Axis of Evil World Tour - An American's Travels in Iran, Iraq and North Korea

by Scott Fisher

  Road South along the Iraqi Border

  Almost a year to the day after I left Baghdad, today’s drive took us within sight of the Iran-Iraq border. Traveling south along the low mountain chain that divides the two countries felt almost surreal. Here I was relaxing in a car, sipping tea with my guide, while on the other side of those mountains a war raged.

  Professor saw me staring at the mountains. I’d already told him about my axis of evil tour and that I’d worked for the U.S. government in Iraq. Hell, I was sitting in his car wearing the desert boots Uncle Sam issued me. He, and every other Iranian I mentioned it to, didn’t like the axis of evil, my tour or the original comment. “Comparing us to the North Koreans is just rude, man. We’ve got the Internet. We can talk about politics. We’re not a bunch of crazy assholes.”

  He asked me about my time in Iraq and if I’d ever been shot at or anything. I told him about getting rocketed and mortared, plus the window-rattling car bomb blasts. He told me about the Iran-Iraq war, when he’d guided a few Western journalists through some of these same areas for a tour of the frontlines. About artillery blasts, air attacks, and poison gas worries. About yelling at one of the TV journalists for hyping the dangers to make his report sound more exciting, “He was just standing there and lying, man. It pissed me off.”

  Our conversation took place while driving past fortified fighting positions leftover from the war. Burned out Iraqi tanks and trucks were still visible along the roadside, left by the government as reminders of the martyrs’ sacrifices and the dangers that lay just over the horizon.

  A welcome break in our suddenly heavy conversation came as we rolled through a long valley, empty except for a shepherd walking his flock near the road. Ever since leaving Tehran I’d occasionally glimpsed shepherds tending their flocks far in the distance. The solitary men walking their herds through the barren landscape seemed almost biblical in mood and timelessness. I was witnessing a way of life stretching back thousands of years.

  Curious, I asked Professor if it’d be ok to stop and talk to the man, maybe take a picture with him. The idea seemed to intrigue Professor as well and he quickly agreed, slowly bringing the car to a stop on the road opposite the shepherd.

  The shepherd stopped and stared as we pulled up. Professor quickly rolled down his window, stuck out his head, and said something to the man I couldn’t understand. The man paused and thought for a moment, then shouted an answer.

  “He says no problem.”

  Professor had brought his head back into the car. “Hand me your camera and I’ll take the picture … and be careful of cars crossing the road (no vehicles were visible for miles). … Oh, and he says try not to scare his sheep.”

  I tossed my camera to Professor and hustled across the road. We’d been practicing Farsi in the car for three days now and I took advantage by greeting the man in his own language. He responded just like Professor said people would, returning the greeting with his right hand briefly touching his heart in a sign of respect and friendship.

  We exchanged a couple more pleasantries while Professor lined up the shot. Then I turned back and reminded Professor to make sure no cars were coming before snapping the picture, which got me a sardonic smile.

  The picture is one of the best of the trip. A brown, barren landscape littered with rocks and roadside trash lies behind us. The shepherd stands proudly distant to my left, walking stick in hand and flock slowly grazing in the background. Take away the trash and the man’s modern jacket and it could just as easily have been 2006 BC, as 2006 AD.

  The shepherd answered some questions about his life through Professor, and then seemed anxious to get back to his animals. I’d forgotten how to say goodbye, but managed a thank you, wave and smile before giving him most of the extra food I’d bought the night before. With that I got in the car and returned to our century. The shepherd went back to his flock.

  As we drove further south, and slowly out of the mountains, the temperature turned from January to spring. When we pulled off the road for a late lunch at a dusty roadside diner, it was even warm enough to sit outside. I was still new enough to Iranian food that all the bread and kebabs tasted pretty similar, whether at a fancy tourist place in Tehran, or out here in a small village in the middle of nowhere. We sat breaking bread and watched what rolled by.

  Just as Professor was telling me more about the war with Iraq and all the causalities this area had sustained, we saw a guy slowly wheel-chairing his way towards us along the dusty, garbage-strewn road. He heaved his way through the potholes and cracks in a well-practiced, patient manner. Once close, he called out a greeting to one of the guys working at the restaurant, who then came out and helped him over a small curb and up to one of the tables beside us.

  “They are friends,” Professor said, listening in. “It seems like the guy comes here a lot for lunch.” A few other people, workers at our restaurant and other nearby shops, soon straggled over and joined the man. A comfortable camaraderie descended on the group as they ate and swapped stories. It could have been any group of 30-year-olds in any small town in the world.

  Later, as we paid the bill and got ready to leave, Professor asked the waiter about the man. Our guesses had been correct; he was a local who’d lost the use of his legs from a war injury, and everyone in the group was an old friend. Judging from the natural give-and-take, plus the lack of surprise or interest on the faces of passersby, no one regarded the scene as anything other than normal.

  I looked up the road at where the man had come from. To be in a wheelchair, out here in a place like this, rolling through heat, dirt and garbage everyday to get lunch … wow. But, here he was, just another guy happily sitting and BSing with friends over a meal. I think about that guy sometimes when I’m having a lousy day.

