by Jamie Maslin
After very little in the way of deliberations, I decided to go with his suggested route and now planned to leave this afternoon on an overnight bus for the town of Rasht near the Caspian sea, and from there to travel on to the scenic mountain village of Masuleh. Having time to kill until my bus left, I decided to pay a visit to a large, blue-colored mosque in the center of town, aptly named the Blue Mosque. The entrance portal was very attractive and decorated with hundreds of brilliant blue tiles repeating the name of Allah in different variations. It was incredibly intricate and completely unlike the mosques I’d seen in Turkey on the way here. The mosque dated from the fifteenth century and had suffered repeatedly from earthquakes, and as such was under extensive restoration. This made it a bit of a building site on the inside, but still well worth seeing. It had a massive central dome some fifty-five feet high and several large columns, again decorated with tiles. At the rear was a room that was once a little private mosque for the Shah. Here the walls were covered in marble and the vaults with shimmering gold and beautiful tile work. It also contained the tomb of Jahan Shah who ruled Persia in the seventeenth century.
I liked the place, but due to the building work and the fact that most of it wasn’t tiled, I can’t say I was bowled over by it. If it had been completely restored then I’m sure it would have been awesome. What was wonderful, though, was the coolness of the interior, which offered a very welcome respite from the blistering heat outside.
When I braved the sun again, it was to head back to the tourist office, where I met a young Swedish couple called Hannes and Malle. Hannes was six foot four with long fat blond dreadlocks and was wearing a vomit-color tie-dye hippie shirt with matching pants, while Malle was short, petite, and of Indian origin. They looked an interesting couple and would have stuck out like a sore thumb just about anywhere, but especially in Iran. I got chatting to them and learned that this was indeed the case. They hadn’t been in Iran long, but neither seemed particularly enamored by the place and Malle said she hated wearing the hijab. Both spoke fluent English, so it was nice to chat away at a normal speed for once. I fancied a spot of food, so asked them if they were hungry and wanted to join me at a café. Mr. Khan recommended a place around the corner for us, and whilst walking there, everybody, and I mean everybody, turned, pointed, and then laughed at Hannes and his blond dreads. The locals had never seen anything like it, and poor old Hannes didn’t look happy to be the center of attention. I thought it was great, and most amusing.
Things didn’t get much better for them in the café, where both ordered what they thought was vegetarian food only to be presented with a bowl of steaming meaty stew. They pointed this out to the guy working there who helpfully demonstrated how to remedy the problem, which he did by simply plucking out the pieces of meat with his bony fingers then returning the stew. Hannes and Malle handed their bowls over to yours truly and stuck instead to rice.
Malle explained that nobody would talk to her; all questions would be directed through Hannes. With a straight face I turned to Hannes and asked how Malle was coping with this.
In general, they both seemed very unhappy and said they were looking forward to leaving Iran for their next destination, which I think was Pakistan.
As soon as we stepped out of the café, Hannes was confronted with more pointing. Whilst working our way through the crowds, we spotted another backpacker and stopped to say hello. He was an extremely friendly Portuguese guy called Ricardo who was traveling overland all the way to Nepal, where he was going to do a load of trekking. I immediately hit it off with Ricardo, who was a soft-spoken polite guy of about my age.
Like me, he was new to Iran, and it turned out had been considering a very similar route around the country to my initial plans. I told him briefly of Mr. Khan’s recommendations and how they could save him substantial time. This he was keen to hear more about, and since Malle and Hannes wanted a drink, I agreed to fill him in on all the details at a milkshake shop. Ricardo recommended a wonderful little place on Imam Khomeini Ave, which we all set off for.
Poor old Hannes got the same treatment the whole way there, with young and old gawping in astonishment and cars narrowly missing one another as their drivers stared at him. Hannes walked looking at the ground to avoid the prying eyes on the way. I can’t say I felt sorry for him though, as I’d got my hair cut short and respectable to fit in before I left, and what’s more I didn’t dress like some lentil-munching soap dodger, so as far as I was concerned, his troubles were pretty much selfinflicted.
