The Iranian Border
The Taftan border was a killer, a busload of Pakistani tourists having arrived at the immigration office about five minutes before I arrived. I waited almost an hour until one of the young guys in the line suggested I push in because I was a foreigner. Looking around at the people in the line, they all seemed to encourage me forward so I walked through and was stamped out within minutes. It was lucky because the massive sand storms I’d experienced along the stretch towards the border looked to me to be very rain-filled and aggressive on the Iranian side. I crossed into Iran with very little hassle and made my way to the customs and immigration building to have my bike and myself sworn into the country.
The first thing I noticed, after the small spits of rain landing on me as I headed towards the customs centre, was the change back to Western clothes for the Iranian officials. There wasn’t a Shalwa Kameez in sight. The second thing I noticed was that I could see the face of the woman who checked me into immigration. There wasn’t a Burka to be seen either. A ‘burka’ covers the whole face except for eyes, this woman was wearing a ‘chador’, which in Farsi literally means tent. So it was a head-to-toe black covering, but I could see the quizzical expressions on the woman’s face when I tried to ask her some questions in English… the next thing I noticed of course was that, unlike Pakistan, Iranian people don’t speak much English. I’d have to say the funniest thing I noticed was the MASSIVE bag of firecrackers behind the customs clearance desk… It looks like some Pakistani kids won’t be having their birthdays celebrated as loudly as they’d have wished this year, and an Iranian customs official will seriously be getting the party started hahaha… party…what party??
So, all formalities finished, I walked back out to my bike and realised that the sky had turned a very ominous, menacing, mordor-like shade of black… I rode to the gate, ready to leave the compound when a man came out yelling and waving for me to stop. Fear of guns kicked in and I pulled over. The very friendly man explained to me using hand gestures that if I wanted to go from Mirjaveh (the Iranian border town) to Zahedan (First Big Town), I’d need an escort, for my own safety against the hoardes of villains and vagabonds hiding in the still-Baluch areas of eastern Iran. I thought “no worries”, until of course a fresh-looking soldier of about 17 turned up without a gun and expected me to let him on the back of my bike, keeping in mind the dark lord and his black, billowing clouds overhead!! I said “um, no.” He indicated that it wasn’t a problem and hopped inside a trayback ute that drove up to the gate after some radio communications. We headed out together, and in about 5km arrived at a military check-post. I’m talking middle-of-the-desert boom-gate, with an army contingent of about 10 men, all wearing desert camouflage and hezbollah-style checkered headscarfs to sheild their faces from the super-strong-wind-carrying-sand-into-the-eyes weather. The leader of the unit came up to me and said very forcefully, but in a friendly kind of way, that I’d have to let the soldier escort jump on the back of my bike. When I think back on it, I’m sure the young guy only wanted a ride home for the weekend and I was only really against the idea because of the impending storm. One very interesting thing to note about the Iranian military is that service is compulsory, and many guys aren’t very keen on being there. I asked the soldier if he would like protective gear but he shook his head… This time it was me giving the patronising “it’s your funeral” look.
Approximately one minute after leaving the checkpoint, we were hit by a hailstorm of epic proportions. I had no idea that a bike was capable of actually staying upright in wind and water like this. The roads were wonderful, which was a small blessing, because I could barely see the oncoming traffic from 10m away, and we were being blown sideways maybe 2 or 3 metres by the wind. Seriously dangerous stuff! I tried to make myself as big as possible to protect the soldier guy behind me, because he had absolutely no protective clothing on, and I began to curse the shits for putting me in the position of putting someone else in danger. We rode for about 30km in the rain and hail until we saw a sign for a mosque, the soldier waved me towards it and we headed into the compound to be greeted by another army unit using the mosque as a base. I’m unsure why they have such a heavy military presence in that area, maybe for border security, but at that point I didn’t care and was just happy to be out of the rain, even if it meant an hour of being the new joke of the military unit hehe. They were really nice guys actually, I couldn’t get through to them though the fact that even though they did beat us to the world cup in 1998, where were they now?
The following lines sum up succintly the sentiments that Pakistan and Iran have for Australia.
Pakistan: “Oooh, Australia! Cricket World Cup champions, Matthew Hayden is a master blaster… and a very handsome man!”
Iran: “Hahaha Australia! World Cup 1998, we beat you. Mark Bosnich! Mark Bosnich! hahahaha!!!”
So my army escort chickened out for the rest of the ride to Zahedan and I was instead escorted by the man in charge of the unit I was currently with. I asked him if he wanted a helmet and he said no… 10km down the road he asked me for the helmet! You get that in countries where the motorcycle capacity is not allowed to exceed 150cc. At least he had a pistol.
When I finally arrived in Zahedan, I accepted another escort from a local police dude on a scooter, who took me around to find a hotel. It seemed that all of the rain I’d ridden through had hit Zahedan really badly and the streets seemed to be covered in a bit of undrained water. As we rode down one street to get to another part of town, there appeared to be a traffic jam, and the water was up to the windows of some cars in the street. Fearing for the bikes, we turned around and went down the next street, but we’d been down this street before and now there were cars in water up to the roof. The water was RISING! At this point I started getting very nervous and the policeman seemed to be frantically trying to find a way out of the city centre. We rode past a few houses that had crumbled due to the rain and eventually squeezed through some traffic and found ourselves back on higher ground. I later heard that the storm was the worst in 10 years and they hadn’t seen hail in those parts of Iran since then either. Luckily I found a good place to stay (and very cheap) for my first night in Iran.
Everything looked so clean, the hotel room was spic and span, the buildings well kept, the lawns trimmed and the public spaces devoid of horrible piles of garbage. My first impressions of Iran were mixed somewhere between my exasperation with the lunatic authorities giving me dangerous escorts, the tumultuous weather and the really beautiful and well-kept architecture. Underlying all of this was a sense of friendliness from everyone I met, even the madman hezbollah-styled guys at the military posts.