Question: Hi all,
Some recent eyewitness experience about getting from Van to Orumiyeh via the secondary border post at Sero:
Both Best Van Tur and Van Golu coach lines offer services. Either will sell you a ticket for their own service (20 YTL), but only the service scheduled to depart Van first is likely to run as the later service may not have enough passengers. When I went through, Best Van had a 9 AM and Van Golu a 9:30 AM service. The Best Van service departed, the Van Golu one was cancelled - leaving me standing on the peron. I recommend talking to both companies before buying your ticket!
Fortunately Van Golu found me alternative transport (a tour bus returning empty to Iran) - magnificent customer service, although at the time I confess I was hardly in the mood to appreciate it properly!
The border was the smoothest, most hassle-free crossing of my trip. Helped by the fact that there were so few of us to process, we were through into Iran in less than 45 minutes. There is no free-for-all open range between the borders: you enter a building at Turkish immigration and exit it after Iranian immigration - the two areas are separated only by a short corridor. The Iranian border guard even helped by filling out my entry card in Farsi.
Beware the exchange sharks on the Iranian side. I had 85 YTL left over. I was initially given only 425,000 riyals even though I knew I should get more than 500,000 IR. ("Welcome" to Iran!) But then an Iranian from my coach had a word with the shark, who came over and gave me another 120,000 IR, bringing the total to 545,000 IR. (Welcome to Iran!)
The Reza Hotel in Orumiyeh charged me 140,000 IR for the night for single occupancy of a double room. I suspect the guy charged me the full double room rate, but it's always possible that the single room rate really has jumped that much. (The 2004 LP lists singles at 50,000 and twins at 80-90,000 and the 2006 Middle East guide's Iranian section lists singles at 80,000 and doubles at 120,000, so 140,000 sounds reasonable for the current twin price).
