As soon as we entered Iran, the road turned to a gravel surface. We noticed that our car’s generator was emitting a strange sound, perhaps indicating a failing bearing. We travelled on slowly to Mashhad. As we drove around the town looking for suitable accommodation, we chanced upon the familiar Hopparoo van, outside a hotel. We found the crew in a nearby café where a great reunion followed.
Up early next morning to get our car fixed, we found that the noise had ceased. However, we also needed two new tyres. While we were trying to make ourselves understood at the tyre shop, a young school teacher, Reza, came up and offered to interpret. Reza was also very interested in the sexual habits of Western girls. He had heard that they were very generous with their favours, even before marriage, and was this so? With Reza we later wandered through the bazaars around the Golden Mosque and visited a turquoise factory, a local speciality. I was looking for a small Persian carpet to give as a belated wedding gift to an old school friend who was now in London. I finally selected an attractive prayer mat in a Baluch style, which had been made using traditional vegetable dyes.
The Golden Mosque with its Shrine of Imam Reza is the holiest Moslem site in Iran and second only to Mecca for the Shiites, the dominant sect in this country. The local people did not seem to like us photographing the mosque, even from a distance. We were not allowed to enter the Golden Mosque, but were told that in lesser places like Isfahan, we would be able to enter and photograph in the mosques as we wished. Mashhad was otherwise very modern, the second largest city in Iran. It seemed incongruous that somewhere in this area we were crossing the paths of Alexander the Great and Marco Polo.
There were two routes on to Tehran, one directly west across the desert, the other going a little further north along the southern shore of the Caspian Sea. We chose the latter, as it seemed more interesting. The first stretch to Quchan, where there were turquoise mines, was bitumen. Then began a gravel section through Bojnurd which had a reputation as a car wrecker. We travelled slowly, choking in the dust whether the car windows were open or closed. To our side, the highest peaks still had snow on them from winter (it was the end of April) and all the small streams were torrents of icy meltwater. One such crossing almost stopped us, but fortunately we just managed to crawl across. Along the road we passed a stripped Ford Cortina with British plates which had evidently failed on this notorious stretch. Beyond Bojnurd we began the descent to the Caspian Sea. The country became green and fertile and intensively farmed with modern mechanised equipment. The district seemed very prosperous as the village stores were full of merchandise and expensive cars – Mercedes, BMW, Ford Mustang – were quite common.
We were finding it difficult to like some of the Iranian people we met. We had the feeling we were often being overcharged. Others seemed friendly and waved as we passed, but many would shout and lunge at the car, or even spit. On a couple of occasions we were refused service in a shop. Stuart had been wearing shorts and was causing considerable amusement whenever he alighted from the car.
At Shah Pasan we reached bitumen once more. The so-called horror stretch seemed to us no worse than many Australian country roads. At Babol we diverted north from the main road to Babolsar, so that we could at least see the Caspian Sea. It was unremarkable, but we took the opportunity of being away from the crowds that always seemed to gather around us, to strip the carburettor again. The 250 mile gravel stretch had filled it with dirt, so that the engine would not idle and was hard to start.
We returned to the main road and at Amol turned south to begin the ascent of the Elburz Mountains. The road followed the course of a large stream which was filled with a roaring cascade of meltwater from the last of the winter snow. As we climbed higher we could see snow-capped peaks and finally reached 9000 feet above sea level. Snow still lay by the roadside and streams flooded the highway in places. In one village there was an elegant hotel and a series of ski lifts, but everything was closed down. Our ascent was very slow, often down to 10 mph in first gear, the Fiat struggling to make the grade. The road had an excellent bitumen surface and passed through a number of very long tunnels through the mountains. In numerous places the roadway was fracturing and sliding down the mountainside. We finally arrived in Tehran after a very long day and took a room at the Amir Kabir Hotel.
Tehran was a major city, the first we had seen since Delhi. As we tried to orient ourselves we came across the Hopparoo crowd again. Tehran, like Kabul, is located at the foot of snow capped mountains but there the comparison ends. Tehran was modern and westernised. The shops were crammed with imported goods and, unlike today, many of the women dressed in modest, but stylish, western clothes. The traffic was horrific, with most vehicles showing signs of battle. The most common cars were Mercedes diesel models. Almost as popular were locally assembled Hillman Hunters (called Paykan, ‘Arrow’ in Farsi) and the ubiquitous Fiat 1100, but there were no Fiat 600s. We did not intend to stay long in Tehran as we would be returning. We spent almost an hour crawling along between honking taxis and thundering trucks, with an inadequate map, trying to find the road out of Tehran to Isfahan.