The milkshake shop was great, and we were greeted there with warm handshakes and smiles from the staff—all of us except Malle that is, who was ignored. After an animated sales pitch from me to Ricardo on the promised savings of Mr. Khan’s recommended route, Ricardo changed his plans and decided to tag along to Masuleh with me. This was great news as it would be nice to have some English-speaking company for a bit.
Having failed to pay for just about anything over the last two days with Shahram, I gladly picked up the tab for everybody using a mere fraction of the obscene-sized bank roll I had in my pack.
A round of carrot shakes later and we made a move out onto the street. Here, I saw a small stall selling posters which were simply too good for me to pass by. I purchased one of a stern-looking Khomeini for my friend Nick, one of another bearded religious-looking chap for my friend Chris, and two posters of a big muscled Iranian wrestler hugging his minute little old mother, who was wrapped up in a full black chador and wearing big chunky spectacles. It was exceptional. Down at the bottom of the poster were smaller shots of him in different poses to show his various qualities: family man, philosopher, scholar, man of the people, philanthropist, and all-in bareknuckle wrestler. I got one for my ex-girlfriend and one for my brother. I couldn’t stop laughing at the thought of their reaction upon receiving them in the mail.
Unfortunately for Hannes, we now walked straight past a barber’s shop. On spotting him, all the staff inside went crazy and rushed out, leaving their clients in the chairs. They were amazed at his dreadlocks and invited Hannes inside so they could study his hair. I was keen to go in, but there was no persuading Hannes. A couple of the barbers touched his hair out of real fascination. I know he was having a hard time of it, but I thought Hannes could have popped inside for a minute to satisfy their curiosity.
Ricardo and I bailed out on Hannes and Malle at this point and headed off on our own in search of a post office. Whilst walking around in circles, hopelessly lost, we were approached out of the blue by a young guy in his late teens, who said in English, “Can I help you?”
His name was Nima and he was very keen to practice English, so we forgot about the post office and went for a cola with him in a nearby café. He was a dentistry student, and wanted to meet up with us if and when we came back to Tabriz. He couldn’t stay for long but passed on his details in case we returned. Before he left, he craftily went up and, under the pretext of speaking to the café owner, paid for our drinks. Iranians sure are generous people.
Ricardo still needed to book his bus ticket and get back to his hotel to pack all his gear up, so we quickly got down to the ticket office. After squaring up there, we started the long walk back to his hotel, where on the way we met the most amazing character imaginable.
He approached us like the student before from out of nowhere and with the same greeting: “Can I help you?” There was nothing we needed help with but it was a rhetorical question anyway. With manic enthusiasm, he fired off a volley of words at breakneck speed.
“I want my daughter be superstar!” he exclaimed. “She is singer very good, oh yes!”
“And your son?” Ricardo queried.
“He just be accountant.”
“How old are they?” I asked.
“She is six; he is seven!”
“Are you married?” he asked me in a fraction of the time it would take a normal person to say three words. I told him I wasn’t and was expecting the usual condolences but instead got, �
�You are very lucky man; it be far better to be single!”
This was a shock to me and to Ricardo who’d obviously already had the same treatment as I had for being single.
“But surely you are married if you have children,” I said.
“Yes, but I do not like her,” he said without a moment’s hesitation, whilst shaking his head.
“I think maybe I do divorce.”
He paused uncharacteristically now for a whole second. “But it is unfair for woman with children.”
When I asked him why he didn’t like her, he came out with a gem. “We have nothing in common. I like detective stories but she doesn’t like them!”
Ricardo and I were in stitches. It sure would have made for some interesting marriage guidance counseling, maybe with him imploring her, “Darling, please, for the sake of our marriage, I beg you to at least try some Sherlock Holmes or Perry Mason. Is that too much to ask?”
Ricardo asked why he had married her if he didn’t like her.
“I meet her twenty-four hours before and think, mmm why not!”
I could well imagine him thinking just that. Her family, he explained, were friends with his family so it had been an arranged marriage. This he said was normal. Whilst on the subject of marriage, I took the opportunity to ask him about the sigheh temporary marriages and if they were common.
