Monday 4 June 2007

“Perhaps the British sailors just took a wrong turn at Kashan…” - 27 May 2007


Maryam, Babak and I made plans to travel into the desert and visit a salt lake a few hours outside of Tehran. We were a little slow to get started on our travel plans but after collecting sleeping bags, some food for the journey and returning home for a forgotten wallet we set out in our trusty white Peugeot hatchback (complete with a giant orange and black centipede dashboard toy).

Just outside Tehran Maryam realizes that she has forgotten the tent…but we decide to push on as there is an inn the desert and if there is any problem with us staying there (as we are a man, a woman and a foreigner) we can always head back to Tehran as it is not so far away.

I love driving and I love the space and silence of the desert. For those who have been, the landscape here is not dissimilar to the desert in the north west of the state of Queensland in Australia (near Normanton). The soil is not red but beige with a ‘five-o’clock-shadow’ of light green scrub.

We drive to Kashan without a hitch but on arrival in Kashan there are posters, flags, free drink stands…yes, you guessed it the President was paying the town a visit. So we drive around looking for a way through the road blocks so we can get to the desert. Finally, after stopping friendly strangers we manage to find a way through.

As the road it getting lonelier we feel ourselves getting closer to the desert, but still there is irrigation and some pistachio trees. We have been told that when you get close to the desert and salt lake all the dirt roads will eventually lead onto the same main road that is alongside the southern edge of the salt lake. So we are not so concerned which road to take, but just to be doubly sure when we see a little brick farm house we drive up to ask for directions.

As we drive into the courtyard scattering the serenity we see an old man sitting on a chair under the shade of a tree, soaking his feet in the cool water of a diverted irrigation channel. Through his missing teeth and gentle lilting accent and with his worn brown trousers held together with a piece of string, he explains that we should follow the power lines as this is the best route.

Spurred on by the freedom of the space we race along the dirt roads, at each fork randomly choosing the next track to follow – with Babak (allegedly) keeping his eye on the way. For me, I was in charge of the music and map holding.

And then we see it. The salt lake. It is white as far as you can see – and the mirage makes the white look like waves of a great inland sea suspended at an eternal breaking point of swell and foam.

Unexpectedly there is a road that goes part way into the lake and then stops. We travel this for 500m, get out of the car and then wander on this space where the salt crystals are the size of bling.

To walk on a lake that has seen so much with two beautiful souls strip so much clutter of life away, down to the bare essentials of potential. Everything just seems so simple – so extraordinarily and awesomely simple.

We pile back into the care with the added passenger of joy and head towards the inn. It is midday. And hot, with a breeze, but even so we need some shelter so we can stop for lunch. As we drive along the road that hugs the lake I can see something strange in the distance it looks like little black stumps of trees. I can’t make it out so I initially think it is a burnt out dwelling. BUT as we drive closer, it is a herd of camels resting in the sun!

How exciting! So we stop the car for this photo opportunity and then continue on our way to the inn.

As we drive up a little embankment we almost drive straight into a rope that is stretched across the road. Two young soldiers (on compulsory military service) emerge from a small tent…

A conversation ensues that ends with us turning our little chariot around. Babak explains that the soldiers were wondering how we managed to get into this area as the whole desert area is closed for a military exercise. Maryam said that Babak was also making fun of the soldiers asking how good soldiers they must be since we managed to get this far into the desert (apparently there is a checkpoint closer to the entrance to the desert that we managed to easily avoid…). Maryam had told Babak to be quiet but he just kept making smart comments - no surprise then to learn that Babak still hasn't done compulsory military service which unfortunately means that he cannot have a passport. Well, until he finds someone to bribe.

Feeling a little sheepish our little Peugeot hatchback with the dashboard toy, shakes off its pride and turns back. Since we don’t really know how we got into the desert we decide to return via the main road (which we somehow managed to miss on the way in)…and of course we end up on the wrong side of a road block.

