Iran, it’s not how you think.
November 4, 2008 at 9:55 am | Trip | 2 comments
‘How much?’
‘16 Toman’
About sixteen US Dollars, hmm, I hadn’t stayed in a hotel in Iran that was more than 10 toman a night.
‘Hi, can I help?’
‘Oh yes, I’m just trying to explain that this is too expensive, do you know of a cheaper hotel?
*Some Farsi is exchange*
‘12 Toman he says’
‘I’m sorry but I can’t afford more than 8′
*some more Farsi, the hotel owner looks slighted and glowers at me*
‘He says ok, 8 toman; I’m an English teacher at a school down the road, will you come and see my class?’
‘Of course! Anything’
A few moments later I’m sitting in front of a class of 15 or so 18-22 year old Iranian girls, somewhat apprehensively.
‘Tell us about England Mr Sam’
‘Ah, well I’m probably not the best person to talk about England as I’m not really a fan of it!’
Despite my personal viewpoint I launch into a diatribe attempting to compare the differences between the UK and Iran diplomatically.
‘Does anyone have any questions for Mr Sam?’
The girls break into hushed discussion and burst out laughing and start nudging one of the group who shakes her head and looks at the teacher.
‘She wants to know if she can have your email address’
‘Of course, no problem, you can write it up on the board if you like’
The questions start flying, ‘Where are you going?’, ‘What do you do when you need to calm down?’, ‘What countries have you been to?’, ‘What do you think about Iran?’.
Time’s up, one last question from the prettiest girl in the class.
‘Would you like for me and my friends to show you the city?’
I’m not about to turn down an invitation like that!
That’s how I found myself in a Peugeot 206 with 3 beautiful Iranian girls driving round seeing the sights.
I quizzed them about what they thought of the laws that the west perceived as ‘oppressive’.
‘We feel the same, I hate the Hedjab, I wish I didn’t have to wear it’
At that moment one of the girls phones rang.
‘It’s her boyfriend’ Nelly told me, giggling.
‘How does that work?’ I enquired, as as far as I knew Iran was a segregated society and I knew that at the very least sex before marriage is illegal.
‘Her parents don’t know, they’re always talking by SMS and mobile’
As it turned out we were going to the park to meet this boyfriend, so they could surreptitiously hold hands and exchange a few words in person.
I don’t seem to be very loquacious at the moment, but I figured I’d better post this otherwise it’ll end up on the ever-growing pile of drafts that never get posted!
Friendly too friendly
November 4, 2008 at 2:44 pm | Trip | 4 comments
I followed the cross-eyed man to his hotel room even though I was dog-tired.
‘Don’t refuse Iranian hospitality!’ I reminded myself.
When he pulled out a bottle of scotch I was glad I had, a stressful day’s driving called for a bottle of highly illegal scotch (carrying a sentence of 6 months for the first offence, 2 years for the second, though admittedly largely inapplicable to foreigners).
He gestured for me to put my feet up and make myself comfortable, as I did so he stripped to his boxers in the same vein.
Unperturbed by this I went on drinking.
Only when he started massaging his thighs did I start to get a little worried.
As soon as I finished off my glass he grabbed my hand and thrust it upon his thigh.
‘Whoa! Ok.. Yeah… Thanks for the drink but… that’s enough for me!’
I fled to my own room, locked the door and didn’t come out ’til the morning.
The cave near Hamedan was quite impressive, absolutely massive and more stalactices than you’ve ever seen.
I apologise for the quality of the photos incidentally, it’s hard to get a good photo in near total darkness while you’re pedalling a pedalo!
A country behind
November 10, 2008 at 5:42 pm | Trip | 2 comments
Warning: andy area ahead
‘Andy area?’ I thought to myself , ‘What the fuck is an Andy– Holy shit!‘
I leaned hard on the right hand handlebar and narrowly missed the massive sand dune that flared up in my headlight only metres away.
‘Ah.. that would be a sandy area…’
As if driving on the left after 6 months of driving on the right wasn’t enough to contend with!
Getting from Zahedan (the closest large city on the Iranian side of the border) to the border itself took me 4 hours due to a highly inefficient relay of escorts that seemed more geared towards preventing me from leaving the beaten path than actually protecting me.
On the way to Zahedan I overtook a tourist bus rocketing along at some 70mph behind a pick-up with a belt-feed fully-automatic machine gun mounted on the back, comforting!
But… Other than that the crossing itself was hassle free and relatively quick.
On the Pakistan side….
‘Wow… Pakistan is a 3rd world country man…’
Whereas on the Iranian side it had all been neat offices with airconditioning and tarmaced roads connection them, when I traipsed into the Pakistani Immigration Office I nearly slipped over on the shifting mini-dunes that skittered across the cracked tile floor.
The customs office was little better, hidden behind a power-substation it took me a while to find, but when I did, I met a fellow overlander; a chap from Germany with ‘Everest 2003′ emblazoned on the side of his transit-van, apparently he’d been travelling for some time!
‘The road from here to Quetta is in very bad shape, the engineers who planned it were stupid people who didn’t put drainage in, so the first wet season came and it all washed away’
This assessment was to prove unfortunately correct.
Although it had been many years since the road was originally built, since then its re-designs and re-builds haven’t improved matters much, and I was faced with Moldova-syndrome, where the road would periodically plunge into unsealed gravel roads with rocks the size of my face dancing gaily under my wheels.
