Leaving Iran.
Wednesday, June 1st
To border, meeting Ted and Mina by roadside. Then the endless snake of lorries lined on road – maybe a kilometre – waiting to be processed at border. They watched with non-committal eyes. Balkan drivers in shorts and short-sleeved shirts and sandals. Mostly Bulgarians. They pioneered the route – according to Ted. But what do they carry?
The Iran border was quick and easy. Though the police, again, seemed to be competing for the “Most Hostile Expression” award. Then from Iran through an archway into a muddy courtyard that was Turkey, where a mustachioed man in uniform waved me round like a maitre d’hotel from the Habsburg Empire.
We queued in customs before a man who was nervously new to the job and kept stopping to stare at papers and passports with a thoughtful faraway look.
From the border to Dogubayazit, and not a 100 yards down the road two small boys threw a stone and crawled off up a hillside. It was so prompt a fulfillment of the Turkish reputation, it was hilarious. They should be paid by the tourist office, who could supply them with polystyrene rocks.
At Igdir, at the Park restaurant, I stopped to wait for T&M and drank tea with two young Turks. One said he was a Marxist. I said I was police. Then brandished my CPF lighter. [What was that? I have no idea.] We had kebab, salad and bread. Immediately noticed that the food was far better flavoured. T says Greek food originated from Turkey and was better there. It was warm and pleasant in the garden. A few clouds in a blue summer sky. I set off contentedly, quite unprepared for what was to come. Winding off among a maze of peaks and valleys, ever higher, distant snowcap advancing, clouds growing fat and dark and sagging heavily, then drizzle into rain, tarmac into dirt, rock slides and mud, and cold until it began to penetrate that this was becoming an ordeal.
When I stopped once to smoke a cigarette under my umbrella, I found my fingers couldn’t handle the top stud of my jacket [Actually it was getting quite serious. I want to put more clothing under my jacket, but couldn’t take it off.] while a friendly shepherd watched with amused sympathy.
(Turks all remind me of unemployed workers in the Depression years – flat hats, old-style shirts, waistcoats and suits. The women wear shorter versions of the Afghan/Iran skirts and shawls, but later this changes dramatically and in the centre, after Kayseri , they wear those big bags with holes at the corner. Were they invented for warmth or as prevention against sudden rape. Back on the bike, wondering whether I would ever see the welcoming warmth of a tea cup again. Singing, flexing my muscles, trying to imagine the countryside on a fine day, trying to relax my neck muscles, so stiff I can’t turn my head, amazed that when I’m so close to home I should run into such extreme conditions, wondering how I had imagined that it was simply a matter of going up over a few passes and then down again, trying to visualise this crumpled landscape of rocks extending back to the Himalayas and North to the Caucasus and realising all the time that the cold was getting into me without quite knowing why. When I did get to the village before Horasen, and got off, I sat among the men in the tea shop laughing and shaking – couldn’t stop shaking – like a puppet with somebody jerking the strings. After half an hour, and several teas, I put on leather trousers – would have used “long johns” if I hadn’t sent them back from Delhi, ski socks, jumper and scarf. People were nice – though one man was desperate to swap cigarettes.
All the way little boys who weren’t throwing stones held two fingers in a wide V over their lips to ask for cigarettes. From Horasen to Erzerum was much easier, though higher still and above snow. Erzerum also a surprise. Mountain town, cobbled streets weaving. Hotels full. Took room at new hotel, Bohara, run by young men, embarrassed amateurs. Room cost 72 ($4) but plumbing was incomplete and no water. T &M caught me at road into Erzerum. We ate together (good food) and went to a Furini where a relaxed baker with fine features wielded his huge baker’s paddle and tossed dough from his little mezzanine dough house above the oven onto the wooden platform below.
Thursday, 2nd
Left T&M in their hotel and set off for Sivas. No rain, lovely ride in mountains. Two high passes. Over the second, guard humour, then comic disaster as I slid into clay gulley by roadside. Rode bike out with much effort then dropped it back down . . . .in ditch. Fought to get everything off and bike upright before petrol all ran out. Much cursing and swearing. At last set off, but visor dirty. Parked again on camber to clean up and passing bus blew bike over in same humiliating position. My laughter was hysterical. Bus driver passed grinning. Then while I was fighting to get bike upright a Hungaro-camion driver stopped his giant truck (and his partner’s) and leapt out to help me. Very surprised and grateful.
