The beginnings in Iran: chaos and missionery in the desert

372 km

1-10. October 2016

It was superb to arrive to Iran: passport check moved slowly, the packaging of the bicycles was thorn apart, a cup of coffee seemed to be more expensive than a main course, the price of Rial was 10% better at the exchange office than the official middle rate and outside cold wind blew. Of course, we were sleepy and tired. It was total chaos, and we couldn’t figure out what was going on. And it was only the beginning.

It took for a while to assemble the bicycles, and we couldn’t get compensation for the minor damages we found meanwhile. The airways didn’t even have an office at the airport. There was no wifi and it was bloody hard to figure out the address on the offline map, where most text was written in Persian. We couldn’t sleep, therefore when it was lighter outside we packed and left to the chill. 

The distance was brutal. Tehran was 50 km far, and we noticed, that we were falling sleep on the bicycles. We wanted to avoid such accident, thus, we’d took a break every now and then, and later we’d stopped for a coffee at a gas station, but these didn’t help. We were suffering. We pedalled to the next rest station, where an Iranian guy invited us for tea, he welcomed us to the country as well as to his home, we just need visit his city. Very nice of him!

This episode refreshed us a bit, and in Tehran we had to fight with the terrible traffic: how would you change your lane on a 2x5 lane road by bicycle, where the drivers don’t follow the lanes and don’t respect any rules? They turn from the lane for going straight, and they go straight from the lane which is for turning. We feared to death, the drivers were honking at us but we survived it. Luckily, we could rest after we arrived to our host. Abbas taught us many things, for example about the chaos with the prices at the airport: the official currency is Rial, but the prices are often given in Toman. 1.000 Thoman = 10.000 Rial = 0,25 €.

In the next days, we were eating the gorgeous food from Abbas’s wife and we went sightseeing. Our conclusion was that Tehran with its 15 million citizens is very crowded, very smoggy, every street is a bazaar, and after 2 days you really want to get out of there.

It was important to pay attention to the dress code. For man long pants are obligatory, women besides covering their legs and arms, have to wear hijab and tunic. Many were in chador. At the subway there were coaches only for women. Vendors were always pushing away people on the packed subway, which wasn’t pleasant. No, we didn’t get to like this city.

Leaving the capital, we headed west, our goal was to reach Karaj. First, we took the 2x2 lane national road, then we changed to the 2x5 lane highway, where the emergency lane was only ours. At least we thought so. Suddenly tires were creaking from a Peugeot 206 whose driver lost the control over his vehicle, and it started to slip out. Luckily, it didn’t crash into any other car. It broke the guard rail, flipped several times and it stopped on its tyres. We were watching this from our bikes, all of this happened 50 meters ahead of us. As in football, there’s no such thing as “what if”, but it was shocking…

In Karaj, Ehsan was our host from Couchsurfing. He wasn’t fluent in English, but he and his family were really good host. We had a fantastic dinner then we went to do some sightseeing. We started in a Mosque, where we were taught for 30-40 minutes about the life and mostly about the death of Imam Hossein and his white horse. This was actually interesting, until… “What’s your religion? Do you want to convert to be a Muslim?” Then she asked us to write down our opinion of Islam on a sheet of paper. Plus, she needed our e-mail addresses to send some articles to read. We had a bad feeling about this. “But we don’t speak Persian!” “No problem, I will send it in English!” Okay, that’s it, get out of here! Our excuse was our tiredness, and we left the pushy missionary behind.

Next day we experienced a lot of the Iranian hospitability. Many people were waving and friendly honking at us, and some of them stopped to give us a few apples, some grape, two lollipops, and one driver, who didn’t stop, threw banana skin on the back of Linh. We still don’t know if this was his opinion on cycling women (banned in some cities), or “it just happened”.

Abyek was only a small town, where we had hardship to find a place for our tent. First, the locals were pointing on each other, then on the Red Crescent (local Red Cross). They didn’t help us either, so a worker of the electrical company decided to take care of us. Then his boss. Then his employee. His daughters seemed to speak good English, but it was becoming more and more unclear what is going on in the evening. At 9:30pm suddenly a big dinner started with parents, grand parents, cousins, and with an uncle and an aunt.

After a desert, the villages at every 20 km, slowly we arrived to Qazvin. We ate some sheep kebab, then we noticed we were out of Rials. It was Friday, and here Thursday-Friday is the weekend, so the exchange offices were closed. We asked a young couple on the street, if they know an exchange office, which was open, but the man just invited us to his home. “You are strangers in this city, and you don’t know who to trust. I trust in you, be my guests!”

Hashem become our friend, he is a very intelligent guy, and more easy going than the average Iranian people. He told us many stories about his military service, where he had fire fights with Afghan drug smugglers. He offered his help if we need anything or we have any problem. All the best, Hashem!

Our next morning was a little bit chaotic in Qazvin, and we didn’t manage to leave the city. Somehow we ended up sightseeing, and after that we were just resting in a park. Mohsen approached us with his daughter: “You are with the bikes, right? Can I help you? Come, I have a free flat, you can stay there!” We were adopted for the second night as well. On that evening there was a great family dinner, and a girl, Mahtob was translating for us. They were very proud of the 2500-year-long history of their nation, except the last 30 years, that has been the Islamic revolution. “There’s no freedom, no free thinking. The revolution pushed our civilisation back to the middle age.”

They invited us to stay there for a year, as no one uses that flat, and they gave us presents. They were fantastic, we like them!

We went towards the northern mountains from Qazvin, but we had to stop early, as Linh felt unwell. We asked Sadekh, the vendor for help. It took longer for him to trust us, but we became friends. He was the first we met who supported the actual regime.

Next day, we started our fight with the mountains. It went easier than how we thought, as most of Iran is plateau, and we started from 1500 m hight, and we were riding mostly downhill towards the Caspian Sea. In Rudbar no one offered a garden for us, and we ended up in a park. The police woke us up at midnight, telling that we should pack and go to a hotel. Linh fought the authority with her old routine (don’t forget that she grew up in Vietnam!), and she argued as long as they asked 15 USD in exchange for letting us stay. They didn’t get the money, but we stayed!

Legközelebb arról is szó lesz, hogy hol terem a legjobb tea és a legjobb kiwi Iránban, valamint hogy miért mentünk már megint egy klinikára.

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