  We got back in the car and continued south. This whole day we’d seen a lot of military, both bases and at checkpoints along the road. At most checkpoints they would scan our car as we approached, then wave us through with hardly a second look. The only time we actually had to stop the soldier just glanced in the car, exchanged greetings with Professor, and then motioned us on. Judging from the number of trucks they’d ordered off the road and into inspection, it was apparent they were mainly targeting smugglers, most likely, those running drugs.

  Professor was a good driver, far safer and more patient than I, but even he was extra careful along this road. The police would occasionally time how quickly vehicles motored from one checkpoint to the next, and if too little time elapsed you were rewarded with a scolding and a ticket. I’ve found few police forces in the world as uptight about speeding as American cops (especially those on military bases!), but the Iranians are definitely close.

  Lacking radar detectors, Iranian drivers have come up with a more communal, cooperative system of detecting cops. As we approached a speed trap or hidden checkpoint, oncoming drivers would flash their lights and then make an odd twirling motion with their fingers as our two cars neared and passed. Judging by how anxiously or quickly they spun their fingers, we got an idea of how close the fuzz was, an action I observed in every section of the country I visited. I came away feeling this ‘us against the police’ mindset offered a more revealing insight into what Iranians think of their authorities than a stack of newspaper articles or months of research.

  History’s Footsteps

  This was the day that really brought home the history of this part of the world. In a five-hour period I walked across the same pavement stones as Alexander, visited the Tomb of Daniel (of the lion’s den), saw remains from the civilization that invented writing, which were just down the road from the ruins of the civilization that invented the wheel. Then, the view from my hotel room that night was of the world’s oldest university.

  After driving for most of the day we finally arrived at our first sightseeing stop, Susa. Little remains of the historic city of Susa, dating back 4000 years, other than foundations and paving stones. It’s left to the mind to recreate the huge, multi
-pillared administration building that once overlooked and dominated the surrounding area. Walking through the remnants literally puts you in the footsteps of Alexander, treading the same paving stones through the same buildings.

  The next stop, so close to the remains of Susa we walked to it, was the Tomb of Daniel. Professor was worried about this place, as he got anytime we neared a religious site. Pulling me aside for a moment he warned that if anyone asked, I shouldn’t say I was American. He thought about it a moment and then suggested Italian, “Nobody knows anything about Italians around here, so that’d be better than French or German.”

  When I told him I didn’t speak any Italian, he said not to worry, “Nobody there will either.”

  Islam also views Daniel as holy, so the tomb, to my surprise, was packed with Muslim pilgrims. Our entrance was crowded with men – women used a separate opening somewhere further away. Squatting to remove my boots before entering was the first time on the trip I actually got nervous. The GI-issue desert boots (so comfortable and perfect for hiking in the desert I couldn’t bear to leave them at home) would have been much less of a problem had we not been so close to the Iraqi border and had so many of the pilgrims not been speaking Arabic. Obviously, a lot of the men here were not Persian, presumably many were Iraqi, and they might associate my boots with something they wanted dead. I’d never been so self-conscious of my size-14s.

  I quickly tucked the giant things into a corner then hop-scotched my way across the other shoes to the entrance. I instantly felt out of place. The cold, slippery floor felt weird and uncomfortable through my socks. People stared. The looks were no longer friendly or curious. I didn’t belong here.

  As we rounded the corner to the interior I heard wailing and crying. Men stood praying and chanting. Others kissed the ornate golden tomb. Everyone looked at me. I swallowed and lined up a picture, after first checking with Professor.

  “It’s ok, but hurry.”

  I snapped the picture. Then Professor, to my surprise, told me to stand in front of the tomb while he got a shot of me. I tried to stand in front of the tomb but men kept coming and going, forcing me to move and delaying the shot. Looking at them made me thankful I at least had a beard – all the other men, except Professor, had one.

  “Where are you from?”

  Here we go. A young man, bearded of course, had approached. I could literally see the religious fervor in his eyes.

  “ … Italy. You?”

  “I’m from here. Do you believe in Mohamed?”

  People were stopping to observe. Professor looked worried. My irritation with pushy religious people commandeered my tongue. “Never thought about it. You?”

  “Of course! You can see we Muslims believe in your prophet [here meaning Daniel]. Why don’t Christians believe in ours?” A murmur went through the quickly gathering crowd. I don’t know how much English they understood, but it didn’t take a genius to hear the words Mohamed, Muslim, and Christian to figure out what was going on. “It doesn’t seem fair that Muslims believe in your prophets but you don’t believe in ours.”

  “I guess life isn’t always fair.” I answered, suddenly feeling angry.

  At this Professor grabbed my arm, smiled at the young man, and said we’d better be going. The young man smiled back. The crowd stepped aside to let us pass.

  All was silent for a couple of seconds as we made our way down the hall toward the front. Then a sudden burst of conversation told me the others were asking the young man what we said. Professor listened for a second, then told me to hurry and get my boots. Fortunately, they weren’t hard to find.

