pedalling dope

In Brief

2009-07-19T22:41:00.003+04:30

Somehow I slipped behind in the blogging. But the red line on the map is up to date. I'm in Tabriz. And with changes of plan it looks like my final destination. My Visa expires on the 26th, and work is calling, so I'm getting on a plane from Tabriz. Only six days left in Iran.

It has felt like time was running short for a while now, so I haven't wanted to spend it in a coffeenet. But there's plenty of blog still to come. Episodes will include Castles of the Assassins, trailer gets run over, bike on a mule, interesting times in Tehran, tea leaves of Lahijan, swimming in the Caspian, Throne of Solomon and riding across mountains. So many mountains.

Tehran and away

2009-06-30T22:00:00.002+04:30

So I got my visa extended. Checked out some of the sights I never quite got to see last time with all the running around. And tomorrow I'm away. Had enough of this city. Time to go back to the hills.
West and North. Caspian, Tabriz, Armenia, here I come.

Sanity check

2009-06-28T21:15:00.004+04:30

I've been spending a lot of time by myself. Or effectively by myself, given my ability to communicate. So I've started to wonder if my sense of perspective is starting to slip. For some reason I find these biscuits funny.

Yes, there's inappropriate usage of Santa. And BOOBA. It has Boob in it. That has a peurile entertainment value. But it's "The Bit Cookie" that gets me. Every time. I don't even know how it's funny. It kills me.

Also, they're pretty good cookies.

Giro d'Alborz - stage 3

2009-06-25T21:03:00.026+04:30

I had a short day yesterday. Got prepared. Had an early night. Slept well. I dress. Eat bread and dates. I'm pedalling at 5:30. The road is wet but the sky isn't. I'm still following the river. It's beautiful country.

I wind in and out of each gully that feeds the valley. With small downs, but steadily going up.

After a couple of hours it starts to spit. I go up a short driveway and shelter under the eve of a garage. I eat some cookies. Drink sugar and salt water. It's chilly. I've started out wearing my windproof cycling jacket. I get the waterproof jacket out of the bag. I have to look after myself today. No getting wet and cold. No dehydration. No hunger. My Visa expires tomorrow. I have to get back to Tehran today. The shower doesn't turn into much. I tuck the waterproof jacket between the tent and the main bag. I ride on.

After 4 hours on the bike I stop for a leak. When I get on again, this is what's in front of me:

The zigzag lines don't show up that well at this image resolution. But it's the end of the valley. Time to climb up and out. I'm ready for it. Yeah, that white patch is snow. I've picked up a bit of altitude. I'm down in the lowest gear and I turn the pedals over.

Before I get to the zigzags I can see, I go way right. Into a fold in the mountain. My legs and lungs burn. Have to get to the turn at least. I've only been back on eight minutes. At the turn I get a picture of Darband Sar.

Darband Sar 4542m

My legs and lungs burn. I've only been back on five minutes. Have to get to the next turn at least. I get to the next turn and stop. I lean my elbows on the handlebars and breathe hard. I realise I'm breathing fast and shallow so I slow it down.

My legs and lungs burn. I've only been back on two minutes. Have to make it to the next turn. The zigzags are shorter now. I should be able to make it. I get to the next turn and don't stop. I don't stop again. There's no anger fuelling this climb. There's just resignation. This is my life now. Just turning the pedals. Might as well get on with it.

It takes fifty minutes for the zigzags. On the top I savour the cool air and get pictures in both directions. I thought it would be down from here to the highway, but it looks like another zigzag climb first. That takes some of the fun out of the huge downhill I've got coming.

The valley behind. I've come through all those mountains.

First summit of the day

The road ahead

I don't hurry off the top. It's nice up here. When I go, it's quickly apparent that it won't be fast and fun. The seal is broken on most of the corners, so I have to ride it slow, pick a good line and wince as I crash through the bumps. I loop around a group of wild horses. They rear and gallop when I pass below them. There are beekeepers tending hives. Even with my jacket it's cold, but the chill eases as I get lower. I normally use two fingers on the brake and keep two round the grip. When my fingers ache I put another one to the brake. Now there's no room left between the brake lever and the grip. Four fingers on the brake.

I'm speeding up into a straighter section, must be near the bottom, when the trailer threshes. Flat tyre. I take out the offending metal swarf. Where is all this swarf coming from? Must be from parts shearing off these rubbish cars. I change the tube. My stomach says lunchtime anyway. It's beaten the clock, but it's close. I sit on a rock. Dry biscuits and tuna. And dates. A car passes, then turns around 100m up. Must be coming to see if I'm ok. No, just changed their mind about the hill.

I cruise the rest of the way to the bottom and start with the next climb. There's roadworks. They've ripped up the top two inches of seal in strips and patches. Sometimes I can connect up the seal, other times I have to ride the ripped stuff. At least they're fixing it. And it gives me something different to think about. It's the same all the way up. I pass the roadworks gang sitting in the grass drinking tea. They offer some but I can't stop. I'm on the last stretch to the summit when there's great views down the valley. I'm glad I'm not going down there. I take some photos.

Almost at summit number two for the day.

I don't bother stopping at the top. The roadworks are the same on the way down. Slower than I would like, but at least I'm not pedalling. It looks like a cement works at the bottom. Civilization. Yuck. The last zigzag is at the cement works gate, then I come out on the highway at the elbow of a hairpin. There are cars stopped and a few shops and restaurants. I probably should get some food and drink. But I don't want to stop. This highway comes from the Caspian. I'm already a long way up. It can't be too far to the summit, then it's down into Tehran.

I don't enjoy being in traffic again. Specially these idiots. There's no shoulder. It's hairpin after hairpin. There's constant near-death overtaking. I don't really care except when it affects me. I take to the gravel a few times. It's a rest anyway.

Kurdish women use the pull off areas to sell pickled green walnuts. It doesn't look like there's a lot of takers.

I sweat and turn the pedals. I mark my progress with the helpful signs spaced at 100m intervals. Uphill. Windey.

You don't say!

Then a different sign. Tunnel. Kandovan tunnel. The ride over the summit is supposed to be gorgeous. And with all the traffic going through the tunnel, I'd have it to myself. I don't like tunnels. Nowhere to go to avoid cars. No extraction. Choking on fumes. No light. Can't see what sort of road you've got coming. I've probably got time. It's 1:30. I eat roasted almonds and look up. It's not that high.

Insanity eludes me. I push the caked mud off my rear reflector and switch on my lights. I go into the tunnel. It's downhill. A car passes me near the start, but after that I'm the only one going my way. I just have to hope no-one coming the other way decides to overtake. I watch the light grow smaller in the mirror. There's no light in front. The road dips forward, and there's the exit. I'm out.

It's fast going down. I stay off the brakes as much as I can. There's a bus gaining on me in the straights. I give it some pedal. I like having my own piece of road. Eventually he gets me and I let him go first on a hairpin.

Karaj 75. Tehran 105. But I'm not going that way. Gachsar 5. That's where I turn. At the junction there's billboards for hotels. It's another river valley, and people are picnicking on the bank. I'm going up river. It's not that steep, but my legs don't feel like more up. At 2 I stop for my own riverbank picnic. Digestives. These ones taste burnt or something. Not burnt. Too much baking powder. Or something. They're not good. I stop a few short of the whole packet.

I rest for half an hour. I'm hardly back on the bike when it clouds up. Thunder cracks. Spits. I put on the rain jacket. Hail. Big enough to feel on my shoulder through two jackets and a cycle jersey. I'm glad I've got a helmet. The tyres hose me. Not this again.

There's a restaurant that's closed. I lean the bike against the wall, and take up a seat in the doorway. Three steps up I'm still getting splashed from the iced water gushing off the roof. I lean my head back against the jamb and close my eyes.

When I wake up it's eased. It's been half an hour. Just a light spit now. The clouds look like they're getting lighter. I'll go.

I keep crawling up the valley. Wasn't it only supposed to be 13 from the turn to the skifield? That might have been to a hotel. i've passed a lot of hotels already. But when I get to the skifield, Dizin, I just have to cross the 5km summer road to Shemshak skifield, then it's 55km downhill into Tehran.

I turn a corner and here's the skifield. The grassy slopes are covered with trails and ski lifts. Where does the road go? There's no obvious pass. There's a car coming down from the top. A lot of people are going to the top. Oh God.

After ten and a half hours and three summits, I arrive at this. Is this some kind of a joke?

Dizin skifield has a catalogue drop of 900m, with the upper slopes around 3500m. The road goes over the top. Higher than the top chairlift. This is ridiculous. When I start, I can smell the burning brake linings of the cars coming down. I could just hold onto somebody's window. Nobody stops. People clap, but it doesn't mean anything. There's a long way to go.

I like it much better from this side. Looking back from the top.

There aren't any words to express how happy I am when I get to the top. There aren't any words I can publish to express the hour and three quarters before that. I've left two dying cars stranded on the hill. Cars that passed me are stopped on top. People turn back from the view and I get a series of slow claps. I'm grinning. The driver of a 4WD coming from the other side almost breaks his neck with the wide-eyed double take as he passes.

It's cold so I don't savour it for long. The seal is broken again on the way down, so it's more hard braking and bouncing. At the bottom of the steep part I stop and eat. 7:30. 55km downhill, should get in around 9:30. It's all going well. It's a resort village strung along a narrow valley and gorge. I cruise fast through it as it gets dark.

Then there's a sign, Tehran right. I go right. It's uphill. What? This is total crap. I crawl up zigzag after zigzag in the dark, my way lit by corn roasting on hot coals. It's agonisingly slow. I'm barely moving. I don't really have anything left. The sugar is still going in, but not producing much output. I finally, achingly get to the top.

Fifteen hours in I'm ready to see these lights. Tehran.

It can only be downhill from here. It turns into an Expressway, and there it is. City Lights. Almost done. just have to survive the traffic. At one of the first intersections a car shunts my trailer. The tyre is wedged under his bumper and I can't pull it out. I yell and signal him to back up. On the other side of the intersection I check the wheel. It's still fairly round. Now I take pre-emptive yelling and gesticulating to a whole new level. An hour and a half takes me back into familiar territory. I stop at a juice bar for Carrot juice with icecream. Yes, that's right, the icecream goes in the carrot juice. It's really good.

Not a bad day. Well, it was an awful day really, for the most part, but it sure had it's moments. I figure I've climbed about 10,000m in the last week. 35,000 feet. It's an estimate. I've probably done more.

Giro d'Alborz - stage 2

2009-06-25T20:39:00.024+04:30

The stroll back to base camp was pleasant. I repack the trailer, change into cycling attire and head down around midday. The track is dry enough but it's been rutted to hell. It would be fast and fun on a mountain bike. I'm on the brakes hard trying not to beat the trailer to death. I'm also trying to beat the weather. Thunder clouds gather and start to rumble around the top. I keep on the edge of it as it fills downwards, and only get a few cold drops. Same timing as yesterday. And two days before.

Back on the seal is slow too. All the rain has washed sand and grit all over the road. I take it slow through the corners. I roll through Reyneh without stopping. Ducking my head slightly as I pass the teahouse. As if that makes a flourescent yellow guy on a bike less conspicuous.

