One example of the Iranian hospitality that we have become accustomed to that really sticks out (apart from our night in Khoy) in my mind occurred shortly after leaving our gaudy hotel in Tabriz. After outstaying our welcome at the hotel by ruthlessly over using the hotels facilities (internet, filling our drinking water tanks, clothes washing etc) we drove barely 1km to Tabriz’s equivalent of Hyde Park called Egoli Park knowing that we would find a quiet spot and camp out for the night. From our previous days excursion we knew the Iranians are expert picnickers and we were about to learn that they love camping too. Not long after pulling into the park we spotted dome tents dotted everywhere under the shelter of the dense foliaged tree. Once we found an empty spot in a carpark (half the size of a football field) I used the lift as normal to get out of the van – a process that has intrigued many people during our journey and this time it was no different. However, on this occasion I felt there was a sense of reluctance for anyone to approach me. This all changed shortly after a car driving past on the highway 200 meters away came to abrupt stop when the driver saw me. Sitting ouitside at the back of the van with an Iranian guide book on my lap I watched the driver get out of his car; jump the narrow ditch and start to stride over the empty car park towards me. His greying stubble underneath his bushy moustache made me think he was in his late 50’s and the closer he got to me the less I knew what the hell was about to happen. Finally he walked straight up to me, greeted me with ‘salaam alaikum’, shook my hand and then held me firmly on both shoulders and bent down to kiss me on both of my cheeks. As soon as he finished he turned around, strode back across the car park, got into his car and sped off with wheels both front wheels spinning. All I could hear at this point was Chrissy giggling away behind the curtain of the van. She had watched the whole sequence happen through a gap in the curtain whist preparing supper in the seclusion of the van and she found the whole experience very amusing. To say that he left me slightly embarrassed is an understatement but this extraordinary greeting seemed to be the queue to the other campers for them to come over and introduce themselves and ask if we needed any help. By the time the sun had dropped under the horizon the whole park was filled with families camping out for the night in their pop-up dome tents. Many of them were on a short holiday before Ramadan started and others had been visiting holy sites around the country. Other examples of Iranian hospitality have been numerous offers of lunch or chai (tea) that would have made us the envy of any well-off lady from Chelsea that ‘loves to lunch’. This has happened in a crowded street and even at the petrol station. Recently, we were invited to stay with a young couple in Mashad purely because we explained to them how an awkwardly designed pepper grinder worked.
The other memory will be the chaotic driving, which after witnessing is no surprise why Iran has the worst accident rate in the world. I think everyone of the 70 million population owns a car and they all seem to be on the road at the same time. This may be a slight exaggeration but there are so many cars on the road that we still haven’t worked out when rush hour is yet? As a result there is a constant hum of car engines and a smell of car exhaust on most of the roads we have travelled on. We’ve seen only 10 traffic lights whilst we’ve traversed the whole country. Only one of those had vehicles stopped at them during a red light and that was only because the occupants were buying water melons from the conveniently stationed water melon stall. Like a poorly organised but successful Red Arrow display (successful because there were no crashes) you can expect other motorist to dart across the road towards you, across you and behind you. It is not uncommon either for a driver in the slow lane of a highway to drive as fast as they can but for some reason they do this in reverse. The cars worst habit is as they overtake me they take one look of my hand controls and promptly cut in front of me and slow right down, so that I have to over take them again and they can have a good look at my controls. This can happen two or three times until they are satisfied they have seen all they can see at which point they’ll speed off into the distance never to be seen again. Added to the cars driving in all manners of directions the other main transport in Iran are 125cc Honda motorbikes. Generally the main aim of the rider or riders is to try to look as cool as possible, which normally means that there only piece of safety equipment (helmet) is strapped to the front or back of the bike. And I’m sure if you ride one of these Hondas you must instantly know what the meaning of life is because every time you see more than one person on one of these chicken chasers they seem to be in the most depth conversation, whilst somehow managing to weave in and out of the Red Arrow display at the same time. The number of passengers on these motorbikes can vary widely too. Two