Iran

December 1999

We were expecting a long wait to get through immigration. A sign said `the import of all alcoholic beverages, firearms and ammunition, videotapes and obscene publications are strictly prohibited` which meant I had to unload half my backpack before presenting myself! Surprisingly we were through in minutes and were not searched. We bypassed the `Official Tourist Officer` who was really a shark looking to book you onto things and entered Iran past a car park with a sign that said `keep ygor goods carefully in the parking` We exchanged $25US at a rate of 8250 rials a dollar (official rate 3500) and waded into the taxi rank.

Imagine 100 Iranians all yelling `Mister Mister where you from?``Change money?``8000 rials a dollar``Tabriz? Taxi $10!` all at the same time. Bedlam. Eventually I yelled `Shut up! We have money. We want to go to Tabriz by bus!`One second of silence. Then `Mister Mister where you from?``Change money?``8500 rials a dollar` `Tabriz? Taxi $7!`all over again. Finally, we got a $1 taxi ride to Maku 22km away and hopped on a bus. Welcome to Iran!

We spent 10 days in Iran and once past the border it was a really friendly, hospitable and interesting place to visit. All transport is very cheap but because of our route, we were unable to catch any planes. It was buses all the way ・including two overnight trips. 60 hours worth of buses and 3600km cost us seven English pounds each! Everything was cheap. The whole visit cost just over £50 each. A litre of petrol only cost 150 rials (and you get 13000 to the English pound on the black market).

Tabriz was the first major stop 3 hours from the border across barren desert. A large non-descript city. Here we discovered the clocks had gone forward 90 minutes. At the bus station, a student came up and discussed English literature with me. A strange experience to find an Iranian reading Chaucer`s `Canterbury Tales` and Milton`s `Paradise Lost` He invited us back to his house but we had an overnight Bus to catch to Hamadan ・11 hours and 553km away. It snowed all night. The driver, who talked to passengers for the whole journey, had a red illuminous doll`s head hanging up on the windscreen. When I occasionally woke up with snow blowing around and this weird head shining before my eyes, I thought I was in the `C arrie` horror movie.

Hamadan (at 1600m altitude) was freezing at 5am and rats scuttled along the streets as we tried to find a cheap hotel. It cost us both £1.50 a night with shared squat toilet and bathroom. The problem for Jo was that she was the only woman in essentially a men`s hostel. Whenever she wanted to use the toilet she had to get dressed up in her chadour and headscarf before leaving the room and she was not happy. There was a carpet in reception on which the men would pray `There is no God but God and Mohammed is his prophet`five times a day.

100km north of Hamadan lie the Ali Sehr Caves. Discovered only 40 years ago, they are a huge underground series of caverns and waterways 150 million years old. We were the only tourists and were treated to a private viewing. Our guide attached his paddleboat to our boat and paddled us around the eerily silent caves with up to 8m deep clear water. There were religious proclamations hanging down like `All of us should know that western style freedom which corrupts young people is denounced by Islam and wisdom` (Iman Khomeini). It was as if an extreme religious group had been taken down there and told to make themselves at home.

The whole landscape around Hamadan was covered in snow. It was strange to visit a country of deserts and be blinded by snow in the sun. The days in Iran was warm but the nights freezing. Hamadan was a market town and we were the only tourists. No one seemed to stop for Ramadan as they had in Turkey.

Iran is a vast country (3x the size of France) with 23% desert and 55% non-arable land. We followed the scattered Zagros mountain range south-east throughout the country. Twisted and buckled brown Jurassic rocks that glowed in the sun like overbaked pastry crusts. Every bus trip was one of endless hours of flat barren landscape with little animation outside. Sand, dust and sun. The towns appeared out of nowhere, in the middle of nowhere, like mirages.

I suppose the first thing that struck me about Iran were the women all covered in their dark chadours. Some looked very elegant. Others looked like black `Daleks`, skittles or ghosts shuffling along. The older women cover their faces. The younger generation do not and I occasionally saw platform shoes on their feet. Jo told me that when she visited the toilet on bus journeys, the women couldn`t wait to take their chadours off and wash their feet. The sexes tended to stick together.

The other initial impression was of everyone yelling`Hello` in Kenneth Williams-Carry-On-Films voices, or `Mister, where you from?` or `Deutsche? Deutsche?` (thinking we were Germans). We got used to it after 500 times on the first day. But no one bothered us and people were pleased that we were not Americans (we saw the occasional `Down with America` graffiti). Everyone was very inquisitive ・probably because we were the only tourists (Iran only had 5000 last year). Whenever I wrote something down in my notepad, people gathered around to look. When we did talk to people they all wanted our address. So I gave them yours!

It was fun to spot English signs gone askew. One bus said 釘TA Travel Service At Your・ Another proclaimed strangely `Welcome WeGo To Trip Goodbye`on its door.

There are no dogs or many cats in Iran. The cars are very small (to get around narrow alleyways I was told), old and beaten up. They last for decades in this climate. A nation of Iranian Ford Capris from the 1970s.

