HASSLES IN IRAN

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We woke up early, drank chai in the restaurant, paid the bill and walked out of town, having decided to try hitching to Teheran. Unlike many of the small towns we had passed through in Eastern Turkey where there were always plenty of men standing around, apparently doing nothing, and hardly any women to be seen, everyone in Maku seemed to be busy. The bakers were forming dough into flat rounds, a peak-capped policeman was strolling down the street, women wearing chadors over western style blouses and trousers were carrying water or washing clothes in a stream.  A group of small children stopped their playing briefly to wave and shout at us. On the edge of the town, where the mud-walled houses petered out, a young man carrying a bag of fresh, very thin, crispy bread stopped and, without uttering a word, handed us a large piece...  a small but surprising kindness from a total stranger. We ate the delicious bread as we walked in a dry and barren lansdcape, the road cutting through hills of bare rock.

When a truck appeared going in our direction I put out my arm and waved. It stopped, they were going all the way to Teheran, and we had a ride. The truck was transporting sheep and apart from the driver and his mate riding in the cab, there was a crazed looking guy dressed in clothes totally made of crudely sewn patches who travelled with the animals.  Cackling like a lunatic, he tied our bags on top of the cab and we were off.  As the truck roared eastward we managed to make some conversation with our companions, teaching each other the Farsi and English words for different things. The co-driver gave us bread and honey but they wouldn’t eat, as it was still Ramadan. A few hours later they stopped to buy an enormous, sweet melon for us, we felt rather guilty eating in front of them but they were most insistent. The scenery had changed and we found ourselves ascending into rugged mountains on a winding road. It was on this stretch of the road that the driver started began to take  his hand off the steering wheel to caress Janettes thigh, not openly but every time we went through one of the many tunnels. I didn’t realise until she told me, as he was only doing it in the dark. But it went on for a long time, (there were a lot of tunnels) so we decided to get out at the next decent sized town. The truck wasn’t due to get to Teheran until the early hours of the morning and that was too many hours of darkness for our liking. Janette was imagining all kinds of dreadful things happening to us, rape, robbery, murder, who would know?  They could have dumped our bodies in the middle of nowhere and no one would have been any the wiser, just two young travellers who’d disappeared somewhere in Iran. A little after sunset the driver pulled in to a truck-stop-come-restaurant so that the three of them could have a meal, here we informed the driver that we wanted to be dropped off at Zanjan, the next large town on the map. He appeared to understand, but when we reached Zanjan he drove straight through despite our making it obvious that we wanted him to stop. Our paranoia levels increased. The truck finally came to a halt at a gas station in the town of Takestan and we jumped from the cab demanding that our bags be handed down, which they were by the crazy guy in the back. At this the driver became very angry and demanded 300Rials from me but I made it clear that he wasn’t going to get it. We eventually reached a compromise at 200Rials and, once the guy had the money in his hands, he was all smiles again and shook both our hands before driving off.  I guess the only reason that they picked us up in the first place was for the money that they could screw out of us.  Having a young, attractive, Western woman's thigh to fondle was probably just a bonus.

They could have dumped our bodies in the middle of nowhere and no one would have been any the wiser...

Arriving after dark in a strange town in a strange country is not an ideal situation to be in. We looked around us for any sign of a hotel but everywhere was closed and shuttered. Randomly picking a direction we began to walk down the road and heard a little voice shout, “Hullo”. Out of the darkness appeared a young boy who asked us in reasonable English if we were looking for somewhere to sleep. We followed him for a short way until we arrived at an empty restaurant.  Leading us through the front door, he showed us to a carpeted room  with a simple curtain for a door, at the rear of the building.  He said we could sleep here for 25Rials each and we agreed, it was too late to be trudging the streets looking for anything else. We ate bread and salty goat’s cheese in the dining room and, over the inevitable chai, we chatted with the boy, Mohammed, and his younger brother Zabi. They taught us a whole bunch of useful words and phrases in Farsi, which I jotted down phonetically. At about 11pm we returned to our room to find that we were sharing it with someone else, a small Turkish man. Mohammed and Zabi watched in wide-eyed amazement as we unrolled our sleeping bags. They thought that they were wonderful, they’d obviously never seen one before. We both slept badly. The Turk, wrapped in blankets, scratched all night and in the early hours of the morning someone noisily mopped the cafe floor, singing loudly. Cheerful bastard! I could have strangled him.