“You need not worry, have sex with anyone you want and do not get the marriage. It is not a necessary!”
We were in stitches again. We continued down the road chatting and laughing with him all the way to Ricardo’s hotel. Ricardo went inside to get things organized; I stayed outside with Mr. Enthusiastic. I suggested we sit on the sidewalk whilst waiting, but on looking at it he said, “It is dusty we will lean against car instead.”
I queried the wisdom of this as I was wearing my backpack and didn’t want to scratch a car.
“In England, do people mind you leaning on or scratching their cars?”
“Yes,” I told him.
He laughed and said that no one minded in Iran, and to prove the point he started hitting a car parked next to us. I half-expected some burly Iranian car owner to come out and administer a swift serving of on-the-spot justice with a golf club. Luckily, none was forthcoming. It was all completely and utterly insane but I loved it. Iran was my kind of crazy place.
Ricardo took forever getting ready, and after a while, Mr. Enthusiastic said with a laugh, “Maybe they kill him inside!” Whilst waiting, he told me his dream in life was to one day visit neighboring Turkey and to be a tourist there. It made me feel very lucky to be able to live my dreams and go more or less where I wanted. I told him I hoped that one day he would get to visit Turkey. When Ricardo appeared again, he was told by Mr. Enthusiastic, in a matter-of-fact, manly way, “You have very beautiful eyes.” Mr. Enthusiastic turned to me for an endorsement. “Doesn’t he have beautiful eyes?”
“Um, yes, very beautiful,” I said.
Our new friend walked us to a spot where we could get a shared cab to the bus station. On the way, he had a business proposition for me—it went something like this: if I bought things in London and he bought things in Iran, could we swap and make lots of money? I didn’t quite grasp the subtleties of how we made all the money and asked for clarification. He replied, “But I want to be rich; how can you help me?!”
Before we parted company, I asked him his views on the government. He didn’t like it. “The people now think maybe they make mistake.”
He also was of the opinion that the people were scared of the government and that the government used religion to “control the people.”
He offered to hail a shared taxi for us and speak to the driver personally to make sure he charged us the correct price and didn’t rip us off. “It is better. Maybe driver try hanky panky!”
We laughed again. He waved down a cab for us, had a brief chat to the driver, and said goodbye. Both Ricardo and I were sad to see this cheerful and just plain nutty guy go. Inside the cab, we were greeted by a suited Iranian man who warmly welcomed us to Iran and told us how much he hoped we’d enjoy his country.
Iran and the words “road safety” don’t sit well together. The country has some 200,000 reported road accidents a year, and no doubt many more unreported ones, and roughly 28,000 road deaths per annum. This appalling figure crowns Iran with the unfortunate title of country with the highest rate of fatal road accidents in the world. My Lonely Planet had some interesting comments on the rules of the road, in particular stopping at red lights. Apparently, the willingness of a car stopping at a red light has less to do with road safety and more to do with the number of armed traffic cops the driver can see within rifle range. No shit.
We got to experience the full nightmare that is Iranian road travel on our bus to the Caspian. We were given seats at the front of the bus near the driver who drove like a psychotic, suicidal IndyCar racer on crack.
He pulled out without looking, overtook on blind corners next to jagged cliffs with no crash barriers, tailgated whatever vehicle was in front of him, and at one stage sped around a massive row of cars stuck behind a slow-moving farm truck by using a sort of imaginary middle lane—the type of thing you would only consider doing on a computer driving game, and even then you wouldn’t be so reckless, unless you wanted to end your go. To the oncoming cars, he just honked his horn aggressively.
But most of all what scared me was the speed. He drove so fast it really was suicidal, and we missed oncoming cars by the narrowest of margins on several occasions. As a result, I found myself slamming my right foot down involuntarily onto an imaginary brake pedal. At the speed we went, it would have been game over permanently, no doubt about it.