“Beep beep” chirps our little hatchback to rouse the soldiers from their midday sleep. Two soldiers emerge from the tent. Before we can speak a military issue truck is in front of us on the other side of the rope and we have to do a quick reverse, before returning to the soldiers. Babak exchanges a few words with them and they start pissing themselves laughing. A third solider emerges – obviously startled from his sleep as he is wearing his military uniform but with hot-pink slippers – and starts joining in on the fun.

But naturally we have to wait for a more senior officer to speak to us. I don’t really understand this, but Iran has two armies – the regular army and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, which has a great deal of autonomy and whose allegiance is to the Revolution. The IRG is identifiable by the chequered scarf they were with their military uniform and the fact that their uniform has no identification markings such as name or rank.

As soon as the Iranian Revolutionary Guard emerges from the tent everyone stops joking – even though the situation is amusing and a mistake, it is still not something to joke about. Babak again explains what happened and it seems that everything is okay since there was also a third checkpoint that we did not pass and so we weren’t actually near anything sensitive. The soldiers didn’t even ask for ID. But just as Babak started to turn the car and the rope blocking the road was dropped the IRG said something that appeared a little aggressive and include the word ‘horagi’ – foreigner.

As we drive away I am filled in on the details of what happened. But Babak doesn’t mention anything about a ‘foreigner’. So I ask him what they guy said as we were about to drive away because I heard the word ‘horagi’. Babak looks a little pissed (I sense that he and authority are not the best of friends) and says that he had been explaining to the IRG that we were visiting the desert because we wanted to see nature. The IRG said: “what are you doing bringing a foreigner HERE? There is nothing to do here! Take her to someplace beautiful like the north!”

So we head back to the main road to Kashan and decide that since the desert is a no-go zone we’ll visit a freshwater spring where there is a waterfall and where they distil rosewater – can you believe such a place exists!?

Maryam is asleep in the back and I am in charge of the map. It is written in Farsi. So Babak is driving to my directions of ‘there is a place that begins with the letter A and ends in N and there are three dots in the second letter…’ Not very helpful.

But we make it.

And it is beautiful.

A small shaded hilltop village with winding roads and people sitting outside in the streets enjoying the late afternoon. The whole place smelling intensely of roses. A cool breeze against skin that has just spent the day in the desert. The spray from the waterfall blesses out weary bodies as we walk the hilltop to drink some tea.

After a little rest we head right to the top, to the source of the spring where there is also an ancient Zoroastrian fireplace. We eat an ice-cream in the light of dusk at the top of the world and then return to our chariot for the journey home.

Despite such a long day, Maryam and Babak have a book club to go to in the evening. So at 1030 after a quick wash we head out again to a family home in a well-to-do neighbourhood. Mum and Dad answer the door and we are shuffled into a small bedroom. One thing that is unusual for me is that people here live with their parents for quite a long time, so there is this strange feeling of the parental home being a gateway to some kind of free area – rather than something that tries to shelters you from the threats to innocence of a publicly free life.

It really is something special. In a small bedroom there are eight of us. One man begins to read in Farsi from a computer print out while everyone listens occasionally laughing or interjecting.

I am told that this is the forth book the club has read – the first being on politics, the second on evolutionary theory, the third I cant remember and this one (“The Satanic Verses”) is the first novel. There is such warmth in the room and the friendship is so visible, possibly even more visible because I can’t understand what is being said. I can’t hear, so all I understand is laughter.

I have such a desire to stay, to be a part of this group, to speak Farsi. At the same time I also want to hold my old friends closer as –to plagiarise a kindred – there IS something sad about being disconnected in space from people you care about.

With this mixture of connection and longing as I return home I try to find the words to explain how this day felt – a narrative doesn’t seem to do it justice. How can you capture such feelings in words?

The only thing that comes to mind is that this day and the feeling of such precious shared moments is a new reference point in my experience.

It’s a day against which precious others will be compared.




1 comment:

Iqbal Khaldun said...

Hooray the posts are back!