Iran pt.2 - Tabriz to Hamedan

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We left Tabriz early in the morning and headed out of the city and around the western side of Mt Sabalan, the huge volcano south of Tabriz, and down the eastern shore of Orumiye salt lake. After making good progress we stopped for a mid-morning snack and encountered our first Iranian hospitality when we met Leila, a student of English literature, who bought us kebabs. She spoke excellent English with a strong American accent and seemed fairly annoyed when the guy from the kebab shop wanted her to ask us about our views on Iran’s World Cup chances and what was our opinion about Iran’s nuclear programme? She wanted to know our views about Iran and seemed surprised we only had positive ones, telling us it was OK to say what we really thought. The Kebabs were huge and left us kind of stuffed as we had only stopped for a small snack. Cycling onwards was slow, hot and hard as the road dipped up and down through the hills around the salt lake, and we both felt so bloated after such a big meal.

We had done a good 70 miles when we stopped for afternoon tea under a tree in some fields. We met Ali on his bicycle, who had been busy that day on his father’s farm. Ali invited us to stay with him and we gladly accepted. He took us to a lovely house in a small town. The houses have high walls around a courtyard which had a cowshed in it but also a rose garden. Ali’s family were farmers and had two sons both of whom were at university and 4 daughters, all of whom also plan to go to university. Ali told us that around 60% of Iranians go to university. The house was really beautiful with large rooms and fancy plasterwork. We were shown into a front room with massive Persian carpets. A house like this at home would cost a small fortune and it was leagues away from some of the small flats/houses we have rented in Britain. We thought that either farmers are very rich or houses are a lot cheaper. After now seeing some more houses in Iran we have come to the conclusion that people build their own homes and they build them with cool big rooms. Also it made us realise again more starkly how ridiculous the housing market is at home. We ate kebabs again for dinner.

Ali studied ancient Persian and was also really into Persian poetry and literature, so we learnt a lot about both, trying not to make our complete ignorance seem to obvious. Iranians always seem surprised that we cannot quote any famous English or Scottish poetry….. Despite being Muslim and obviously religious, he said he was really interested in the ancient Persian religion of Zoroastrianism. He also defended the chador, saying it is an ancient Iranian culture that pre-dates Islam. Like many Iranians, as we were to learn, he disliked their Arab neighbours and viewed the Arab and Islamic conquest of Iran with dismay, as this marked the end of ancient Persia with many of their books, temples and works of art destroyed by the Arab Muslim conquerors.

We had another long slog along flat, busy roads the next morning. The landscape was not that interesting but the variety of hats being worn by the locals kept us amused. Some were wearing American style cowboy hats, others big wide straw hats. Others looked remarkably like lampshades. Then there were felt hats almost like rough fezzes and even some furry kalpaks. Eventually we turned off and the road onwards to Shahin Dezh began to rise but this just made it a more enjoyable cycle. We were following a river upstream and we were happy to leave the flat farmlands behind, as gentle hills rose up either side of the valley and got bigger the further we went.

We got to Shahin Dezh later than we had planned but we still thought we had time to do another 20 km after stocking up with food supplies that evening. As we were asking directions for the bakery a guy on a really nice road bike came past. We both stopped and looked at each other and said nice bike. We were keen to know if he had bought his bike in Iran and therefore whether there was a decent shop around for spare or a service. No, he laughed, the bike had come from Spain. The cyclist was called Majid and he led us to the bakery where we were given free bread. This bread was particularly good stuff. It is called ‘sangek’ which means stone; the bread is cooked on a pile of red hot gravel and then when the pizza type dough’s are pulled out, the hot stones are knocked off and you have lovely filling bread to eat. I was particularly happy that we had found this nice bread as our first experience with bread in Iran made me quite depressed. The only bread we could find in the first couple of days was a very thin and white variety of lavash flat bread. This stuff was like no flat bread I had ever come across - it was so thin that the merest hint of sunshine and the stuff went completely cracker-like and hard. Also it was so thin that you had to eat a tonne of it to fill up.
I have later learnt the art of dealing with lavash bread. You have to get it fresh from the bakery and quickly fold it twice when it is hot to try to enclose some of its moisture, then you must wrap it up and keep it out of the sun, this way it stays soft and foldable. I have also learnt that the white, thin lavash should be sprinkled with water and warmed slightly before eating. But all these tips I did not know when we first came into Iran and I was always on the look out for non-lavash bakeries to stock up with filling bread. The one good thing about lavash however is that it keeps very well unlike the other breads which are only really best on the day of buying.