I woke up with a mass of madly itching fleabites down one leg.  The Turk had gone but had apparently left some of his biting friends behind.  We drank chai, paid the bill and left. As soon as we hit the street we came to the attention of a large crowd of kids, obviously not used to seeing foreigners in their town, who followed along behind and insisted on practising their English on us. We gritted our teeth and tried to ignore them, finding them incredibly irritating due, no doubt, to a lack of sleep. On reaching the outskirts a car stopped and the driver offered us a lift to Teheran but Janette was suspicious after the previous day’s experience and we refused. The same thing happened a second time, this time a car that was originally coming towards us suddenly turned round and screeched to a halt. Again we said no. The driver of the third car that stopped didn’t look so shifty and said that he would take us for 20Rials so we climbed in. Unfortunately he immediately turned the car around and headed back to town where he drove around shouting and waving to his friends. We seemed to be a major attraction. But now I was pissed off and bellowed at him to, ‘Stop the fucking car’. He looked quite taken aback and straight away let us out. Once again we became the Pied Pipers of Takestan with a gang of small, snotty nosed kids who followed all the way to the main highway shouting, “Hulloo, howarryoo? One, two, three, Good morning etc. etc”.

Eventually we managed to flag down an articulated lorry transporting logs, the two guys in the cab seemed OK but our ability to judge the character of people had been pretty suspect up to now so we were on our guard. We only travelled with them a short way before the truck was stopped at a police checkpoint where an almighty row broke out between the armed police and the driver. We had no idea what it was about but the cops made it plain that we couldn’t travel in the truck. Rather than leave us stranded on the side of the road they flagged down a pick-up, had a word with the driver and we climbed in. I don’t think that he was too pleased to have us foisted upon him but he drove us all the way into the gas-fumed polluted centre of Teheran and gladly accepted 100Rials for his trouble. We quickly found Amir Kabir Avenue and the renowned Hotel Amir Kabir, (like the Gulhane in Istanbul it was a well-known stopping off place for travellers on the overland route). We booked in, 75Rials each for a double room with washbasin plus hot showers at the end of the corridor. The clerk at the front desk handed us a street map of Teheran which also included the addresses of all the Embassies and consulates plus, printed at the very bottom, these two adages; ‘A SMILE costs Less than Electricity and Gives MORE light’ and ‘Laziness Travels so Slowly that Poverty Soon Over Takes It’. The hotel catered for westerners, providing non-Iranian food and drink, travel information and maps, and had English speaking staff. It was a haven, a retreat from the world outside its doors and sadly, a necessity. The fantasy we had in England of immersing ourselves in different cultures depended upon our being accepted by the people in whose countries we travelled. It had quickly become apparent that in eastern Turkey and Iran we were seen by some as aliens to be ridiculed and ripped off. There was no way that we could blend in, we were too different. Everywhere we went we attracted stares, especially Janette, which, after a while, became very wearing.

We thought that, as it was still early afternoon, we would go to the Afghan Embassy and apply for visas but were told in the hotel that the Embassy was closed, today being Friday, the Moslem holy day. Instead, we strolled around the streets of this South Teheran working-class district and found ourselves in an ancient crumbling bazaar where shafts of dusty sunlight illuminated the gloom. This was real downtown local Teheran where goods were bought and sold and where we appeared to be the only westerners. The shopkeepers were friendly and welcoming and, in a strange and surreptitious transaction, I bought a small piece of hash. I was a little nervous about it as Iran had a reputation of having a very tough policy on drugs, (due to pressure being exerted by the US Government the penalty for possession of a kilo or more of cannabis was execution with no trial) but the temptation was too great. We bought two rounds of sweet bread and a couple of apples and returned to the Amir Kabir where we showered and washed our clothes. In the evening we relaxed, smoked hash and drank cold Chocomilk, what a treat!