The food is very bland. Kebabs, dog burgers, burger and sausage baguettes, bread, yoghurt, some fruit, Zim-Zam fizzy orange. No alcohol. We ate cheaply (£8 each in 10 days) but we didn`t eat well. There was no variety in what was available and with Ramadan, not a lot was.

We reached the very European looking Esfahan, 500km south, astonished to still have change from $25 between us after 3 days. The streets were like Barcelona`s boulevards next to the Danube River. The river was crossed by 17th century picturesque double-decker stone bridges with teahouses on them. We went upmarket and checked into the comfortable and warm Aria Hotel for 3 nights. (£4.40 each a night including breakfast). Proper toilets again and my first bath of the trip

Esfahan was a fabulous place which I can`t praise enough. It was originally built as a 17th century showpiece by a Shah and the original centre is still intact. On our first night, we walked to the massive spotlit Emam Khomeini Square ・one of the largest in the world (500m by 160m) and it looked spectacular. At one end of the former polo field built in 1612, stood the awesome Masjed-e Eman mosque, the largest in Iran, also under spotlight. On another night, I ended up playing 5 a side football with some Iranian youths in the square as they taught `David Beckham` where he could stick his English football skills.

By day, the mosque is magnificent. The main dome is flanked with twin minarets. The entrance portal was 30 metres tall. The whole building was covered in pale blue tiles which changed colour as the sun passed overhead. Inside, it was a vast empty complex with blue/yellow tiles with flower designs. Again we were the only tourists.

At an official exchange office we were able to get 8600 Rials to the US dollar. We doubled the value of our money and ended up carrying large wads of 10,000 Rial notes with little to spend it on.

Mahdoui Saiid ran the Tourist Office within a Palace on the square. A small, tidy, bearded man who spoke with a clipped BBC accent, he was a mine of information and we spent over an hour hearing about the various stages of how an Iranian man meets a girl and gets married. Stage one: `First I go to my mother and tell her that I am ready to get married. She asks around her friends, relatives and neighbours to see if there are any pretty girls wanting to get married・ There are then various vetting procedures (by the relatives, neighbours etc) and engagement ceremonies involving honey and butter. If he is lucky he finally gets married and to kiss the bride after 7 months. (Getting a look at her is one of the stages!). He also told us of the state of the economy. He earned 60,000 rials a day (under £5) and was forced to teach English and do translation work to raise his income.

Mahdoui had a friend ・Zohreh, a female English lecturer at the University who liked to meet tourists and improve her English. We agreed to meet her. She was a friendly woman in her 30s (still unmarried) with excellent English and good company. She took us around paying for everything (shared taxis and snacks ・it was all very embarrassing for us since she continually refused our money). Later in a cosy teahouse on one of Esfahan`s old bridges, we sipped tea while going through one of her advanced medical textbooks trying to explain some of the words and grammar - some of which even we struggled with. She was very inquisitive and gradually asked us about `taboo` subjects. For instance, I had to put her right about homosexuality in the west. The Iranians believe that it is the worst evil around and that packs of gay men hunt for male victims in the streets of London at night. These men are `sex mad` and take men hostage for their needs like a drug addict (well maybe in San Francisco).

We met up with her on the following evening when she took us to what she called `Iranian wrestling` This sounded interesting. We ended up at a sort of gym covered in pictures of former strongmen on the walls. There was a circular pit/arena and lots of wooden weights (like huge skittles) up to 40kg each. Also some chains. We were expecting a couple of men to come down from the dressing room on the top floor above the seating (for 100 people) and start getting down on the mat. Instead, an old man, sat on a small stage with a large amplified bongo drum and started to yell various things and rap on his drum which sounded hypnotic. He kept this up for an hour, boosting everyone up, while other local men trooped in to watch the performance. Then, suddenly 27 men all came down from the stalls in their wrestling gear (baggy trousers) and proceeded to go through what I can only describe as heavyweight aerobics. 27 of them operated in the sunken circular arena of maybe 30 feet in diameter.

First they all did press-ups together on small wooden benches to the beat of the bongos. Then they went through an array of stretching exercises. Then each man, in turn would start juggling the wooden weights. The smaller men threw up to 4 `small ones` around at a time. The big boys used two of the 40 kilo weights. This was rather impressive in itself. Then we witnessed the 努hirling dervish・stage, where each man had to spin as quickly as possible and then spin around the arena, arms held out horizontally. To do this, for up to 2 minutes, they had to put themselves into a temporary trance (to avoid falling over due to extreme dizziness). It looked very difficult and not something to try at home. Obviously some were better at it than others. Throughout all these scenes, the bongos echoed around and the man`s voice cried out encouraging the strongmen. There was a crescendo of bongos as the juggling or spinning got faster. It was very hypnotic. While each man did his piece, the others stood in the ring and urged him on. 90 minutes later, I was thinking, well this is interesting but when does the wrestling start? But that was it. We had witnessed Zurkane (`House of Strength` and I will never forget it. There was no admission charge. Everyone put what he or she could into a bowl held by the old man.