Down to Erzincan to eat kebab (off big spit: where did I see that before?) and wander along shops. Copper jug $8. Too much. Petrol in Turkey 2.80 a litre – 75 cents a gallon (Iran 50 cents – 8 Rials litre)
Sivas at 4pm. Huge excavation in main street. With concrete channels being set in under road. Shared bedroom for 25 lira. Met Mark, Hennie and Peter in restaurant.
Friday, 3rd
In convoy to Urgüp. Cimenli camping. Bargained for 15 lira each. Two good days – one just hanging about, one to see the troglodyte churches at Göreme and the fantastic eroded landscape of cones around there.
Overcast sky turns to gale and hail at night. Morning turns to drenching rain. Peter turns out to have no raingear, not even gloves. We have to leave him and make the soaking ride down to the main road to Adana. First half hour was worst. Then a dry spell. Then more rain on a broad table-land of wheat, etc. Then a tea stop while the sun came out. On to big jetu on Antara-Adana road just as we seem to be heading over a great range of snowy mountains – Taurus range. Road sweeps sharp left, along river, downhill. Then up to last pass and among endless stream of petrol tankers down to the coast.
Mercedes driver rushing in front of me at impossible speed seen seconds later after a head-on collision with another Merc. His face, as he gets out, a picture of utter defeat and resignation. Probably he had nothing to hurry for, but imagine what it might have meant. A last glimpse of someone he loved? A million dollar deal? A last chance to escape jail?
On the way we talked about Das Rollende Hotel [the bus with its 39 bed slots in three layers.] The idea that each slot was actually a coffin. At the end, 39 jets of gas ignite and incinerate each compartment, and 39 urns pop out. “Holiday of a Lifetime.”
I’m off to my own holiday now. Find me here again in September. All the best.
It is noticeable that I was much more concerned with the condition of the bike, now, than by what was going on around me. A chronic problem with the Tiger 100 was the tendency of the rocker caps or pushrod covers– often called “hot cross buns” because of the grooves on top – to come unscrewed and loose oil. Loctite was supposed to be the solution, but since they had to be removed from time to time there could never be a permanent fix.
I’m now leaving Kandahar on my way to the frontier with Iran.
Thursday, May 19th
To Herat. Long ride. 130 miles (?) Oil is now pouring out. At Sangan Hotel with Holst again. Two days. 1st day try to cure leaks with silicone rubber donated by Mark Fry, US biker on BMW. Doesn’t work.
Second day, more thorough job on push rod covers. Seems to work. The pelicans. The Mosque. The fastest horse-drawn carts yet.
Sunday, 22nd
To Mashad. [Iran.] The frontier. Hell on both sides. To camp site. Lost the Holsts again.
[What I remember now of that frontier was tourist cars and trailers being almost dismantled by customs officials looking for drugs, with storms of paper products (toilet, tissue, towels) blowing across the landscape.]
Monday, 23rd
Stay in Mashad, tinkering and trying to finish letter to Carol. Holst arrives, having lost his gear lever before the frontier yesterday.
Tuesday, 24th
Breakfast meeting with so-called maths teacher who takes me to the Magic Carpet Shop. Then off. Cross desert and mountain pass to rain and Gorgan. Different world – really Slav. Night on cement balcony over bus depot. But OK finally.
Wednesday, 25th. To Gorgan
[Somewhere – I can’t remember how – I got an introduction to a family called Havranek, at Rasht on the Caspian coast and I headed that way rather than to Tehran.]
Beyond Gorgan weather starts breaking up. Towards mountains (Elburtz) some rain. Passes in cloud. On other side, first rich black soil in a long time. Rice fields. Towns have a more European look. Gorgan in rain. At 2nd hotel small man with bristled aging face insists I can have a room. How much can you pay, 200?, 300? Hopeless of getting anything cheaper I agree. But he is not to do with hotel. A truck driver who worked as a young man on BP rigs nr Aberdeen. Eat a chalo Kabab Morg (chicken) and he buys me a tumblerful of vodka, to be taken with pickled garlic. And there is not a bed except for 400 rials. But he rings the Tourist Home. Eventually go back there. And after showing me rooms at 200 or more, shows me bed outside on terrace above bus station, for 70, paid in advance. But bed is comfortable. Next day I drive out through the baksheesh barrier. Old gent in brown hunting clothes with stick is chanting a haunting song, and begging. In restaurant men eat like king-pigs while women huddle abjectly outside in drizzle.
