Ali from the hotel had arranged our bus ticket from Kerman to Shiraz, so it was a stress-less breakfast followed by a short taxi ride to the bus station for our long bus-ride to Shiraz.
At the station we ran into the man whom we met at the bazaar, who wanted to know about migration to New Zealand.
At 1000 the bus door opened for boarding and we left about 20 mins later. It was a very desolate landscape with a little green here and there. The bus stopped around 1500 for lunch. There was some nice-looking kebabs on skewers which looked like aluminium swords, served in bread.
Some landscape that followed looked like Texas or Nevada. About an hour outside of Shiraz was a red lake where salt was being extracted and there were flamingoes (seasonal). A curious little boy wandered around the bus checking in on us every now and then. The mother would softly call him back “Mohsen … Mohsen …”.
We arrived at Karandish station in the evening and taxied to Eram Hotel. We hadn’t arranged accommodation for Shiraz. Their opening price of USD45 dropped down to USD30 including breakfast after a little bargaining.
We were ready for dinner and had half a roasted chicken with bread and salad. After that, we wrote a long email home to family at Café Net diagonally across the road from the hotel.