Out of Iran - up to the Caucasus

First attempt to leave Tabriz was dashed by a 'snap' sound at the front of Julie's bike. It was her front pack rack, probably not helped by her secret hoards of dates and Iranian sweets. (Don't buy cheapo Bor Yueh.) We retreated to town and found a very friendly bike shop. The main mechanic, son of the owner, kept chanting 'Tourist I love you!' There wasn't a perfect replacement but after more than three hours of mucking around, with me trying to temper the mechanic's impatience and be helpful (not easy), we combined a cheap back pack rack with a bit of the old front one. It came together well.

We headed north, buying our last melon for a while. The weather became chillier and chillier and by the time we got to Jolfa things were very wintry. North of the river we could see jagged snowy peaks in Armenia and Azerbaijan. In Jolfa we camped in our last Iranian public park, under one of the familiar rotundas to keep the tent dry.

A desolate road wound eastwards along the border (the river) for 60km past Nakhchivan, the Azeri enclave, to the Iran-Armenian border. As we rode we could see the old Soviet railway line, intact on either side, but blocked off and and partially destroyed since the 1993 Nagorno-Karabakh war. Bombed out carriages lay in no man's land.

On the Armenian side we were delighted to see female border guards in pure James Bond get up - calf high boots, woolen tights and short skirts! It was a novelty to see women gainfully employed and Julie was thrilled! $US 50 at the border for a 3 month visa.

Over the other side it was dark. The only hotel was overpriced and dismal so we camped behind a petrol station (thanks to the helpful chain smoking attendant). He said there were wolves up the road and nowhere to camp anyway. When I asked if I could use my petrol stove he was horrified and said, 'No no no, it's too dangerous!!' We cooked on his hotplate instead.

Next morning we found that there was indeed nowhere to camp - sheer cliffs on one side and barbed wire on the other. In the first town, Meghri, we dropped into another servo to ask about the road. The two men there manhandled me inside and pushed a glass into my hands: '100 grams to make you bold!!!' (meaning a double shot of vodka). They pulled out chairs, vodka (Russian and moonshine), bread, honeycomb, wine, cheese, pomegranates and a strange yellow-orange fruit I hadn't seen before (korolyok in Russian) - it was a persimmon. While feasting they were notably polite but also natural, and straightforward, in how they related to Julie. Would the 'dama' (lady) like wine rather than vodka? A Russian girl with a violin case walked past - Russian border guards are still here. We had a series of toasts and eventually we got off up the hill with a haul of fruit and half a litre of delicious home made wine. More gifts of fruit were made on the outskirts of town. I learnt to be wary of unripe persimmons.

From 500m altitude it was another 2000m vertical up a beautiful valley with golden autumn leaves, persimmon trees and grape vines to the Meghri pass at 2535m. Snow lay on the steep ridges not far above us. We camped just below the pass and it was ominously cold overnight.

From here an icy curling descent down down down into the next misty valley - where it was even colder. An excellent warm midday feast in a local cafeteria. Up again into drizzly rain. A dacha caretaker took us in for the night - more moonshine (ouch). We discovered that the Armenians love Turkish coffee - though of course they objected to this description!

Then over another 1700m pass during which we got snowed on for the first time.
At the top some park rangers invited us into their hut where we were offered Turkish coffee, vodka and a white mush made of calves' hooves and fat boiled for 10 hours. Yum.
On the descents our fingers were getting seriously cold despite full gloves and we made frequent armpit warming stops. The final descent on this day was on a road famous for its 52 switchbacks.

Skipping ahead - we rode to Yerevan and then got an overnight train to Tbilisi in Georgia (as the Armenian - Turkish border was closed). $US 10 each. 60 dram ($45) for a 90 day visa at the border.

Tbilisi was bustling but peaceful and pretty, and no Western tourists were to be seen.
We met an interesting Russian - Alexander, a retired engineer - who invited us to stay at his ex wife's place (???) She turned out to be a fiery chain smoking Chechen. The following night he decided that we should stay with him and his new wife - in their old Soviet one bedroom flat.

