Whaaa...?? Triple Blog??? Third installment for today and the latest update. This one is shorter and easier to digest, you can read it standing up. The first two you might need a cup of tea for though. With photos here: j2westcountry.tumblr/post/60980346345/tuesday-10th-september-iran-so-far-indecent-exposure Tuesday 10th September - Iran, So Far: Indecent Exposure I am in Iran! The visa for which I waited a total of 9 weeks, 3 weeks in Bishkek and 2 in Dushanbe. It cost me over $400 to obtain and the process entirely derailed my plans and set me back about a month and a half… so has persistent waiting in not-so-cheap Central Asian capital cities paid off? Well it’s only been four days so I can’t really tell. But I can tell you what has happened so far. Iran, what an amazing country. Great food, well surfaced-roads, smiling, friendly and seriously hospitable people, and everything is astoundingly cheap! Huge meals of kebabs, soup, jasmine rice, bread, yoghurt and a drink come to a total cost of $3! $15 is considered expensive for a hotel room, but it doesn’t really matter because someone will usually offer you a place to stay at their home. I’ve never met people who are so warm to complete strangers, who will so readily welcome travellers into their homes and offer tea and huge platters of food. And I have only been here a few days! I had been told by other travellers that I should put my itinerary for Iran on Couch Surfing or Warm Showers (the tour cyclist’s equivalent to Couch Surfing) as I would get plenty of offers for places to stay. Sure enough, I got several responses just a few hours after putting it up, from all across the country. This is great news for a cyclist who is almost completely skint after spending three months waiting in deceptively expensive Central Asian capitals for astronomically priced visas. The first night I spent in Sarakhs at a Couch Surfer’s house named Reza. He welcomed me into his nice home where I met his wife and three kids, and immediately they had a huge feast ready for me, after I indicated that I hadn’t eaten a proper meal in three days. I then relished the joy of having my first shower in five days, and washing my clothes that were all covered in a thick layer of Turkmen desert sand. Unfortunately, in the evening Reza got a call from work and had to go in for the night, which meant I could not stay at his place, so he helped me get a hotel for the night at a discounted rate. Later that night, after settling into a room, I went out to get some snacks and some supplies for my next ride. When I had arrived in the border town of Sarakhs at 2pm, every shop was shut for Friday prayers. This time, the whole town was bustling with energy as men, women and families moved around from shop to shop, enjoying their weekend. The men all dressed in smart trousers and shirts, and the women all identically covered in black. After checking in a couple of different mini-supermarkets, I was about to head back on my bike to the hotel when two police men appeared next to me and my bicycle. They spoke no English, but motioned me to come with them. I assumed it was a routine passport check, as I was a foreigner, and gave them a photocopy of my passport, as the real document was at the hotel. We arrived at a police station where they parked my bike up next to a police motorcycle. A group of five or six police men were stood around, but no one could speak English. When I asked exactly what the problem was, they pointed at my shorts and exposed lower legs. Apparently the sight of my knees, calves and ankles were too suggestive. They made me wait for about 20 minutes in the police station, for what exactly, I’m still not sure. After a bit if ranting as my “they’re picking on the foreigner” internal defense mode kicked in, (obtained from six months of travelling through China and Central Asia, an occasionally from living in Korea), I quickly piped down after remembering reading a news article about police and their treatment of captives in Iran. I wasn’t exactly a captive but they clearly didn’t like my bare legs, and weren’t going to let me go until something was done about this. I was aware of cultural sensitivities of course, having lived in Sudan, a strict Islamic country for two months in 2008. But I had crossed the border in shorts and cycled past many police men and guards with no problem, so I assumed that it would be okay to wear them for a short trip down to the shops. Shorts in the city are a big faux pas, however, as I found out. I kept showing them the key to my hotel, and motioning that I would go and put some trousers on, but they still refused to let me go. Eventually I reasoned with a fairly older policeman and pointed at some nearby shops to indicate that I could buy a pair of trousers, and we could all be happy and get on our way. Finally, after some consultations amongst the five police men they agreed to let me buy something to hide the knees. So next thing I know I’m in a clothes shop trouser shopping with an old Iranian policeman who’s helping me buy some knock off Adidas sweat pants. He’s even bartering with the shop keeper, trying to get me a better deal on these $3 track-suit bottoms. After a visit to the changing room, I walk back with the old man to the police station where the other policemen are now a lot more jovial and admiring my new slacks, my awful new cheap fake-logoed Adidas trackie-bottoms. Two policemen then escorted me back to the hotel on their motorcycle. As countless scooters with helmetless men hurtled passed us, weaving through traffic at great speeds, the two men kept a watchful eye on the guy on the bicycle who had got his calves out in public. They returned me to the staff at the front desk of the hotel like a teenager being returned to his parents after being caught smashing beer bottles in the park. The staff rolled their eyes and shook their heads as the smiling policemen joked then shook my hands and left, leaving me with the manager and his wife giving me a look as if to say “what are we going to do with YOU??” I scuttled up to my room sheepishly, with my plastic bag of cakes and crisps in hand. Since then I have been staying with another very hospitable host through Warm Showers in the town of Neyshabur. I now have around 800kms to get to Tehran, then roughly another 1000km to Turkey, and a further 1500km to Istanbul, so still plenty to do. The roads are much better here in Iran than most of the roads I have been on in Central Asia, particularly Turkmenistan, so hopefully, it won’t take as long as in other countries. I’m still debating whether to go through Northern Iraq, and have been in contact with other backpackers and cyclists that have been through fairly recently, to suss out the situation (such as Will Johnston, another Gloucestershirian, who’s blog Carry on Cycling is a very informative and entertaining read). Of course, with anticipated action by the US on Syria looming over this region over the next two weeks, it is not the best time to be cycling a few miles away from a potential international warzone, but I will wait and see what happens. Until then I’m going to enjoy the warm hospitality and the recent kind tailwinds that the Iranian desert has to offer. With my trousers on of course.
Posted on: Thu, 12 Sep 2013 00:53:59 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015