Revolutionary Ride

by Lois Pryce

  ‘But you mean it’s just for show?’

  ‘Exactly. And of course, if people have children, they do not want to make a protest and then be arrested, questioned, tortured, locked up. This is the reality if you take a stand against the government in Iran.’ He looked me in the eye. ‘Would you take that risk?’

  It was a difficult question. I liked to think I was the kind of person who would make a stand, but it was easy for me to say, coming from a democratic country with its unarmed policemen and the reassuring notion of habeas corpus enshrined in law. Taking a stand in Iran was a life or death decision.

  As the bootleg liquor flowed, the conversation turned to more comfortable territory, to shared tales of Tehran’s movie industry, a state-sponsored Iranian success story on the world stage of international film festivals and red carpets. But as with every aspect of Iranian society, there was another story, a covert subplot running beneath the surface.

  ‘There is a lot of government money in Iranian film. They make good movies sometimes, but it is mostly bland dramas about rich couples and their domestic lives, with a bit of intrigue and scandal, an affair or something but nothing that will upset the mullahs, nothing too risqué, nothing to anger the censors, and there’s always a good moral code at the end, of course. But of course nothing political, nothing about real life in Iran. So what happens is that these film-makers take their skills and training, paid for by the government, and use them to make their own films, underground films, music videos for bands, hip-hop artists, documentaries that tell the truth.’

  ‘Criticising the regime?’

  ‘Yes, exactly!’

  ‘But how do they get shown? I guess it’s too risky to put them on YouTube and the internet is so slow here that I don’t suppose you can send them by email.’

  ‘The internet is only slow for the public, for regular people,’ said one of the others, ‘the speed is there if they need it, but it does not serve the government to have their citizens able to upload and download and share files.’

  ‘So how do you see these films? Where do they get shown?’

  Jafar pulled something out of his pocket and held out his palm. ‘Like this,’ he said, showing me a USB flash drive. ‘We share memory sticks. We have them with us all the time, handing them out to our friends, and then they copy them and pass them on in the same way.’

  ‘The old-fashioned way, word of mouth.’

  ‘There is always a way,’ Jafar said.

  This, I was beginning to understand, was the unofficial motto of Iran.

  We polished off the wine, a couple of the guys smoked a joint out on the balcony and then something that sounded like ‘paan-toe-mim’ was suggested. After some attempts at translation, I realised that we were about to embark upon a game of charades. Our cultural differences came to the fore now as we struggled to find much common ground for our mimes, largely due to a ‘no Hollywood films’ ruling by Jafar, which was less about his political objections to the Great Satan and more to do with his aesthetic values as a cineaste. I chose books that I considered well-known classics, but judging by the confused looks, they had clearly never troubled the Iranian syllabus; the girls chose recent MTV hits beamed in by their illegal satellite dishes but that had failed to register on my radar. Nevertheless a slightly inebriated Anglo-Iranian game of charades can only be a source of high comedy, and we hammed up our acts like a bunch of am-dram queens and still failed to guess correctly, or even get close. It didn’t really matter; the joy was in the sheer silliness of it, and I eventually rolled into bed, leaving them to party on into the night. As I drew the curtains in my bedroom, thunder crashed over the mountains and lightning illuminated the horizon that I would be heading towards the next day. The jagged outline of the Alborz Mountains looked wild and intimidating.

  At breakfast the next morning Jafar was putting his shiny coffee-maker to work and I sat with Shirin and her friends, looking out at the morning mist cloaking the peaks. The teenage daughter of the hotel proprietor sat with us, silent but listening to our conversation with an expression of avid fascination. Because we were now in the restaurant, technically a public space even though it was empty, our headscarves and manteaus were back, just glimpses of highlighted hair and dangly earrings peeking out from beneath our layers of fabric. But spirits were still high. The girls were warm and chatty with me, and unsurprisingly the conversation turned to hair. But in Iran hair talk is never just about hair.

  I described how I had wrapped my headscarf for my visa photo and showed them the picture. They laughed until their mascara ran down their faces.

