Archive for March, 2008
Tuesday, March 25th, 2008
79km Nyshabur to Fakhr e dawood
There’s nothing like a good shower to set you on the right course and Iran’s hammams have kept us nice and clean lately. We didn’t really think to use them earlier in our trip, or if the thought crossed our mind we were put off by the challenge of finding one without being able to speak the language, but Bijan has led us to a few over the past week or so and now we’re converted. For about $0.50 you can get scrubbed up in your own private cubicle and wash your clothes at the same time. Fantastic.
After our wash, we made another important stop at the pastry shop for a sweet breakfast, washed down with freshly squeezed carrot juice. All these things would be luxuries in Europe but that’s the wonderful thing about touring in less developed countries. You get a real bang for your buck. Even with the U.S. dollar falling as it has lately - we’ve been carrying greenbacks and swapping them for an ever decreasing amount of Rials - things are still pretty good value here. When we finally got down to the business of cycling it was rather less interesting than the rest of the trip. There’s just a motorway between here and Mashhad so it was put-your-head-down stuff.
Late in the day we ventured into a village in search of supplies and a quiet place to camp for the night. You know it’s a tiny spot when most of the town comes out to greet you and the shop owner can be pulled out of his home to open the only store, just because you happened to arrive. We made another stop for bread fresh out of the oven and then we found a home for our tents just outside the town. The peacefulness of the surrounding fields and vineyards make a welcome change from the roar of the traffic going to Mashhad.
No Comments » - Posted in Cycling Trips, Iran, Journal Entries by andrew
Monday, March 24th, 2008
108km to Neyshabur
A cluster of fruit trees just off the road looked like the perfect place for a lunchtime break. It was certainly pretty with all the springtime blossoms but it turned out to be a rather costly place to stop.
By the time we walked our bikes through a field to the shade of the trees and back to the road, Bijan had a flat in his back tire from the thorns. As the afternoon went on, he suffered three more flats. Each time we thought we’d cleaned up the last of the thorns only to find the air leaking out again a few minutes later. By the time the last flat appeared near dusk we were shattered.
An earlier tailwind had turned against us and the remaining few kilometers into Nyshabur were proving difficult. Instead we settled on a rustic camping site near some abandonned ruins. As these things usually go, no sooner had we set up our tent and started to settle in than a kind person appeared to offer us a shower, meal and bed for the night at his house five kilometers down the road. If he’d only been fifteen minutes earlier we’d have taken him up on it without thinking but now we couldn’t quite face the good half hour of work needed to pack everything away again.
Shortly after our would-be-benefactor left, the local shepherd showed up to also offer his help and check out all our things. He couldn’t quite imagine a trip like this. “I get tired if I go on my motorcycle for an hour,” he told us, looking wide-eyed at our tent, our stove that runs on petrol and lifting our bikes to test their weight.
By this time it was completely dark and we scarfed our supper alone, save for two owls perched on the ruins and cooing at us. We wonder if we set up our tent on their favourite nighttime hunting ground. Tomorrow it’s back on the road again to visit Nyshabur and then no doubt on towards Mashhad where we’ll finally take a well earned rest day before heading for the border.
No Comments » - Posted in Cycling Trips, Iran, Journal Entries by friedel
Sunday, March 23rd, 2008
95km Anabad to a beautiful gorge
It’s not very far from the desert to the lush farming fields south of Mashhad but it seems like a universe apart. In just a day on our bikes we’ve left behind the sandy wastelands, covered in a crusty layer of salt, and come into an area where irrigation channels keep fields of wheat a brilliant green. It’s a refreshing change for the eyes as well as our feet when we dip them in the water at the end of a long day. In the afternoon we also passed a long string of vineyards with special buildings that we thought might be used for drying the grapes; all made of clay but with high windows, partially filled in with lattice-work.
