Arrival into Mashhad was in the early hours of the morning. Once at the gate, ladies had to don head scarves. The international arrivals area was a huge shed at the corner of the airport. My passport and visa were stamped quickly with barley a glance. Through in the luggage claim area, I expected the bike box to be carried in through the emergency exit, but no, the bike came round the carousel knocking trolleys and bags over as it went. Not quite the low profile entry I was planning. When I picked up the bike box a couple of plain clothes officials came and asked a few questions. The asked me if I had been to Iran before to which I replied, yes that I had worked on Tehran metro. They inspected my visa and were happy. At this point I thought it was probably a good job that Dushanbe Embassy issued me with a business visa so I could travel independently legitimately. British national on a tourist visa are only allowed on organised tour groups (see visa section). Arrival at a land border would probably result in less scrutiny. I had originally planned to assemble the bike at the front of the airport, but given the interest from security services thought that it would be better to take a taxi so as not to attract further attention. I arrived at the peak season when people traditionally come up from the south of the country to make pilgrimage to the Mashhad mosque complex before heading to the Caspian Sea resorts. None of the hotels the taxi tried had spaces so he took me to a rather posh hotel. They were able to accommodate me, but I stayed just the one night as the price was significantly more than I had allowed and would very quickly have burned through my stash of dollars with no easy way of accessing further funds. I assembled the bike in the entrance canopy with the help of the door staff. I then went around town to find a cheaper hotel for a couple more nights.
Whilst walking back from changing some currency I wondered through what I thought was the outer courtyard of the mosque. It turns out that this is one of the most holy shrine in Iran (according to the resident Imam) and only believers are allowed within the outer walls except as part of a guided group. As this would be a target for Suni extremists, there was security at the gate who would normally also filter out stray tourists. Later, on when leaving my guide asked why I was not picked up and the response was “no camera”. Wondering around the first courtyard a complex helper said I think you better come this way and asked if I was a believer, to which the answer was I’m Christian, I came to look at the architecture. I was taken to some rooms to the side and was given an introduction to the complex and introduced to the resident Imam. I then had more than two hours of debating religion and politics with the Imam. This actually provide quite an interesting insight into their beliefs and local politics despite me being total non religious. I was then shown around and invited to take pictures by one of the volunteer guides.
Its best not to be atheist when in Iran. You don’t have to be Muslim, but atheism is punishable by death if you were to upset the wrong people and come to the attention of hard-line religious authorities. Judaism and Christianity are both no problem as they see Islam as incorporating both of these religions and taking it to a higher level. The latter was slightly surprising given the truly dire relations with Israel. I’m not sure if they would consider religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism with multiple gods as being atheist. I didn’t explore this avenue of questioning. Inevitably there was discussion of Islam and ISIS. I replied that I understood that Iran was Shia Islam whilst ISIS and the like were spawned from a very extreme interpretation of Sunni Islam. Anyone openly preaching this in Iran would likely find themselves on the wrong side of a misunderstanding with the religious authorities. A charge of bringing Islam into disrepute is also very bad for your health.
When I packed the bike up I must have loosened one of the bolts that clamps the stem to the steerer too much as it had dropped out and was lost when I went to resemble the bike. As I had no spare in this size, so the stem was only clamped with one bolt. On the way out of town as chap on a moped asked if I needed directions and he guided me to a nearby cycle shop that had a suitable bolt in their bits box.
My route through Iran took me from Masshad through Golestan National Park to the Caspian Sea resorts. Then south through the mountains to Tehran before heading north east to the Turkish border. The people were always fantastically helpful. I would quite often get offers of fruit and water out of the window of passing cars. Dealing with a large bunch of grapes on the move was one of the more tricky items. In one town I did not find accommodation and a guy put me up in a house he had currently un-let. Staying with Iranian families is not allowed so I was slightly surprised when the local police chief was bought in as interpreter. In another town I was put up in a teachers hostel. Off the bike, walking around town, people would often stop and say welcome, do you need anything, can I help. Whilst cycling across Golestan national park I dashed into a Mosque because of an urgent toilet requirement in my cycling kit and no one complained.
Attitude to religion varied across the country. In the north and especially the mountains they were more liberal. In one shop I went into the checkout assistant had her headscarf around her shoulders and not really covering her hair at all which could get you into trouble with hardliners. Whilst certainly not a beacon of equal rights, Iran is better in some respects than other Islamic countries I have visited. Women are educated, can drive and can have decent jobs although probably not the top job. The cashier that exchanged my Dollars in Mashhad was at home visiting family whilst doing her PhD at Cambridge. Some of the punishments handed down are definitely not progressive, stoning for example!
The road across the mountains from Chalus to Tehran was fairly narrow and windy whilst being very busy until late afternoon. I had not expected this and cars did not leave much room at all. A more circuitous route via the Ab Pari Waterfall may have been a more pleasant low traffic route. There was more climbing than I had anticipated. At the top is a summit tunnel which is lit and properly ventilated so this did not pose any problem. After dropping down I turned off the main road to cut the corner to Tehran. I stayed in a little holiday cottage in a tiny village a few miles before the ski resort of Dizin. With hindsight I should have stayed an extra day and taken the opportunity to use the facilities for laundry.
I found navigating my way into Tehran from the north without being drawn onto one of the major highways a bit tricky. When I worked on Tehran metro some years ago I stayed in a government run hotel that was expensive and not that great. This time there seemed to be more choice. I picked an area on the map with several hotels, headed there and just cycled along to see what they looked like. The first was full so I just tried a bit further down the road. The second was a bit over budget which did not matter as I had been under budget since Masshad, so stayed there. The secure courtyard was idea as I could do a spot of bicycle maintenance. I had a few days to look around Tehran. I tried the metro line that I worked on during the testing phase about 15 years ago.
Heading out of Tehran to the west was somewhat easier than coming in. The road for the most part had traffic light protected cross roads so I didn’t have to negotiate nasty intersections. I planned a shorter than usual day leaving Tehran in the expectation of terrible traffic, but actually reached the satellite town of Karaj by lunch time. North of Zanjan was a bizarre landscape where the ground for as far as I could see to the east was formed into large humps and there was no obvious mining activity. Many people wanted to practice there english. In Tabriz an English teacher came to say hello one evening when I was wandering back to the hotel after dinner and gave me directions back to the shoe shop where he worked with his brother when not teaching. I managed to find the area of the bazar where all the shoe shops were clustered together, but there were so many I failed to locate the teacher. Further along the road towards Turkey another teacher asked if I would come into his school for a day. However, by this time I was getting towards the end of the validity of my visa and wanted to keep a couple of days in-hand just in case of problems. At Marad the place that I thought was a hotel actually turned out to be a teacher hostel, but they put me up without a problem. Khoy to Maku was the longest day on the leg from Tehran to Turkey, not helped by missing a turn and going some miles down a dead end before finding the correct road over the Hamzian Pass. I intended to spend the final night in Iran at the tourist hotel in Maku. However, this was full so I was in rather more basic accommodation in the centre of town.
Outside of the big cities I found the choice of food quite limited. Most outlets seemed to be take away type places offering meat on a stick or meat in a bun. A bit more roughage would not have gone a miss. From 14:00 until 17:00 or 18:00 pretty much everything closes down and town centres will be absolutely dead including places you might want to eat. This was a bit unfortunate as it is exactly the time I was likely to be rolling into my destination and feeling somewhat peckish.