  ‘Is this what you thought Iranian women look like? Ah! People in the West think we are all hidden under black chadors,’ said Shirin, ‘obeying our husbands; not allowed to drive or go to work. I think people confuse Iran with Saudi Arabia!’

  They all laughed some more.

  ‘Before the revolution Iran was very modern because of the Shah and his wife. Tehran was a cosmopolitan city, the women very stylish. This is a long time ago now but people do not forget this. In our hearts we still think we are like Paris!’

  I admitted to them that I hadn’t known what to expect and that the Iranian women I had met and seen appeared to be the very antithesis of the down-trodden oppressed female.

  ‘Yes, there are many educated, professional women in Iran,’ said Shirin. ‘Almost all teachers are women, a lot of doctors too, and lawyers. More women go to university than men.’

  ‘But it’s not just about that, it’s something deeper than education or profession.’ I tried to explain my thoughts, nascent as they still were. ‘They also have this, I don’t know how to describe it … this spirit. Iranian women seem very bold and confident, but not aggressive. Everyone is very kind, very warm with it. Even the older, more religious women in their chadors, they have been so kind and welcoming to me.’ Shirin was translating to her friends, who were all nodding in vigorous agreement. Shirin looked thoughtful.

  ‘For women in Iran the laws are bad, yes; it is a difficult life in many ways. But difficult times, they make you stronger, that is why we are like this. So we must not let our situation break us. We must keep laughing, and keep trying, following our dreams, our hearts. Iranian women are very lively, funny, we laugh a lot, you know?’

  I had felt this energy in just the few people I had met here already, men and women of all ages, this irrepressible appetite for life and connection, to take part and engage. I wanted to bottle it and distribute it back home.

  ‘And you know, the Iranian people,’ she continued, ‘we are not conservative, not serious people. I know this is what the world thinks of us – traditional, religious, backward, angry people. But this is not how it is. We are always laughing, having fun, making jokes!’

  I didn’t want to admit that I had probably been guilty of such assumptions just a few weeks before. The fabled mind-broadening power of travel is usually a gradual affair, something that creeps up on you the more you put yourself out in the world, but in Iran it was a sledgehammer effect. I found myself rethinking, recalibrating just about everything every minute of the day. It was like being whacked in the face with my own prejudices and misconceptions at every turn; but it wasn’t an unpleasant experience, it was thrilling.

  Then the daughter of the hotel proprietor spoke for the first time. Her voice was timid but her eyes excitable. ‘You know,’ she said, looking out of the window at my bike parked in the yard, packed and ready to go, ‘I have never ridden on a motorcycle, not even on the back.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘we can do something about that right now!’

  A minute later we were in the saddle, her arms around my waist as we bumped over a few potholes and accelerated away up the mountain road, no helmets, just hijabs flying in the wind and both of us whooping our way around the bend. I think Freya Stark would have approved.

  Back at the hotel we took photos of us all together before going our separate ways. The proprietor was studying my map as I packed my b
ike.

  ‘Which route are you taking from here?’

  I showed him, tracing the snaking dotted line with my finger from Garamund into the mountains to Pichebon and the Salambar Pass, almost 3,500 metres above sea level, from where I would descend to the Caspian, but he shook his head when my finger reached the pass.

  ‘No, you won’t get through here. The pass is blocked with snow.’

  I looked at the mountains around me – they were tipped with white but I had assumed the roads and major tracks would be open. This was the only main route across the Alborz from here.

  ‘Have you been up there recently? Won’t it have melted?’

  He shook his head. ‘No, we had big snowfall just a few days ago. It was clear before but this snow was unexpected. I heard about it from a truck driver. He couldn’t get through.’

  ‘Well, maybe I’ll go and see, I might be able to get through on my bike.’

  He shook his head again, firmly. ‘No, the snow is very deep. There is no way through right now.’