The best part of our day came right at the end when we turned left to cut through the mountains on a smaller road. The traffic was still reasonably heavy with all kinds of families out having picnics for the New Year but the scenery more than made up for it as the road wound its way steadily upwards through narrow mountains. We thought we’d make the peak – just a few kilometers away one police officer told us – but as usual the estimates of car drivers turned out to be vastly wrong. When we spied a track leading into the hills we jumped at it and found a tranquil camping spot with running water. You can’t ask for more than that. We’ll continue our climb tomorrow, hopefully with a nice downhill run not far away!
No Comments » - Posted in Cycling Trips, Iran, Journal Entries by friedel
Saturday, March 22nd, 2008
135km Yaqubiyeh to Anabad
The sheer energy of our friend Bijan is amazing. He’s carrying half the weight on his bike compared with our hefty loads and he’s got at least twice the get-up-and-go. The result is that we’ve been pushing a lot harder than we normally would to keep up with him and today we logged our longest day ever. A solid tailwind and a nice downhill stretch helped things along but it was still a lot of work. By the end of it we were more in pain than proud of our achievement. Our knees made the loudest complaints.
It’s good to know we can cover a lot of ground when we have to (like with our current run for the Turkmenistan border) but we’re looking forward to returning to a more laid back style of touring as soon as possible. It’s never going to win us a gold medal in a bicycle race but we enjoy having lazy lunches, taking an hour to read a book or just sit in a town square and watch the world go by. For us, these experiences are more what travelling by bicycle is about, rather than notching up large distance tallies. Aside from pushing the pedals around for long hours, there wasn’t much to report from today. We have probably seen the last of the desert, which wasn’t as spectacular as we’d hoped although there were some nice parts, and now we seem to be in a predominantly farming area.
Late in the afternoon we were accompanied by several motorbikes running between the local cities and of course all of them wanted to take our pictures or videos with their mobile phones. As a woman on a bicycle, Friedel is a particular attraction and the women especially like to have their photos taken with her. Sometimes we get tired of the attention but resistance is futile. We just pulled over for a few minutes and let the excitement die down before we carried on.
We were guilty of losing our tempers right at the end of the day when a car pulled up to chat and one of the passengers kept on sticking his mobile phone in our faces for several minutes without even greeting us or asking if it was okay. One photo is fine but when people start filming lengthy videos, poking their camera in every corner you start to feel like a clown, on show as part of some circus act. We find it quite odd because if we did the same to an Iranian we met randomly we would surely cause offence but we must be so unusual that in their excitement to see people travelling by bicycle it doesn’t even occur to them that perhaps we have feelings too.
No Comments » - Posted in Cycling Trips, Iran, Journal Entries by friedel
Friday, March 21st, 2008
102km Azmighan to Yaqubiyeh
It’s hard to know what to say about this day. Shocking. Tragic. Sobering. The kind of day that makes you realise just how precious life is. We’d only been on the road for five minutes, maybe less, when we heard a car coming at high speed from behind us, then the squealing of tires as it flew past, crossing the other lane and tumbling into the desert. It was like watching a movie scene in slow motion. Unbelievable in its horror.
Three people died before our eyes. Three children were left without parents.
We don’t need to describe the scene for you to know it wasn’t pretty. We did what we could to help but in the end there was little we could do once Bijan had helped to call the emergency services. It didn’t seem right to stand and stare at the carnage so we walked slowly for a few meters and then carried on, our moods very much saddened.
We’ll never know what caused the crash. The road was completely straight and empty at the time – a miracle in itself considering the amount of traffic on the move for Iranian New Year. It could so easily have been so much worse. The reasons are largely irrelevant now that a family lies in ruins. Instead, we found ourselves considering what lesson this terrible event had to teach us and feeling very thankful that we weren’t involved. We might not be writing this if the car had hit another vehicle or swerved in the opposite direction, if we’d crossed the road to take a picture.
By the end of the day, we felt even more pleasure than usual in the simple things in life. We stopped to make our camp by an irrigation channel, dipping our toes in the cool water and being happy only because we’d lived to see another day. You just never know what tomorrow will bring.
