Iran

Three days it took to get that piece of paper through that slot in the window. Three days of mauling in 45 degree heat like an All Black at the world cup. Three days.... only to be told "No Sir, you must apply in Islamabad" by the white collared official who was dealing with all 73 Visa applications that day.

"No I'm not going to Islamabad it's too dangerous!" I stammered in frustrated disbelief.

"Then book a flight to India" he retorted
"Can't…. travelling overland" I replied.
"We don't issue visas to people travelling overland, it's too dangerous" He smirked envisioning the danger.

"Yeah but..." I trailed off as I saw the look of nonchalance on his face and lost my purchase on the window to be spat out of the crowd like I had been caught in an avalanche.

At this point I could hear the clock ticking as I had to meet a friend in Delhi in 10 days and hadn't even got the application through the window. As a last ditch effort I rang Mat from the New Zealand Embassy who I had met on the first day of the visa sager when I had to get a letter of Introduction three days ago and had the following conversation.

***

"Ah Yeah Kia Ora Mate I need a Letter for these plonkers at the Indian Embassy" I muttered into the intercom in my thickest Kiwi accent.
"Yes okay sir, are you a New Zealand citizen?" was the reply.
'What do you think you doughnut'......... "Ah yes sir" I replied
Now being on my own little patch of Aotearoa in the Middle East things still went as smoothly as I had hoped. I had my letter in two shakes of a lamb’s tail and Mat even come out and had a chin wag about my trip that went along these lines.

"So where are you from?" he asked.
"Te Kuiti" I beamed.
"Oh yeah I'm from Taupo, do you know such and such? Wow travelling overland that’s quite a trip"
"Yeah I know, once in a lifetime" I smiled
"Pakistan is really dangerous at the moment I don’t advise you to travel through it. Balunchestan it's the Wild West down there."
"Yeah so I heard" I smiled meekly
"So I am going to finish up here in a month and study in the states?
"Oh cool"
"Islamabad is about to kick off, some gun men have taken over a mosque and Quetta that was where that guy had his head cut off"
"Righty ho, I'll be right mate"
"So how was London?" he asked
"Yeah good"
Be careful around Zahiden people have been getting shot there lately
"Will do mate, well thanks for the letter".........'and the pep talk'.

***

"Yeah Mat, Dave, hey these guys won't give me a visa aye" I seethed down the mobile phone I had borrowed from a guy who had been queuing with me for the last two days.
"Alright mate give me 15 minutes and I’ll see what I can do for ya" he replied.

14 minutes later I was in an office being yelled at by an Indian man in a blue shirt.
"I have just had your Embassy on the phone telling me that we are putting you in danger by sending you to Islamabad" he yelled.
“You are!" I said flatly, looking directly into his eyes.
"Okay so what do you want?" he screamed.
"A tourist visa" I retorted meeting his volume.
"When do you want it?"
"Sunday, and I want to pick it up in Zahiden!"
"Zahiden?" he said turning a scarlet
"Yes Zahiden Sunday!" I said not believing where this was going.
"Fine" he said showing me out of his office
"Fine" I said still matching his raised voice.

***

Sitting in a hotel room in Shraiz feeling a little nervous doing my last minute preparations of hiding 70 quid in my shoes and stashing my passport and remaining money down pant’s internal pocket I shouldered my back pack took a deep breath and headed to the bus station.

"Are you sure you want to go to Zahidan Mister" the ticket inspector asked?
"Ah yes" was my quizzical reply.
A few hours into the journey the two young lads started up. After the usual where are you from questions I was asked to give my opinion on sex, religion and politics in that order. In these guys opinions, you just went to a bar, snapped your fingers and the girls in the West would come home with you. Their English and the stubborn pre-conceptions made it very hard for me to break this change of thought. In fact he was convinced that if I took his email address I could give it to girls in my country and get him a wife.

I had to laugh when they found out that I planned to go to Pakistan from Iran. The second one started up "why you go there, its very dangerous many bad people!" I felt like saying funny they said the exact same thing when I said I was heading to Iran. At this stage the Pakistani guy sitting beside me spoke up in defence of his country and before I knew it a heated debate over Islam had raging for half an hour with lots of gesturing at me with no explanation, I sunk lower and lower into my seat and watch the never changing desert scenery.

