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Persian Gulf and endless desert |
Central Asia |
24.02.2004 from Mashhad, Iran - 10302km |
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Asalaam! The last evening in Shiraz, I was at Mehdi's family home. We were talking for long hours about everything that makes life beautiful. Music, travelling and love... I had spent really a great time with Mehdi those last days! In the night before my departure from Shiraz, a thunderstorm swept over the city. But in the morning the clouds had disappeared, just a strong wind was blowing from the West... excellent conditions to continue my journey eastwards. Mehdi brought me to his family home again for breakfast and then we had to separate. My lonesome nomadic life began again. My next destination was all in the South of Iran, Bandar-e Abbas. Four cycling days brought me over 600km through a dry landscape, where only irrigation allows some agriculture. A few villages, almost no towns, just an endless road making its way over dry plains, small hills and always under a blue sky. The water I got from the people in the villages had the typical taste of the desert: a little bit salty and sandy. Water has to be stored for long times in these places. On one day, I somehow badly estimated my water reserves and my throat starting feeling dry, but there was no village in sight for a long way. Like a miracle, in the middle of nowhere a man was selling some sort of a liquid... it's called 'dugh' and is simply fermented milk. A nice smile and some small-talk later, I got a big glass of dugh to drink for free Soon afterwards I still felt thirsty and, surprise, there was another seller of 'dugh'. Unfortunately, I had to tell them, that buying one of the 3 liter bottles would be too heavy for me to carry... On the same day, I met the first Iranian cyclist who is doing cycling just for fun and sport. He had been chasing me for some kms and when I finally saw him we had a very nice chat. At least somebody who understood the beauty of this activity A day later, an English teacher on his motorcycle drove side by side with me for some time. I got a very clear insight into the problems Iran is experiencing with its English education system. Theoretically, everybody has at least three years of English, but almost nobody gets past the 'Hello Mister' and 'How are you?' and even fewer understand what a foreigner might reply to them. I had to switch to my poor knowledge of Persian to have a conversation with the English teacher... he just could not understand the most simple questions I was asking him. Finally, he invited me to his home by saying 'you to my home invite'... a perfect Persian word order. How should his students learn how to communicate in English? So, hopefully, you don't start correcting my bad English now, there would be too much work to do... After some 450km with very little traffic, I joined the main road leading to Bandar-e Abbas, the port town at the Persian Gulf. On a narrow road countless trucks are making their way through a quite mountainous landscape. I had more 'close encounters' with the trucks than I normally wished to have. Some drivers seemed to be simply mad and did not fear anything... what could happen anyway to somebody in a 30-tons vehicle? The car drivers and especially the cyclists are definitely on the loosing end. On the 150km to Bandar-e Abbas, I saw countless traces of recent accidents, one seemed to have happened just hours ago. Later on, people told me that the road would be called 'killer-road' locally... In Bandar-e Abbas I was greeted with really pleasant temperatures and this in the middle of winter. For months I could not cycle just with a T-shirt. In Bandar this was definitely a nice thing to do. After some time in the town, I found a mosaferkhune ('traveller's house') to spend the night. After a quarter of an hour of very nice negotiations about the price, I got charged the same as all the Iranians staying at the place. I really like the Persian culture of discussing prices I decided to spend a night in a dorm with four Iranians, as I could put my bicycle and baggage in another room. It was a very intersting mix of persons: one of Turkish origins, a Mashhadi (NE-Iran), two from the Caspian Sea region. Abbas, a 60-year old tar player (a kind of a traditional guitar), earned his money with playing music. Every couple of months, he moves to another city. He spoke some English and we had a very nice chat. Like a kind grandfather, he was giving me loads of advice on how to make my seemingly dangerous journey safer. In the evening, I spent some very nice hours with Vahid. He's a young employee in a travel agency, but at that time he had to spend his days by surveying the construction of the new agency building. The workers would simply stop working altogether, if somebody would not constantly watch over them, he told me. Vahid is incredibly energetic and funny. I enjoyed the time with him very much. Later, we joined his brother and four girls to go to a traditional restaurant. After a little bit of flirting, I separated from the others as I desperately needed some rest after the last days of cycling. I left Bandar-e Abbas with the wonderful impressions of the Persian Gulf and the warm temperatures. I had to cycle again back up the 'killer-road' for 150km. This time, I saw two other accidents that had seemed to have happened just during the last night... it's really a frightening road! I've never seen so many torn-apart cars and trucks than on this stretch of road. My way went uphill in direction of Kerman, a desert city in south-central Iran. Normally, every day there were several car drivers that stopped when they saw me cycling. So, I was not surprised when a black Peugeot stopped in front of me. But this time the intentions were not very friendly. The driver started telling me that he would be from the 'International Police' (this doesn't exist, of course) and that I would have to show him my passport. I refused immediately and wanted to see his police ID... he just showed me his normal ID. Then I politely invited him to go together to the next police station, where I would happily show him my passport. After I repeated this several times, the man got quite nervous and just said 'you better go now' and drove away. I heard of these kind of 'fake police scams' in Tehran and of course other places in the world. The motivation is always the same... either steal the passport or extract some money from