It's six km to a little village called Ab Garm. In a piece of brilliant naming, it translates literally as Hot Water. I get a room, then set about rehydrating and refueling myself with a vengeance. Then I wash and dry everything. All my rancid clothes. And the trailer. I soak in one of the thermal pools. I can't take it for long. I buy a few supplies for the road. Eat more food. A lot more. A whole fish, two plates of rice, a stack of bread, yoghurt, an onion, tomatoes. The great thing about eating sitting on the carpet is that no matter how stuffed you are, when you stop eating and lean back on the cushion, you feel better. I soak more. And have the best sleep.

Ab Garm

Mountain villages across the valley

I wake up with my alarm at 5 as usual for cycling days. I wake up again at 9. I packed last night so I'm on the road at 9:30. I'm going to go North 40km. Further down the valley, towards the Caspian. Into the green on my map. The scale is on the other half, so I don't know what it means exactly, but it's heading back to sea level. Then I'm going to go West, up a river valley through the heart of the Alborz Mountains. It looks like 55km to Baladeh, the only significant town, then another 65km to join the highway below the summit of Kandovan Pass. From there I close the loop South back into Tehran, maybe 70km. I have 2 days to do it. The km's aren't so big. But like I said before: in the mountain stages it's about altitude.

Stage 1 was Tehran to Reyneh. I had a three day interlude. Now, for Stage 2, I want to get to the summit of Kandovan. Leave myself a relatively easy day for tomorrow.

There's some huge steep downhill for the 40km. There's too much traffic. Too much slow traffic. I'm more than fast enough to carve out my own piece of road on downhills like this. But I keep getting jammed up in lines of cars behind slow trucks. And there's enough climbing to make my legs feel. Somehow it takes almost 2 hours to descend 1500m.

Would be a better cycle if more cars were following these road signs.

There's no English sign at my turn off. But there's no other roads. I refill my water bottles from a hose. When I get on again my left knee clicks. With every down stroke of the pedal a click from my kneecap. Every different angle of foot, ankle, thigh, a different click. I stop. Eat. Massage my thigh just above the kneecap. Pushing the tendon to the outside.

When I ride again there's no click. But I feel fragile. I soon forget the knee. I climb up through a steep river gorge. It's narrow, so I have to go up and over every spur. The place is filled with quarries. And quarry trucks. Above and below there's hammering. There's no wind and the heat comes off the rocks like a blast furnace. When I look down sweat drips off my helmet rim, temples, eyebrows, cheeks, nose and chin. I'm going so slow some drops hit my shoes and they change from light to dark blue. I'm glad the speedo isn't working. It would make me cry.

I've been at altitude. The oxygen should be so thick down here my lungs don't know what to do with it all. But I'm breathing hard. My legs burn.

When I get a short downhill, it takes me to river level. I've climbed, but so has the river. That's altitude in the bank.

It's not a deep gorge anymore, but still narrow. I don't get far from the river, but I'm still up and down every spur. I stop for lunch at two. When I start riding again after half an hour it's cooler. Clouds cover the sun. Then there's a spit. A band of dark clouds behind me. I keep ahead of it for a while. I think about stopping to put on my jacket, but I'm keeping ahead. There's thunder behind too.

The blue that I'm aiming for gets cloudy too. I still think I'm keeping ahead, but every time the spits catch me they get heavier. Eventually I'm just riding in the rain. On the uphills I generate enough heat to not be cold. On the downhills I shiver. I try not to. It's like hiccups. You can suppress them for a while but then when one comes it's violent. I almost shiver myself right off the bike. Water streams across the road, and the spray from the tyres hoses my legs and back.

The rain eases as I ride up into a village. I've ridden an hour since lunch. With the extra climbing clothes, I don't have room for the 6 litres of water I was carrying on the trailer previously. So I stop at the shop for more water. I've just stopped shivering but I eat ice cream anyway. It freezes my brain. I get a heap of eclair toffees. He counts them out. 200 rial each. I take 30. Is this Baladeh? I can't even hope it is. Baladeh is 20km. That means I've done 35 kilometres since the turn off. I turned off at 11:30, so... I can't continue the maths. It's too depressing.

I head out of the village and maybe it's the icecream. Maybe it's the eclairs that I'm chewing non-stop, but my legs feel fine now. I'm doing better speeds. it's not a painstaking crawl. The scenery changes faster. It's taken me this long to get warmed up. At the pace I was going it could be 2 hours to Baladeh, then I should get a couple more hours in before finding a spot to camp. The weather seems to have finished it's outburst. I won't make it to the top of Kandovan, but maybe I'll get to the head of this valley.

After half an hour the sky goes black. There's thunder from every direction and I'm getting hosed with hail.

It's taken me an hour for the 20km to Baladeh. I rid through the long main street, but there's nothing that looks like a hotel. I want to keep riding. My legs have just settled into their work. Ready for a few more hours. If I don't get a hotel here, I'm camping. I don't think the tent will keep out much of this water. I'm shivering again. I go into a restaurant to ask where there is a hotel. Here. How much? 10. Can I look. The man gives a key to a boy and I follow him outside, through a doorway and up steep narrow stairs. The boy has turned the key in the lock but the door won't open. He goes back down and I wait dripping. The man comes. He tries the key. He pushes the door but it won't move. He shoulders the door hard and it crashes open. Double bed. Bathroom. No AC. Won't need that anyway. It'll do. The man leaves me. I carry up the trailer first. Then the bike. Don't know why I bothered washing the mud off the trailer and bag.

I run the shower and take off my shoes. The water's still not warm. Crap. I go down and ask the man. Hot water? What time? He does the eyebrow thing. At home when you nod your head upwards and raise your eyebrows it's a greeting. Here, I encountered it at a lot of bikeshops. From context I've worked out that it means either "I don't have any," "get real" or "get lost."

The bathroom is dark, so I flip on the switch. No light. I wash the road spray and grit off my arms and legs under the cold tap. The floor doesn't drain. I dry myself and turn on the light in the bedroom. Nothing. I take the working bulb from the hall and put it in my room. Still nothing. 10. I should have negotiated.

By the time I've done all this the thunder has stopped. It's clear outside. Blue sky. I could have done another three hours, and be camping by the river in a grassy meadow with wildflowers. Instead I'm in this dump with no power, a scum pond in the bathroom, and probably bed bugs.

The short day today has left me a long day tomorrow. I pore over the different maps. I have about 6 that cover various parts of tomorrow's ride. No matter how much I look, it still looks like a big day.

I stroll the length of town. The bread smells good, but I can't be bothered with the queue. I buy sugar to mix in my water, and biscuits. I'm going to need a lot of sugar. I go back to my restaurant for dinner. There aren't any others. Well, kebab it is then. Lord of the Rings starts on TV. I watch the soaring opening sequence through the mountains and feel a little bit homesick. Frodo sounds funny talking Farsi. I don't stay to hear what Gollum sounds like. I have an early start tomorrow.

Mt Damavand - summit push

2009-06-25T20:22:00.021+04:30

I wake up at 5, before the light starts, to look at the weather. There's some cloud. I wait for more light to get a better look at the cloud. I stab my knife into the cream carton, and it goes right through into my finger. No blood. Then I cut three sides to open a flap. At this temperature the cream is thick. I cut chunks of it onto bread and eat it with dates.

It's common to start an alpine climb before the light, but my only torch is the blinking yellow LED bike light. Not much use. And I need to be sure of the weather. Alone, at altitude, with this equipment, this is a fair weather climb.

My equipment has been bolstered significantly since leaving Tehran. At base camp, someone left a walking stick. Not an ice axe, but a lot better than nothing. Also, someone descending that day left their waterproof jacket and trousers hanging in the shelter. Score.

Under one of the blankets I found a windproof fleece balaclava and a fleece neck gaiter. All these gave me much confidence. Much more confidence. I didn't start with much.

My light leather hiking boots didn't get too wet on the way up yesterday. I was able to dry the footbeds in the evening sun. I tucked the inside out socks between my two shirts and left them there till morning. I don't know why I didn't get two pairs of socks. It's because I didn't want to carry any more stuff than I had to on the bike.

I start out at 6. Cloud comes and goes. Sometimes above, sometimes below, sometimes in it.

Up into the cloud.

Clear below

Clear above

Cloud below

The new snow has had 36 hours to settle. There's been a decent freeze and it's good walking. I follow a ridge of rock and snow. Pretty quickly it's too hot for the "warm" jacket. It's army surplus cotton canvas, with a fluffy acrylic liner and a hood. I bargained it down to $15, but then I only had $12.50, so I got it for that. There's no wind at all.

When the cloud comes in my optimism fades. But I look out at the weather and see if there's any real change. There isn't. When I'm in the sun it gets hot. I thought I was reasonably fit, and had a pretty good acclimatisation. But it's hard. I try to keep moving.

As it gets later in the morning the snow softens. I aim for the rocks. I jump up a few rocks at a time. Conserving momentum. It's more efficient. But after a few leaping steps my head spins. It goes black behind my eyes. The higher I get the worse it gets. After a while I decide to stick to a slow plod. There are some headaches. It could be altitude, or it might be dehydration. I'm used to drinking a lot of water. But I couldn't carry much up in my small bag. I spent yesterday afternoon refilling all the bottles from the running eves. But still, it's less than I would usually drink.

I get over the first shoulder and I can see further up the mountain. It's clear on top and there's a white puff. Volcanic smoke. That must be the top. Now when the sun comes out I sweat. I think about taking off the rain jacket, but the sun comes and goes too much to bother. From the top I'll look down into smoggy yellow Tehran to the South. And when the cloud shifts I'll look North across the gas rigs scattered on the gray Caspian.

Sunscreen and sweat

Snow and shivers

There's some icier patches and I think how much happier I would be with some stiff boots and an iceaxe. I must be getting pretty close. Snow starts to fall. There's been the odd snowflake before when I've been in cloud. This is graupel. It's a snowflake that has met super-cooled water, which has frozen on to the flake as rime ice, forming a sphere. 5mm diameter. Soft like snow, round like hail. They land and roll down hill, stopping in my footprints. It means there's convective winds. It may not be a good sign.

Thunder cracks hard above my head. Before it has finished rolling out I've taken two steps down. Thunder is not fair weather. In five minutes I'm back at the flattish spot where I'd stopped twenty five minutes earlier to eat a biscuit and answer natures call in the sunshine.

I'm in the sun again. It's 12:25. I was so close. I must have been 200m short. If I'd just started earlier. Or chosen a better route. Or had bigger balls. More thunder peels away my second-guessing. The sun is coming through a narrow shaft through layers of dark cloud. This has changed. It's not coming in and out. It's just coming in. The shaft closes, and I'm in thick cloud again. The graupel is heavier. There's wind now. It's time to get the hell out of here.

I put the army jacket on and replace the waterproof jacket. I put on the balaclava, folded as a hat. I pull on the waterproof trousers. My feet have been wet for hours, but I've been generating enough body heat for them to not get too cold. Now they will get cold. I pull cycling ankle socks onto my hands as thumbless mittens. I start down, following my tracks. The visibility is nothing. I have to track hard to keep in my footprints. Where I've gone over rocks there aren't prints. Each time I find tracks again is a relief.

The conditions are the same all the way to the hut. I recognise the changes in slope and features of rock and snow, so I know as I'm getting closer. Across the last snow slope I push big holes through the crust and sink up to my knees.

At the hut there's no water running off the eves. Too cold. Before I go inside I go down to the old hut to check for water. There's none.