From Tbilisi we caught a local train (электричка, or elektrichka) to the west through and past Gori, which is just south of where the worst fighting in the recent war was - Tsingvali. All the locals were telling me things were completely safe. There certainly weren't many soldiers around.



This man was delighted to see us having a break next to a little memorial for his 13 year old son, who had died here in a tragic accident. He insisted on giving us gifts of wine, grapes and persimmons.



We've now got as far as Batumi, on the Black Sea coast - a slightly seedy port town with lots of poker/gambling dens but also an utterly magnificent botanical garden on its eastern outskirts. Groves of mandarine trees everywhere - we picked our own and then were given more along the road. There are also forests of soaring eucalypts along the coast, planted anywhere from 50-100 years ago.



This is the New Zealand section!



The view northeast. Below is what in Soviet times was the Moscow - Batumi railway line. Nowadays only local trains run, and probably no further than Poti, 50km north towards the Abkhazian border. Although Sukhumi, its capital, appears on all Georgian road signs as if you could get there easily, Abkhazia is effectively Russian controlled and its border is closed.

Armenians and Georgians are the most lovely, hospitable people. Virtually everybody we met told us: 'We love and respect guests above all.' Whenever we asked about a spot to camp we were inevitably invited in for the night - most just refused to let us camp, as if it would be an insult.

A word about toasts. In Georgia especially they are long, complex and passionate. I was given a range of theories on what precedence various toasts should take. They would go like this:

'Firstly, I want to drink to peace. To friendship between peoples. That there be no more war and that everybody everywhere may live in friendship and peace...' etc.
Then:
'To our guests. We love our guests and will do anything for them. Whatever we have we will share with you. And if we have nothing, we will go and borrow from our neıghbours. Your house is our house, you are our brother, and your wife is our sister. God grant you safe onward travel, and may you return home safely to everyone waiting there for you...'
Then:
'To our mothers. We love and respect our mothers above all...'
A little later:
'To our fathers. We love and respect our fathers above all, and they understand more about us than even our best friends...'

These toasts were very genuine, heartfelt and often extremely touching. I was so happy İ knew Russian. Sometimes İ got a special toast for that, they were so delighted at being able to communicate. You'd think they might despise the language, but no, it is a language they have grown up with. Why hate a language?

An average would have been 10 toasts around an evening meal. If I was lucky, I'd get away with drinking the first shot or two and then only sipping. But I ran the risk of being told, 'You've got to drink the lot!' This also applied to full glasses of wine, though then I developed another tactic: 'I can't savour your delicious wine if I skull it!' And delicious it was. Julie got honorary man treatment with toasts, though she could evade them - I couldn't.

Every Georgian household we went to (outside Tbilisi) made its own wine, vodka or cognac. Extraordinary.
We are currently carrying 4-5 litres of wine and some cognac, all of which are gifts from Georgians and Armenians! The perfect antidote to Iran!

Over 9000km now since Urumqi. More soon if luck permits.

Over the Kopet Dag into Iran

After the heavy climb (1500m vertical) from Ashgabat up to the border - right on top of the arid range - we were intrigued to see what Iran would be like. Julie pulled out her scarf and donned 'hejab' for the first time. The officials were impeccably polite and friendly, and there were absolutely no issues. A promising start, but we were more worried about what Ramadan (1-30 September) would mean for our appetites. 23 days to get through! Cross border contraband included a bottle of wine (see Turkmenistan), a Salman Rushdie novel and 'The God Delusion'.