the tourist. What happened in my case was rather a stupid attempt to do this, as I was able to read the car plate number and then I got even showed the real ID of the 'police officer'. This guy definitely needs to practise more his scam before attempting it again. But there are very few cyclists in that part of the country and, hopefully, these kind of hassles remain rare. Nevertheless, towards the evenings, I felt that I should take care on some parts of the route. I stopped telling motorcyclists that I would come from Switzerland when they asked for my 'keshvar', I took off my big altimeter watch and my necklace. These kind of things always seemed to be magically attractive and I definitely don't want anymore 'unwanted visitors' during my camping alone in the wild... A very pleasant encounter on the other hand was when a man stopped his car and came to me just before Kerman. He was in his 50s and told me that he cycled the huge Tierra del Fuego (southernmost region in South America) to Alaska route some 30 years ago. The passion for cycling was still burning strong in him and I felt very touched by this meeting. In Kerman, I stayed for two nights, just enough time to see the beautiful bazaar complex athe bath houses. I had caught a bad cold in the mountains before Kerman, so I spent half a day in the bed. The transition from 'T-shirt weather' in Bandar to the snow in the mountains was probably a little bit too fast I left Kerman with mixed feelings. Ahead was the huge Kavir desert that occupies central Iran. I still had found no report from anybody else who would have cycled this long route through the desert. The destination on the other end was Mashhad, in the NE-corner of Iran. I felt still quite weak when I left Kerman, but I could cycle. Stiff headwind greeted me during the one and a half days through the last mountain range before the desert. I got even some snow storm for half an hour. I experienced the typical burning sensation on the skin when the snow was driven horizontally over the landscape But the bad weather was soon over and I enjoyed again a cloudless blue sky. In the last town before the Kavir desert, I loaded up with biscuits, bread and rice for four days and water for three days. I got a lot of attention when people saw me cycling towards the Kavir... nobody seemed to have thought of cycling out there and apparently they had never seen a tourist doing this. I learned two new words in Persian 'khatarnak' (dangerous) and 'sakhte' (hard)... The entrance to the desert was overwhelmingly beautiful. Suddenly, there was no more vegetation to be seen, just a lunar landscape of rocks and sand. The hills seemed to be burning, as they were intensely coloured in red and orange. The Kavir was a lonely place of endless plains without any sign of human habitation, a cloudless blue sky and mirages appearing at the horizon. Distances of 10, 50 or 100km appeared to be no different. The dry air and featureless landscape were playing games with one's perception. The occasional trucks that overtook me could be seen for a long time. They seemed as if they had stopped, but in reality they were driving at 80km/h on a 20km stretch of perfectly straight road. At nighttime, the sky was as black as it can only be in such places and thousands of stars were shining like diamonds... Needless to say, that I loved this place very much! I realised that I found again one of those rare spots on Earth where you can feel so incredibly free. At the same time, the sheer dimensions of the Kavir were dwarfing... just a bicycle, some equipment and of course food and water made out my existence. At the end of the desert, some soldiers wanted to check my passport. Seeing somebody with a bicycle seemed to be too strange for them to believe, but their faces soon brightened up and we had a nice chat. One soldier told me about a place with 'ab garm-e' (hot water). After the dusty desert this looked very attractive to me. When I arrived at that place, I realised that many Iranians like hot water pools, too. I stopped in front of the bathhouse complex and got immediately surrounded by a large group of people. One person was even filming the 'event'. A young Iranian, Mostafa, offered me to watch over my equipment. So I could have a bath in the hot water without worrying. Mostafa, an English student, invited me to stay with his brother, cousins, and many others of his family in one of the sleeping containers they rented for the night. I had a great time with Mostafa, although his face looks very British, his kindness and hospitality is definitely Iranian We had really a lot of fun in the container and, of course, I joined the others to have another bath later in the evening. On the next day, I had to say goodbye to Mostafa... yet another good friend from whom I had to separate. But will hopefully have some time left follow his invitation to his family's home near Mashhad. Three long and tough cycling days brought me to Mashhad. The second biggest city in Iran and a pilgrimage centre for Muslims all over the world. I was really lucky with the accomodation. Many hotels were empty and so a motorcyclist 'picked' me up on the road to offer me a room at a special price in a friend's appartment hotel. I just could not say no, when I saw the room and heard the price. No negotiations this time! The room has a nice shower, a kitchen with gaz stove, a fridge, TV, a gaz stove for heating and a comfortable double-bed... and this at a price I normally paid for a windowless room without anything but a hard bed. Mashhad is the burial place of Emam Reza, a direct descendent of Prophet Mohammed. The shrine complex is a truely breathtaking display of Islamic architecture. Pilgrims from all over the Muslim world are coming to this place, as it is considered a duty to anyone who can afford the journey. A colorful mix of people is populating the streets around the shrine. After 10'302km of cycling including 78'300m of vertical climb, 4 broken spokes, 3 punctures, 2 robberies and 1 destroyed sleeping mattress (incomplete list ), my 'pilgrimage' will continue soon towards the deserts of Turkmenistan, then to Uzbekistan and to the high altitude of the Pamir in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzhstan. Updates on this site will certainly be more rare than before. So, please don't worry, if you don't get a reply to your email quickly or if you don't see anything new here. Khoda hafez & see you soon, |
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