I go in and change into my dry clothes. Two pairs of ankle socks, a pair of light slacks, two light shirts and a $12 army jacket. It's not the ideal clothing for waiting out a snowstorm in a stone hut at 4000m. It's only taken an hour to get down. I have a long afternoon in my coccoon of horse blankets.

I have found six blankets in the hut. Horse blankets. Horse blankets by weight. Horse blankets by greasy feel. Horse blankets by smell too if it was warm enough for smells to survive. I spend the afternoon in the coccoon, dividing the time between sunflower seeds and Koran. I take some photos, just for the activity.

My nest of horse blankets

The most prison-cell inspired mountain hut I've seen

At six p.m. it's lighter. I go out for a look. It isn't sunny, but the world has expanded from a 10m diameter. The snow has stopped. There isn't even a dimple left of my tracks.

I calculate the options for another attempt. With no stove, body heat is my only way to melt snow for water. And I don't have much of that to spare. Everything is wet. I can't get it dry. I can't start the climb wet. Today was the 21st. My Visa expires on the 25th. If I go down to regroup I'll have to cycle back to Tehran the way I came, or I won't have time to cycle at all. Neither of those sound good.

As the light fades I eat a chicken cassserole out of a foil-lidded foil tray. The Australians gave it to me. At least it's a change from bread and Tuna. I don't sleep all night. My left hip aches. I can't find a comfortable position. It's the weight of the blankets. On my back the weight pushes my feet down, twisting my leg in or out all the way to the hip. On my side the blankets crush my pelvis. I can't keep still. I need a hip replacement. I just want to sleep. Why won't it stop. Knowing it's the dehydration, not the hip, doesn't help. When there's light in the window I get a fitful couple of hours.

I finish the cream with bread. Pack and head out. I take the edge off the icy wet sock misery by leaving a pair of ankle socks on underneath. It's nice now. But the mountain has a lenticular cap. It's going to get messy up here. I'm going to the hot springs. Another good thing about volcanoes.

Damavand is under that lenticular cloud

Mountain style!

Cool rock shapes. Another good thing about volcanoes. As if you needed another one.

Mt Damavand - to Camp 3

2009-06-25T19:46:00.015+04:30

I'm on the road at quarter to six, well slept and breakfasted. There's some traffic already, but I've mapped the fastest way onto the expressway. It doesn't quite work. When I get there, there's no onramp in my direction. I stay with the city streets for a while longer until I find an entry. Then it's just a matter of grinding uphill. I noticed as soon as I was on the bike that the speedo wasn't working. I lost the magnet from my spoke somewhere in my bike shop travels. But it doesn't matter. This is a mountain stage. It's all about elevation.

Without speed and distance, the speedo just shows time. So I take off my watch. That's one less random tanline.

I go uphill for two hours, past truck after truck on the roadside selling watermelons. Then I plunge downhill hard for five minutes. There's no fun in it. I lose most of what I've gained. Then I grind on again for an hour and a half. Down for eight minutes, not as hard. Through a town. Still losing a lot. Then grinding up ugain.

This time it's the real climb. There's traffic banked up behind slow trucks in low gear. It looks like holiday traffic. The families and couples all stare and wave. They can't believe their eyes. It is rather insane.

Anger keeps me going on this hill. Anger at the road for not yielding. Anger at the pain. Anger at the weakness that lets me feel the pain. I won't stop. I will have this road. This mountain. I will eat them up. I will own them.

At two o'clock I jump over a concrete edge barrier for a leak. I have lunch. Sitting there on sharp stones, the concrete at my back seperating me from roaring traffic, I drift to sleep. It is siesta time. So I lie down, distributing my weight so no stone is too sharp. And sleep until 3:30.

Five more minutes on the bike and I'm into a tunnel. Then out and on the summit. There's shops and restaurants. I don't bother stopping. The down hill is huge. I'm on the brakes hard most of the way. There's traffic, so I don't get room to ride a good line, and the shoulders and corners are all loose stones. Again, there's no fun in it. It's just altitude wasted.

When the steepness relents there's a village, with a statue of a mountaineer. This is Polur. I ask directions to Reyneh. I get off the highway, and climb gently up. The slopes are lush green and there are cars stopped everywhere with people collecting wild herbs and bunches of red poppies. I round a corner and there's Damavand.

Kuh e Damavand

If I'd left Tehran when I planned to, this probably would have been my summit day. But equipment and bike repairs weren't the only things keeping me back. My bowel motion to meal ratio had been up at 1:1 for a couple of days. About 300% of optimal output. I had a day without eating, which put the bowel motion to day ratio back into the normal range, but didn't really help with bowel motion to meal. And when I started eating again it was still 1:1. That was yesterday. I thought I'd just ride today anyway. Maybe cycling is the cure.

A sign post arrives. It points up a dirt track. To Gosfand Sara, Mt Damavand Base Camp. It's after 6. If I'd bought food already I could have camped here and gone up tomorrow. Reyneh was supposed to be at this turnoff. But it's not. This is what the guy in Polur meant when he said I didn't have to go to Reyneh. Crap. Another downhill without fun. I'll be going back up this tomorrow.

In Reyneh I get a stack of bread from the bakery. There's some wierd communication about number of loaves and price. They're flat. Are they still loaves when they're flat? Anyway, I end up with 12. It's probably more than I need. At the grocery store I get more essentials. Tuna, dates and Digestives. I want nuts - serious energy, but the closest they have is sunflower seeds.

Since I'm in town I might as well stay off the bread diet for one more meal. I go into the restaurant. Amazingly they don't have kebabs. Or rice. Or anything really. It's more of a teahouse. I get meat and tomatos with bread. It's not what I want. I can't even bring myself to chew most of it, but I know I need the fuel, so I swallow it like medicine.

The guy is friendly. No English, but we chat. It's a little bit painful, but he looks up words in my phrasebook to ask questions. He invites me to stay at his house. It takes ten minutes with the phrasebook, and it's still mostly sign language. All I want to do now is sleep, and in the morning go up early. Maybe I'm too tired to find a tent site. Maybe I don't want to get back on the bike. Maybe it's because I know I'll be going back uphill. I don't know why. But I say yes.

I hang around the shop until it closes. I'm so tired. But people come and smoke Qalyan and drink tea and eat and want to talk. It kills me. I have to sleep. His wife and daughter leave when we arrive. Their house is only one room. I drink tea, for politeness, then I sleep at 11:30. Finally.

In the morning we go back to the shop for breakfast. The same customers are there, eating the same thing: dizi. That's what they call it here, but I would call it ab-gusht. It's popular. I'll explain another time. It's ten before I get going. It takes me one muttering hour to get back up to the dirt track.

Before I go up I stop for bread and dates. Two cars try to go up the track but they get stuck in the first 50 metres and have to reverse down out of the ruts. I start riding in the low gears, avoiding the ruts and rocks, and the track gets better after the first bit. I enjoy it.

Still enjoying it.

There's a fork. I take the one with signs, even though they're in Farsi. After a couple of minutes there's a car in the road, and the man and woman are out talking to a shepherd. I go over to ask if this is the right way to Gosfand Sara. As I ask it starts to spit. It is the right way. By the time we are at the road again it is hail.

They invite me to sit in the car with them. I eat watermelon and wait for the shower to pass. Thunder starts. After two vast pieces of melon, it's clearly not passing. I'm going to go. They say it's three kilometres further. Outside the car the visibility is down to condition 1. Less than 10m. And there's contrast here, it's not just all white. The lady gives me cucumbers. Then a carton of cream. I don't get a jacket out. It's raining too heavy. By the time I did that everything in my bag would be saturated. More of a rainy sleet.

I ride about twenty metres, then the wheels spin. I can't start again. The dust has turned to slush. I try to push the bike. The bike slips sideways into a rut. When I get one wheel straight the other slips. when I get both wheels straight the trailer goes sideways. I push. The tyres are huge donuts of mud. The brakes acquire mud until they are so clotted the wheels won't turn. I push at it with my fingers but I can't get ot off. I free enough for the wheels to tun. I push. The wheels haven't revolved once and they stop turning again. I push. The trailer doesn't track. It's slides at an angle to the bike across the sloping road. I push. The trailer is a plow. I'm freezing. I get the bike up onto the grass. It's not really grass. It's tufts of vegetation and rocks with the same mud in between. It's no better. It's so cold. I'll never get there like this. I have to leave the bike. I wrestle the bag off the trailer and onto my shoulder. I should lock the bike. But I can't get the key. I should leave the lock unlocked for moments like this. I slide and slip up the track. A momentary gap in the cloud shows me a golden spire above. I know I'm going to make it. It still takes forever to get there, numb, through thick cloud, hail, rain sleet and peeling thunder.

When I walk into the compound, I can barely see most of it in the gloom. Inside a doorway there's maybe ten men cowering in the dark. They've come off Damavand today. I put my things down in a corner and start looking for dry clothes and a towel. I'm given tea. A guy comes in, he's from the Mountaineering Federation. If there's anything I need, ask him. Is there a shower? He looks at me like I'm an idiot. What do they have? Well, nothing. Is there a toilet? Everywhere is toilet. It's better behind a rock.

I wash the mud off my arms and legs under the icy torrent from the eves. I change into dry clothes. I'm given tea. I don't really warm up. Groups come off the mountain most of the afternoon, and the cars disappear from the compound, until I'm the only one left cowering in the dark.

Afternoon view from the shelter at Gusfand Sara, Damavand Base Camp.

I'm glad when it get's dark, because I can get into my sleeping bag. My ultra-lite sleeping bag. It's a horrible damp penetrating cold. With silk liner, bivvy bag and all my clothes it takes most of the night to stop freezing.

I'm glad when it gets light because it means I can get up and start moving. Generate some body heat. There's no rain. The cloud layer is just below and above is Damavand. There's a lot of new snow.

I head down into the cloud to retrieve the bike. Hoping it's still there. It is.

In the hour it takes to get back to base camp, the cloud has risen. I decide to wait. I spend most of the morning sitting on a piece of cardboard in the doorway eating sunflower seeds. Husking them with my mouth.

Damavand in the morning. Compare snow cover with day before.

Right where I left her

The cloud beats me back to Base Camp

When I've eaten a whole packet of sunflower seeds, I decide it's time to get stuck into that Koran I've been towing around for two months. In my sleeping bag.

I'm asleep when the Australians arrive. I met them in Esfahan. It sounded like we would be here at about the same time. I didn't expect to see them today. They walked in. They have a guide. They're going to head up.

I decide to go with. There's no wind. No rain. Just cloud. With a guide who knows the way it will be fine. I pack. I pay the Mountaineering Federation guy the summit fee. I'm ready. They're not going up. They're going to go down for three days, then come back. I need to be back in Tehran then to extend my visa. This is my window. In an hour or two I'll pop out above the cloud into glorious sunshine. They're not convinced. They're paying for a guide so they may as well listen to him. But now I want to go up. I've talked myself into it. The Mountaineering Federation guy says the hut is easy to find. I go up.

I love the mountains in the cloud. It's good to be moving. The track is well worn. With the fresh snow and low visibility I have to scout around in a couple of places. They said it takes four hours. Some people more, some people less. In 3 and a half I see the hut. I'm happy with that.

Camp 3: the new shelter

Looking down from the new shelter. The old shelter and, more importantly, the cloud layer.