examples are, two young boys with squashed faces sandwiched between their mum & dad & separately a proud father with his 3 year old daughter sitting on the fuel tank like a proudly displayed trophy. The other offender on the road is of coarse lorries. Possibly because of the sanctions it is vary rare to see a new lorry on the road. Instead they seem to be brightly painted orange twenty year old Volvo or Mercedes lorries that strangely seem to be able to go faster than another vehicle on the road. It is safe to say that in Iran ‘size does matter’. In fact it seems to be that there is only one rule on the roads. No matter what you are doing i.e. coming onto a round-about or even crossing a busy highway if you are bigger than the vehicle coming towards you or beside you have the right of way! So on Iranian roads lorries are the kings. With this superior prowess comes a very annoying habit. Without doubt when a lorry comes hurtling up behind at an ungodly speed it will wait to the very last minute to unleash the full brunt of its deafening air horn just to let you know it is about to overtake you? As if you didn’t know that? No matter how many times this happens and even though I know it is going to happen the sound of the air horn reverberating around our tiny cab still scares the living daylight out of me. So size does matter but I have to mention an Iranian Daniel & Goliath moment. Having spent a week on Iranian roads and learning to put the size of Miranda to good use to make other smaller vehicles yield to our might I became slightly too over confident. Seeing a lone motorbike on an empty highway I opened Miranda up so that we would cruise past the measly 125cc engine vehicle and I’d let a loud blast go on my horn ‘just let them know I was passing’. The overtaking manoeuvre worked extremely well until out of nowhere the same motorbike overtook me and let a blast go on what must have been a specially fitted truck air horn that scared the ‘Be-Jesus’ out of me. Having been put in my place I have to commend the Iranian drivers on one thing and that is despite all of this chaos they all always remain very calm. I’m sure if all of sudden the UK driving habits turned Iranian over night half of the country would have heart failure and the other half would be taking out the services of psychiatrist to help curb their overwhelming road rage.The regime that people live under will also stick in my mind. The freedom we have in the west to wear what we like, say what we like and eat and drink what we like can be taken for granted. Here restrictions that the people endure have many implications. For example once we left Tabriz we descended 4000 ft in one hour down a twisting road to the Caspian Sea, which is 23 feet below sea level. By 11am it was 37 degrees with 27% humidity and within 30 minutes I had decided the only sensible clothing to combat the stifling humidity would be under pants, flipflops and an umbrella. However, the strict Iranian rules state that women should cover their heads with a hejab and their body with a loosely fitting manteau (garment that covers the arms and falls just below the knees). In some cases women can wear the trade mark black chador (translate to tent) garment that covers the whole body. For men the laws are less strict and they only have to keep to the status quo by wearing long trousers. As foreigners in Iran we also have to abide by the rules, which isn’t so bad for me but for Chrissy she has to adorn the previous stated attire. In short, the implications of this dress code are stifling. For any marketing guru out there these restrictions may you leave you a little flummoxed too. In the West if you need to market anything you generally just take a few pictures of incredibly beautiful women wearing next to nothing holding the ‘stuff’ you are trying to sell and then you plaster the picture on billboards around town – job done. However, the dress code prevents this blatant marketing. Instead you see huge billboards with kittens and balls of string or the most popular one seems to be an old moustached man leaning over a bunch of trophies. In any case it is virtually impossible to work out what they are trying to advertise.
Following the elections in 2009 when the web was used to post videos of the protests the government emplaced restrictions to access of many social websites (including our blog – we can’t post pictures), which would make it practically impossible for any Facebook addict to live in Iran. Other far reaching restrictions include sanctions and visa restrictions on the people making it extremely difficult to travel and on a much broader level we have heard how this is leading to the migration of young well educated Iranians seeking a better life. Ironically I wonder whether these restrictions have a positive outcome and I can only observe that these restrictions on life have seemed to really unite the family bond. Every where we go we see families with three generations all interacting together, which is fantastic to see. What is more due to the alcohol ban you never have to worry about drink driving or drunks approaching you in dark alleys at night.
