Breaking Free: A Journey of Self Discovery

by Chett Vosloo

  With a few days to kill in the city, we thought that we would pay a visit to the Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan embassies to find out how long it would take for us to get a tourist visa. We left feeling discouraged, as the Kyrgyzstan embassy was closed, and to get a visa for both Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan would take around three weeks. If we were to hang around in Tehran waiting for a Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan visa to come through, it would mean that we would have to forget about cycling across Iran altogether, as we wouldn’t have enough time. Johnny and I had a look at a world map to see if there were any other routes that we could take to get to China. One option was to forget about the Stan countries and to go through Pakistan and India instead, but taking this route came with far too many risks. Another option was for us to cut our trip short and fly directly from Iran to China. However, the only down side to this would be that our around the world bicycle trip would then be incomplete. Our third option, which the more we looked at it, the better it seemed, was to fly from Iran to Urumqi, a city on the west of China, and then backtrack across Kazakhstan towards the Aral Sea. The Aral Sea was more or less directly north of Mashad, a city on the east of Iran where we were hoping to reach after crossing Iran. By doing it this way we would make up for the latitude that we would miss out on by not cycling across Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, yet we would need only one extra visa, and not three. This seemed to be the least complicated way of doing it. All that we needed to confirm now was that there was a Kazakhstan embassy in Urumqi for us to pick up our visas, which there was. With the decision made that this was how we were going to go about it, we hung around in Tehran waiting for the money to come through, then caught the first bus we could back to Baku, the same town where all our troubles had first begun.

  ***

  One of the things I knew very well about touring by bicycle was that it was always unpredictable and you never quite knew what was going to happen from one day to the next. I guess that this was one of the things that made it both challenging and exciting. On the road one day, I saw a sign that said it was 40 kilometres to the next town. Assuming that there would be nothing until then, I quickly started working out a plan in my head. We could have a bite to eat when we got there, and then push on to the next town and sleep there for the night. I yelled to Johnny up front to hold up for a second.

  “What do you say we grab a bite to eat in 40 kilometres and then push on after that?”

  “Yeah, mate. Totally agree,” he replied.

  However, within a few minutes of saying this, a strong head wind seemed to come out of nowhere. In a matter of seconds our average speed went from 30 kilometres per hour right down to below ten kilometres per hour. If this wind stayed as it was – which seemed likely - then I knew that we would be lucky to make it to the next town, let alone make it any further. I had a very clear feeling that this sudden change to the wind was life trying to teach me to stop planning so much and to stop putting things into a box of how it should be. This wasn’t to say that I should stop making plans altogether, but rather that I should learn to flow more with life instead of forming clear-cut ideas of how I thought it needed to happen. Our plan was to get to Beijing, yes, but how we got there could happen in a number of different ways. The famous quote by the Chinese sage, Lao Tzu, said it perfectly. ‘A good traveller is someone who has no fixed plan, and is not so intent on getting there.’

  Just as I suspected, the wind didn’t get any better. In fact, by the time we reached the outskirts of the town that we were heading towards, it seemed as if we were right in the middle of a full-blown sand storm. I was by now so covered in dust that all I wanted to do was to find a hotel and buckle in for the night. During our first few days in Iran, I had noticed that it is fairly common for there to be a police check post on the outskirts of a town. All the check posts that we had gone through had passed by without a hitch. A smile, a wave of the hand, and that was that, but at this particular one, we were waved down by the two policemen on guard and told to pull over. As it turned out, they were merely curious to find out what we were doing and where we were heading. Not being able to speak much English, they gestured for us to follow them into the police station and to have a cup of tea with them. I was hoping to get to a hotel as soon as we could, but it would be nice to get out of the wind and be indoors for a while.

  For the next hour, Johnny and I sat around drinking tea and eating biscuits with all the policemen in the station. When we did eventually get up to leave, the same two guys who had taken us inside then led us outside and told us to get in the backseat of their police car. After waving down a passing truck, and loading our bikes on to the back, they hopped in the front seat and off we went with the truck following closely behind. Well, I’ll be damned! Never in all my travels had I been escorted in a police car to a hotel for the night. Perhaps this was life trying to really hammer home the point that if I didn’t plan so much, then strange and wonderful things beyond anything we could ever have expected would open us for us along the way.

  CHAPTER 34

  Despite the fact that several families had invited us to stay at their homes for the night, we had never actually got around to it, as invariably the family lived in a different town to where we were going. But then one day, a man driving past in his car pulled us off the road. With a big smile, he told us that it would be an honour for him if we would be his guests for the night. Johnny and I took one look at each other and shrugged our shoulders, as if to say, ‘Well why the hell not?’ Besides, the man seemed so insistent that we stay with him that it didn’t seem right for us to turn him down.