I'm right about the cloud too. I'm happier with that. I spend the evening sitting in the sun. I'm still freezing mostly, but the sun feels better. I like it better up here at 4000m in the snow than down at 2950 in the mud.

Filling in time with sunflower seeds. Lucky I had practice husking them with my teeth, because I can't feel my hands.

Tehran....... abridged. For now.

2009-06-25T17:52:00.008+04:30

I spend 10 nights in Tehran. I arrive on the 8th. Birthday on the 9th. Election on the 12th. They announce the results on the 13th. There's some unrest on the night of the 14th. Protests start on the 15th. I leave town on the 18th.

The day after my birthday I spend getting the trailer fixed. It's structure relies on a steel rod which is under-engineered. I'm in the right neighbourhood. I get a heavy washer welded onto the rod to stop it bending under load. I also want to get two replacement rods made, but the shop I saw yesterday that sells steel is closed. In the afternoon I go to the geographic institute for better maps. Tehran and Iran.

It's near the university. I watch the pre-election buzz. Then I walk up through Park-e Laleh to the Carpet Museum. There's some pretty sweet carpets. I'm only there 30 minutes before they close. It's enough. Then I walk to the Artists Collective and Vegetarian Cafe. I ask for a recommendation, something Iranian. It's suggested that the meatballs are very good. Not really as vegetarian as I had in mind. I go with a cuckoo sandwhich and pasta salad. It's not a bird. It's like an omlette with greens, but more greens than omlette.

The hotel guest book has an entry from a cycle tourist, recommending two bicycle shops. The adresses are more like approximate locations. Vague would be a generous description. I find the first one, in affluent North Tehran. I ring the buzzer. They are closed today, maybe open Saturday. What time? Maybe 9am.

A couple of minutes later I go back and ring the buzzer. Do you have 700 x 35c Tyres? 700 x 23? No. 700 x 35. I don't think so. Maybe my colleague knows when he is here. OK, I'll come back Saturday. Today is Thursday. The weekend is Thursday and Friday, but everything is usually open Thursday.

Back in my neighbourhood of cheap hotels, tyre shops and motorcycle mechanics, the steel shop is open. I buy a rod and find a machinist to cut threads. Then I get washers and nuts. The streets are quiet. There is no campaigning the day before the election.

Friday is the election. Nothing is open. It's pretty quiet. I post some blog.

Saturday, back at the cycle shop, they have 700 x 38c tyres. I don't know if they'll fit. I go back to the hotel and get a wheel. They fit. But the tubes are American Valves, the same as car tyres. I have European valves, which are higher pressure and narrower. Their tubes don't fit my rims. I take two tyres, but leave the tubes. I go to try and find the other bike shop but I can't find it.

I spend Sunday on a more concerted effort to find the bike shop. It has to be here somewhere. I ask directions everywhere. I'm sent, literally, in circles. The bike shop doesn't exist. Back at the hotel I slump on the counter defeated. Somewhere there must be a whole street full of bike shops? It's a block away. It's evening, but they should still be open. I ask in the 6 shops, but none of them have anything like 700c tyres. One of them suggests Meydan-e Razi. I heard it yesterday when I was asking around.

Monday, I go to Meydan-e Razi (Razi square). It's full of bike shops. There's too many to ask in all of them, but I ask in dozens of the better looking ones. They have 700 x 17 and 700 x 23. racing tyres. Everything else is mountain bike sizes. So, now I know it's not possible to get what I need in Iran.

It's about 3 and I'm back at the hotel. A couple of the journalists are in the lobby. They've heard there's going to be a demonstration at Enqelab Square at 4. They're not sure if they're going to go. I decide to go out to Azadi Square to see the monument/tower thing that is quite famous here. It turns out that the Azadi stop on the metro is half way between Enqelab and Azadi. The demonstrators are going from Enqelab to Azadi.

I stop for dinner on the way home, and see a couple of journalists for the hotel there. They get take away, so they can get back and file reports. I stay and eat. When I come out it's dark. There are frightening people in riot gear. I make a friend going the same direction and we navigate a way back to my side of town. I am pretty happy to be back at the hotel.

Tuesday I get boots, socks, a backpack and a jacket for going to Mt Damavand. In the evening, the mountains look clearer than I've seen. From the roof of the hotel I see the white pyramid above the brown mountains. Well, more of a sepia through the smog, but I knew it was supposed to be white. The weather is good. I'll go tomorrow, with the tubes I've got. They should be ok with the new tyres. I change to the new tyres and pack. When I'm going to bed at 11:30 one of the tyres is flat. I won't be going tomorrow.

On Wednesday I go back a fourth time and buy 6 new tubes. Then I find a workshop with a drill and drill out my rims so the valves will fit. Late afternoon I go to the National Museum to see some of the artefacts from Persepolis and other ancient sites. They have some of the better carvings, and an entire section of stone stairway. But it's small, so it doesn't take long. It's too late for the Museum of the Islamic Period next door. I go back to the hotel, pack, and have an early night.

Those who keep abrest of current affairs may notice a lack of detail on some topics in this post. These may be filled in at a later date. Like when I'm not in Iran.

2278 to Tehran

2009-06-09T21:04:00.006+04:30

I may have covered hard days on the bike in previous blogs, so perhaps I will skip over it this time. Suffice it to say: In Qom, every time I left the hotel for a felafel and returned, walking up the two floors to patch more tubes, my legs felt like stone. They weren't feeling much better on the 130km to Tehran. It was only a run of the mill hard day. Nothing exceptional.

I take the toll road. It is a good choice. There is a no motorcycle sign when the road starts. Not a no bicycle sign. No annoying motorcyclists wanting to chat when I'm suffering. That's good. Also, tolls mean no trucks, and none of the crappy local buses, so no huge clouds of filthy black diesel smoke. Less traffic altogether.

Imam Khomeini Airport, one of Tehran's two international airports, is 30km South of the city. From there on, there are billboards for Swiss watches. Fancy billboards. On curved pedestals clad in aluminium panels. With flood lighting. Who is buying all these Swiss watches? How many watches does each billboard need to sell to pay for itself?

There are police with speed lasers every 10 or 20km. When someone is too fast, they wave them to stop. 10km out of Tehran the policeman is waving. A car passes. He's still waving. There's no more cars in my mirror. I turn and look back. No cars. He's standing on the white line. He has white gloves. Right hand palm towards me, fingers up. Left hand palm towards me, fingers horizontal, pivoting from the wrist, up and down. I point a finger to my chest. He nods his peaked cap. By now I'm right on him, so I squeeze the brakes. My tyre stops just short of his polished toe.

I start. A salaam ashi. Chetori? We exchange politenesses. We run through the usual things in Farsi. From New Zealand. Tourist. Bandar-e-Lengeh, Shiraz, Yazd, Esfahan, Gom. Going to Tehran insh'allah. I am alone. Engineer. Single.

Then we start on other topics, which I'm less familiar with, so I do a lot of guessing. You can't ride a bicycle on this road. Motorbikes are not allowed. It is only for cars. I ride here on the shoulder. There are no cars here. It's good. Okay? Passport. Yes. Show me your passport. Okay. I get off the bike. I get him to hold it. Then I crouch at the trailer and painstakingly start undoing buckles. Buckle. It only takes one and he can't be bothered. Okay. Okay? You can go. Thank you. Goodbye.

The distances signposted are not to the centre of a destination. They are to the edge. So when I reach the distance where Tehran should be, the toll booths are lined up. There are queues. If there's one thing a bike is good for, it's skipping traffic queues. I ride footpaths through the park and rejoin the road on the freedom side of the toll booths. That's 10 cents the regime doesn't get out of me.

There are offramps and overpasses. Time for a city map. I stop and pull out my guidebook. This is way outside the scope. The signs indicate expressways with names that don't feature in the book. A ute pulls over, and the driver calls to me through the window. I tell him bazaar markazi - central market - he says a bunch of things and drives off.

I'm riding again when another car pulls me over to give me directions I don't understand. With the third car I realise they've been asking me for directions. They must be desperate.

There are mountains to the North, running East to West, so I have orientation. Then I see a tower. It's on my map. I still have no sense of scale, but I know roughly the direction I should be going in. I've been warned about the traffic in Tehran. But it's not that bad. Actually, the expressways are better cycling than roads in other cities. Sure, there's still a car parked on a blind corner, the driver out, fiddling with his wiper blade, even though there's no prospect of rain. And it's common practice to just stop in the lane while you're deciding whether to take the exit. Or reverse hundreds of metres to a missed exit. Or do a u-turn and drive off an on-ramp. So I'm one of the more minor hazards for drivers to avoid.

I follow my nose to about where I want to be. Off the expressway, it's just regular city traffic. The first hotel has no single rooms. They won't give me a double room at a single rate, or even a discount. I carry on to the cheap hotel area. I've been on the bike 10 hours. I've been in the city an hour and a half. My trailer has been nudged by cars twice. I wish I had that flag. I go into the first hotel I see.

They don't have single rooms available. We start to negotiate. This hotel is very good. It is Lonely Planet's "Our Pick." Stupid Lonely Planet. In each city they recommend a hotel in each price range as "Our Pick" and every tourist in town goes there. And they are the same as every other hotel. Actually, they're worse because with all the business they've hiked up the prices and they don't need to negotiate. I've been trying to avoid them since Shiraz. Now, not only do I stumble into one, but the hotelier uses it as a negotiating point. I don't care what Lonely Plant recommends. This hotel is exactly the same as every hotel in this street. Are you going to give me the room at a single price or not? I get a room.

The next day is my birthday. My main objective for the day is to eat nothing but cake. Fortunately, I'm reminded in time that fruit and icecream are also part of the cake foodgroup. I spend most of the day fulfilling the objective while watching BBC World and CNN.

Birthday lunch........ and dinner.

Qom for a Felafel

2009-06-09T21:03:00.036+04:30

Qom is the Las Vegas of Iran. It's brimming with neon, hedonism and it goes all night long. But there's only religious hedonism on offer here. Shia Muslims come from far and wide, well, from Afghanistan and the Arab nations, to visit the Shrine of Fatameh. Inside, there are tears and sobbing men, people pressing their faces and bodies to the tomb, some are writhing against it, trying to touch every part of their body to the glass and silver, there's much prostration and praying, kissing of door jambs, and pushing of money into the tomb. The tomb itself is an enclosure of silver and glass over a marble tombstone, lit green and draped in cloth and fake flowers. Through the narrow slots, pilgrims push money, so the tombstone is almost buried in drifts of banknotes.

And why all this? After the death of Mohammad, Shias believe the line of succession was passed to a series of descendents, 12 of them, known as Imams (translated loosely as leader or saint). Sunni Muslims do not follow the 12 Imams, and that is the major schism of Islam that remains today. The eighth Imam, Imam Reza, is interred at Mashhad, the holiest site in Iran for Shias. Fatameh is the Sister of Imam Reza, and her tomb forms the second most holy site in Iran.

The golden dome under which sits the tomb of Fatameh.

Anyway, that's all very interesting, but I was more interested in the felafel. I had heard that felafel was on offer here, catering to the Arab pilgrims, and as dedicated readers will know, food that does not involve an impaled carcass singed over coals, comes as a great relief. Felafel is not traditional Persian fare, but, being the middle east, I was hoping for good things. Disappointment, dear readers. Disappointment. Iranians do felafel the way they do all imported foods. In a word: not well.