The next morning as the sun rose over the rocky horizon I noticed a mud brick tower on a slight rise just on the side of the road. Outside were four Toyota pick ups one with a 50 cal. machine gun mounted on the roof. As we passed a man dressed in a white Baluchi with a turban came off the tower yawning and stretching with an Ak47 in that same out stretched hand. Then to my absolute horror a second man out the front of the tower broke into a smile as our eyes locked for a split second as the bus whizzed by. These guys definitely weren't solders and I spent the next thirty minutes trying to ward off a heart attack.

Zahidan was a dusty frontier full of mud brick houses and shifty looking bearded men and nervous boy solders. I had to wait outside the Indian embassy for 3 hours until it opened a 9am. I made friends with the police officers guarding the Consulate and sat and drunk tea and showed them photos of Iran. The first clue I may have been over my head was the machete sitting besides the driver’s seat in the policeman’s personal car. Then the next shock came when the policeman’s replacement came, as this man was getting changed into his uniform for his shift he asked his mate to pass over his side arm. To my horror I watched as this man pointed the weapon at his mate’s head slowly squeezing the trigger. From my vantage point on the floor I could see that it had bullets in the breach, all I could do was hold my breath and wait for the bang. The policeman’s child who was sitting on the bottom bunk thought that this was a great game and was giggling away with his father holding the gun. Then he spun and faced me broke open the revolving breach holding the 6 bullets tipped them into his hand passed one to me for a look then passed the ammunition and the gun to the new policeman, all the time laughing and smiling like it was a water pistol. I quietly excused myself and went for a walk to find breakfast.

Back in the consulate I was the only one there and was seen to with a minimal wait. To my dismay I was told the consulate knew nothing of me and that I should come back in the afternoon. I had hoped to cross the border this day minimizing my exposure to this area which was only a hundred kilometres from the Afghani border and drug smuggling and bandits were rife.
Returning in the afternoon I was told to come back tomorrow and I could get my visa. I then spent the rest of the afternoon walking around in the 50c heat trying to find a place to stay. I walked across town and was waiting outside the consol bang on 9am. My man told me that I could get my visa in the afternoon, which, due to the border closing at 4pm meant one more night in the bustling metropolis of Zahidan.
This time a young bolshie man from the Gulf area walked me to a cheap hotel that flipped out when I couldn't produce a passport or visa. (It was in the Consulate) They also confined me to my room saying that if I wanted to go anywhere I was to arrange a police escort through them. I found this laughable seeing that I had been walking around town for a day and a half now without being taken hostage and making home videos for any wantabe terrorists.

My usual three policemen picked me up in the morning, two of them armed with AK47's and all smiles. They drove me out to the edge of town passing all the black market fuel sellers with a blind eye. Petrol is rationed to 3L per day so there is a huge demand for black market fuel which they sell blatantly at extortionate prices right outside the gas stations. We parked up on the edge of town; I watch families washing and collecting water from a communal tap. I was then ferried into another car with 3 even younger cops. The driver thought he was in a Die Hard movie and took off wheels screaming. He had me at the taxi stand in 5 minutes flat, took down my details, took down the taxi's details that I was to travel in, manhandled me into the taxi office out of sight of the gathering crowd and then left me there to wait till the taxi became full.

I waited nervously as the driver signed in with the police at the first check point. It was like the moment you hang your legs out of the plane during a sky dive you really don't want to make your body leap but you know in reality that you have passed the point of no return.

The cabin door slid open and a slick dark haired Georgian stuck his head out and grunted at me to come to him. I looked up and down the train corridor, no one was about. I wandered over to the cabin and stuck my head in the door, there were five of them in there altogether and when I saw what was in his hand, I froze and uttered the words "oh crap!"