We were becoming concerned about our expenses. Our hotel bills were getting too high for our notional budget of US$3 per day for food and accommodation for the two of us. Food served in cafes was also getting more expensive although we had developed a taste for kebabs and the local flat bread, naan, which was inexpensively available on the street. Petrol, fortunately, was very cheap, half what it had been in India. We decided to camp whenever possible now and draw on a supply of dehydrated food we had brought from Australia. The road to Isfahan was bitumen, though rough in places, and passed through flat, rocky country devoid of trees. The altimeter showed that this plain rises gradually from about 4000 feet in Tehran to a little over 7000 feet, before descending to Isfahan at 5500 feet. We camped that evening in a road metal dump within sight of the lights of Isfahan.
Isfahan was a modern, beautiful city with divided avenues lined with trees and, like Tehran, an abundance of signs in English. In the centre of Isfahan is an enormous square, the Maidan-i-Shah or Royal Square, where at one time polo was played before the king, Shah Abbas I. The square, considered to be one of the finest in the world, is flanked by two magnificently tiled mosques, a royal palace and an extensive bazaar. Within the square were many shops selling handicrafts made in inlaid wood, brass, silver and gold. The bazaar was covered, like that in Mashhad, with high arching domes, generally with a hole at the top which let in a brilliant shaft of light. Within the endless maze of passages were goods from all over the world, but perhaps most interesting were the craftsmen producing quite utilitarian articles by hand, using the simplest tools.
My work on the carburettor had not been entirely effective, so we had it professionally cleaned. Two more tyres also required replacement. As the weather had become overcast, we decided to leave Isfahan for the time being and head south towards the ruins of Persepolis. The road climbed gradually at first, then finally in a steep pinch to 8500 feet. The Fiat was again labouring in first gear. The descent was equally severe. The weather was pleasantly cool, as indeed it had been since leaving India.
The Fiat had begun to use oil at an alarming rate. It appeared to be leaking from the front crankshaft oil seal. With the low cost of oil in Iran and the problems likely in finding suitable spare parts, we decided to push on, refilling the sump as required. By dusk, we reached the ruined Achaemenid capital of Pasargadae and camped by the tomb of Cyrus the Great, the main monument there. Cyrus was the first of this dynasty of Persian kings and died in 530 BC. He is regarded as the ‘Father of Iran’.
Next morning it began to rain. We continued south to Persepolis, 45 miles further on. We discovered that the local people had never heard of Persepolis, which is a Greek name for the city. To them it is Takht-e-Jamshid. In continuing rain we decided to press on to Shiraz, the ‘city of poets and gardens’, and also the home of the well known wine-making grape. The famous Persian poets are Saadi and Hafez who are buried here. The tiled domes of the mosques in Shiraz are uniquely onion shaped and looked strangely Russian. We sheltered from the rain in the covered bazaar where the local specialty seemed to be carpets and rugs, particularly those made from camel wool.
Our return to Persepolis was in better weather. We first visited Nakhsh-e-Rustam, also known as Rustam’s Pictures. Here the tombs of the Achaemenid kings Darius the Great, Xerxes I, Artaxerxes I and Darius II are hollowed out of a rock face at a level well above the ground. Below the four tombs are a number of later Sassanid bas reliefs. In front of the tomb of Darius the Great is a large cubic building which is thought to be a temple of fire worship. Carved on each tomb is the winged figure of the Achaemenid god Ahura Mazda.
Persepolis itself is located on a huge rock platform at the base of a mountain. On the face of the mountain are two more tombs like those at Rustam’s Pictures, for Artaxerxes II and Artaxerxes III. Persepolis was founded by Darius the Great in about 518 BC, and was really a complex of palaces, archways and dining halls which apparently were only used on special occasions. The city was destroyed by a mysterious fire soon after it was conquered by Alexander the Great. As usual, grafitti writers had been at work on the ruin. Some inscriptions dated back to the early 1800s and included one by Henry Stanley of Livingstone fame. A film crew was on site making a movie starring Ann Todd.
Along the road as we headed back to Isfahan were long mounds of dirt. These turned out to be lines of deep wells, the famous qanats of Iran. This is a very old system of desert irrigation where a string of wells is joined by subsurface tunnels and fed by a primary spring somewhere in the hills.
Isfahan is a former capital of the Persian Empire. The mosques in the Royal Square, the Masjed-i-Shah and the Masjed-i-Sheikh, are a riot of colour and intricate tile work. The Juma Mosque is extremely old, with some sections predating Islam itself. This mosque was begun in the 8th century and the older sections are from periods when colourful tile work was not used. They are refreshingly different though rather austere.