Things got worse when the driver added his cell phone into the equation. He drove with his right hand, holding the phone with his left but to his right ear, and even started gesticulating at one stage with his steering arm. I watched in horror just waiting for the bump in the road that would turn the wheel and send us headfirst into the approaching vehicles. My late grandfather used to say, “It’s better to be twenty minutes late in this world, than twenty years early in the next.” Well, I was getting ready to meet up with him in the next, and prayed like the condemned man I knew I was.
At one stage, we approached some traffic cops by the side of the road, but somehow the driver managed to hit the brakes and avoided being pulled over. He glanced across at me as if to say, “We showed them, didn’t we?” I gave a nervous half grin back. They say that monkeys smile when they’re scared to indicate non-aggression. Whether that’s true or just a load of monkey piss, I don’t know, but the smile I gave him was of the primate “scared and defenseless” kind.
Whilst he was still in view of the law it was a cautious, “Mirror, signal, turn—okay, slowly into first gear and ease on the accelerator . . . Now check your mirror, that’s it and slowly into second.”
He drove as cautiously as an eighty-year-old grandma with eyesight problems and bad nerves at the wheel of an economy Sunrise Mobility Scooter. If I thought this brush with the law would have a lasting effect on his driving then I was about to be sorely disappointed. As soon as we rounded the corner, he dropped the clutch—we were back at the Indianapolis 500 and now he was playing catch up. I gave in, held on tight, and just closed my eyes like a kid on a scary roller coaster.
I awoke from this prolonged nightmare when we finally arrived at our destination. We got to the city of Rasht, near the Caspian Sea, at sunrise. Before getting on another bus, Ricardo and I both needed a good stiff caffeine injection, so we scouted out a little chay shop and drained an ocean of the stuff. Whilst there, I read up on the place. Rasht had a population of 400,000, making it the biggest city in the Caspian region, and was the area’s main industrial center. It was a popular holiday spot for people from Tehran, more as a base to visit the surrounding areas than for the place itself, which if my Lonely Planet was right, wasn’t up to much.
The Russians didn’t agree, though; th
ey’d occupied the place on several occasions, most notably in 1668 when the forces of Cossack brigand chief Stenka Razin rather unfairly massacred the entire population. They’d also popped over for a visit in 1920 when the Bolsheviks gleefully smashed up most of the bazaar, leading the majority of the locals to flee as refugees. Perhaps more interestingly, though, I learned that when the poor Rashtis weren’t on the receiving end of a dose of Russian rape and pillage, they were suffering the indignity of being made fun of by the rest of the country as the butt of national jokes. Much comedic value is derived from the lisping Rashti accent, but the real focus of the gags is on the popular perception that Rashti wives are unfaithful—the shameless Jezebels!
We didn’t stick around in Rasht long and made our way to a small minibus station that, despite the time of day, was thriving. We caught a ridiculously cramped minibus to the town of Fuman, where we hoped to get a shared taxi all the way to Masuleh. Fuman, which is known as the “city of statues,” was a cheerful-looking spot. The brightly colored plaster cast statues dotted around town depicted things like bow hunters or people handing out biscuits and, although they were of a tacky nature, I kind of liked them. The statues all looked really cheerful, and along with the multicolored traffic islands and leafy tree-lined boulevards, gave the place a sort of storybook appearance, which was so very unlike the pictures of Iran on Western TV.
Finding a shared cab going to Masuleh was no drama but the drive there was, especially for some poor chap we saw riding toward us on a motorbike. He made the understandable mistake of trying to ride one-handed along a potholed road whilst carrying a tray of bread and wearing no crash helmet—as I’m sure we’ve all done from time to time.
The predictable happened when he hit a bump and went flying. We all watched in horror as over the handlebars he went, sending the tray of crusty bread rolls spiraling helplessly into the air. As he hurtled toward the road, it looked for sure like he was going to smash his face and hard. But miraculously, at the last minute, he managed to arch his back and adopt a belly flop pose, landing instead with a bounce on his protruding chest. The rolls rained down around him and sadly didn’t fare so well, getting squashed cruelly by our taxi’s tires, creating a cloud of breadcrumbs all over the road.