Felafel is all I ate in Qom. Trying a different felafel stand at every meal, and at some meals, trying three different felafel stands. Of course they were all almost the same. The typical presentation is this: Three felafel balls mashed with a fork (why? why the mashing?) into a long white roll, topped with longways cut gherkins and tomato, wrapped in paper. I'm not certain that the felafel balls actually contained chick peas. Patrons would then stand crammed into the tiny store to sprinkle chilli powder or tip a brownish-yellow sauce on as they ate. The sauce came from a drum (I saw one shop refilling their containers) and resembled satay sauce, but without the peanuts or chillies.

I grew to appreciate the subtle differences. Paper wrap finished with a twisting flourish. Felafel balls fresh out of the oil, not sitting there cold for who knows how long. A more generous allocation of gherkin or tomato. A roll a little less stale. Occasionally I was shocked by a substandard delivery. Only two felafel balls. Charging 400 instead of 300 toman (that's 40 and 30 cents US. Looks like you get what you pay for sometimes eh?). The guy who pecked out the soft inside of the roll with his fingernails (I'm guessing this is what comprised the next batch of felafel).

But my highest salutation is reserved for the only true innovator. The guy who added lettuce.

Perhaps the Zionist regime has something going for it after all. Hell, at least it wasn't a skewered and charred dead thing.

Nomad Country

2009-06-09T21:03:00.031+04:30

It's a long time since I was on the bike. I've missed it. Sitting down there, lonely in the hotel courtyard. I spent the day after I renewed my visa giving it its 30 day service. It's rearing to go.

We don't leave town early. I see the palace I've been too late for three times in the morning. Then pack slowly and ride back to Jolfa, the Armenian Quarter after 12. I have two important stops there. First bike store. Then restaurant.

The bike store is a long shot. I've already tried twice. The first time I walked past I saw the flag. I went in. It's the same type as the flag I lost from the trailer. Only it's even better. It's white and it says Giggle in pink and purple bubble letters on both sides. The guy wouldn't sell it to me and I couldn't understand why.

I go back later, I have to wait for the shop to reopen after the afternoon siesta. I want to buy the flag. I can't understand his reply. You don't sell the flag? No, I don't sell it. For a million Toman you don't sell the flag. More long explanation I don't understand. Grrrrrr!

This time it's not open. I give up. I go to the restaurant for another mountain of Bogali Pulau. Rice with dill and broad beans. No meat. It's $1.80. It's really good.

Now it's after 3 and I follow the river out of town. River bed I should say. No busy roads. First I'm going through parks, then it turns into vegetable plots and orchards. Up ahead I see the Ateshkadeh, the Zoroastrian fire temple, on top of a hill. It's one of the attractions I haven't seen yet. When The hill comes adjacent I turn away from the river, and pass several old pigeon towers. Before agrichemicals, these towers housed , I don't know, millions probably, of pigeons, whose manure was collected for fertiliser. Now they are empty.

Ateshkadeh, further up river.

Abandoned pigeon tower

Before climbing the hill to the Ateshkadeh for the evening views, I visit the Shaking Minarets 2km down the road. This unspectacular 14th Century tomb is world famous in Iran, and is probably one of the most over-rated tourist attractions on the planet. Every hour, an attendant climbs into the top of one of the minarets, and with feet and hands planted against the window frames, starts to rock the minaret backwards and forwards. The bells suspended from the wooden frame start to ring. When the minaret really gets going, the other minaret begins to wobble too, and it's bells ring slightly. It's underwhelming.

The Ateshkadeh is much better. A steep climb up the bald dusty rock gives cool breezes and views of Esfahan sprawling in every direction. The sprawl carries on to include Najaf Abad, 30km west. The light starts to fade on top of the Atashkadeh. I need to get out of town before it gets too dark.

Shaking minarets

View of Esfahan from the Ateshkadeh

I ride west on the main road and it's on dark as I get to Najaf Abad. I go down main street instead of the bypass looking for something to eat. By the time I've eaten it's fully dark. Now I want to just get out of town to find a spot to camp.

Not a lot of tourists come through here. I'm followed by boys on motorbikes asking questions. Some of them are very persistent. Where am I going? It's worse when I don't really know where I'm going. They have zero English. It seems like I'm invited to eat or sleep. But I'm wary of invitations from big groups of boys in big towns in the dark. Eventually I leave them behind, and exhausted from it, I find my way through the town to the highway. I find a dusty spot to camp, hidden from the highway behind a steel water tower lying on it's side.

I'm away when the light comes at half past five. I stay off the highway, riding the dirt roads that parallel it until they run out. After 20 kilometres there's a town. I stock up on bread, biscuits, water, tuna. I have nuts already. 20 more kilometres there's a village and I turn north. It's 35 kilometres of sealed road to Dehaq, then who knows after that. The map says there's tracks going North, but it's accuracy has not been too reliable. Still, yesterday I didn't have the map out. Somehow I like having a map better, even when it's wrong.

I stop for morning tea in the shady plantations of a village. A couple of boys spot me and come to talk. It doesn't take long to exhaust our mutual language and they leave. I'm still there when they come back with another friend. This time I leave. The temperatures are still pleasant. There's hardly any traffic. It's great riding.

Morning tea spot

When I get to Dehaq the streets are quiet. Today is the anniversary of Ayatollah Khomeini's death. Black flags hang from the lamp posts as I arrive. Dehaq is a big town but at 12:30 it's deserted. I roll through without seeing anyone and find a spot onder some trees for lunch and a siesta. I get going again around 3.

A few kilometres out of town is a power station. The road disappears. A guard comes out to see me. A dirt track goes around the power station, and I ask him if it goes to Hasan, the town shown on the map. He doesn't know the name. He says the road is closed. I ask about the other towns. He doesn't know them. Delijan? It's a bigger size dot on the main Esfahan-Tehran highway 100km North. He points back to Dehak, then I turn off there. to the highway. I'm not going back. I persist with the dirt road. Closed, why? Ashphalt nist. Motor nist. People nist. It sounds perfect. I refill my water bottles, and head up the dirt track as the guards shakes his head.

It has to go somewhere, there's powerlines. Five minutes later the powerlines end at a tin shed in a barbed wired compound. A pumping station probably. Then there's just a dirt road heading straight North.

I cross the flat then up over a line of hills and down into another flat mountain basin. It's great riding. I love being on the bike and out on my own. At the next hill crossing the road goes straight up a gully. A few gullies over there are sheep bells and shepherds whistles as three horsemen herd a flock up through the rocks.

On the top, the sheep are wandering across the road. I wait for a while, but it could be a long time before the nomads come past, so I carry on down into the next basin.

A tiny dust plume ahead shows a vehicle coming this way. By the time I can tell it's a car, I've decided I don't want a human interaction spoiling my solitude. I pull off the road and behind a mound to have a drink while the car passes.

I'm still in the same basin when I decide it's time to stop. It's 6:30 so it's been a long day. But it hasn't felt like it. I take the bike off the road and set up camp behind a mound. Occasionally sounds of nomads drift in on the wind. A sheep bell. A whistle. A voice. I scour the slopes but I can't see anything. The sky is the clearest it could be. The stars are the brighter than I've ever seen. It's high and dry and dark. Later the full moon comes up. It's a beautiful night.

In the morning a wisp of smoke rising out of a fold in the valley reveals the nomad camp. Completely hidden. I'm ready to go at 5:30 but the front tyre is flat. I've ridden through a storm of glass. It takes until 7:30 to pick the glass splinters out of the tyres with the tip of my pocket knife. I ride up the next lot of hills and see the valley below. First there's a big fenced compound square in the middle of the road. Something to do with the radar station on top of the ridge. I don't want to find out. Then further ahead is the next village and the East-West road junction.

I come down the hill, and off the road before I get to the compound. It's early enough that there could be nobody around but I don't want to risk it. The compound is on top of a small hill. I stay far enough below the brow to be out of sight. When I'm past I come back to the dirt road and carry on down into the basin. The East-West road is sealed. I cross it and continue North on the dirt. The junction is to the side of the village, so I pass around the back, seeing only a couple of shepherds. My back wheel is flat. I missed a piece of glass. Now there are also a few thorns from the brief offroad as well. Now It's 9:30 and I've come about 5km, but it's not frustrating. It just seems like a thing to do. Part of it.

I carry on, climbing now, around the side of the hills. I can see the Tehran highway in the valley below, but I avoid it as long as I can. There's wobbling from the trailer. The tyre is flat. I hadn't even checked it. Totally neglected the little workhorse. I pick the glass out of the tyre and repair the tube.

It's hot now, and soon I'll be out of dirt road, so I stop for lunch and a siesta in a mud walled orchard. There's rose bushes and nut trees. I can't really sleep with the flies and the ants, but it's a good rest.

I start riding again around 3 and I'm quickly back on the highway, running through a narrow valley. It's fast on the seal and I race into Delijan. I refill my water bottles eat a couple of icecreams and get through the town. Out the other side I'm back on dirt roads. The map shows a track through the mountains to Qom, passing through a place called Neaufle-le-Chateau which sounds too good to miss.

The wheat fields are crisscrossed with dirt tracks. There's no single obvious track. So I zig zag my way North and up. The other tracks fade and I might have the right one. It traverses the side of a lone mountain. I stop before it turns back down to the valley. I look for clues. I take some photos. There are great storm clouds.

Nothing like a candid snap to capture the mood of the moment.

A car passes in the distance. Quick enough to be a reasonable road, but still dirt says the dust cloud. I watch where it disappears into a fold in the mountains. That's the clue I needed. But it's going to be cross country to get to that dirt road. Most of the stream beds and gullies run east west, but there's a bulldozed creek bed that will take me to the road. Just have to cross a few gullies to get there. I head down into the gullies. Up one. Down one. Up another. Down another. It's too loose and steep to ride. I'm pushing the bike. The place is mad with crickets. All sizes. All colours. Leaping everywhere.

I'm at the bottom of one gully and I hear motorbikes. They come to a stop on the track. The same place I stopped. They'll definitely see me. I'm red and flouro yellow. They're looking. Then the motors are revving and they are coming down. I push the bike up into the creek bed. I can't outrun them, but if I can just get far enough maybe they won't find me. I jump on and try to ride but it's loose stones. I get off, and push the bike again, breathing hard. Then I hear the engines. they're in the creek bed. I push the bike up the side. At least I'll have high ground. No sign of the road.

The first motorbike comes around the corner of the creek bed and rides up next to me. He says hello and asks where I'm from. He has dark stubble all the way up to his hard eyes. Strong shoulders. We start talking. He wonders what the heck I'm doing out here. I tell him my friends are waiting for me at the road, I decided to come the long way. I'm still sizing things up when the next guy comes running around the corner with a watermelon under one arm and a thermos of tea under the other. Followed by the second motorbike. It's hard to be concerned about a group of guys out on a picnic.

I stay for tea and watermelon. The first guy, Essy, speaks a bit of English. They're members of NA. Narcotics Anonymous. It's starting to get dark. I take my leave and keep heading for the road.
Mohammad Reza, Essy and Mahman, chased me cross country to share their picnic. That's hospitality.

It's 8:30 when I get to the track. I drop back down into the gully and put up the tent.It's been another long day. A good day. The storm clouds look like rain but I doubt it.