Other attractions in Isfahan are a number of notable or ancient bridges. The largest, the Pol-e-Allahverdi Khan, with 33 arches across the Zayandeh River, links the northern and southern parts of the main thoroughfare through Isfahan. The Pol-e-Khaju is an exceptionally beautiful masonry bridge of the Sassanid Dynasty, which immediately preceded the Muslim era. The Pol-e-Shahrestan is an insignificant-looking bridge which happens to be the oldest in Isfahan, and was built 1500 years ago.
We continued retracing our steps north to Tehran, taking an alternative route through Qum, the second most holy city of Iran. Here the Shrine of Fatima, like the Shrine of Imam Reza in Meshed, is closed to foreigners, but there was no apparent objection to photographing the exterior of the building. Fatima was the beloved sister of Imam Reza. Qum also seemed to specialise in making colourful pottery and confectionery.
Heading back to Tehran, as we were overtaken by a large bus, a glass mug was thrown out of the window, smashing itself to pieces on the front of the car just inches from our windscreen. Was it an accident or was it intentional? We often felt a certain hostility towards us, then someone would do us a kindness and we would feel better about the Iranians. Every day we would get calls of ‘Hey mister’ combined with giggles and laughter. Many wanted to try their limited English on us, saying ‘Hello’, Goodbye’, ‘What is your name?’, ‘What time is it?’ They must all have learnt from the same book as we heard the same phrases over and over. It seemed good spirited, if a little cheeky.
In Tehran we spent three hours looking for a better hotel than the Amir Kabir, preferably one with a private bath, but could find nothing suitable. The Amir Kabir was apparently the place to stay in Tehran for many years for travellers on the Hippie Trail, though it may have been for lack of alternatives rather than for its own intrinsic values.
With a better map of Tehran this time, we found the Grand Bazaar, the largest in the Middle East. It was said that anything made in Iran could be found here, but somehow it lacked the colour and atmosphere of other bazaars we had seen. It was relatively clean, with glass show cases and neon signs, and nothing was being made on site. The bazaars of Isfahan and Shiraz were much more interesting.
We were no longer being offered drugs in Iran. The Shah had imposed the death sentence for drug trafficking, which was evidently an effective deterrent. Scanning the dial of my transistor radio, I found the local American Armed Forces radio station. It was wonderful to hear Western music again. I didn’t realise I would miss it so much, as the Middle Eastern and Indian music did not appeal to me at all. Later, strolling in Tehran, I found an English language bookshop. In it I was delighted to find a copy of Tim Slessor’s book First Overland. This tells the story of one of the most remarkable overland journeys of all, which was made by the Oxford and Cambridge Far Eastern Expedition of 1955-6. A group of six university students in two Land Rovers travelled from London to Singapore entirely on land, a feat which had never before been achieved and has only rarely been repeated since. Burma has always been the principal obstacle to completing the full overland crossing to Singapore and for over 50 years it was not possible to traverse that country by road. In 1955 the expedition was able use the remnants of the wartime Stillwell/Ledo Road, linking northern Burma with India. Subsequently Burma became politically isolated and the road was not maintained. Not only did this group reach Singapore, they then turned around and drove back to London, varying their route on the return journey from the outward one.
Tehran seemed to us like a Western oasis in the foreign landscape of the Middle East. It was a welcome break from life on the road. Iran under the Shah was modernising rapidly, and perhaps too rapidly for some, as it happened. I was completely surprised when the Ayatollah Khomeini came to power in 1979, apparently with wide support, rejecting modern values. It just seemed so unlikely in 1969.
It was time for the long run to Istanbul. We travelled on a good, bitumen road through Kazvin, a typical provincial town whose main claim to fame is that to the north of it, in the Elburz Mountains, lie the castles of the Valley of the Assassins. In contrast to the areas to the south of Tehran, which are on the edge of the Great Salt Desert, the country here was fertile and widely cultivated. For some time we followed the valley of the picturesque Zandjanchay River. As we neared Tabriz the route became hilly and winding, and the road surface deteriorated with short sections of gravel. In the town of Bostanabad we encountered our first stone-throwing children, something we had been warned about as it was common in Turkey. The road improved greatly beyond Tabriz as we travelled in green and pleasant mountain country with snow capped peaks, not unlike eastern Afghanistan.
As we neared the Turkish border it was raining intermittently. The border formalities were over very quickly, although at one stage it looked like the Turkish official wanted to unload the car in order to see my Persian carpet. The joint border post at Bazorgan is on the crest of a ridge and on leaving the Turkish side a magnificent view appeared of Mount Ararat with its twin snow-covered cones capped by cloud. It is the legendary final resting place of Noah’s ark. At the border post there was a large collection of derelict cars, casualties of the overland route. We had seen similar dumps of cars in ‘no man’s land’ at the India-Pakistan and Afghanistan-Iran frontiers, where they could be left after clearing customs.
