes with the landing and parking fees. Half an hour later a car took me the 2 kms to the briefing office, and I was informed that I had to pay an additional 280 US$ as the minimum landing fee is 50 US$ and the minimum navigation fee is also 50 US$. In addition, the hourly parking fee is 2.5% of landing fee (US$ 2.50) during day hours (5:00 to 21:00 hrs) and 5 % of landing fee (US$ 5.00) during night hours (21:00 to 5:00 hrs) for a total of 227 US$ for our 3 days of parking.
After returning to the domestic terminal, it took an hour to get security clearance for apron access in spite of the help of the terminal manager. Then the fuel truck had broken down, and after 45 mins they came with a trailer with two 200 liter barrels of Avgas 100LL, and it took a while to transfer the contents of one of them manually. So when we finally called up tower for start-up two hours after our scheduled departure time, we were informed that our flight plan had expired and we had to go back to the briefing office to file a new one! Angela was furious and even forgot to put on her scarf again before getting out of the plane. (We saw a few female student pilots wearing the compulsory black headdress.)
Fortunately we could refile a new flight plan by phone with the friendly help of Mr Ali Kuchbideh at Civil Aviation Technology College which was nearby. We had to wait a bit more then, as there is a minimum of 30 minutes from filing to take-off. We finally got airborne at midday 3 hours late, which meant a bumpy ride at FL125 to Esfahan.
We took a taxi into town, only to find that the hotel we had planned to stay at was fully booked. The receptionist tried several other hotels, and only one had room. We went to see the room, which was shabby, hot and smelly. Then our taxi driver crashed into a car in front of him. While they were arguing, Angela asked an English speaking passer-by for the name of another hotel, and he suggested the Kowsar near the Zayandeh river and Si-o-Seh bridge. We then took another taxi, and finally got an excellent room by 16:30 p.m. The flight itself only took 1 hour 41 minutes, but it took 9 hours to get from our Shiraz hotel to our Esfahan hotel. What a day!
We went for a sunset stroll by the river and its attractive historical bridges and had a good dinner at the Shahrzad restaurant, beautifully decorated in the traditional style with wall-paintings, stained-glass windows and mirrorwork. In spite of the absence of wine, our mood had improved by this time.