After a good nights sleep we took advantage of the hotel restaurant and fortified ourselves with a breakfast of fried eggs, flat bread and chai. It took at least an hour to walk to the Afghan Embassy only to find a hand-written note on the door saying, ‘Closed until Monday’. We decided to try and get a bus to Mashad the next day and pick up our visas there.

From the Afghan Embassy we walked in ever increasing heat to the US Consulate where we hoped to pick up mail from their Poste Restante department. Disappointingly, the place had just closed for lunch and wasn’t due to open again for another hour. Rather than hang around we returned to the hotel to enquire about buses to Mashad. We managed to book on a Mehan Tours bus leaving at 8.00am, costing 300Rials each and taking around eighteen hours to cover the 600 mile journey. Taking a taxi back to the US Consulate we found ourselves confronted by an unfriendly, overweight, officious American woman who refused to even check if mail was being held for us saying that, as we weren’t US citizens there couldn’t be mail because the Poste Restante service was for US citizens ONLY. Bitch! (I bet she was a Nixon supporter). On the way back to the Amir Kabir we picked up a jar of honey, more sweet bread, apples and a melon to take with us tomorrow. For our evening meal we treated ourselves to egg and chips with bread followed by chai and a chocolate-iced donut, a veritable feast. Back in our room we locked the door and smoked some dope. Desperate for English reading material I had found an old copy of ‘Woman’ magazine, which I partially devoured along with most of the melon.

Janette woke me at six the next morning. I’d slept heavily, sedated by the hash, but she’d been tossing and turning all night worried that we would oversleep and miss the bus. We breakfasted on yoghurt, bread and milk, paid our bill and arrived for the bus at 7:30. Unlike the buses we had travelled on in Turkey where Janette was the only woman, at least half of the passengers on this bus were woman, many with children. We were also not the only Europeans; there was a German man, probably in his late forties, who was travelling to India. He spoke hardly any English, made no attempt at Farsi, was very awkward and made the simplest things, (like ordering chai) very complicated. Everything appeared to be an ordeal for him. He looked very much out of place and we both felt quite sorry for him.

The bus left on time and moved on to Pahlavi Avenue where the driver edged his way through the total madness of Teheran’s traffic until we finally left behind the flat scrubland around the city and began to climb into the Elborz Mountains to the north. We stopped at a small town called Polur where all the men disembarked and went into a café. Once the men were seated the women covered their faces and, with their children, followed, but were ushered into a room at the rear. We sat with the men and, beneath the ever-present, huge, framed photograph of His Imperial Majesty Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, had a second breakfast of bread, butter and marmalade washed down with, of course, glasses of hot chai. Eveyone was fascinated by us and very friendly.  The landscape in this part of Iran was spectacular; towering, rocky mountains, brown and windswept, enveloped us as we wound our way towards the Caspian. Following the Haraz River we came down into the lush area between the mountains and the sea. There appeared to have been recent heavy rain as many of the side-roads were thick with churned up mud and the fields were swamped. We passed orchards and tea plantations and, rather worryingly, many road accidents with vehicles totally wrecked. One, which appeared to have just recently occurred, was a bus that had rolled on to its side. All the passengers were sitting there looking shocked. Janette and I looked at each other both thinking the same thing. But, Inshallah, we would be OK. The bus driver’s assistant chose this moment to hand out free sweets and bottles of Coca-Cola. I wondered if he was attempting to take our minds off what we’d just witnessed.

It was dark by 5:30pm and with the dark came the cold. And it was very cold. We stopped at about nine o’clock to eat and were successful in getting the waiter to understand that we didn’t want any meat, (‘nay goosht’). We dined on plain rice with butter melted into it, strong raw onion and flat bread. We were joined by three guys who told us that they were trainers in a nearby army camp, they were interested in where we came from and where we were going, all the usual stuff. When it was time for us to return to the bus they offered to pay for our meal, we politely refused but were touched by their generosity.