Majid accompanied us out of town and we soon out rode the gang of small boys on bikes that excitedly pedalled alongside us. We were still following the river and every few fields we passed pumping stations for field irrigation with their small buildings and shady trees. We were trying to make another 20 km since we were still pressurising ourselves to make big distances so that we had plenty of time to get our visa extension. It was quite unusual for us to have this time pressure when we were cycling and we found it quite draining. That evening however there was no quick progress since almost every car that passed us wanted us to stop and take our picture and invite us back to their home in Shahin Dezh. It was a fun seeing as some cars would say hello then drive ahead and come back to feed us dried fruit and almonds. There were loads of really fun characters, who despite not speaking any English were very keen to jabber away at us and we all managed to communicate quite well. Eventually after only about 10 km form town we spotted a track leading down to the rough ground near the river beyond the fields and orchards. A family were having a picnic beside the track and we joined them for tea and jam sandwiches. Iranians love picnics, and most evenings go and sit in a park or the countryside for one. This evening was particularly good with lovely light and a nice temperature and after the family left we went down to the river to make a camp and hopefully have a sly wash in the river after it got dark.

We had just finished dinner and Robin was about to strip off to go and wash when we saw the light of a motorbike turn down our track. Oh no! we thought, how have they spotted us down here. However it was one of the guys who had stopped to join us at the family picnic and we had told them that we would be camping here. He brought with him his friend who spoke good English and also another picnic but this one included Scotch Whisky!!. We were very surprised and pleased to have the midnight picnic and they told us that although alcohol is illegal in Iran there is a shop in every town that sells it, if you know where to ask. The whisky was lovely once we had convinced them not to top ours up with orangeade. They were very impressed that we drank ours ‘strong’ (i.e. neat) but we pointed out that we were sipping our drinks whereas they were downing theirs and quickly getting to the falling around drunk stage. I guess that this is the effect of prohibition; that people tend to drink just to get drunk and do not have whisky or wine in the house to enjoy the flavour. Anyway the whisky relaxed our muscles after days of hard cycling and soon went to our heads too, making us very sleepy. The guys went off on their motorbike giggling and I was quite relieved to see one of them again in the morning we he returned with a picnic breakfast for us. We wished we had more time to spend a day with them but we had to push on to Takht-e-Suleiman where we thought we would have a rest day looking around this ancient site.

That day the road went seriously uphill. Robin stopped to rescue a large tortoise from the middle of the road where it had frozen as we cycled past slowly. We topped out on a very high plateau with large open crops. The steep climb was over but there always seemed to be another small hill to get to and then as you came over it another one would appear. The going was tough and we were tired. We had our lunch up there in the heat because I was seriously in need of food and we could not wait to see if we could find some shade. Eventually we found the downhill and a town where we got some food for dinner, having now started to stock up well in advance of the end of the day. The people’s clothes had changed and we later found out that they were Kurdish. Some of the men wore tasselled head turbans (looking like they had small thin dreadlocks) and the women wore flowers, waistbands and big skirts.