  Having read of its lonely beauty in Freya Stark’s book, I had my heart set on this route, winding its way through the high peaks and canyons, past meadows and waterfalls. It was going to be rough in parts, and if my map was correct, the tarmac would stop in a few miles and become a dirt track at its highest section. At the pass I wanted to see the ancient caravanserai, a station for the camel trains that used to cross these mountains, carrying goods to and from the Caspian coast. Although the hotelier’s warning was well meaning and, I knew in the back of my mind, possibly well founded, I couldn’t simply take his word for it and just turn back the way I had come without trying. I had a dirt bike and I was going to use it.

  ‘Well, I’ll go up there and give it a go. It might be OK.’

  He tried to dissuade me, shaking his head with a knowing smile, as if dealing with an impetuous child.

  ‘The snow might have melted,’ I said hopefully.

  ‘No, the truck drivers all turned around. Nobody has been through this week.’

  He gave a helpless shrug of his shoulders when he realised I was sticking to my guns.

  I wondered if I was making a big mistake but I reasoned that if I had listened to every warning about ‘the road ahead’ that I had ever received in my life, I would never have got anywhere – I wouldn’t even be in Iran now! I was all for seeking out intel from the locals, but often I found it came tainted with old ingrained folklore and ancient prejudices about the neighbouring country or people. Sometimes it was merely idle hearsay about places that, when pressed, they would admit they had never seen themselves. I considered the hotelier too worldly to engage in that kind of casual jingoism, but the other problem I encountered when asking for local advice was a well-meaning but unhelpful sense of chivalry. As Freya Stark herself had put it: ‘To be treated with consideration is, in the case of female travellers, too often synonymous with being prevented from doing what one wants.’

  Over the years I had formed an unofficial policy of ignoring unsolicited warnings and advice, but I was always aware that my policy might catch up with me one day. Maybe today was the day. There was only one way to find out. The hotelier waved me off with a knowing look as I pulled away, the gravel crunching and spraying from beneath my tyres. I waved back as I took the bend, up and away into the mountains.

  6

  Snow, Sea and the Shah

  THE ROUTE CLIMBED tirelessly, first passing through some small villages with their own mini-mosques, always decorated with elaborately patterned blue and yellow tiles and topped with a shimmering dome. Even if a little tattered and tarnished, they provided a welcome burst of colour amidst the mushroom grey of an overcast sky and the mishmash of concrete and mud that made up the settlements. People stared as I passed but always waved and smiled if we made eye contact. As I continued to ascend, any signs of human life ebbed away and I was climbing high into the upper reaches of the Alborz, through steep-walled canyons, dodging potentially lethal boulders that littered the road while trying to snatch a glimpse of the river churning over rock far below. The tarmac surface of the road, already in a state of disrepair, came to an abrupt end for no apparent reason and from there on I was slithering my way along a trail of mud and rock, the ground soaked from last night’s storm and the snow-melt that trickled down from the slopes.

  This route would have been plied by the traders and their camels a thousand years ago or more, and I sang the old jazz tune ‘Caravan’ out loud, relishing the fact that there was nobody around to hear me. It kept my spirits up and set the scene nicely; long lines of slow-moving camels carrying food, goods for the bazaars and bags of silver coins up and over these mountains to the Caspian Sea. These trade routes, offshoots and extensions of the Silk Road, had been trodden for centuries throughout the Middle East and Central Asia, and over the years had eventually become formalised, named and finally tarred to become the modern road network of Iran. The caravanserai, the traditional inns formed of a walled courtyard with rooms for merchants and their beasts of burden, would have been dotted along at intervals of around sixteen miles, a typical day’s travel for a camel, but they had almost all disappeared out in these remote parts. They would have made a welcome sight for a traveller and I was focussed on reaching one of the few remaining examples high up at the pass. If I made it that far.