Still, after a few near misses with sand dunes, unlit cyclists and even the occasional camel I descended upon a road-side truckers ‘hotel’ after the smell of hot curry drew me inexorably towards its source.
‘Cor… First curry in 6 months’
I had been starving myself all day for this… 3 full plates of curry and rice, 3 pots of tea and an unknown quantity of Naan later I drove my bike into my room…
Yes.. Literally, was a bit of a squeeze but it fit eventually!
… And I settled down for the night.
*Knock knock*
‘Salaam Alaekum’
‘Alaekum Salaam’ I replied sleepily.
One after another the entire village walked curiously into my room, careful to remove their shoes first, even though my muddy, sandy, oily bike had already made a complete mess of the floor.
Fortunately one of them spoke English and he proceeded to introduce every, whose names I immediately forgot, and their roles in the village, the only ones I remember being ‘Barber’ and ‘Militant’.
‘Militant? For whom?’
‘Baluchistan National Party’
‘Aaah, the BNP’ I quipped, a joke mystifying to my friends.
We talked until midnight over tea and hashish; which I was sole partaker of worryingly, I was starting to expect a drug-bust!
Sleep, then up a swig of tea and benzine (siphoning is harder than it looks) and an 11 journey to Quetta, where East meets, uhh.. Middle-East…
And here I am!
Next time on TKTV:
Can I find a cheap second hand camera at Quetta’s renowned market?
Will I be able to sell the 80l of petrol left on my Iranian quota card.
Is there in fact anything interesting in Quetta?
All this and more.. NEXT TIME!!!
Quick Quetta Quip
November 11, 2008 at 4:27 pm | Trip | 1 comment
First thing this morning I nipped down to the Rusi Bazaar, and amongst the broken Sony’s and battered Samsungs I found myself a reasonable enough camera that I beat the guy down from $100 to $55 for.
Only 5.2 megapixel but it works!
Pakistan really is a breath of fresh air after Iran.
It’s made me realise how oddly stale Iran felt in many ways, as although the people are absolutely lovely, that really is the only remarkable thing about the country.
Last night I met an Aussie chap in a curry house while I was fraternising with the locals (who, again tried to offer me a hash-cigarette) and we bumped into one another again the next day shortly after I’d procured my camera.
We sampled the ‘green eggs’ sold on the side of the road with a wedge of bamboo for 7 rupees (about 10cents) which were rather cool.
The rest of the day was spent wandering round looking for alcohol as we’d both come from in Iran and were in need of a stiff drink.
Not much luck was had, so we went all touristy and popped into the local ‘Arms and Munitions dealer’ and had tea and a chat about the accuracy of their rifles.
Lots of poor kids in Pakistan, pens are all their after and as they’re 50 cents a box I’ve been handing them out like sweeties.
Donkeys galore
Quettan speciality of a whole leg of lamb barbequed… Haven’t tried it yet, but god damn it looks delicious!
Gotta love the decorated tuk-tuks!
Beyond that I’ve simply been splurging cash, buying English language books of which there’s a massive selection at ridiculously cheap prices!
And I’ve bought myself a new SIM card, so if you want to give me a call the number is…
+92 (0) 31-38256935
Ciao!
Friendly not so friendly.
November 18, 2008 at 2:38 pm | Trip | 2 comments
I’ve been wrestling with whether or not to write this post, as it’s perfect cannon-fodder for those who try to generalise an entire country as ‘a bunch of terrorists’ or other such nonsense.
But I’m rather committed to my warts-and-all view of the world so here it is.
‘Hmm, must be a very bad accident’ I remarked to myself as I weaved throw the rows of cars parked sideways across the highway.
Suddenly I found myself in a crowd of people, who, as usual turned to look at me with interest and smiles.
They pushed to the fore a man who spoke English.
‘I am sorry,’ (he didn’t look sorry at all) ‘This is a strike against the government, you cannot go anywhere.’
‘I’m just trying to get to Zhob’ I pleaded.
‘You cannot go.’
At this point a man appeared on my right carrying a bamboo stick, then another appeared, and another, they were collecting stones from the ground.
‘Shit…’ I thought to myself, adrenaline racing.
There was an energy running through the air, the kind which lets you know that the crowd you’re in is about to turn into a mob.
Suddenly two small guys burst through the crowd in front of me and bodily push the people standing in front of my wheel to the side and gesture desperately for me to move through.
I stare dumbfounded at them for a second before desperately trying to start the bike.
The gap closes up again, god I’ve missed my chance!
The men reappear and reopen the gap, this time I’m ready.
I rev the engine hard and dash forward, scattering people left and right.
As I force my way through the crowd sticks and stones bounce harmlessly off my armour-padded motorcycle gear.
I duck in and out between the trucks and buses strewn across the road, 6 months of riding with this setup serving me well as I dive through gaps inches wider than my bike.
‘Shit.’ A pick-up blocks my path, I can’t go back and I can’t go round.
Amazingly the two men who cleared my path the first time come to my rescue once more, convincing the onlookers (who appear to simply have been inconvenienced by the whole strike and were milling around outside their bus) to push the pick up out of the way.
Open road before me at last I open the throttle and run as fast as I can, adrenaline pumping and tail between my legs.
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