We rolled into Mashad at two in the morning, once again arriving at a bad time in an unfamiliar place, and it was freezing. A dodgy looking taxi driver, (we seemed to attract them) offered to take us to a hotel for 50Rials and told us that the Hotel would cost us 50Rials each. He tried to get Janette to sit next to him on the front seat but we’d been through that movie before so I sat there with Janette on the outside. Needless to say, he kept his hands to himself. The Hotel was a pleasant surprise, the two young boys at reception showed us to our room which was clean with two beds and a washbasin, even a rug on the floor. Then we saw a notice on the wall, which said that the price of the room was 240Rials which was considerably more than we were willing to pay. I rushed downstairs and, after some intense negotiation, managed to get an agreement on 130Rials. When I got back to the room Janette had added an extra layer of clothing in anticipation of returning to the streets. It was past three o’clock when we finally got to bed and we slept solidly through to 8am.

We walked out of the hotel into bright sunshine and sharp morning air intending to go directly to the Afghan Embassy to get our visas. Unfortunately this was not to be as Janette had discovered that she had lost her camera, probably on yesterday’s bus. She was very upset, not only had we taken load of photos with it, which were on the film, but it had also been a going-away present from her parents, (who hadn’t really want her to go away in the first place). I didn’t help matters by my unreasonable irritation at this unforeseen hitch in our plans, the hassle of having to go and search for it, the absolute conviction I had that we would never see it again, plus the loss of the photographs. I waved down a taxi and we returned to the bus station where a very sympathetic employee listened to our story. He somehow tracked down the same bus that we had travelled on from Teheran and told us to take a look. Amazingly, and to our great relief, the camera was on the floor under the seat where it had fallen. With both of our spirits now lifted and the monosyllabic acrimony of our conversation despatched we set off along wide, tree-lined boulevards to the Afghan Embassy. We were the object of many hostile stares and had been warned to expect it in this city, the Mecca for Shi-ite Muslims. Mashad apparently translates as ‘martyrdom’.

By the time we’d found our way to the Embassy there was already a long line of travellers of all nationalities waiting. It was an hour and a half before we reached the front of the queue and were each handed a form to be completed in triplicate, all with a photograph attached. Luckily we’d had the foresight to bring plenty of duplicate passport sized photos with us, aware that we would probably need them for picking up visas. This accomplished we exited the building and joined a second line of people waiting in the garden to hand in the application forms plus passports. By 11am we had fulfilled all the Afghan bureaucratic requirements and were informed that our visas would be ready at 12:30. From talking to others who were going through the same process we discovered that Mashad’s main post office was only a short walk away. Having received no mail since we left home this was a ‘must visit’ place. I, with my innate lack of direction somehow managed to get us lost as usual but we were soon put straight by a young Iranian guy who offered me 15US Dollars for my Levi jacket. Not enough for me to sell it at this point in the trip. At the post office we were surprised to find that there were three letters for us, one from Janette’s parents, one from my Dad and another from my stepmothers father, Mr Clough. It was good to hear from home but made us realise just how far away we were now. Not having eaten yet today, we bought bread, sweet limes and a melon and devoured them back in the Embassy garden. As soon as we were handed our visas we went off to find a bus that would take us to Taybad near the Afghan border. There was a bus leaving at three o’clock but a twitchy Iranian youth that we had previously run across in Teheran persuaded us not to go. He informed us that the border closed at 5pm during Ramadan and that the hotels in Taybad were really expensive in order to make as much money as possible out of those stranded there. We booked on a bus with Khava Tours that would leave at 10.00am the following morning and would take us to Islam Qu’ala, which, we were assured, was the actual border post. Our helpful friend directed us to the Mardjan Hotel on Teheran Avenue, 70Rials each with free, (but non-existent) hot shower. It was a pokey little pink-walled cell and not very clean but neither were we and we were gradually becoming less and less fussy, it was somewhere to sleep and that was really all we needed.

