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Published: October 27th 2009
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Visitors to Reza
Elahe and Maryam, who spoke in very fine English about politics, Reza and Agha Papa I finally arrived in Tehran at 2am on Sunday, after I and most people on the train thought it would 5 or 7pm the evening before. On saying goodbye there was much kissing between the men - three kisses each time - swapping of email addresses and offers of lifts to hotels. I accepted a lift and headed to a cheap hotel listed in the Lonely Planet guidebook. When I arrived I saw four others from the train who had obviously been following the same book. All the hotels in that area recommended were locked up for the night; Tehran has no night life, unlike it was before the 1979 revolution.
I roused a sleepy night porter and had a long confusing discussion about prices. Was he talking about euros, dollars, or local money? Even the local money is confusing. The basic money measurement is Iranian rials, but people usually talk in tomans, which is worth 10 rials, but they almost never specify. So if a taxi driver says "three", he really means 3000 tomans, or about $3. I eventually settled on a price at the hotel in euros, after he wrote down what he meant (and went and woke
up the manager to confer). It was a basic and shabby room - one sheet and a blanket on the bed, shower held together with tape, squat toilet down the hall - but a 2pm checkout, all pretty standard for Iran. I got up the next afternoon - I took advantage of the luxury late checkout time to catch up on sleep following the spazmodic conditions on the train.
The odd sense of time I had experienced over the previous three days was good preparation for the pace of Tehran. On the surface the traffic gives an impression of being in an incredible rush: cars - mainly taxis of various types - hurtle up, down and across the wide streets, always narrowly missing the endless surge of motorbikes (maximum 200cc by law, no helmets except those carried on the convenient holder on the front, also known as a headlamp, even at night). Rush, rush, rush. Scooters riden by 14 year-old boys with their mothers wearing the chador clinging on the back. Small pick-ups laden high, and I mean high - twice again the height of the vehicle - with anything from cages of quail to sacks of sugar cubes. Ancient small taxis, covered in signs of crashes now long forgotten, tooting at pedestrians to solicit rides - usually already with one or two people inside, looking for more fares to make the most of the journey (which costs cents). Pedestrians tentatively edge across lanes with no concessions from the drivers, even at marked pedestrian crossings. Lane markings and one-way signs are merely suggestions in the eyes of the drivers - constant hornblasts and lights flashing, but never any hint of road rage or even a raised eyebrow. It is one of the modern mysteries of the world why there aren't more accidents.
Yet through all of this haste exists a studied leisureliness in which human relationships are conducted. Two motorbikes will ride slowly together in the middle of the road while the riders chat; taxi drivers talking to their fares at the end of the journey for longer than the journey itself has taken, endless stopping to talk with other men (women are forbidden to ride motobikes, and are seldom seen driving) selling odd things spread out on rugs by the roadside - colourful plastic sewing kits, local-brand cigarettes, dates, and the poorest of the salesmen who will charge you to weigh yourself on their bathroom scales. Polite verbal rituals to be negotiated before asking directions.
Corinne, the Swiss woman from the train, had also stayed in the Aryan Hotel, and decided afterwards to take up the offer of Reza, one of the Iranians, to stay in his home. I was invited to stay as well, so we took a taxi to visit Reza and his Papa. Despite Reza pointing out his location on the map in central Iran, the taxi following his handwritten address took us an hour south of the city. $13. After several lengthy requests for directions - some from pedestrians, some from other taxi drivers - we drove up a dirt road behind some shops and saw a waving and smiling Reza ahead of us, leaning out of his front door.
His house was built solidly out of concrete; three bedrooms, kitchen, shower room, an open sitting/dining area, and a concrete yard with an outside squat. Inside there was no furniture apart from one small bed in the living room for Reza's old papa, and half a dozen large carpet-covered cushions. The floors were smothered in mass-produced Persian carpets, and walls were bare accept for the odd picture of an ayatollah or two.
We were presented immediately with bananas, grapes and cucumbers, and tea. And neighbours began to arrive, having heard of the arrival of foreign guests. Among the neighbours were two secondary school girls who spoke excellent English, and told us openly of their views condeming the recent election relults. They asked us not to video them when they spoke, for fear of getting into trouble for their views. The evening meal was more fruit plus cheese and bread. The night was spent sleeping on an extra Persian rug, which was not good for the back. Reza sleeps this way every night - no doubt the cause of his bad back that keeps him from plying his trade as a tailor.
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