We enjoyed the downhill towards Takab and turned off on the side road towards Takht-e-Suleiman. However the dark clouds that had been brewing all afternoon finally broke and we dashed from a culvert under the road to a small village to wait out the storm inside the telephone office. This was our first storm in Iran and it only lasted about 1 hour but was to set a precedent of afternoon rain for the next week. We cycled on when the rain finished, slowly uphill again with very tired legs, following a river valley back into the high hills. After the storm the river ran red with the fertile soil of the hills. After a final, long, steep climb we arrived, exhausted, at Zenden-e -Suleiman (Solomon’s Prison). This is a beautiful conical mountain at the top of a pass, from which we had good views 2 km further on to the ruins of Takht-e -Suleiman, an ancient city and fire temple on the top of another small, round hill. We camped below Solomon’s prison and had a cold night under an awesome starry sky, we were really very high up and surrounded by lovely mountains. Unfortunately we have no idea of our height as this info is not on any map we have and unlike in Turkey there are no altitude markers on the road signs at passes.

The next day we had a quick climb up Solomon’s prison and gasped with dizziness as we peered over the top to see that the entire mountain is hollow, with smooth, perfectly circular walls dropping down to a floor probably at a similar height to the surrounding flat ground ‘outside’ the mountain. A remnant of past volcanic activity, we could see why it was called a prison; nobody out down there could ever escape.

We cycled on to Takht-e-Suleiman and were surprised to find that the entrance fee had dropped significantly from what our book had predicted. Gladly we paid the 36pence and entered our first ever fire temple and Zoroastrian complex. The city is a world heritage site and we loved it. The ruins sit on top of a wide, flat, circular hill with the remains of a high wall around the perimeter. The main wonder is the large lake in the centre of the complex; the hill is a mirror of the conical mountain of Solomon’s prison except this one is full of water which bubbles up from the centre of the earth.
Zoroastrianism was the ancient religion of Iran it is thought to be one of the earliest known monotheistic religions. We knew that Zoroastrians see fire as a symbol of God and in ancient times the Fire Temple here used to have natural volcanic gas piped to it from a nearby vent, creating an eternal fire inside the temple. There was also a water temple associated with the lake and spring, from which water is channelled to run off of the hilltop through the gates in the fortified wall. The area is surrounded by high mountains and the setting as well as the religious symbolism was very inspirational. It has nothing at all to do with the biblical King Solomon however, this being a cunning lie made up by the temple guards when Islamic Arab invaders arrived. By telling them the place was built by Solomon, an prophet of Islam, it was spared destruction.

When we left however we noticed that my rear wheel was beginning to develop a split in the rim and that the axle had developed a wobble. We cycled back down the valley we toiled up yesterday, on into Takab and found a bike shop. Fighting off the throng of small children we made it into the shop where we had my rim changed. The bike shop guy however did not really know much about bikes since when I showed him my axle wobble he said “no problem”. He did re-build the wheel with a decent looking Iranian rim, made in Tabriz. He did not have the tools to open my hub anyway so we cycled on happy to at least have a good rim. It took a couple of hours to get it sorted, meanwhile 2 guys tried to chase the towns overexcited kids way from the shop (and us) by kicking and hitting them and waving large sticks about.

We rode on through rolling farmland making good speed, even making up for the delay, pushing late into the evening. When we stopped in a small village to ask for water we found ourselves at the cheese making place and we were given about 1 kilo of white cheese for free. The landscape had become nice rolling hills and we were also following a river, which had plantations of trees alongside it. We managed to find a good camp spot up from the river in some trees in between the fields. However there were loads of mosquitoes so we set about making a fire to keep them away. We enjoyed a nice dinner sitting around the fire and a sip of whisky that the guys had left us. Even when it started raining the fire kept us warm as we washed from a pan of water with our flannels. It had been a really good day and the simplicity of our camp and wash left us very contented for a good nights sleep.

The road onwards took us to Bijar, deep in Iranian Kurdistan, and Iran’s highest town (allegedly) - it was only 40 miles away but the long climb left us drained and we arrived tired and at the start of an early rain downpour. I was in a shop trying to buy raisins when an old guy, for no apparent reason, hit me across the back, quite hard. I was shocked and upset and almost kicked him back. I left the shop swearing and crying. I was tired and upset that the man had hit me. The other men of the town who had been chatting to Robin were very concerned by what had happened as it is not really usual and I think that the old guy was not really all there, but it had put a downer on me and when the weather did not improve and we were offered to come to Hassan’s home for lunch we gladly accepted.