  After dumping our stuff and meeting his wife and kids, Seber, as he introduced himself, took Johnny and I on a tour of the town, followed by a dinner at a local restaurant. That evening we sat around with the family in their lounge telling them stories about our trip, and listening to them speak about their lives in Iran. After the conversation had been going back and forth for some time, Seber told us his story of how he had spent five years in a prisoner of war camp in Iraq shortly after he had left high school. I sat there spellbound at his stories of how the guards had smashed in his teeth and severely beaten him, as well as all the other prisoners. If there was one person who was going to leave an impression on me on our cycle trip across Asia, it was this man. I could see that despite all the terrible things that had happened to him in the war, it had clearly opened him up to life and that all he wanted to do now was to help others and do good. Our night with Seber and his family turned out to be such a great experience for me that I went to bed that evening thinking about how nice it would be to spend a second night with them. In the morning, when Seber did ask us whether we would like to stay for a second night, Johnny and I told him yes right away, but in the end it wasn’t meant to be.

  ***

  After the morning relaxing at their home, Johnny and I went to find an Internet cafe to catch up on emails. We weren’t there long before getting a phone call from Seber to tell us that the police had taken him in and that both of us had to go to the police station immediately for interrogation. As we later found out, word had somehow got back to the police that there were two ‘foreign subjects’ staying at Seber’s house and that it would be best for us to be checked out in case we were spies.

  When Johnny and I arrived at the station, we were led through to a room and offered chai tea and chocolate. Within a matter of minutes of being there it became obvious to us that this was the furthest thing from an interrogation. Clearly they had little interaction with tourists and wanted to take this opportunity as a chance to get a better understanding of us ‘foreign subjects’. For the next few hours we sat around in the police station speaking about all sorts of things. The conversation went from religion to politics, from travels to culture and from the world cup soccer to our thoughts on Iran. If they weren’t dressed in policemen uniforms, you would have sworn that we were sitting around with a bunch of friends in a coffee shop. Before we left, the head chief told
us that for our own safety it would be best if we didn’t stay with any more families along the way.

  “Only sleep in hotels,” he said. I nodded back at him, as if to say, ‘Sure, no problem.’ However, inside I was thinking, yeah, right. Whatever Mr. Policeman! Later on in the afternoon, when we did eventually leave Seber’s house, we hadn’t even made it ten kilometres from the town before a guy in his twenties told us that his sister was trying to learn English and that it would be so wonderful if we could stay with his family for the night. By now we were getting a taste for Iranian hospitality and so we accepted right away.

  ***

  With each day that passed, I found myself planning less and instead trying to let life take us along. I made it a daily practice that before I left in the morning I would say, Okay, life. You know where we are going to eat today. You know how far we will get. You know where we will sleep tonight. You show me and let me follow. At times when I did catch myself making more plans than I needed to, I would quickly remind myself to quit planning so much and see what life had in store for us instead. This wasn’t to say that by surrendering and letting life take us along that things always worked out perfectly. It very often did, but not always.

  After a good day on the bike it had come to that time for us to start thinking about where we were going to stay for the night. A stranger we met on the side of the street suggested that we come back to his home for the night, however in the end it didn’t work out as his wife had already invited guests over for dinner. After looking into a few other options, Johnny and I eventually decided to give up trying to find a place to stay in the town that we were in, and instead to pick up some food from a supermarket and find somewhere to pitch our tents on the outskirts of town. The sun was about to set and we knew that we didn’t have much time before it would get dark. Things weren’t looking good, as there were only more buildings on both sides of the road, with no open ground at all. A little further on, we saw a dirt road leading off the main road. It was a gamble, but we figured that we may as well have a look to see if we could spot anywhere decent to camp. It was a good call in the end, as not even a kilometre up the road we saw a thin line of trees running between two farms.

  “Let’s camp over there,” I suggested, thinking that this was going to be as good as it was going to get for us for the evening. Once we were right in the middle of the trees, and out of site as best as we could be, we quickly made our tents, gulped back the food that we had with us, and were standing there in the dark doing last minute things when, out the corner of my eye, I saw what looked to be a group of people sneaking up towards us through the trees. My heart dropped as I could see that they were all carrying long clubs in their hands and that they were clearly there to make trouble. What made things even worse was that both Johnny and I was wearing woollen hats and neck warmers that we had pulled up all the way to just below eye level. In the dark, with the neck warmers covering most of our faces as they were, it would have been easy to take one look at us and think that we were terrorists hiding out in the forest. Realising that I had only a few seconds to diffuse the situation before they started giving us a good beating, I quickly said, “Africa Janube! Africa Janube!” which I thought meant ‘Africa tourist. Africa tourist’, with one hand held in the air to show that I wasn’t carrying anything, and the other hand used to pull down my neck warmer. When Johnny turned around and saw what was happening, and that they were all carrying some form of weapon in their hands, he also tried to ease things by quickly walking around to shake their hands to say hello. When the young Iranian guys, who couldn’t have been much older than in their late twenties, did eventually realise that we really were only tourists and not troublemakers on the run, they all burst out laughing. They hung around for a while to chat with us and to take a look at our bikes and equipment, then sped off on their motorbikes. We thought that that was that for the evening, and that we could now finally get some sleep, but then about fifteen minutes later they all came back and told us to hop on the back of their bikes, as they were going to take us to their home for dinner. One moment we were about to get the beating of our lives, and now we were on our way to have a home cooked meal with an Iranian family.

