Originally Posted by joasphoto

Bazargan was definitely the worst border that we crossed.

Be prepared to all sorts of scams.

The Turkish side was great, everything very organized, friendly and helpful blokes. After having your stamps done and your bike x-ray scanned, they open the gates to let you go. Easy and simple.

The Iranian gate is face to face with the turkish one, so, once the turkish one closes, the iranian opens. Good! Now we were in. An overweight fella smart dressed came to us and politely asked us "passports and carnets please!", okay, passports and carnets handled to him. 30 minutes later, he came back asking to move the bikes a side and come inside the building with him. Than, we realized that HE WASN'T a staff member, he was someone who can nail you first, by the first gate, (while the rest of the scammers stay very after, at the bottom of the hill), he gets your papers, sort out your stamps to make you pay for some insurance later and make his money!
Well, we are not stupids, when we realized that he wasn't a staff of the border, we had a big argument with him, we toke ours docs back and started sorting out our stamps ourselves. (funny that, the border is such a mess that nobody uses a badge or an uniform to distinguish the staff from the crowd, you know who is staff because the person is behind a desk). You will need about three stamps and the carnet done, which can be done my yourself quite quickly (depends how busy the border is). After having the passport and carnet stamped, the border agent asked if we had insurance for the bikes... we said we have a green card that we bought in Turkey, he replied that it doesn't work in Iran, that we have to buy a new one, at this moment the fat fella came again like a vulture after a new piece of carrion, he joined the border guy and both started talking about the insurance, that we should come outside, get the bikes and follow them in a car to the bottom of the hill where a little building with INSURANCE written in the entrance was placed. I went to the building and a man behind a desk and computer asked me to have a sit, done. I asked to him how much was the insurance and he replied asking me to ask the two fellas that brought us there, at this moment I realized that something was wrong, if the man behind the desk, which works with insurance could not tell straight away how much the insurance was, is because there was something wrong about it. so, I asked the border guy how much was it.... 100 euros each for year, I replied saying that we just needed for 10 days! "Well, doesn't matter, you have to buy for a year" he said. After much discussion and a pile of stressful moments, we refused to pay this stupid money, so, he finally said, "you can go without insurance than, pay me 30 euros and you can go", I didn't have any small notes in euros, but I had 20 pounds note, so, that worked, and he let us go. The fat fella wasn't happy, of course, the scam didn't work with us and he lost money, bastard. So, finally we were free to ride Iran!

In our case, nobody asked us to buy any petrol card at all, and I don't think worth it, unless you gonna spend months in Iran. The petrol is very cheap even without the card, 7000 rials per liter, or 4000 rials with the card.

Just a note: at the bottom of the hill at the border you will find hundreds of people trying to exchange money and convince you to buy insurance... Be smart, make sure to check on line in Turkey what if the exchange rates for the currencies you have to Iranian rials, otherwise you will be lost to negotiate price with this guys. When in Turkey, we could not find any place to exchange money for Iranian reals, the only place we found was at the border and inside Iran.

Petrol in Iran is okay, I read here before my trip that the petrol is cheap but the quality is bad. Bullshit, the petrol is more than fine, actually, my bike got even more economic with Iranian petrol, I did't notice any substantial loss in performance, anyway, I wan't in a track day, I was riding a adventure bike in a public road. If you eventually ride take your super bike to Iran, just ask for petrol super at the petrol station, it has more octane, but it is not available everywhere.

When you get to the border, do not handle your docs for anyone polite just because he is dresses smartly. Park your bike a side and get inside the building to make sure about who is in charge.

Iran has one of the most friendly people you can find, but the borders and the police are disgraceful.

Make sure you have some money exchanged at the border, enough to have petrol, food and accommodation paid until you reach a big city. Yes, you can pay hotels with dollars, but the exchange rate is not gonna be that great.

Don't expect people speaking english so easy (unless you are in a big city), was had to make them understand the language of the signals!!!!!

BIG tips:
- because the Iranian money has so many zeros, they informally cut one zero from the money, so, 40.000 rials is equal 4.000 tomans. Get familiar with this! so, if they ask for 10.000 tomans, means 100.000 rials!
- get a mask, actually, get a mask and some spare ones to use all the times, Iran is very very polluted, if you are western, you will face a level of pollution that you never saw in your life, some times, the atmosphere gets so polluted that you barely see the end of the road.

If you need more info, let me know!

Good luck!