If there was ever any doubt about the skill of our bus driver one only has to look at the picture of the road up which he had to back his very large bus in order to turn it around on the day when we visited the Armenian St Stephanos’ fortified monastery.

A long, winding road back and in reverse

He carried us over long distances through hundreds of kilometres of desert and negotiated nightmarish traffic in the cities, fronted up to frequent police checkpoints and, at one stage, drove through the night to deliver the bus from Tehran to Ahvaz while we took the easy option of a plane trip. For this journey he had a co-driver and the bus had a sleeping compartment but it was, nevertheless, an outstanding performance.

Even on what must have been one of his blackest days he didn’t lose his sense of humour or his cool although he was sorely tested.

The day started well with a visit to the Armenian Museum and the Blue Mosque but on the way to St Stephanos’s Monastery we had to go through one of the ubiquitous police checkpoints. We were close to the border with Turkey and smuggling is something of a problem in Iran so the checkpoints were more numerous in the area.

The police at the checkpoint insisted that both the bus and the passengers needed to have insurance cover before proceeding. The information that the bus, the tour and the passengers were already more than adequately insured did nothing to change their minds and an appeal to a higher person up the ladder simply iterated the information; before we could continue our journey we had to be insured again. This process took 90 minutes.

Impossible to move another inch forward

Finally we were on our way but needed to fill up the tank before we drove further. At the service station the driver was informed of a new law, to minimise fuel being smuggled into Turkey, necessitating a permit to purchase fuel. What had been happening was that big trucks were filling their tanks with subsidised fuel, driving across the border into Turkey and selling the fuel at a big profit.

The place to obtain the permit was nearby but it took another 90 minutes to get permission to refuel - all in all a three hour delay. At that stage it was going to be dark before we reached St Stephanos and have lunch so we all voted to miss lunch and carry on, boosted by generous helpings of nuts and drinks of water to keep us going.

We made it, along a very winding road, to within a couple of kilometres of St Stephanos when disaster struck again, in the form of a landslide across the road. There were workmen repairing the road but nothing to suggest that the it was closed, blocked or otherwise unpassable. The bus tried to get through but, looking at the photo, you will see why our driver realised that it was impossible. We all opted to walk uphill to the monastery while the bus was backed carefully to a place where it was possible to turn around and if you look at the photo you will see that this was no mean feat.

St Stephanos' monastery

On our way downhill again we were met by a taxi, summonsed from goodness knows where, which ferried us all back to the bus. A day of disasters but that didn’t stop us from enjoying ourselves ... and the monastery was certainly worth the wait, the climb and the missed lunch.

St Stephanos' monastery