It does spit a few drops in the night, but not enough to get through the tent. Can't have been much then.

I sleep till 7:30. Take my time packing up. I'm on the road at 9. Sitting on the road. Tyres are flat. All of them. A few thousand years of grazing has left this vegetation well armed with thorns. The tyres are filled with them. It takes me until 12 to ease out all of the prickles. I'm all out of spare tubes, and getting low on patches. The tyres are destroyed.

The place I sit all morning picking out thorns and patching tubes. The hill at the back was where the last track was. I went cross country in between. Looks flat. That's how it looked from the hill too.

Finally I get going. After a kilometer the back tyre is flat. I pump it up again and hope it will stay up. I watch it all the time and it keeps air. I take the road up into the fold of the mountains but there's no pass. No way through.

It's hot again. I follow the road along the base of the mountains. A lot of up and down on steep loose dust and stone tracks. I'm walking on the up hills. On the downs I'm braking, trying to protect the tyres. One of the ups is so steep I take one step, plant my feet and pull the bike up towards me, then take another step. I gain a foot at a time. This is when I start cramping. 1pm. I haven't been mixing salt and sugar into my water. I got lazy. Now I suffer for it. My forearm cramps when I hold the seat. My hip flexor cramps as I pull the bike up. The last two days have been pure fun. Funtime's over. I reach the top and roll down. Walking up the next rise both quads are cramping. I continue up and down until one up reveals a village on the other side. I go down into the village and up the other side, again pulling the bike up loose dirt tracks one step at a time.

Surprise village

Then I have a choice. The road left will take me to the ridge then probably down to the highway. Surrender. The road right will take me down into a valley, with a stream, and it looks like the road might go through a pass at the head of the valley. I go down. I've started coming up towards the head of the valley when a car comes. The road is a dead end. There is a factory in 1km, then finished. Nothing. They suggest I wash my face in the stream. My hands are black with bike grime. My face probably is too. I take their advice and stop for lunch. It's the last of my food. I'm on my last bottle of water. It's 3 already, so I can't stop for too long.

Going back up the hill I just came down is demoralising. I'm walking. Then I'm past the fork and ride to the top of the ridge. I give the back tyre more air and head down. It's sealed. In 20 minutes I'm back on the highway. 24 hours of cross country wiped out in 20 minutes.

Now I slog it out to Qom. The road follows a river downstream. Should be easy. Of course not. The back tyre goes flat. I put the spare tyre on but there's too much traffic noise. I can't hear a leak. So I just put the same tube back in unpatched. From here there's a ridge ahead. Clouds of dust blow across the road. I climb slow. Then it undulates. Then it climbs again, long and slow. I'm shifting from side to side in the saddle to change the degree to which each calf is cramping.

Now there's a long slow downhill, but there's a headwind. Then the seal disintegrates and I'm dodging potholes and cracks. It's slow and painful. I'm pumping the tyre every hour. At 8 I'm on the edge of the city. It's bigger than I expect. There's neon everywhere. It takes until 9:30 to get into a hotel.

Three 12 hour plus days in a row. The first two were because I was having so much fun. The third one wasn't. Time for a rest day.

Esfahan

2009-06-09T21:02:00.020+04:30

As Esfahan approaches the road gets thicker with trucks from the brick works and gravel yards. A truck laden with bricks pulls in front of me from a side road. I don't have to brake, but I ease off the pedals. Then I pedal on again to put my front tyre under the trucks brake light. We work up through the gears together. At 55 on a slight uphill the truck crosses to the left lane and I let it go, back to my usual place on the shoulder.

Three hours for 95 km takes me to Esfahan. It's my best run so far. Then there's another hour working my way through the traffic to the hotel district. The traffic gives me some consideration for my novelty value, but it still needs intense concentration. There's generally two lanes of moving traffic, and the suicide lane. The suicide lane is the lane nearest the edge where taxis and busses pick up passengers, cars double park, pedestrians loiter and walk out without looking, motorcycles ride in the wrong direction, car doors fly open, cars reverse hundreds of metres at high speed, cars u-turn irrespective of oncoming traffic. Riding in it is a paradox: to get anywhere, you have to ride like you own the road; to survive long enough to get anywhere you have to be ultra-defensive.

The next day my visa expires. I have to renew it at the Department of Aliens Affairs. There is a small notice pinned to a board at the hotel listing the requirements. I have gathered the photocopies of passport pages and passport photos. I go to the bank to make the deposit and get the receipt. I hope the account number is correct. I hope it's the right amount. I could go the the Aliens Affairs office first to check, but it'll waste a lot of time. I risk it.

It's across town to the Aliens Affairs office, and it takes a while to find the non-descript building. The security office take my camera on the way in. Inside the compound I'm directed to a window on the back side of the gate house. The uniformed officer looks at my passport, then sends me to a man on the second floor. I ask around till I find the right office, then this man looks at my passport and directs me back to the first man. Don't I need to fill in some forms? Oh yes, get them from this man. There's a small booth in the corner of the courtyard where I get a folder listing the application requirements (I have them all) and the forms to complete. Back at the first window the officer checks my paperwork, staples various pieces together, stamps everything, then sends me back upstairs to give it to Mrs whatsername. Come back in two hours.

I wait in the courtyard. After an hour and a half I go back upstairs. I've only just positioned myself against the door jamb when an officer walks through, sees me and says New Zealand. He wants me to follow. He takes me to an office. The guy behind the desk has enough brass on his jacket to rivet a steam engine. He's friendly, he asks about my trip. Do I have photos? They took my camera on the way in. I will go and get it. Is there a problem? No problem. He sends me down to the gatehouse with another officer to bring back my camera. We're up to Persepolis when a suited man enters the office and I'm dismissed.

I lurk at the office of the grumpy woman as other people harangue her with visa problems. She resolutely ignores me. After 15 minutes she tells me my visa is ready to collect from the first guy I was sent to upstairs. He takes my folder from the stack, dates and signs the visa extension stamps and I'm on my way. It's only taken the morning.

Back at the hotel there's a tall bespectacled man with a briefcase waiting in the lobby. He is hoping to find a native English speaker to take to his university class. I arrange to meet him here at 3.

We take a series of shuttle taxis to the edge of town. These are the taxi's that drive along major roads, so you just get in and out wherever you need to. Basically, they're the world's smallest buses. Seven taxis later we're not at Esfahan University, we're at some little institute of a few hundred students. The class has started and we slide into the back row. It's all adult students. They're learning when to use "a" or "an." A horse. An hour.

Behnoud puts up his hand. "Bebakshid" this time louder "Bebakshid!" Now that the whole class has turned around he's proudly announcing where he found me and offering me to read a passage to the class. It's not prearranged. It sounded like the teacher was expecting us but he's not. Behnoud seems to be angling for some extra credit. Now it seems slightly embarassing. I go to the front and introduce myself. There's maybe 60 students. I read a passage from the textbook. I restart twice. This time louder. This time slower. The passage is about village life in Ghana, and a dish called fufu. It says fufu in every sentence, sometimes twice. It's ridiculous. I get applause when I finish.

Class is over. I go with Behnoud to the Dean's office and she orders us tea. Then we go into a tutorial. It's the same teacher. There's about 30 students in a small classroom. I stand at the front and they ask me questions. About my trip. About New Zealand. Do you know who Mr Ahmadenijad is? Of course. Do you like Mr Ahmadenijad? Do YOU like Mr Ahmadenijad. Are you married. Would you like to take an Iranian wife back to New Zealand? That may be difficult on a bicycle.

We leave after half an hour. We get a bus back to the city centre. I almost follow the woman waiting at the curb with us in the back door, but the back is for women. It's separated by railing. I haven't seen anything in Esfahan yet, so I walk and talk with Behnoud through Imam Square and to the River and bridges until late in the evening.

Esfahan is famous for it's historic bridges. The river banks on both sides are parks and the bridges act as pedestrian thoroughfares and hang-out areas.

Imam square is surrounded by Bazaar and houses two of the most beautiful mosques and the Ali Qapu Palace. Jameh Mosque is also a fantastic example. I hang out in treed avenues and parks. Talk to the random people who approach me. Visit the cathedrals of the Armenian quarter. Before I know it I've been here nine days and I have to go.

Si o Seh Pol (Bridge of 33 Arches) built at the turn of the 17th Century.

Si o Seh Pol

Chubi Bridge (Mid 17th Century)

Avenues of Esfahan

Imam Square. Yes, touristy as.

Jameh Mosque. Built from the 12th Century onward, this part is 15th Century.

Inside the dome of Imam Mosque. There's a polished slab for stamping your foot and the echoes just keep ringing.

Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque

Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque

Imam Mosque

Ceiling detail from Ali Qapu Palace. For the acoustics apparently.

It's a pity there's no water in the river (the earlier photo with reflections is from a large stagnant puddle). According to people I met the government has sold the water to other countries or sent it to other cities for urban water supplies and irrigation.

Toudeshk

2009-05-27T12:24:00.020+04:30

I find internet in the evening at Ardakan, and email to the homestay I'm heading for tomorrow. I might make it there tomorrow. Or I might only make it to Nain. Nain is 110km along the edge of the desert. Then I turn west and go over the mountains to Toudeshk. Maybe 50km. That will take me from green to yellow to light brown to dark brown contours on the map.

I'm just finishing eating bread and watermelon for dinner when the phone rings. It's the man from Toudeshk. He is in Ardakan. At my hotel. I go down and talk to him. He won't be there, but I will stay with his brother's family. His brother doesn't speak much English but if there is any problem I can call him.

I'm away at 5:30 and the desert drifts by. I'm in my own world. I don't notice anything for six hours. Not even the milestones that are usually big excitement. Distance signs, and towns that are actually on the map are minor ones. Crossing between provinces is big. There is a dashed black line with yellow highlighting, and there's normally some big green signs, all Farsi. I've crossed from Yazd into Esfahan without seeing it. Turning a page on the map is big. One day I crossed a corner of a page and had to refold the map twice. That was a good day. Today I cross from the southern half into the northern half. I cut the map in two so the north wasn't completely worn out before I even got there. Round numbers on the odometer are the best. When I rolled over 1000 kilometres I didn't even look at the road for 800 metres. Today I pass 1500 and 1600km without realising.

It takes Nain to bring my head back to the bike. I curve around west of the town on the bypass flyovers. Third exit to Esfahan. Stopping in Nain never enters my mind. I loop 270 degrees under the flyover and there's nothing beyond, just heat and haze all the way to the mountains. I turn back and go into a petrol station, but they don't sell anything except petrol. I refill my empty water bottles. It's before midday but it's scorching. I need to eat. There's trucks stopped in the shade under the flyover. I don't want to stop with them. Beyond there's nothing. After a few kilometres I find a scrap of shade. An overhead sign across the highway. I put my back against the steel girder, and stretch my legs out in the just wide enough shadow. Lunch is bread with jam and butter. The butter is liquid. So is the jam. I try not to pour them all over myself. I enjoy the relative cool for half an hour. But it's only getting hotter. I have to go.

I have uphill for 30 km, then down for 15. I should be able to do the climb in 3 hours and the downhill will be nothing.

It's hot now. It must be 40 degrees in the shade. If there was any shade. The real mountains lurk ahead but I'm climbing. Straight road. Steadily up. I can't tell what the slope is. I know it's up from the speed and the pain. No matter how much I drink, my mouth is always dry. A momentary tail wind negates my self-generated breeze. I feel my body dessicate.

