Yesterday I arrived in Mashhad; Islam's second city and my final destination in Iran. My next two visas are confirmed and the Turkmen border is two day's ride away. I will be sad and glad to leave. The initial sense that I am to be looked after here has been tested and proved comprehensively. Family home to factory floor, opium den to police cell I have been welcomed, cared for, indulged and overwhelmed in more diverse company and setting than I could have optimistically hoped for. Islamic notions of duty, the ambassadorial inclinations of a vilified people, a pathological curiosity of Westerners or the fetishisation of liberal Europe could all be thanked for my cosseted passage but the simple, Persian explanation - which I mainly prefer - is that 'Iranians are nice people'. Alas I feel my own duties as ambassador for Englistan have been dispensed rather less consistently. Dirty, greedy, short-tempered... I have my moments, afternoons even, of good grace, but too many times I've answered welcome with gruffness. In my defence it's usually because I'm hungry; long-road weary in strange towns searching for a sandwich, or anything. Every third Iranian boy over twelve years of age has access to a motorbike and the other two ride pillion. Whatever happened to BMXs? I can't outrun a 125 (but they love to see me try) and so my sandwich searches are escorted by cavalcades of teenage gigglers keeping pace to practice their what are you from?s. The correct response of course is to stop and engage, work on my reciprocal friendliness until somebody in the sandwich-know shows up, but apparently I have to relearn this daily. Oh and impatient ire will be filmed by matey pillion; give thanks for the Youtube ban. Mystifying that I still don't carry enough food to prevent this kind of scenario; hangry, a friend used to call it. Really though even at my least gracious I am generously assisted and I've gotten much better at relaxing into the necessary exchanges; photos and stilted, repetitious conversation for food and direction. Lovely, big-hearted people.
The impression of scale is likewise borne out. Of course anywhere can be big if you don't move in straight lines but Iran really is the largest country I've crossed (almost twice now). In my novel celerity it feels I've ridden through every landscape in every season on every road. Vast place. In the last two weeks alone I've slept on palmy beaches, in windy desert and up frozen-bottle mountains. Two nights ago I camped in the dry corner of a carefully irrigated young wheat field beneath gnarly Wintered almonds, waxing halfmoon glowing snowy peaks; I couldn't photograph it properly. I've enjoyed the transitions, kit rotations and new views. Welcome chill after the Gulf, delicious greens after the desert. The anticipated desert hardships manifested as little more than wind and trucks, although the one exacerbates the other; crosswinds amplify passing truck squalls exponentially. Turbulence like big waves hitting. With unflinching drivers, single carriageways and only sometimes a skinny shoulder of rough macadam the hazard is significant. But for all their vehicular terror the truckers themselves quite mitigate the obvious desert concern of short supply. My distance/speed/food arithmetic didn't account for the winds and twice I was fairly rescued by a timely packed-lunch donation. There was even another, more salacious offer from a driver and his unveiled mistress which I shan't detail and didn't accept; Valentine's day, no less.
Mashhad sports a Very Holy shrine/mosque complex and sees twenty million pilgrims annually. It is accordingly congested. Today I saw a mosque islanded on a roundabout and can't help but think that such a holy place should have fewer cars. I'm staying with Vali, a fascinating polyglot who's helped me secure a whole five days to cross Turkmenistan. He rumours a trio of cyclists a day ahead of me who, after a couple of pretty solitary months, I'm keen to catch up. I've a sense of the closing chapter, of difference ahead, and keep thinking that I've been saving up all sorts of insightful, arrest-worthy things to write about Iran from the relative political safety of Uzbekistan (!). In fact on reflection I realise that I'm much more confident with the personal and aesthetic narrative; I've little to comment politically. Only a strong and general scepticism about the conflation of state and religion. It unnerves me. Nothing too controversial there, so I'll say it now. I'll let you know when they've let me leave.
mosque sleeping
I've known it was possible since Turkey but never really cared for the correctly assumed lack of privacy. There were ten of us in the end, tramps, truckers and a tourist. I was embarrased to blow up my airmat and did so as quietly as I could when all else were snoring. And they did snore, terribly, predictably. Gone three I dropped off. A couple of hours later a rising mumbling which, ears plugged and eyes buffed, I didn't investigate. I woke with a start at five thirty; fifty bums raised in prayer and me the last remaining sleeper, only thankful I'd not chosen the mecca wall. Not my favourite morning.
The impression of scale is likewise borne out. Of course anywhere can be big if you don't move in straight lines but Iran really is the largest country I've crossed (almost twice now). In my novel celerity it feels I've ridden through every landscape in every season on every road. Vast place. In the last two weeks alone I've slept on palmy beaches, in windy desert and up frozen-bottle mountains. Two nights ago I camped in the dry corner of a carefully irrigated young wheat field beneath gnarly Wintered almonds, waxing halfmoon glowing snowy peaks; I couldn't photograph it properly. I've enjoyed the transitions, kit rotations and new views. Welcome chill after the Gulf, delicious greens after the desert. The anticipated desert hardships manifested as little more than wind and trucks, although the one exacerbates the other; crosswinds amplify passing truck squalls exponentially. Turbulence like big waves hitting. With unflinching drivers, single carriageways and only sometimes a skinny shoulder of rough macadam the hazard is significant. But for all their vehicular terror the truckers themselves quite mitigate the obvious desert concern of short supply. My distance/speed/food arithmetic didn't account for the winds and twice I was fairly rescued by a timely packed-lunch donation. There was even another, more salacious offer from a driver and his unveiled mistress which I shan't detail and didn't accept; Valentine's day, no less.
Mashhad sports a Very Holy shrine/mosque complex and sees twenty million pilgrims annually. It is accordingly congested. Today I saw a mosque islanded on a roundabout and can't help but think that such a holy place should have fewer cars. I'm staying with Vali, a fascinating polyglot who's helped me secure a whole five days to cross Turkmenistan. He rumours a trio of cyclists a day ahead of me who, after a couple of pretty solitary months, I'm keen to catch up. I've a sense of the closing chapter, of difference ahead, and keep thinking that I've been saving up all sorts of insightful, arrest-worthy things to write about Iran from the relative political safety of Uzbekistan (!). In fact on reflection I realise that I'm much more confident with the personal and aesthetic narrative; I've little to comment politically. Only a strong and general scepticism about the conflation of state and religion. It unnerves me. Nothing too controversial there, so I'll say it now. I'll let you know when they've let me leave.
mosque sleeping
I've known it was possible since Turkey but never really cared for the correctly assumed lack of privacy. There were ten of us in the end, tramps, truckers and a tourist. I was embarrased to blow up my airmat and did so as quietly as I could when all else were snoring. And they did snore, terribly, predictably. Gone three I dropped off. A couple of hours later a rising mumbling which, ears plugged and eyes buffed, I didn't investigate. I woke with a start at five thirty; fifty bums raised in prayer and me the last remaining sleeper, only thankful I'd not chosen the mecca wall. Not my favourite morning.
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| Imam Reza's shrine |
Hi Kaleb,
ReplyDeleteThank you for the news. Have you changed your bike for the big one?!Another country soon.
I notice that in Iran, you have just met iranian male, where are the woman? Have you talked to some?
Take care!
Alex and Cécile