During our 2 days in Esfahan, we had to renew our 5-day transit visa. A guest from our hotel kindly drove us down to the Foreign Affairs Office where we had to get photocopies of our documents, fill in numerous forms and wait for a decision. We thought we might have to wait half a day, but within a few minutes, a decision was made ・5 more days. We had asked for 15. We probably didn`t get them because Jo looked like my granny. This meant we would have to rush through the rest of Iran and be out by Xmas Day.

On the second day of touring the sights, another male student Madoui, 22, in his final year, whom we met at the mosque, asked to accompany us to improve his English. I wanted to visit the Shaking Minarets so he took us on a local bus to the site. We bribed the guard to open the door to one of the towers and I squeezed up the very narrow stairs. Then I had to cling onto the pillars and use my entire weight to start swinging the tower back and forth. About 30 feet away, a second minaret started to sway as well. It`s amazing what you end up doing when you travel.

I also wanted to visit the Rose Garden of Martyrs ・the cemetery of people who had died in the ten year Iran-Iraq war. He thought this was a strange request but we got a shared taxi there. Here we found a sad strange site of hundreds of graves where a full size photo or sketch of each victim was hung above the grave. The rows of these hundreds of photos with their 70s/80s hairstyles and clothes was an unforgettable sight. While we were browsing, three students with a videocamera came up. They wanted to interview us for a University project. For 15 minutes I had to fend off questions about why were we there? would we have fought? Was it worth it? What did we think about governments sending people to war? Was it the Americans・fault? Jo was asked questions about the role of women in society and her thoughts on Iranian women (She had already discussed this with Zohreh).

We were sad to leave Esfahan but we had to roll on. We caught a bus to Yazd to see the famous old city which UNESCO raves on about, but were very disappointed with it. It was nothing special with a spartan bazaar ・and even the huge mosque, now on the heritage list was unimpressive after Esfahan. Maybe during the winter months, the tourist attractions shut down. My only real memory is of trying to send a package at the post office. First I had to get a box and write my address all over it. Then do the same on some forms. Then someone had to inspect the contents. Since I had had 10 films developed in Esfahan, the poor sod had to look through over 400 photos of Greece and Turkey and boy did he look bored. Then they photocopied my passport details and stuck it on the top of the photos and sealed it. That was one way of passing time in Yazd. I also purchased my only Iranian souvenirs. Some commemorative stamps including a set about the Iranian Eclipse last summer, which we had seen in England. More hours through the desert to Shiraz ・a loud bustling city.

From here we visited the famous ruins of Persepolis. This massive and magnificent palace complex served as a summer capital but was burnt down by Alexander the Great in 331BC. What is left is patchy, but the 300m of stairways are still covered in intricate carvings and decorations. What I found interesting were the carvings from English soldiers who had obviously visited while on campaigns. The graffiti stretched back to 1800 and were still clearly readable. Even the 的ndian Horsemen 1911-12・had left their mark. I wondered what the place had looked like before the archaeologists and restorers had got they hands on it. The sign outside saying, `It is informed to all respected visitors that touching or displacing stones in the site is forbidden and any kind of moving, scratching, writing memories and so on will make the ofenders (sic) liable to prosecution・had obviously been more recent.

Another long overnight bus ride took us to Bam in the south-east of Iran ・ our final base. Un-ceremonially dumped on the streets half asleep at 5am (the buses never seem to stop ・they just dump you off and speed away to the next destination), there was only one place to stay `Ali Amiri`s Legal Guest House` in the centre. A bit of a chancer he seems to have monopolised the backpacker circus here. As we tried to catch up on sleep, we were deafened by Japanese backpackers getting up and clearing their throats/noses at extreme volume. This had to be heard to be believed. I thought either a plane was flying over or someone had turned on a hoover. Maybe they were getting their own back for the squat toilet.

Bam is a sleepy market town of eucalypti trees and date palms, full of motorbike repair shops which contains an absolute gem ・the old mud city called Arg-e Bam. Built between 1502 and 1722, it was deserted twice after raids. From 1810-1930 it was used as an army barracks. Then deserted again. It is simply stunning. A tall outer wall of clay with 30 towers and pinnacles encircle the entire old city. Inside the citadel dominates the ruined mud buildings. From the walls which we walked around, it looked like a huge sandcastle had been built and left to dry and fall apart in the sun after the tide had gone out. The walls of the old buildings still stood, but the roofs were gone ・like a small bomb had been dropped over the city. We spent hours just exploring the site and taking tea in the cosy teashop in the citadel. The site is being restored gradually and there were workmen making bricks and rebuilding parts, but it still had a magnificent ambience. We were the only visitors.

We had covered everything we wanted to see. We had completely avoided Tehran since it held nothing of interest for us and for two days during our stay, the pollution was so bad, everyone was forced to wear facemasks. The lack of visa time, also prevented us from flying up to the Holy Shrine of Mashed in the Northeast.

On the 24th of December, we decided to head for Pakistan. We made a run for the border, seven hours away, via Zahedan, an ugly scruffy town of bandits and smugglers and got a pickup truck with a Japanese couple who spoke no English to the border. We were not searched at the `Passport Chacking` office, just asked how we had enjoyed Iran. Very much indeed.

Travel - £7.61
Accommodation - £26.10
Food - £8.17
Other - £37
Total - £89.19

Grand Total - £570.69