***

The Train was stifling as I fought my way into the small 4 person sleeper, an older couple followed me in so I threw my pack on the top bunk and sat in the corner and sweated while they fluffed about. As we pulled out of the station they turned to me and asked "where are you from?" Then burst into big smiles and laughter at my reply. This was followed buy the seemingly more frequent question of "what on earth is someone from New Zealand doing in the former USSR?"
"Ah" was all I had managed when Slovene answered his own question on my behalf "you're on an adventure" he boomed slapping his thigh with his hand and beaming at his wife. With that I was adopted by my new Georgian parents who then helped me negotiate the rather slow and all in Russian Georgian/Azeri border and of course showed me the usual local hospitality of feeding me up to my eye balls on bread, cheese, egg and cucumber. "This is for you, here eat some more" fussed Slovene's wife in true mother hen style till I could hardly move.

As I stood outside waiting for the others to make their beds I was giving thanks that they did not follow the other local custom of Chacha (the local Vodka ) which, to be honest, could double as varnish remover. I rubbed my poor stomach and shuddered at the other night that had seen me passed out on the tiles in my guest house in close proximity to the toilet. I thought the battle was won when the 500ml bottle was drunk over dinner only to be horrified when Gaylar, the baker from across the road, produced a two litre coke bottle filled with the stuff and re-filled the more decadent glass bottle he had on the table. Try telling someone that was probably bottled fed on Vodka from birth, that, no, you really can't drink any more. You get a look that says they think you want to stop breathing oxygen.

***

I recognized one of the five from my own cabin, the other man thrusted the bottle at me and bellowed "you come drink Chacha" while pointing at me with his index finger from his paw like hands.

"Ah crap!" I shuddered and then shrugged, well a Kiwi's got to do what a Kiwi's got to do, and in the name of international relations I took up the last seat in the cabin and knocked back the shot that was placed into my hand in one go, as per local drinking law. After asking my name and where I was from it was like I had arrived at Auckland and was drinking Battery acid and eating strong sausage and bread with my 5 oldest friends. One of these guys with a beaming smile managed to name three major cities back home, came out with "James Cook" the stumbled out into the corridor and did a cracking rendition of the Haka. The ransom was pretty light, as this time when the bottle finished, that was it and I was made to swap skype address so that they could call me. I sure that the conversation at the time seemed like it was flowing quite nicely and with that I was freed and allowed to wobble my way back to my bunk.

***
Driving through the desert of Azerbaijan watching the oil pumps rock back and forwards like hammers, I was fuming. I had been ripped off by the money changer big time, the first taxi driver wanted $20 for the ride and when told where to go he decide to keep my back pack hostage in the boot. However, tip to future taxi drivers, when you have someone's stuff locked in your car don't point at that person swearing at them with the keys to the said car in the same hand, because said Kiwi will grab your keys, unlock the boot, retrieve the back pack, throw the keys in the boot, smile, and say "later sucker!" and of course waves as the Kiwi drives by in a cab for quarter of the price while the former cab driver is still dicking around trying to get the keys out of his locked car. The bus station had been a mass of people, fumes and noise but I managed to get a ride to the Iran border. Now as we drove through the desert that stretched as far as the eye could see to my right and to the glittering blue Caspian Sea on my left, on a bus without air conditioning, all I wanted was a bottle of water. But all I could do was sit there fuming and roll the dry lump of meat I had for a tongue around my mouth. I couldn't not use any of my small notes because they were ripped. I thought US dollars would be king but whenever I pulled these ripped bills out of my pocket they screwed their noses up like I was offering them used toilet paper.

***

As the third police officer checked my passport within 100m of where it had just been stamped more out of curiosity than a matter of security I thought that their actions summed up my very short experience of Azerbaijan. Walking down the road with the bored policemen at my back , supervising the holes that were being dug in the road that joined Azerbaijan with Iran, I began to get a twinge of excitement that I have not felt in a long time. Normally when I cross a boarder I am slightly nervous or sometimes indifferent but this time I was smiling to myself as the metal plates, on the bridge across the bread filled river that forms the countries divide, banged and shifted under my weight. The day was perfect, warm and cloudless. Birds were singing and I even caught my last glimpse of the Caspian glittering light blue diamonds.

The first Persian I met was the berka clad immigration official who, as per my preconceived perception, looked at my passport, then at me and yelled "where is your pass port?"
"That is my passport" was my bemused reply
"This is not passport! Where is your pass port?" she scowled giving me that look that only a woman can
"Well princess I don't know what to tell you!" I chuckled abusing the language barrier.
Finally someone came and translated asking where I was from and what my name was with that information I was stamped in and on my merry way to the customs hall.