We rolled down past the long queue of Iranian and Turkish semitrailers to Bajgiran, a desolate little border town, where we were amazed to find Coke (real Coke) in the first shop. (I confess to a mild soft drink addiction over August - in the heat - and Julie and I had shared our 'last Coke' back in Ashgabat.) A dorky young Iranian man on a motorbike spoke OK English and invited us back to his place to stay the night. He turned out to be the local librarian, on assignment here with his young wife. 'I hate it here.' We soon found out how Ramadan works: 'I don't fast because it is too difficult for me, but my wife must because she is fat.' Ouch. Next surprise came very quickly: satellite TV with raunchy Lebanese MTV (which ran non stop) and endless Arabic porn channels (which I found playing with the remote)! Questions included: 'Do you have free relations in your country?' and 'Can you watch movies and TV on the Internet?' It made me ashamed to think how much bandwidth (or whatever the hell it is) rich people must squander on crap. Of course the Iranians all want it too. Next morning Julie stole a bit of girl time with librarian wife (boring questions about weddings) while I briefly found out just how boring a librarian's job can be. Turns out he spends all his time 'studying English' - and during Ramadan only has to work 8 am (read 9.30) till 1pm (read 11am)!

That first morning we discovered the delights of Iranian bakeries. This one churned steaming hot 'barbary' flat breads out - for 500 rial each (believe it? - 5 cents.)
As soon as you stand in the queue the locals turn around, make sure you're served quickly, and help you with the change.

Next village a shopkeeper invited us in for tea. In his courtyard the sharp eyed bastard spotted my bottle of wine, buried below three water bottles! He kept winking and nudging me conspiratorially then asked for some and came back with an empty
bottle! I poured him a sip and tried to tell him he was a Muslim AND it was Ramadan!



We rode through these beautiful, dry, empty mountains towards the west and after two days descended into our first Iranian city - Quchan.

First impressions: lots of 125cc motorbikes. Lots of men staring. Fewer women, almost all in black chadors, obscuring their faces.

It was 4.30pm when we got to town and we thought we'd find a feed. There were plenty of bakeries working, but not a single restaurant in town open. A kindly local man volunteered the location of a 'park' for 'camping' (they use the same words in Farsi). We retreated to this leafy park to eat our fresh bread with honey, spotting a few kanoodling couples and a few people picnicking on a blanket. It seemed this was a 'safe zone' for eating. Turns out anybody 'travelling' and certain other groups (pregnant women, diabetics) are exempt from Ramadan - but it's still unacceptable to eat in 'public'.

A friendly bloke walked past and eagerly wanted to show us something. He took us back to a kiosk and pointed out a spot on the concrete under a spotlight where we could camp. He was saying something about 'police' and pointing to himself. No uniform, though. Then he opened the kiosk and got out some icecreams for us. He rode off on his bike, suggesting he'd be back later. Sure enough, later he turned up - in uniform. In the meantime we'd met three other policemen who were delighted to find us a spot to camp, and offered tea. We chose a rotunda in the shade, just near the police mini-station. This was our introduction to camping, Iranian style.

Next morning we said farewell to our police friends and I received my first kiss (on the cheek) and a pink rose (signifying friendship??) from an Iranian man...



From Quchan we headed across arid plains with grape farms to Bojnurd for more Iranian-style central park camping with lots of locals, mostly travelling to/from Mashhad for the holiday. Kids would periodically appear next to our tent with melons, cakes, bread and other little gifts sent over by their families. At dusk we went to a canteen style restaurant where everyone was eating a set menu chicken and rice. Out the front was a self important parking attendant in a white uniform with red braid. We had a few swigs of wine left so thought we'd go for a wander in the park before dinner to finish it off. I got it out of my bag (where it was now well buried) - discreetly, I thought. But when we got back the attendant started raising his voice and demanding to inspect the bottle!!! I ignored him and just turfed the bottle as soon as I was inside. How the hell did he pick that?

Then south over another range to Esfarahen, where we'd been invited by a lovely family. From here across empty desert and up onto a plateau, then down through beautiful lush temperate forest to the Caspian Sea coast.