  ***

  The only thing that we really wanted to get sorted out before we left Iran was Johnny’s bike. Thinking that he was doing us a favour, a guy on a motorbike had pulled up alongside Johnny and grabbed hold of his handlebars, intending to pull him along. But it didn’t work out quite as he had planned as Johnny lost his balance and went crashing to the ground. It wasn’t the cuts and bruises on his arms and legs that was the problem, but the fact that Johnny’s gear lever had snapped, leaving him with no way to shift from one gear to the next. We hadn’t come across even one bicycle shop in Iran, so God only knew how we were going to get it fixed now. To cycle the next few hundred kilometres with his bike the way it was wouldn’t be fun at all.

  Only a few days after Johnny’s crash, two guys driving past happened to stop us for a chat. This had happened many times and so we didn’t think that much of it at first, but they quickly got our attention when they told us that they were also into their cycling and that they owned a bike shop in Mashad. Before driving off, they gave us their business card and told us to give them a call when we got to Mashad, as they would give our bikes a full service for free. Never before in all my cycles around the world had this happened, and the timing of it all couldn’t have been better. Yet again it seemed so obvious to me that we really weren’t the ones in control here and that we had nothing to worry about, as we were being perfectly looked after.

  There was also another great lesson that I took from this. Despite the fact that Johnny had absolutely no interest in spirituality and religion whatsoever, I had watched time and time again how when he needed something it seemed to miraculously appear, just like it had right now. My understanding through this was that life was taking care of both Johnny and I equally. There were no favourites. Life, just like the sun above, shone down on all, the sinner and the saint, the religious person and the atheist, the rich man and the poor man, with an equal eye. However, whether or not we made the most of the opportunities that came our way in life was our business.

  ***

  As our time in Iran was drawing to an end, I couldn’t help but think what an incredible experience it had been for us to have spent a month in the country. When I was in India a few years before, I remember meeting a guy who had cycled from Switzerland to India. When I asked him which country had been his favourite, he immediately, without taking a moment to think about it, said Iran.

  “Wasn’t it very dangerous there?” I had asked sceptically.

  “Not at all,” he chuckled back at me, clearly amused by my question.

  Only now that I was experiencing the hospitality and the unbelievable generosity of Iranian people firsthand, did I fully understand how foolish I was to have asked such a question. This served as yet another valuable lesson for me, as it made me realise that the image that the media portrays of a place is often totally different to how it actually is, and therefore I had to remember to form my own opinions instead of just believing whatever the media told to me to be true.

  CHAPTER 35

  When we left Iran I made sure to take a lot more care packing my bike. We weren’t able to get ourselves bike boxes at the airport in Tehran, which would have been our first prize, and so we had no other choice but to pack our bikes in tightly sealed plastic. Still, I did my best to protect the bike as best as I could. Once we touched down in Urumqi, China, and had made our way by taxi to the centre of town, Johnny and I were eager to reassemble our bikes on the side of the street before trying to find a place to stay for the night. It was only then that we saw the state that our bikes were in. Johnny unwrapped his bike first and saw that both his handlebars had been bent inwards. This wasn’t that big a problem as it would be fairly easy for him to straighten the handlebars himself. However, it was my bike that had suffered the most from the
plane ride. The most obvious damage was the back of the bike frame, which had been so badly bent that it was impossible for me to even put my back wheel onto the bike. My break cables were also broken, as was the rear cog and the front wheel damaged as well. I stood there looking down at my bike, a little shell shocked and wondering what on earth they had done to my bike at the airport.

  We decided that Johnny would take off on his bike to find us a cheap place to stay for the night, and I would stay where I was with my broken bike. If there was anything that irritated me it was the fact that our bikes had been for a full service and were as good as new when we left Iran the day before, and now it looked like this! Sitting there in sun with my back resting against the wall, a thought then came to me that this was just another test to see how I would handle the situation that I was now faced with. Would I remain calm, or would I blow my lid and lose it? After this thought had crossed my mind, that this was nothing but a test, all traces of irritation immediately left me. I felt completely relaxed about the whole thing and could even look down at my bike with a smile.

  Okay, life, I said, with a cheeky grin on my face. If this is nothing but a test, then one way or another you are going to have to help me get my bike fixed. Now this was something that I was looking forward to seeing. To find a bike shop where we were would be one thing, but to then find a mechanic at the bike shop who spoke English, that wouldn’t be so easy.

  After Johnny got back with the good news that he had found a decent hostel up the road for us to stay at, I started asking people whether they knew where I could find a bike shop. As it turned out, there happened to be a Giant bike store not even 300 metres up the road from where we were. This was the first part. Now we had to find someone who spoke English. Well, I’ll be damned! The only person at the bike shop who spoke English was the bike mechanic himself. This wasn’t the end of the good news, however. After taking a look around the shop to see what they had, the mechanic showed me a second hand bicycle frame that he said he would give to me for only $20. What had started out as a disastrous day was now actually turning out to be not that bad after all. Sure, it would cost me a little more than 20 bucks to have the bike serviced and to get a few extra parts that I would need, but I was well aware that I had got off lightly, as it could have cost me so much more. The next day I went back to the shop and was happy to see that my bike was looking as good as gold again.