At Hassan’s house we learnt that the road we had planned to take towards Ali Sadr Caves was a gravel track so we planned to go around a longer route instead. Hasan offered us to stay at his home that day and although it was only 3 pm we accepted as it gave us a chance to rest and try to get my axle wobble sorted out in my rear hub. On Hassan’s recommendation we found a good mechanic and he changed the ball bearings inside my rear hub. We were very happy now my wheel did not wobble but over the next few days I did keep noticing that it still made a few clicking noises, but it seemed much more smooth running.

Like our previous host Ali, Hasan was also very keen on poetry and literature, as are many Iranians. Persian poetry is extremely popular and is one of the things Iranians are most proud about - they believe this is what helped to keep the Persian language and culture alive and strong despite other empires conquering them occasionally. They seem to be very romantic and poetic people generally.

Hasan and his family were Kurds, but he was also most definitely Iranian and proud of it too “I love my country”- a stark contrast to the situation of the Kurds in Turkey. He was veteran of the Iraq War (as they call it here, we know it as the Iran-Iraq war) and had been involved in the liberation of Khorramshah from Iraqi forces. He talked a lot about the war as it was the anniversary of the liberation and he was writing poetry for the ceremonies. There was stuff on TV - old war films, and Ahmedinejad presenting stuff to people who had lost relatives etc. - one woman had had five sons ‘martyred’. His elderly parents arrive and his mother remembers the English soldiers who came here during WWII, telling us how they used to terrorise people for food and beat them if they didn’t comply. Hassan explains we are Scottish - phew! She then adds that the soldiers were building roads and many of them died of during the freezing winter, but the roads are very good and still used now.
Hassan was also quite a religious man, telling us that women must wear the hijab even inside their own home, or else they would “go to hell”! I got the impression he was happy with the current Islamic regime, although he too wanted to emphasise that Islam means peace and that any group calling itself “the army of God” or such like were not true Muslims. He blamed Afghan refugees for most of the crime in Iran, but interestingly thought that Iran was more dangerous than Turkey (I would most definitely say the opposite) because “in Iran a person my be bad, may use alcohol, but it is hidden, you do not know this about him because it is forbidden. In Turkey it is open so you can know who is good and bad”.

Our road the next day was wonderfully downhill, from the highest town it was all downhill, although we were heading towards the start of the high Zagros Mountains and the plain that we would reach was itself quite high up. In Bijar they were really proud that they were the highest town in Iran, but no one I asked actually knew how high they were. We made fast progress anyway and once the downhill was over the road went rolling up and down quite pleasantly. We stopped for lunch of cheese, tomatoes, bread and honey and were joined by some girl students who had made their car stop so that they could take our photos and get our autographs, very smiley and giggling girls they were and we enjoyed meeting them. Eventually we got to Qorveh where we again had to say no to the many offers of tea and accommodation in order to cover a decent distance.

We had decided to cut the corner on back roads to Ali Sadr caves. We knew that this would be on an unsurfaced road but we thought that it was still a short cut and better than travelling the whole way on gravel from Bijar. However everyone who stopped us to ask us where we were going was horrified and said we were going the wrong way. They said we should go to Hamedan and then turn uphill for 75 km to Ali Sadr. We politely ignored them thinking they have not really grasped the fact that we are on bikes and that although 75km uphill is nothing when you are in a car with the fuel costing less than 5 pence a litre, it is about 1 days cycling for us. One guy however was particularly persistent and said that we must come to his house because it was going to rain. We did not want to go and needed to make some progress so that we would have time to look around the caves the next day. This guy however kept following us in his car and he would drive ahead and then stop until we overtook him again, it was very unnerving. Eventually we resolved to go to the police at the next town with his photos if he did not stop bothering us. We had stopped to have a cup of tea in an orchard and a family stopped to say hello to us but this guy appeared there too, he seemed to like being the big man and introducing us to the family but we wished he would just go as we were capable of talking to the family without his poor translation anyway. Eventually he sat down by us and started winking at me at which point I got very angry and started shouting at him. Even though we had been saying no to his suggestions for about 1 hour he would not accept this and it was only by upsetting me that he finally got the message and went away. We wondered if we had been too hard on him since he was just being overly helpful, but we decided our instincts about him were right since he was overly interested in me, rather than Robin.

