From My Notebooks In 1977: Leaving Afghanistan
3rd August 2025 |
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.