In a parking area beside the road is a white van with tinted windows. Unusual to see a van here. As I approach two European gentlemen walk around the back and watch me. They would look like paedophiles if this was Cambodia. One of them gives me a slow clap as I pass.

Did I mention it's hot? Salt has collected at the wrinkles of my squinting eyes. White crusts. I've tried to wipe it. I only succeeded in creating a searing blindness. My eyeball on a George Foreman grill. So I settle for blinking the occasional grain into a burning trace across my cornea.

I'm not squinting from the sun. I have dark glasses. I'm squinting to see the light. I should be able to see the light and go to it. There's no light. Last time I was dying there was no light either.

The road changes colour up ahead. Darker. There's one big woolen cloud. Please still be there when I get there. It is. And at the same time there's a parking area with a polished stone bench. I lie my back to it. Close my eyes. Don't twitch until the shade is gone. A beautiful half hour. But now it's cooler on the bike, generating breeze.

The proper climb starts. Somehow it feels better. At the top there's a truck to the side changing a tyre. I look at my front tyre and it wobbles. Now it's a pancake. Four weeks. 1600km. First flat tyre in Iran. That's a milestone. There's a curved piece of steel swarf through the rubber. It would have gone through anything. I take my time. Give all the tyres some air. Exchange glances of commiseration with the truck driver. He'll be there a while. I start rolling to Toudeshk.

I drift into the petrol station to ask where the Jalali house is. My rubbery legs can't kick out of the peddles. I have to jam my shin inelegantly into the high curb to avoid falling broadside onto the concrete. The petrol attendant calls a teen on a motorbike from the street and I follow him through the village to a steel gate in a mud wall.

Inside, the Jalali house is two sides of a courtyard, the other two sides are high mudbrick. Reza and wife Fatameh are very welcoming. Their kids Nasim (8) and Nima (6) are a lot of fun.

After tea, I go with Reza to the bathhouse on the other side of the village. There is only water to the house in the evening. I leave my things in the first room. It has a bench and hooks around the edge, and an empty footbath in the middle. I have a hot and very wet shower in one of the stalls in the next room. I'm not really sure what the protocol is now. My clean clothes are in the other room. My towel is too small to cover anything anyway. I walk out in my shower sandals. The three other men all turn away. I think one of them is trying not to laugh. Maybe that wasn't right. Or maybe it's just me.

I spend the evening and the next day visiting with family and friends, motorbike tours all over the village and the desert, sitting on the roadside talking politics (I only understood the names Ahmadenijad, Moussavi, Reza'i; and that there were some different opinions). It feels strange to pay when I leave. It was like staying with friends.

Orchards and wheat fields are fed by these channels, from a system of underground tunnels bringing water from the desert.

Skimming through dirt lanes and between fruit trees on the back of Reza's motorbike.

Wheat fields and the mudbrick village, Toudeshk.

Old caravanserai, with an unusual stone tower.

Water reservoir. The wind towers keep it cool through the heat of summer. There's a stone stairway two storeys down to the tap.

His and hers door knockers (men's on right), so you can tell who's at the gate.

Reza and Nasim. Heading into the desert, to wind through village lanes and see more ruins

Me with Nima

Nima, Reza and Nasim.

Politics and icecream in the evening.

Kharanaq and Chak Chak

2009-05-27T11:57:00.031+04:30

I wake at 5 and again at 5:30. I haven't packed anything. By the time I'm leaving Yazd it's almost 6:30. There's already traffic. At 7:30 I turn off the main road and stop to eat the breakfast the hotel packed me last night. I take my time. It should be only 75k today and I've done 20 already.

More desert

It should be flat but it's not. It heats up. The road melts into the sky and I ride until the crest emerges from the liquid horizon. Then there's a short downhill and another long climb back into the liquid. I feel like Peter O'Toole. It helps. Except he just had to sit there and let the camel do all the work.

Coming the other way it would probably be the same. A long up and a short down. I hope I don't have to find out. There's nothing on my map out here.

There's not a lot of fire ants today. But when they bite I know it. There's definitely some rawness. The cycle shorts have a pad sewn into the crotch. This pair has a two-piece pad. Every so often the seam joining the two pieces rips me open. Tomorrow I'm wearing the other pair. Two days off the bike helped. But I need that week in Esfahan.

I've found the guest house at Kharanak by 11. Kharanak is a mudbrick ghost town on the edge of a desert plateau, at the border of Iran's two great deserts. To the east, the land falls away to the Dasht e Kavir (northern salt desert) and Dasht e Lut (southern sand desert), with nothing much else between here and the Afghan and Pakistani borders.

The guest house is one of the mud brick buildings. Simple and traditional. I get a room and sit out the heat of the day in the shaded courtyard. There's a young German couple here with a car. They've driven from Germany. They're the first non-Iranians I've spoken to in four weeks.

Guest house bedroom

Guesthouse courtyard

In the late afternoon I explore the old town. It's a maze of interconnected and crumbling mudbrick buildings. I climb eroded staircases onto the upper floors and roofs. Looking for vantage points. Careful not to fall through.

At the guest house there's no-one around. Ana and Andreas have gone out into the desert for sunset pictures. The guesthouse man went home after lunch. I write in the courtyard until it's too dark to see. Something tickles my ear. I turn. There's something big there. I jump. A camel has snuck up on me. I don't know how.

There's not much else to do so I pack for tomorrow and get ready for bed, waiting for the guest house man to come back for dinner. He doesn't. I go to bed hungry and pissed off. There's only the occasional clatter of crockery from outside as the camel nuzzles another cube from the sugar bowl. At least I'm going to get a long sleep.

I'm awake early and leave quickly. Out of the gate there's enough light to see a postcard stuck to the bike. The guesthouse man has asked the Germans to write it to me. It's asking me to leave money in the kitchen. A thousand tomans for the room and five hundred tomans for lunch. I've already left a thousand tomans in the kitchen. It was supposed to be a thousand for room and breakfast. Five hundred for lunch and dinner. No dinner. No breakfast. A thousand seems more than fair. I ride back into the desert.

The sun rises behind me and I feel fresh after a good sleep. The different shorts are working wonders. Imagining an irate guesthouse man on a motorbike gives me more impetus. I turn down a small side road with no sign. I think it will take me to Chak Chak. I don't have any of the hesitant pedalling that comes with uncertain direction. I go up past a couple of villages, then tip gently forward through the downhill side. The seal disappears, and the dirt road winds down through sand and gravel hills. I fly through it without regard for skinny road tyres.

Stoked on dirt road

The seal returns and I find a sign to Chak Chak. No English, but it's Chak Chak for sure. Side road, 4km. For the last kilometre I weave through groups of soldiers walking the road. These are the stragglers.

Chak Chak translates as Drip Drip. It's a Zoroastrian pilgrimage site. Sassanian princess Nikbanuh fled the Islamic invasion of 637 AD into the desert. Short of water she threw her staff at the cliff and water began to drip out.

The cliffside cluster of buildings and stairways looks like it was built in the sixties, and not cared for since. The Fire Temple is locked.

I drink tea with the two bus loads of soldiers while we wait for the grumpy stooped old caretaker to finish his breakfast. Everyone has to do 18 months of military service. Not women obviously. These are mostly 18 year old kids, a few are in their early 20's having finished university first. They seem to be joking and having a good time. Presumably happy that they're not the ones getting shot by drug smugglers and Baluchi seperatists in the eastern border regions. The leaders aren't in uniform and don't seem very soldierish. I don't like them. I can't put my finger on why. One of them wants me to stay at his house in Yazd. No thanks. He asks the others if I'm making taroff (refusing out of politeness). I tell him in Farsi that it's not taroff, I am going to Esfahan today. It shuts him up.

The temple opens, and I let the soldiers go in first. Once they're gone I have it to myself for a while. There's a tree growing out of the cliff, and nicely embossed brass doors. Other than that it's basically a drip coming out of a cliff.

The waiting around has left me with the heat to ride in, but it's not far, another 45k to Ardakan. It's bigger than I expect and I can't find the hotel. I ask two old guys sitting under a tree and they seem to have differing opinions on which direction it is. They call another guy riding past on a motorbike to show me the way.

Cleaned up, I head out to do some shopping. At one store they pass watermelons around the six shopkeepers and customers. Everyone has a tap and gives an opinion on which one I should buy.
When there's more or less a consensus, I go and line up at the bakery. The group at the window gets bigger and bigger, and occasionally a batch of flat loaves is passed out. I find out why everyone queues for bread. As soon as it's cool it's stale.

To Yazd

2009-05-27T11:39:00.050+04:30

During the three days of sitting around ruins I've come up with a new plan. I have 10 days to get to Esfahan to renew my visa. Instead of turning west and having a leisurely 300km through the mountains to Esfahan, I might just be able to make it via Yazd, if I have some big kilometer days. Otherwise, to go to Yazd would have meant doubling back. Nobody wants to double back.

I wake up at 5. It's dark in the tent. I'm not awake as I pack the trailer. I tried to have an early night but it didn't work. On the corner of the highway and turn off to Pasargadae, there's a restaurant. They didn't open until 8pm but they let me in early. From 8pm, buses stopped and everyone came in to eat. I ordered but nothing came. I just wanted to eat and sleep. I ordered again and still nothing happened. Bus loads of people ate. I didn't. I went to the kitchen. Finally I ate at 10:30. I'd arranged to camp here. There's a large canvas tent in the front corner of the grounds, and I set up my tent inside. The buses kept coming all night. I didn't get much sleep.

I'm slow to pack. When I finish there's no one around. The gates are padlocked. I walk around the grounds, crunching on gravel paths but nobody comes. I can't wait. I use a bench and lift the bike over the steel fence. The trailer is heavier, but it goes over too. Then I'm on the road.

It's cool before the sun, but it doesn't last long. Neither does the river valley. I start to climb up and out of the Zagros. The hill slopes are spring green. There are nomads grazing sheep.

Spring green in the mountains

Nomad camp

The different directions of the highway are usually seperated by 100 meters. Now they follow different sides of gulleys, around different sides of hills. The other direction has lower grades, is less winding, has deeper cuttings. My legs are in flames trying to keep in double digits. And there are fire ants. I noticed them a little bit yesterday, but today they are serious. Every nerve of the skin of my arse bones is being attacked by an aggravated fire ant. There's nowhere I can sit on the saddle that helps. These must be saddle sores. I was warned about saddle sores. The extent of the warning was that I would get them. Not what they are or what to do about them. I can't tell if there is a physical sore, or it's just the nerves going berserk. Not without special equipment. Or a very close friend. I have neither. I wonder if waxing would help? I don't have the equipment or the friend to find out. Walking into a beauty parlour and trying to explain it would probably get me arrested.

There's a town. I should be near the top. I stop and chew icecream, biscuits, toffees. Drink lemon beer. There's a big range of alcohol free beers here. Mostly they're pretty bad, but it keeps the breweries in business. The best ones are fruit flavoured. It's better if you think of them as a carbonated fruit beverage. They just happen to be brewed with malt and hops, and that adds some depth of flavour. Of course lemon is the best, but every now and then pomegranate, apple, pineapple are a good change.