Thursday, 26th. To Rasht
From Gorgan to Rasht along coast. Holiday villas all the way – in all styles. Much unfinished building, small resort towns, with railed-in parks, flower gardens. Coastline not very attractive. Much rain, which consolidates over Rasht. How will I find Havranek? Settle on going to biggest hotel I can find and trying for telephone number. But Iran Hotel receptionist knows him. Two Germans translate. All is well.
Mud on my boots, on my visor, in my eye. One well-directed spray from passing truck and I have to stop. A perfectly opaque screen forms instantly. I wondered why I had the Belstaff suit. Now I know. It’s disgusting on the outside but lovely to be inside. The bike is smothered. Not since the Altiplano like this. Geography is full of surprises – some nasty – never anticipated. Such filthy weather. Is it all the Caspian? And the mountains. My chin feels as though it’s been skinned by a thousand little knives. The huge TIR juggernauts roll on, pushing the air around. I look up into the cabs as I try to pass. It’s a different world in there. A young, blond man in shirt sleeves sits as tho’ at his office desk with blank eyes. Is there music and constant running coffee in there? They run in fleets. P.I.E. Hungarocamion – advertising offices in Budapest, London, Malmo, Zurich – with phone and telex numbers. Always at a steady pace 60 or 70 mph. Impeccable driving – signals. Paintwork and canvas. The rest of the traffic buzzes around them like bees around a beer.
Dino’s brother once abandoned a tour bus full of ladies at Qazvin (where they had no right to be) and ran off with the money. Hi family had to settle the scandal.
Melh Bank – big horseshoe shaped hall. But people here want to do business, It goes fast. Despite comments of Havranek family.
Conversations about We and They – always suspect. In Persian cafes the chairs are all set sideways at table with their backs to the wall.
4 nights, 3 days with the Havraneks. Lots of booze, wine, cigarettes.
[Surprisingly I don’t mention the caviar – of which there was plenty. A cherished memory.]
2 days of slight feverishness. Did I come off the malaria pill too soon? Third day OK. Dino & Maggie arrive on third day. Dino gets his Yamaha trials bike out. Very strange feeling. Light, high, very close ratios, hard to change, 450 cc single cylinder, no fly wheel.
Sunday, 29th
To Tehran. Easy run, but big climb among dusty green hills, and rivers, expecting to go over top and down again, but it’s a plateau. Very cold at first. Through Qazvin. Then the main artery, but its not so bad. Hop onto freeway but get kicked off by police after 20 miles. “Get”, he shouts, pointing. “Get. Get.”
British embassy in huge walled enclosure. Consulate like prison gate. Wait an hour for opening (Was lucky. Closes Friday and Saturday). At first they say No clearance. Then find telex message. 15 minutes and the renewal is done. And Amexco has the money from Tony, plus a letter. So to stay with Judy and Davoud Ismaeli and their daughters. Dino & Maggie are there too. We go to eat at Jap place (huki) and then to see Papillon. Sleep well on carpet. Breakfast with girls, then off to town. After bank.
Monday, 30th
To Zanjan, and once again rain and mud. Tea in small tea house full of avuncular Persians and song birds in cages. Share bedroom for three. 110 rials.
Tuesday, May 31st
On to Tabriz. Clear day. Roads are very good. Countryside is beautiful, pastoral, running between ranges. At Tabriz buy Turkish money, then on to escape huge raincloud. Stop 20kms on for lunch. Then to Marand. Remarkable town in great bowl of rock. Vertical faces all round with square building seemingly glued to rock.
Man in road said “Hello. Fuck off.” Got sucked into new hotel. Room for 200. Ill-favoured man kept on at me about shit. “Tourists like shit. I have shit. My brother is in police,” etc. I’ve come to hate that conspiratorial grin – the most potent of the various ways in which all the sharp youths all over the world try to establish instant intimacy.
Somewhere along the way – probably after Marand – I was invited into a family home for the night and enjoyed what I assume was a perfectly traditional Iranian evening and night, sleeping on rugs rolled out from cupboards in the wall. Wonderful hospitality.
Next week’s will be the last of this series of notes. After that I will be in the UK, visiting first Nick Sanders’ rally in Wales and later Paddy Tyson’s wonderful Overland Event near Oxford. So, until next week…