  “I think it’d be better to move on to the next place on the tour. There are some nice paintings on another part of the tomb but …”

  “No problem. Let me lace these things up and we can get back to the car.”

  As we walked out of the tomb area a couple of men suddenly approached and started talking to Professor in Arabic. I scowled and tried to loom over the conversation, thinking we weren’t going to make it back to the car without getting into a fight. Professor saw my expression and read my mind.

  “Don’t worry. They’re pilgrims. They’re just asking for directions.”

  The two men smiled kindly, thanked us for our time, and walked on toward the tomb. I told myself to calm down. One religious nut didn’t mean everyone was out to get me. We made our way back to the car.

  As we approached, Professor got a quizzical look on his face.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Some asshole stole my hubcap!”

  Sure enough, one of the Peugeot’s hubcaps was missing.

  “I guess this isn’t our town.”

  “Yeah, let’s get the hell out of here.” And with that we took off.

  I wonder to this day if his car was targeted because of my presence (before entering our first stop, the Susa remains, Professor had been required to fill out a form, common at tourist sites, stating my name and nationality). The car next to ours had been fine. The guard station where we’d had to fill out the form was in plain sight, only 10 yards from the car.

  Chogha Zanbil

  We approached this site through a giant sugar plantation, where I first heard the story of the mullah and the sugar cube. Perhaps apocryphal, I heard the story so many times I came to believe it through sheer repetition.

  It seems some years back a foreign company opened a sugar factory in Iran and started producing sugar in cubes – the ubiquitous things one now sees at every restaurant, tea shop, rest stop, and tea time throughout the country. Unfortunately for the new company, a certain well-known mullah took a dislike to the newfangled cubes and forbade Iranians from using them. To the mullah the cubes were somehow un-Islamic. God had apparently intended for Iranians to use only powdered sugar.

  The company, its sales plummeting, went to the mullah to see about getting his ruling changed. After the meeting, the company wisely decided to make a donation to the man’s mosque, the size of which varied according to the level of disgust the storyteller had with the current mullah-led government. Soon after the donation, the wily mullah announced it would be ok for good, god-fearing Iranians to use the sugar cubes, as long as they first dipped them into pure Iranian tea. After hearing the story I started paying attention and not once in any café in the country did I see someone pop a cube in their mouth without first dipping it into their tea.

  We approached Chogha as the sun was beginning to set. The cloudless skies and dying flames of the sun had the 3000-year-old orange bricks glowing with life. This is the largest pyramid outside Egypt; only it had been forgotten, literally buried under time and sand, for over 2500 years until its accidental rediscovery in the mid-1930s. Carefully unearthed in fits and starts over the decades since, the upper parts of the pyramid, technically called a ziggurat here, had collapsed, but the remaining stories attest to the size and power once held by Chogha’s rulers.

  As we walked into the interior at the ziggurat’s base, an old man approached and offered to show us around the large complex. He lived in the area, spoke more Arabic than Farsi, and gave private tours as a way to supplement his income. Once we started, it seemed that few things; not roped-off areas, not closed gates, not even ‘keep out’ signs, could keep this older gentlemen from giving me the tour of my life. Even Professor, who’d visited the site dozens of times, was impressed. Within minutes, I found myself walking deep inside the compound, climbing stairs reserved three millennia ago for kings and priests. Bringing home the humanity of the ancient denizens, our guide pointed out animal tracks and a small footprint preserved in the 3000-year-old bricks.

  Exiting the interior of the compound, I gave our elder guide the most well earned tip ever. An action noticed by some passing Iranian tourists who thought it was a bribe, and teasingly scolded him, “Ah, ah, ah, we saw that!”

  During our tour of Chogha we’d come across several groups of Iranian tourists, all of them very curious about the foreigner. Most would give Professor and me
a questioning look, to which I’d respond with my newfound Farsi. Then stare at them dumbly when they said something I hadn’t learned yet. Professor would finally come and bail me out, translating the, “Where are you from? What do you do? What do you think of Iran?” questions everyone asked. Next would come picture taking, always men and kids only, unless I specifically invited the women to join us.

  As we were walking back to the car one of the kids I’d said hello to earlier, this one because I’d liked the contrast of his Levi’s t-shirt and the age-old ziggurat, came running up to us, spoke with Professor, then handed him something. Professor smiled back and gave the kid a friendly pat on the head. With that, the boy, embarrassed, quickly ran back to his father and uncle.

  Professor turned to me with a smile and said something about Iranian children being very shy and innocent toward foreigners. So shy, in this little boy’s case, that he’d asked Professor to give me the gift he’d brought, and then tell me how much he hoped I enjoyed my visit. It was a small set of prayer beads, about the size of a necklace, that Muslims use as they sit and think or pray. The beads are sitting on my lap as I type this – fingering through them is the best method for overcoming writer’s block I’ve ever found.

  We got back in the car as the sun slowly set, still with an hour remaining in our drive to the southern oil city of Ahvaz. As we drank some of the local tea to help us stay awake, I dipped my sugar cube into the tea, more to loosen it a bit than out of any sort of religious conviction, and smiled at the story of the mullah and the nearby sugar cube factory.