  Despite the difficult conditions, I was feeling hopeful about the journey ahead. The riding was slippery, requiring concentration, and snow clung to the mountainsides in drifts often several feet deep, but so far it was nothing too daunting. In fact, I was energised and exhilarated by my surroundings. Travelling alone in the mountains can be an unsettling, lonely experience, and as a lover of all things maritime, I find a sense of relief upon returning to sea level. It is always a reassuring moment, catching that first glimpse of the ocean with its promise of onward travel and new lands on faraway shores. But the Alborz were having an unusual effect on me: I felt alive in the moment, like an eagle soaring high above the world. The mist had cleared to reveal a pure blue sky and the air was so crisp and clear, the outline of the mountains so sharp and the snow so startlingly white that my world had taken on the texture of an over-saturated, Super 8 film. Everything was heightened, pushed to the max, including my own sense of vitality. Had some of the Iranian spirit rubbed off on me already?

  As I pressed on, despite the snow getting deeper and the temperature dropping, I was warming up fast, mainly because the riding was becoming more physical and required me to stand up on the pegs to tackle the rough ground. This is where the bike came into its own; the suspension soaking up every rock and pothole, and the off-road tyres digging in, keeping me upright on the loose, slithery surface. I was at such high altitude now that I could see for miles all around me nothing but the endless mountain range stretching in every direction; I couldn’t remember the last time I had been in such an isolated spot with no idea if I would reach my destination, but I remained strangely calm; the sheer scale and natural beauty was both humbling and pacifying. A few faded hand-painted signs appeared along the roadside, poking out of the snow, but I had no idea if they bore good or bad news for the mountain traveller. As I climbed higher the snow became deeper at the side of the road until I was riding through a tunnel of white, the track narrowed as the snow crept in until it dwindled to a thin grey line of slush, and then it was gone. The col opened up before me, buried under a vast white blanket, carpeting the pass ahead. The hotel owner had been right.

  I surveyed the situation with a mixture of fear and excitement, two sides of that same old coin that battled endlessly. Which one would win this time? The thought that the track was under there somewhere and would emerge on the other side was too tempting to resist. I decided to plough on through the virgin snow, hoping it would be just a short stretch to the other side and that I would soon be heading down towards the Caspian Sea. By the time I had paddled my way, breathless, another half a mile or so, I realised I had bitten off more than I could chew. I could barely
make progress through the deep drifts, which were almost knee high, and although glorying in the natural beauty, any sense of fun was tempered by my increasingly cold, soaking feet. The truth was that I didn’t know what lay ahead, or how long it would take me to reach civilisation, or at the very least, somewhere to dry my socks, but when faced with the unknown, optimism is still an option; a plausible happy ending can be imagined. Turning around and retracing my steps was a known quantity, but a defeat, and therefore unappealing. I pushed on.

  The physical nature of forcing a 120-kilogram motorcycle through a snowdrift meant that I was at least keeping my blood flowing and my heart pumping, which kept my toes from freezing solid, but my heart was banging in a whole different way when an hour later all I could see ahead was more white – smooth and endless in every direction. The only sign of life was an eagle dipping and swooping high above, but it soon disappeared into the white. I feared I had become disorientated and my thoughts raced with all the possible catastrophic endings that awaited me. When at last I spotted the faint shape of a structure in the distance, relief rushed through me, and with it a new surge of energy. As I pushed and shoved and heaved and panted towards this evidence of human agency, I realised that I was looking at the squat shape of the caravanserai, the most welcome shelter in what felt at that moment like the world’s loneliest outpost.

  I could almost have thrown a stone into its courtyard, but as I pushed and heaved some more I realised that the truth was, there was no way I was going to be able to reach the building. The snow ahead was so thick, so heavy and deep, that I simply did not possess the physical force required to shove my way through. I stared at the impossible scene ahead for what felt like an age, until the cold began to numb my feet and hands and I knew I had to start moving, somewhere. I had to admit defeat. It pained me beyond belief, but with a regretful glance at the caravanserai, I lugged my bike around 180 degrees and retraced my tyre tracks, cursing myself aloud for my foolish ways and stubbornness. Why hadn’t I listened to the hotelier? Why did I think I knew better than him?