Having found somewhere to leave our belongings and with the rest of the day free we took off for a wander around the city. It was certainly the nicest place we’d visited in Iran with its domes of turquoise and gold and its total absence of western influence. A young man offered to show us around the Tomb of Imam Reza but we demurred expecting a possible hostile reception from the mullahs or other fanatical believers. Instead he took us to an ancient caravanserai, in use as a carpet centre, and introduced us to his brother who proceeded to show us a selection of beautiful Persian and Afghan carpets. He did his best to make a sale but there was no real pressure. Over many glasses of chai we learned about the different types of carpet including the mythical ‘flying carpet’, so named not because of any magical properties but because the dye used, a rich, dark orange, was supposedly derived from the cannabis plant. Of course this may have been simply sales patter but it was interesting and fitted in nicely with the exotic atmosphere in that old circular building with its balcony and arches. Here one could sit and breathe in the history of centuries, of camel trains on the Silk Road, of tradesman and merchants. We were shown how to recognise the best quality carpets by the weave and the knotting, that the value of a good hand-made carpet increased with age and that the best thing that you can do to a carpet, no matter how expensive, is to walk on it.

As early evening approached we ducked into a bakery to buy fresh bread and were invited into the back to see how the baking was done. In a white-tiled room we found four men sitting on the stone floor around a circular hole, this was the oven and obviously heated from below. They operated a kind of production line system whereby the first guy hand-rolled the prepared dough into large balls, the second stretched them out into the recognisable flat ‘nan’ shape, the third slapped them on to the inside wall of the oven, where they stuck, and the fourth guy hooked them out when ready. They were a jovial team of workers and more than pleased to have their photograph taken. Walking back to the hotel through the, by now, brightly lit streets we met a boy who said that he worked for the Tourist Information Service and invited us to his home for tea. We followed him through a large courtyard with trees in the centre and into a large carpeted room furnished only with a dresser, a small table and a chair with a pile of clothes on it. We conversed about various subjects over our chai (he was very keen on western music, particularly Englebert Humperdink). After a short time we left and made our way back to the Mardjan. We were offered hashish by a number of guys as we strolled back but it didn’t feel right, besides, tomorrow we would be in Afghanistan, land of the strongest dope on the planet.

The following morning we arrived an hour early at the bus station and bought apples while we waited. A group of friendly Iranian women shared nuts with us and, when their bus arrived they all smiled and waved goodbye. We left at 10:20. The bus was full and amongst the passengers there were seven other Europeans, two of them English, two Swiss and three French. We pulled in to a rest stop in some godforsaken dust-blown place in the middle of nowhere where we spent the last of our Rials. As we were drinking our chai and eating boiled sweets an Iranian soldier came over to inspect my wristwatch, a cheap Timex. He wanted to exchange his, far better watch, for mine. He was very insistent so I agreed. I thought he was mad but that was his problem. About an hour later he came down the bus and wanted to exchange them back again. That was fine with me. I had no idea what was going on in that mans head and didn’t really care. The journey was uneventful after that and we watched out of the window, as the landscape grew wilder and more barren.

Seven hours after leaving Mashad we arrived at the small town of Taibad where the entire load of luggage was thrown down from the roof of the bus and placed in the side compartments. A few miles down the road we stopped at the floodlit Iranian border post, contained within a ten-foot fence,  very modern and built, presumably with US Dollars to aid in the fight against drug smuggling.  It took around  thirty minutes to get our passports checked and stamped by the armed, peak-capped, green-uniformed officials.  We passed the time browsing the glass-fronted display cabinets containing examples of smuggling techniques that had been discovered, from petrol tanks and aluminium backpack frames to hollow sandal soles.  Outside we had a bit of a hassle with an Afghan mini-bus driver who demanded money up front, in Afghanis, before he would take us across the ten miles of no-mans land and then on to Herat. The general consensus of opinion was that the 100Afghanis he was charging was too much and anyway, no one actually had any Afghanis. There was a great deal of argument but eventually an agreement was reached. We would all give him our vaccination certificates as insurance and would pay him as soon as we’d been to the bank at the Afghan border post. This appeared to satisfy him and, with his beaten up old mini-bus filled, he drove off into no-man’s land. This area of desert was reputed to be bandit and smuggler territory and, even though we didn’t see another living thing, I felt a twinge of excitement at crossing it.