I was met again by another black clad young lady who looked at my name and asked me giggling, why I have three names in regard to my two middle names my parents blessed me with.
"Well my Mum got a little carried away when I was born" I smiled a little embarrassed. She then went on to read out my name and explained where I was from to everyone in the hall and after the commotion settled she turned to me and gave me the warmest smile I have ever seen and said "Welcome to Iran David."

***

Hamid caught my eye as I walked into the bus station mainly because he look so out of place with his very western style of clothing topped of by a pair of aviators. He hung back watching me buy my ticket, like a four year old would from behind a mother's legs. Later he appeared while I was eating my first Kebab which consisted of mince meat and had a few uncooked onions thrown for good measure. He helped me change some money after a fun session of him trying to use his few words of English and me my few words in Farsi. Hamid was then leafing through my guide book and saw a picture of a water pipe, he pointed and I nodded and before I knew, I had been thrown in the back of a taxi and brought to a tea house. A mint flavoured pipe was produced and he soon had me drinking Cay in the Persian way of holding a sugar cube between my teeth and sipping at the hot brown tea that comes in a small tulip shaped glass. With the use of photos, sign language and the phrase book we managed to communicate rather well and the only cost to me (because he refused to let me pay a cent) was that I was paraded down the main street to be shown off to his friends. Hamid then carried my back pack to the bus and put me in the front seat behind the driver. This turned out to be far from ideal for an overnighter as the bus was equipped with a fog horn from the USS Abraham that was used far too often. He then shook my hand and waved me off like a mate from London at the start of this trip.

***
I had just endured the horror of another squat toilet and was washing my hands when the old timer next to me started up in Farsi making a gesture of flipping something over in his hands and using my confused smile as consent. He abducted me, he almost frog marched me to a restaurant across the road. I was met by the wide and confused eyes of his three sons. These young men were the pride and joy of their Father who enthusiastically mimed what his boys did with a beaming smile while looking very chuffed. From his actions and the fact that all their hands and forearms were filthy, I guessed that these guys were wielders. The food soon appeared and it was the world famous Kebab again which I was then shown how to eat with my hands, after shyly starting with a fork. I was sitting there, when suddenly all eyes were on me, it took a while to twig but they were all waiting for me to finish my drink before they got up to leave. Such manners and hospitality, I could not force the 10 000 riel note into anyone's hands to cover the cost of my meal.

I could write many paragraphs about random abductions that turn into free guided tours, meals in people's homes or just tea and a chat, about amazing politeness and humbling hospitality along with an incredible sense of welcome that I have received from this, the axis of evil! In fact since I have been typing this blog the taxi driver that gave me a lift has come back over half an hour later and given me the post cards that I left in his car. He had a joke that the heat must be getting to me as he found out that I gave the exchange guy 60 dollars instead of 50 which he then gave back to me with the Rials I had asked for. Another man persisted with me when I smiled and said sorry I'm not sure what you are saying, ignoring him by keeping on typing, he then reappeared a few minutes later with a delicious meal of chicken and rice and a cold drink from the birthday that is going on, gave this to me, smiled and went and sat down again. I had a blood nose while sitting here and when I went and got a tissue you would have though I had been shot the fuss that was made over me. Check out these kids in the video I was reading my book and they come over and just chilled out asking heaps of question and the now and then would break into song and dance.

So yes Iran has a crap government and if that is a reason to invade a country then, certain so called "super powers" should have been attacked a longtime ago. The people here are truly amazing and if anyone should be shot it is the tools in the CNN and BBC that lead the so called free people of the West, including myself , to believe Iran is a country of AK47 toting Islamic extremist who want to destroy the US at all cost.

Right I have had my rant so I am going to get of my high horse have some tea and hope that I get kidnapped again, its fun! I seriously hope anyone that reads this seriously puts their preconceptions aside and considers Iran as a travel destination. As put by one back packer, if there was a "back packing scale of difficulty" then Iran would be at the bottom.