We pushed on towards the gravel road and found it at last, although our progress was slower the surface was reasonable and we were relieved, thinking we would make good time. In the next village we asked directions and were pointed away from the gravel road and towards the open grazing land where a set of tyre tracks went off to the distance. We could not believe it and asked where the road was, only to be informed there was no road but the track was our way. To make things worse the weather was starting to look very black and it began to rain and turn into a storm. We were tired and cold and decided unwisely to try to push on to the next village. The track worsened with the rain and soon our bikes were completely stuck in mud. We were miserable, had no water to make a camp, and had started to shout at each another while lightening flashed around us and the thunder cracked the sky.. Eventually though we managed to push our bikes back to wards the village and camp beside a spring. Our desire to push on and the constant pressure of getting to Esfahan before our visa expired was putting a strain on both of us. We pitched the tent and collapsed, falling asleep without eating anything or even changing out of our cycling gear.

The sun was out and it was a different place entirely in the morning. The track was dry and the mountains and flowers around us looked beautiful. After 2-3 breakfasts we happily negotiated the terrible tracks and eventually found the tarmac again at Gol Tappe. I also found a cake shop and at 60 pence a kilo happily bought a load. While shopping a guy came up asking for our passport, and didn’t want to take no for an answer. We tried to ignore him but he kept flashing an ID card at us, entirely in Farsi, and just saying “passport” to us over and over. Robin was getting very annoyed with him when we turned around to see a police car behind us -great. We went over and tried to explain that this guy is trying to get our passports. Turns out he was plainclothes police, and only now decides to say “police” to us. They copy down some stuff from our visa while a crowd forms around us. This was to become fairly regular in the west of Iran, with the police often wanting to stop us. Sometime just to say hello - literally - other times to make some nonsense passport check.

We arrived for a picnic lunch at Ali Sadr Cave tourist complex. It was a bit of a shock; there was a real theme park atmosphere, this is one of Iran’s most famous tourist attractions and on Fridays it get about 12,000 visitors. We were happy that it was quiet and we put on our jumpers to enjoy the cool of the caves. The entrance fee was about $3 each and although this is quite expensive for Iran we thought it was really worthwhile. The cave system is totally beautiful and about 4 km of the 11km system is lit up and open to the public. Included in the entrance is a boat ride and we all climbed aboard little rowing boats powered at the front by an electric pedallo. The caves themselves were fantastic and the lighting very effective. In a lovely Iranian style amongst the stalactites there were passages from the Koran lit up too, reminding us that things this beautiful are the work of God. We spent a happy hour in the caves but when we got out it had started to rain. Not put off really though because we were on good roads, we cycled though the rain and enjoyed the lovely light and downhill towards Hamedan. We camped in a small wood and made it to Hamedan early the next day to enjoy a cup of tea in the Baba Taher (famous Iranian poet) garden of Hamedan. Hamedan seemed very green and nice and we found a great, cheap, cosy guesthouse right on the main square.

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Photos

Inside Takht -e- Solieman
water bubbling up from the centre of earth - a truly magical place.

Azeri family
Ali's sisters proudly wearing their chadors

Midnight Picnic
Where streams of whisky are flowing...

Uphill all the way
the road to Bijar

9000 miles!
This was the short cut towards Ali Sadr caves, this it how it looked when it was sunny and relatively dry!

Wonderful rain
Well it is ok when you are on tarmac

Comments

[g]

poor erika, u have to wear this scarf all the time?... well cultural diferences u know

[Okhtay]

wow! this part of the trip had a lot of up and downs! I just wanted to correct something in this part. The mountain to the south of tabriz and east of Urmia lake is actually another famous azeri mountain called Sahand. Sabalan is far to the north-east and it is near Ardebil. Good luck!