Tehran

As you know, because of the swine flu issue we were forced to look at a new route and this involved getting new visas for Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan and hence we had to detour to Tehran to apply and pick up these and a Pakistan visa. We weren't sure how sensible it was to go into Tehran with the elections happening, but we asked lots of advice and were told it would not be a problem. Walking around other cities before the election you could feel a party atmosphere, with lots of people on the street talking about the elections, and most of the young urban people who spoke to us were optimistic of some change taking place, although this was tempered with a little pessimism that nothing ever really changes whoever is in power. Who was to be right?

So having had a great time in the rest of Iran we headed into Tehran on the night of the election, feeling confident that our biggest worry was the Tehran traffic. There are absolutely no traffic regulations obeyed in the city, and it is extremely common to see people reversing or driving the wrong way down a street or round a roundabout. The motorbikes swarm around you, and pedestrians have to take their lives in their hands to cross the road. But funnily enough all of this actually makes it great fun to drive in, as you can throw away the British highway code, and not a soul will ever think you are a bad driver. I (Ollie) love it!

We knew we were going to be in Tehran for perhaps 5 nights, and were wanting to find a hotel which would be cheap enough not to eat into our budget, but with enough facilities to keep the princess in the style she has become acustomed. We asked on the Horizons Unlimited bulletin board and were recommended the Hotel Khayyam, but were a little disappointed to be offered a double room for $50 a night, which is extremely expensive for Iran. Luckily when pulling up to this hotel Jenny bumped into a friend we had made in Yazd, Lutz, a German with a very impressive new Landie, with a pop roof. He soon directed us to a hotel next door, The Firuzeh, which was half the price, with similar facilities, except the covered parking. This, of course could be a concern, but we are quite relaxed about the Dino looking after himself, and so we were happy to park him up right in front of the hotel windows, opposite Ludz's new shiny 'Little Elephant'*.

We would definitely recommend the Firuzeh, although a biker staying there had a locked box broken into, and someone managed to remove the padlock locking our spade to the bonnet. The very helpful Mousavi running the hotel has the address and phone number of each embassy and will arrange cheap taxis to ferry you about. Chay is also free, although the wifi is $2 a day.

Hotel Friends

In Iran we started to feel much more part of a traveler community, probably aided by the fact that most of the foreigners in Iran are travelers, who all share similar guide books and hence stay in the same hostels in the same cities. You soon find you bump into these people throughout the country, and also that they have similar onward plans. At the Silk Road Hotel in Yazd we met a great Turkish biker, Arton, who had already been chatting with Russ online about possibly meeting up, and was thinking about a similar route. We sat and drunk many a chay with Arton, learning lots including the REAL rules for backgammon - expect an Ollie revival in the next few weeks!

In the Firuzeh we spent our free time chatting and exchanging (sometimes tall) stories with a whole host of different travelers and really enjoyed this time. Alongside Lutz there was Herbie the Swiss biker, whose use of the Anglo-Saxon part of the English language was surprisingly refreshing.

Elections

But to get back to the original story - what was happening in Tehran during the election? The result, as most people will know, was an almost landslide victory to the incumbent President, Armahdinjad. This seemed to be totally unexpected to his rivals' supporters, and almost immediately there was talk of election fraud and ballot rigging. At this time the atmosphere had changed from the carnival feeling earlier, but still everything felt fine. The election was on the Friday, and on the Saturday we had to start our visa process, and had no choice but to be out and about. But this really wasn't a problem, and when we returned to the hotel in the mid afternoon we were unaware of any trouble that had taken place.

Our hotel, as well as hosting backpackers and overlanders, also had 6 journalists from all different nations staying, and these returned shortly after us to report a mass demonstration, which had turned violent when the secret police had turn up on mopeds bearing batons and an indiscretion to match the British Police during the minors' strike of the 80's. Apparently quite a lot of blood had been spilt and feeling was this was the start of something bigger. At this point it is worth underlining the fact that we saw none of this, and the general feeling we got from the journalists was they wanted to see something happen, and anything that did happen would be blown out of proportion to meet the desires of the editors back home. After all can you justify all those expenses for a free and fair election? In no way to we think the election was fair, but at the same time our impression was that the journalists were not looking for truth, but purely for sensationalism. This impression was soon confirmed when we went to any news website, or even the cable channel BBC world. According to these Tehran was on fire and the people were about to overthrow the government**

That night was the only night we were actually affected by this, and this was when we were out in a restaurant half an hours walk from the hotel. Having completed our meal the waiter approached us and grunted 'Go home, go home!. He had been probably the least friendly waiter of our trip anyhow, but this made us feel something was up. He did stop to take our money, mind you, and once on the street home we soon guessed a curfew must have been declared. Instead of the usual bussle of Tehran streets, there was no one there, although some cars were on the roads, being stopped by roadblocks. We got back safely to our hotel (having asked a nearby soldier guarding the Turkish embassy what had happened, and all he said was 'Run to your embassies' with a maniacal grin on his face) to find the journalists having a feeding frenzy. It turned out that at the nearest hint of trouble the state had cut all email, internet, mobile phones, international calls and international cable TV. Wow! This was obviously something that wouldn't happen back home, and really demonstrated the truth of government in Iran. But for us this didn't stop us communicating with our folks back home, as our ever faithful Spot Satellite could send an 'All OK' message to our designated friends and family. Sweet.

This turned out to be the worst of what we saw in Iran (in fact the only thing), and the next day was back to normal. During the whole time in Iran we are constantly helped by the amazing Iranian people, and this continued still, with people offering lifts and help any time we looked even a little lost. It is worth re-iterating at this point that we never once felt any anti-Western hostility, and in fact felt safer in Iran than any other country that we have ever been in - there is no way an Iranian would let anything happen to a guest in their country. So we were back trudging the street straight away, applying for visas and getting generally lost in paperwork.

The next demonstration was planned for Monday, and this was apparently a huge and moving affair, with hundreds of thousands of people attending, all keeping a resounding silence whilst walking through the streets making a peace sign with their hands. We know some westerners who attended and they could not believe how peaceful and intelligent this demonstration appeared. Unfortunately there must have been some trouble somewhere, as it was soon reported that 8 people were dead. All through the process the staff and Iranian guests in the hotel had been discussing the results and subsequent events, and it was obvious that not all were Misouwi supporters and in fact it could not be said that the voters were split down any demographic line. Just like back home different people reached different opinions about what was right, and it was never really clear how the support really fell.

Through our hotel connections we heard the next demonstration was going to be the next day, Tuesday, which also happened to be the day our final Tehran visa was ready, Pakistan. And the venue? The square outside the Pakistan Embassy! So far we had followed the sensible home office advice not to go anywhere near political demonstrations, but what could we do now? We could not leave without picking up our passports, and yet to pick them up would put us in the area of a potentially dangerous gathering. We decided to head there as early as possible, and it turned out we managed to leave Tehran just as the demonstration was starting to gather, leaving a trail of protestors draped in green behind us.

Because we then drove for more or less 24 hours non stop to ensure we caught this ferry, and then have been incommunicado on the ferry for 3 days we don't really know what happened, and look forward to finding out. But our impression was that many Iranians felt that the election may have been rigged, and there was certainly a up swell of anger against the result. But certainly Tehran was not a city on fire or bathed in blood, and the population were happy to look after the westerners residing there.

* In German an elephant is an 'Olefant', hence Ollie is the name for an elephant. Shame it wasn't Gazelle eh?
** This is being written without knowing the past 4 days news, and also will not be published for at least a week. Perhaps it did happen?

<< Previous Blog   Comment   Next Blog >>