Our six days driving along the famous caviar Caspian coast was some what of challenge. If you look on google earth you will see a mountain range that runs along the south of the Capsian sea that acts like a barrier against the deserts further south. You also notice how the north side of the mountain that gets moisture rich air from the sea and is completely green, however the south in comparison is barren and parched. Being trapped in between the coast and mountains makes it incredibly humid and we spent those five days driving on a two laned highway surrounded by two story buildings feeling incredibly hot. Relief from the humidity came with the further east we travelled, which took us through the beautiful Golestan National Park that had dramatic gorges and dense deciduas forests. On our penultimate day in Iran we headed for the Turkmenistan border and climbed to 5000ft onto the Kopet Dag (translates: many mountains) mountain range, which was stunning rolling hills that were completely golden and contrasted with the vividly blue sky.
50km from the border we decided to camp over night in a barren gorge which coincidently was situated next to a pilgrim site that people come to visit the priest and pray to heal any ailment. With in 10 minutes of parking under the shade of a tree next to a some other campers we were approached by a man asking where we were from. His name was Abraham and he had been a Cobra Helicopter pilot in the Iranian air force. He spoke with the best English we had experienced so far and introduced his family to us. When we told him what we were undertaking the emotional impact it had on him was obvious. He later said that he would adopt Chrissy as one of his daughters and that she was a great person for helping me and that she deserved a medal. Unfortunately, we had to abstain from taking him up on his invite to stay with him in his home that night as he lived 80 km in the opposite direction that we needed to travel in the next day. His family were unable to speak any English and as the sun started to sink his family started to getting impatient to leave. Abraham’s response was to say ‘I can’t leave you here’ and by giving us anything he could think of which included flat bread and one of his wife’s treasured china picnicking plates. Just as the light was fading his families hints persuaded him to leave. Meeting Abraham and his family highlighted again how generous and warm the Iranian people are and we felt fortunate to have met him.
I thought that our meeting with Abraham was going to be the final Iranian moment to savour but I was wrong. Sitting in our van shortly after Chrissy had prepared another paster dish we heard a knock on the door. As Chrissy parted the curtain and opened the door into the pitch darkness I didn’t know what we were about to encounter. ‘Had we parked in a holy site and were they going to move us on?’ went through my mind. Prepared for the worse I was surprised to see a middle age lady dressed in a full black Chador. She said some thing to Chrissy in Farsi and motioned towards where I was sitting in the back of the van. In her left hand she held a loop of small black beads and in her right she held a small plastic card that was being lit up by a small boy using his mobile phone next to her. After motioning towards me she started to read from the card and rotate the beads in her hand. Every time she finished a paragraph she would look at me and blow one puff of air towards me. As she carried on with the prayer tears started to roll down her cheeks and her words became staggered with emotion. Coming to the end of the prayer she motioned for Chrissy to put the loop of beads around my neck and to place the prayer card in my pocket. Not long after they left into the darkness Chrissy and I both sensed a huge sense of atmosphere and emotion. Although I’m not religious I could really feel how important religion was to this lady and how she believed strongly that her prayer and the holy site could heal my spinal injury. I felt very privileged by how much she wanted to help me and by the whole experience. This wasn’t the end of our experience either. 10 minutes later we heard another knock on the door to see her son holding a freshly cooked plate of food of chicken, aubergine, tomatoes and freshly baked round bread, which I imagined was not the normal food they eat considering their financial means – again incredibly generous. That night we slept in our small camp with the sound of a donkey roaming around outside.Travelling in Iran has totally changed my previous conception that I have learnt in the West about Iran. The people have been absolutely amazing. We had a great experience in Iran and I would highly recommend it as a destination to travel to.
Posted by Colin
Pictures 1: Colin & Iranian Family at Egoli Park. Picture 2: Driving in Iran. Picture 3: Chrissy dressed in her hajed at the Kopet Dag. Picture 4: Abraham & his family. Picture 5: Our finally campsite in the gorge on the Kopet Dag
Thanks for an excellent posting. Reading of your experiencies in Iran was really inspiring.
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