Julie rode in a loose long sleeved top and pale travel pants, with a headscarf under her helmet. That didn't stop endless stares. I rode in pants for a very short while, got sick of it, and went back to my baggy mountain biking shorts (knee length). After consulting with a few locals I decided my policy would be to whip pants over the top if we were stopping off in a town for a little longer - or maybe if a policeman told me to put some on. (This never happened.) Most people didn't seem the least bothered that I was wearing shorts - they were too fascinated. Only once or twice did I see an older man 'tut tut' and shake his head disapprovingly. As time went on we got a little sick of eating and drinking inside little shops during daytime (most restaurants and cafes were closed). Occasionally a shopowner would even put shutters down so we could eat freely. But we became a bit more relaxed after a while and started to have a few nibbles and sips in towns. Only rarely did we get strange looks and in any case we had our line ready - something along the lines of 'masi - dochakhe mosaferat.' (Christian - bicycle journey). It was amazing, though: you literally would not see anybody chewing gum or taking a sip of water in public during daylight hours. I'm sure young men everywhere were stuffing their faces all day behind closed doors, though.

We ran into extraordinary hospitality almost everywhere. It took about 3 weeks to pay for accommodation - not for lack of trying. In Azad Shahr an English teacher took us to a hotel as we'd requested but then said, 'It is not so good. I have a flat in town which is empty, you may stay there. Or you may return with me to my village and stay with me. I am at your service.'

Another regular, very warm greeting: 'Welcome to Iran. Is there anything you need?'

Families were great to us. Young men, on the other hand... The towns near the Caspian coast were increasingly packed with bored young John Travoltas on motorbikes, cruising around doing laps (of us), shamelessly checking Julie out, hooning past on the inside and yelling to scare us, and generally harassing us. Not fun at all. These boys style their hair with kilos of hair gel and are extremely fashion conscious, checking themselves out in public mirrors all day. Tight jeans, muscle T shirts, jewellery... Complete disinterest in anything Islam screams out at me. Yet there are absolutely no sanctions on their behaviour. They seem to be able to do anything, any time they want. As for women...

Moving west the traffic seemed to settle down. From Chalus, on the coast, we rode south over the Alborz mountains and through the terrifying Kandovan tunnel (2km long) then down through more long tunnels to Karaj - a satellite megalopolis of Tehran. These tunnels generally had bored police and ambulances/paramedics at one end. Our worst tunnel moment came when a car without headlights (like about 30% of cars in tunnels) overtook towards us (single lane, tunnel wall 50cm to our right) as cars were about to pass us from behind. Luckily, these braked in time. On the open winding mountain road, it was just a matter of watching out for the constant overtaking, often in blind corners, in our direction. Oh, and tailgating.

A word or two more about Iranian traffic: diabolically awful. Most cities and towns are gridlocked, mostly with Paykans, which are Iranian made Hunter Hillmans (late 1960's- early 1970's models). Very many of these are taxis, marked and unmarked. The traffic generally moves very slowly, but all drivers constantly weave left and right trying to find gaps. They're also constantly watching cars next to them and avoiding collisions. Lanes mean nothing. Indicators are very rarely used. Cars turning onto the road in front of you do not look at all towards oncoming traffic - they virtually have right of way. This also has the advantage that they will see whatever motorbike is inevitably coming up the wrong side of the road towards them. Or it might be a car reversing back over an intersection. It could be anything.

Share taxis constantly stop and swerve over to the side of the road (no indicators) to pick up/drop off/hunt for passengers.

Traffic lights also mean nothing. At the busiest intersections in Tehran you can see motorbikes simply riding out into the intersection, making all the oncoming traffic in both directions stop, and sneaking across. Footpaths aren't safe either as motorbikes are quite happy to ride on them at 30-40km/h to avoid gridlock.

Motorbikes are especially dangerous at night - they don't slow down and often have no headlights...

Another pet hazard - women in chadors who are too busy covering up and chewing on their chadors to look at traffic. Also shocking at night. Talk about a death wish.

Roundabouts are maybe the worst. Imagine you want to go straight ahead. As you ride on, many cars coming behind you will just cut in front to turn right. Then cars coming from your left will also cut in front of you to continue straight. Eventually you're stranded somewhere in the middle, with cars heading towards you weaving left/right as they try to guess which way you will go. If you freeze with panic, at some stage somebody will courteously wave you through. At any time a motorbike could come at you from the wrong direction.

