Iran - big brother is watching you

A quick warnıng prior to reading this blog posting - it comes across as a bit of a Ewan-and-Charley style whinge... I am starting to appreciate how sometimes you just want the locals to bugger off and give you some space and respect! The good news is that Turkey is shaping up to be much more fun!

*****

Well, I was in Iran for about ten days, and I have to say that I have some serious reservations about the place. Sure, the complete absence of bars, alcohol, and almost anything resembling fun is a negative. And the naivity / xenophobia is extremely tiresome - every couple of minutes in the street, someone will mutter 'Hello, how are you' and walk away giggling wildly to his mates. The treatment of women is also troubling - making them sit at the back of the bus seems pretty lame for the 21st century. And for practıcally the first time on this trip, people have tried to rip me off - in fact, almost every visit to a restaurant or petrol station ends in a heated debate about the bill (even though petrol costs the same per litre at every filling station...).

Sorry Iran - no prizes from this visitor!

But what bothers me most is the not-so-secret police, who have really pissed me off and have brought out a subversive streak in me that has not been seen since hıgh school! Equally strıkıng ıs the ambivalence that most people have to the ınterference of the polıce in everyday life.

The nonsense started as soon as we entered Iran. Our passports were confiscated with no explanation, leaving us stuck at the border. Eventually it was explained to us that we would need a bodyguard to proceed to Zahedan, but no indication was given as to when this bodyguard would arrive. After 90 minutes, a boy-soldier (about 19 going on 12, and doing his best to act tough) presented himself, with no radio, no gun and no transport. Not much of a bodyguard. But he had our passports. Now there's not much spare space on the back of my bike, but this lad can't have been more than about 50kg, and since the alternative was to pay $25 for a taxi for him, he was duly added to the rest of the luggage and we set off.

I'll spare the gory details of the remainder of the day, but it took us 14 hours to cover the ~350km to Bam, with brief spells at 120kph behind police escorts interspersed with lengthy waits in 40+ degree sunshine outside many, many police stations. At one point we waited 30 minutes to be escorted 500 metres to the next post. No smiles, no explanation, no passport. I was extremely pissed off. We eventually received our passports back about 50km from Bam, but only because the final escort ran out of petrol. We were then almost run off the road by another police escort arriving in Bam, who thought they could tell us which hotel we would be staying in. To make matters worse, it was the hotel that I had planned to stay at anyway, so I had to make it absolutely clear that I was staying there because I chose to, and not because they wanted me to...

With Akbar and friends ın Bam

Akbar's Tourist Guest House in Bam proved to be a great place to stay, and Akbar and his son Mohammed were wonderful hosts. My stay there was somewhat spoiled by a chronic case of heat exhaustion / diahorrea, for which I blame the Iranian police for keeping me hanging around in the sun the previous day. Bam was completely devastated by an earthquake in 2003 and is still being rebuilt, and the ancient mud-brick city is a far cry from what it once was, but it's still an interesting place to visit.

Ancient city of Bam

Akbar insisted on calling the police to let them know that we were leaving, and escorts continued on and off to Sirjan. We checked into the uninspiring Fadak Hotel and left our passports with the manager. When it came to dinner time, the conversation went something like this:

Overland biker: "We're going out to dinner. Can we have our passports back please?"
Hotel manager: "You can have dinner here. We have kebabs."
OB: "No thanks. We're going out. Passports please."
HM: "You can't go out."
OB: "Why not?"
HM: "Police"
OB: "Sod the police. Passport please! Now!"

Passports duly received, we went out and had typical Iranian fare (uninspiring fast food). By then end of the meal, there was a couple of plain clothes policemen sat outside in a car, who then followed us back to the hotel. At the hotel, they asked to see our passports and noted down the details. Next morning as we were about to leave, another plain clothes policeman arrived, insisted on seeing our passports and noting down the details (did they change overnight???), and escorted us out of Sirjan (as far as the next escort).

Salt plains on the road to Shiraz

Shiraz didn't really do much to float my boat - it's a reasonable city but there's not much to do there! And Persepolis was a bit of a let down - sure, the 2,500 year-old bas-reliefs from the palace of Xerxes are pretty interesting, but I was over it in about 2 hours. We also got ourselves involved with a bit of a lunatic called Mr Ematy, who claimed to be an English teacher, invited us to lunch at his mother's house (which we accepted), and gave us a very uninspiring tour. Mr Ematy bore an uncanny resemblence to a fat Borat, and after 60 minutes of his company we tried to extricate ourselves from the lunch invitation, at which point he protested that his mother had already prepared lunch, so we reluctantly went along. The lunch was quite good, and when he asked if he could show us his nearby language institute, I had a moment of weakness and agreed. Long story short, he then drove us 35km to his 'institute', whıch was closed, and then started approaching strangers ın the street to see if they wanted to talk to us (thankfully they were as unimpressed by this as we were). At this point, I totally lost the plot and made it very clear to our friend that he should return us to the motorcycles immediately...

An old ruin, and Persepolis...

I wish I could say that thıs was the turning poınt and Iran got better from here on, but it didn't really. On the posıtıve side, we met a very nice girl called Samaneh who showed us the beautiful bridges in Esfahan.

Thirty-three Brıdge, Esfahan

We also met a cool guy ın Oremıa called Resa who drove us round the cıty ın hıs brother's Hıllman Hunter (stıll ın productıon ın Iran...).

The Hıllman Hunter - long belıeved to be extınct...

We also vısıted the seasıde - the Caspıan seasıde, that ıs.

Makes the North Sea look lıke the Carıbbean...

The Turkish border - and my first beer in 6 weeks beckons...