It's an extraordinary driving culture. 28,000 deaths a year on Iranian roads, I've read. I didn't realise that this kind of martyrdom was recognised by Allah.

In favour of Iranian motorists: they honk discreetly, mostly to say hello, and there is remarkably little road rage - certainly none towards us. When I yell abuse the response is almost always a silly smile and a wave! The bastards!

The roads? Generally excellent. Petrol is 1000 rial (10c) a litre, though it's 'rationed' to 4 litres per car per day or 1 litre per motorbike per day (smart card system). Beyond that it's 40c a litre.

Road police? Activity level zero. On the other hand, two cop cars with sirens did scream to a halt near our campsite one night when it was reported that a young woman was not wearing proper hejab (as we heard later from other campers). I looked up to see Julie blithely wandering away towards the toilets, ignoring the calls of the police. She took her time and they left before she appeared.

There is utterly excellent food in the Iranian markets - apples (from 20c/kg), grapes ($1/kg), pomegranates ($1/kg), tomatoes (from 20c/kg), eggplants (40c/kg), greens, dates, honey, halva, Iranian olives and olive oil (delicious).
All of the fresh fruit and veg has been better than anything in Australia, let alone Europe... On top of that delicious fresh bread, fetta/cream cheese, yoghurt...
On the other hand restaurants are very hit/miss. Lots of basic kebab joints and fast food stores dishing up unappetising 'pizza', hot dogs, hamburgers.

Universal lowlight in Iran - the miserable status of women. Hiding/cringing behind chadors in smaller conservative towns. Highly educated with no prospects and utterly frustrated in big cities. A few drive but none ride motorbikes (though they all ride on the back as pillion passengers.) We saw one girl walking with a pushbike in Esfahan. We are told it's not 'socially acceptable' for women to ride bikes.

Politics / the government? Islam? More later. I'll just tell you what's on TV: endless lectures by imams about things like Palestine and evil Israel.

In Karaj I had my bike welded again - this time a bracket on the front fork for my front rack. Another back yard electric arc job, but it looked good.
We left our bikes in Karaj and caught an overnight train to Yazd from Tehran, then a bus to Shiraz, bus to Esfahan, and overnight train back to Tehran. A week all up - but we were busting to get back onto the bikes. A hunt for two replacement brackets I needed delayed us for a few hours, but was entertaining.

Over the past six days we've ridden from Karaj to Tabriz (about 600km) over refreshingly safe freeway. After a day stocking up and wandering in the most excellent bazaar today we're planning to head into Armenia tomorrow, then southern Georgia and Turkey. Why Armenia? 1. The lure of Armenian cognac. 2. Beautiful mountains, and autumn should be pretty. 3. They speak Russian there. 4. It's the nearest hejab-free zone. 5. It's a few borders away from Turkish Kurdestan.

8000+ km so far - since mid May.

Above all, I am really looking forward to escaping the constant terror of riding in Iranian cities. You only need so many reminders of your own mortality. It's sad that this fear sometimes overshadows the sheer joy of bike touring.

Turkmenistan

On September 2 we rolled up to the Turkmen border, having camped 5km down the road the night before. We had the typical 5 day transit visas. A truckload of German tourists just beat us to the border post but we managed to get over in 3 hours - excellent time. The Turkmen bank officials made 3 charming attempts to short change us on the silly $12 'departure cards', but no other hassles.

As we left a local Russian guide asked me if I'd seen her stranded Spanish tourists. We chatted, I joked about being a spy, and she hissed, 'Don't say that, not even as a joke!' Welcome to Turkmenistan, one of the silliest banana republics around.

I'll revisit this later.

Just one memorable moment: riding from the big Saturday Ashgabat market back into town, a bloke in a truck leaned out the passenger window as the truck went past and gave me a 1.5 litre soft drink bottle with what I thought was flat cherry cola, or some kind of juice. It turned out to be some kind of delicious wine, half way between shiraz and port!