Back on I keep grinding upwards. It gets steeper, and I see a summit. On one side there's an ambulance station, the other side a towtruck yard. It's a roller coaster, slowly clicking four hours up, up, up. Now I'm tipping over the edge. Into the drop. I lose my stomach. The speed limit is 60. I burst through it. Trucks are in low gears and I go wide to eat them up. One truck decides to pass another. I touch the brake lightly, trying to judge it. Lose as little speed as possible. Then I'm in behind the truck and sucked forward by it's draft. I make hard fists around the brake levers, and lean back in the seat to avoid a mouth full of tailgate. The truck drifts back right and I shoot past back up to full speed. 70. 75. I sit up in the seat, catching all the wind. The surface was perfect, but now i'm getting vibrated to hell. The surface has a pattern cut into it. For grip in the ice. There's a corner coming. It's fast, but I need to take some speed off. The trailer goes everywhere. The surface and braking it doesn't like. I wrestle it. The fishtails get bigger. I'm not going to hang on to it into the corner. I'm ready to be abraided into oblivion. I stick it through the corner and the grade shallows. At the top of a small rise I stop to check the trailer. I've lost my flag. I've just done 30km in 30 minutes. I won't be going back for it.

It's flat now. Slightly downhill. I stay in 30's and 40's. Devouring the kilometers. I turn right. Put my back to the mountains. It's quieter off the main road. Out into the desert.

It's been 160 km, 8 hours when I roll into Arbakuh. There's a hotel on the outskirts, but it looks expensive, so I keep going into town. The signs are confusing at a roundabout. I'm stopped. A guy on a motorbike wants me to come and eat at a restaurant across the road. I ask about a hotel. There's one in the restaurant. It doesn't look like it. I ride up the road, but I don't see anything so I go back to the restaurant and stop. The guy comes out. He's big with a rectangular head and thin mustache. His friend comes out too. He's also big and rectangular, with a rectangular head, rectangular glasses and rectangular gap between his front teeth. When they talk to me they're not trying to communicate. They don't simplify. They're idiots. They touch the bike. Fingerprint the mirror. One squeezes my arm. He thinks it's skinny. They're harmless. But buffoons. I can't be bothered with this. A couple of older guys come out of the restaurant and we all go inside. I sit with the older guys. I can't tell who works here to ask about a room. The older guys order me a kebab. The buffoons are at another table. We eat. One of the men reminds me of Manuel from Fawlty Towers. He is from Yazd. He is going back there now. I can put the bike in his ute and come with him. Thanks, I'll ride there tomorrow. Tomorrow he comes back to Arbakuh. He will see me on the road and I can stay at his house. One of his children speaks English. Okay. The hotel I saw is the only hotel.

I check in and sleep. On dusk I wake up and walk into town. I take pictures of a caravanserai. I walk for an hour but don't find internet. My legs feel fine. Nothing.

Arbakuh caravanserai

I leave early again, but the town is long. I was out of Shiraz in 15 minutes, but this town just keeps going. Out on the flat I hurt already. It's slow. In the teens. It's flat but turning the pedals is hard. There's a head wind. I turn ninety degrees and it's still a head wind. It's going to be a long day. The fire ants don't let up. Yesterday they came and went, but today they're non stop. This is only the flat. I still have to cross mountains to Yazd. It hurts. I have to keep moving here or I'll never make it. I've been going three hours when the green ute toots it's horn and comes to a stop. I stop, and Mahmood comes across the sandy median to me. I have his address, but the map is too coarse. I have no cell phone. What time will I get there. I don't know. Two o'clock. I'm an optimist. We will meet at Imam Hossein square at Three. Three and Four, to be safe.

Desert architecture

I reach Deh Shir. It's only 55 flat kilometres but it's taken three and a half hours. Now I go up. I've got nothing to keep the speed up with. I do 8. 7. This is walking speed. I can see the whole climb in front of me. It's better when you just have to get to this corner. Just have to get to this corner. It's not as long as I thought, but it's not over at the top. On top it undulates. I coast every down without changing gears. When I'm back to walking speed I start pedalling again. When there's a down with no more up I feel like I'm going to cry. From here it's down all the way to Yazd. I don't pedal unless I have to. I'm in a hard tuck. Aerodynamic. But there's instability in the trailer at 55. I experiment. Weight forward causes instability. Weight back is stable. Now my legs aren't on fire, just my bum.

Knackered already, and now I have to cross this

Looking back towards Arbakuh when I think I'm almost at the top. So wrong.

I reach Imam Hossein Square just before three. 160km, 9 hours. I put trousers over my cycle shorts, swap shirts and lie in the grass almost sleeping. At four I'm just starting to wonder how long I should wait when the green ute screeches to a stop. He was running late. He just did the 160 km in an hour and ten minutes so he wouldn't miss me. We fit the bike on the ute and go to his house.

I shower. I'm served cold drinks, lunch, tea, more food, more tea, by wife and daughters. Then Mahmood, eldest daughter Atefeh, who speaks English, and I go into Yazd to see some sights. We go to one of the historic homes, that is now a public garden and restaurant. Yazd is a desert city. Many of the old buildings have a badgir, a wind tower. It collects the breeze and directs it down into the house, usually over a pond for further cooling. It works incredibly well. It almost feels like air conditioning.

Atefeh, Fakhri, Mahmood and me

Badgir (wind tower) on the Governor's old residence

Now a public park and restaurant

Back at home for more tea, then we go out again, this time with mother Fakhri as well. We go to the edge of town and there are some low hills. The sun is going. The hills have round stone towers on them. The Towers of Silence. Such a good name. Yazd is where the biggest population of Zoroastrians still lives. Up until the 1960's these towers where where the bodies of the dead were laid out for the vultures. Half way up the steep path a wind comes. It's fierce. On a spur it's difficult to stand up. It's blowing sand off the desert. Stones blow off the path. And there are big rain drops. It's fantastic. Mahmood and I continue to the top in the desert windstorm, then skip back down the path to the car. I'm elated.

Towers of silence

In the morning there's a long breakfast. Cell phones go constantly. Mahmood goes to work, but the rest of the family sit and talk. There's two girls and two boys, The oldest three are in their twenties and at university. The youngest just finished school. I like them. They joke with each other. There's a lot of laughing. They're very kind.

I spend the next two days in Yazd. Getting lost in the mudbrick lanes of the old city. Seeing how the underground water channels and reservoirs feed the city. Visit the mosques. I visit the Ateshkadeh, an eternal flame supposedly kept burning by the Zoroastrians since around 470AD.

I sleep and eat in the old houses, built around courtyards, that are now converted to hotels and restaurants. I even manage a vegetarian day, dolmeh bodemjun (stuffed eggplant) for lunch and eggplant with dried kurds (like a baba ganoush) for dinner.

Jameh mosque

Tomb of the 12 Imams

Atashkadeh, eternal flame, burning continuously for over 1500 years they say

Restaurant/hotel courtyard in one of the traditional homes

Eggplant and dried kurds. Probably sounds better using the Farsi name. It's good. And, well, it's not meat on a stick.

Pasargadae

2009-05-27T11:10:00.011+04:30

75 km, 4 hours riding up a steep sided river valley brought me to Pasargadae. It was a city built by Cyrus, the first Achaemenid king, but was later superseded by Persepolis. There's not a lot here, except the tomb of Cyrus, a few stone column bases, stone building footings, tumbling walls, and the foundation wall of what was a hilltop palace. I guess that explains why the bike and I were subject of as much interest and as many photographs as the ruins.

Persepolis

2009-05-27T10:49:00.029+04:30

Persepolis was one of three capital cities built by the Achaemenids. It was used during Naw Ruz ceremonies (around 21 March), when subjects from the various nations under Persian rule would bring offerings. It would have been a much more pleasant time to be there. In May it's stinking hot.

What remains after Alexander the Great torched the place (returning the favour that Xerxes had earlier paid Athens) is an extensive stone platform, stone stairways, columns, door and window frames, and the stone foundations of buildings that were built largely from mud brick and timber. There are two tombs in the style of Naqsh e Rostam cut into the hill behind.

Unfortunately, most of the site is roped off or behind glass fence panels. So it's not possible to walk through most of the arches. Also, a high steel roof covers the middle part of the site, with a large portion of the carvings. So it doesn't feel untouched. There's no sense of discovery as you wander around.
The Achaemenids were Zoroastrian. This was the first monothiestic religion, and there are several carvings showing the Achaemenid kings, supported by people of different nations, under the blessing of Ahura Mazda, symbolized by the winged ring at the top of this picture.

The carvings show delegations from 23 nations, including Ethiopians, Arabs and Indians, bringing tribute. They can be distinguished by their different dress, hair and beards. It's depicted as a friendly affair, each delegation being led hand in hand by a Persian usher. The carvings are also liberally applied with flower motifs and stylized, but botanically detailed conifers. It gives some indication of how different the setting would have been back when the fertile crescent was still fertile.

I spent two days at the ruins, sitting out the heat at the middle of each day in the small museum, which is a reconstruction of one of the original buildings, and eating ice cream at the coffee shop.

At night I camped at a sort of tourist village, with bungalows scattered through a treed compound. A lot of people camp on the roadside, at Persepolis and anywhere, but it was worth the five dollars for the feeling of security, the hot shower and to put the tent on grass not dirt.

The second night was a Thursday, and on Thursdays and Fridays there is a much talked about light show. In the evening the site closes, everyone leaves, then buys another ticket and returns to sit in a grandstand at one end. It seemed to tell the story of one of the Achaemenid Kings through an antiquated PA system. It was difficult to tell, being all in Farsi. At one stage there was a sound of a horse galloping and later a battle with yelling and swords clashing. The light show was probably built by the last Shah, and consisted of various parts of the site being lit up in different colours, apparently without regard to the music or storyline. Anyway, it was all so far away from the grandstand and cut in half by the steel roof structure, it was wholly unimpressive. I spent half of the long 25 minutes with my head tilted back looking at the stars. It was the clearest night. The show concluded with what seemed to be the national anthem. I would have been more certain if Iran had won some olympic gold medals. Half the grandstand stood up and sang. The other half stood up and left.

Naqsh e Rostam and Naqsh e Rajab

2009-05-27T10:37:00.008+04:30

Persepolis is 60 km North of Shiraz, and Pasargadae another 75km North of that. No point going there and back to Shiraz, so I have a change of plan, to see the ruins, then head west winding my way to Esfahan through the mountains. I'm riding with my head down, and miss the sign for Persepolis, so first I visit these smaller sites 5 km down the road.

Naqsh e Rostam has four tombs hewn into the cliffs. They house kings of the first Persian empire, the Achaemenids, who ruled from 550 to 330 BC. There's also a square stone building of unknown purpose. Carvings depicting victory over the Romans, and various other inscriptions have been added during the second Persian empire, the Sassanians 224-642 AD.

Naqsh e Rajab is a small rock alcove, hidden from view, with a few Sassanian carvings. Why they chose to put them there is anyone's guess.

Shiraz

2009-05-27T10:03:00.016+04:30

Shiraz is touted as a beautiful city. But really, it's not even by the coast. At it's heart it's a city of gardens and tree lined boulevards, in a fertile valley surrounded by arid mountains. But now, it's crawling up the lower mountain slopes and filling the valley with smog. Still, it's a major tourist draw. Occasionally, at one of the big attractions, a grey haired gaggle dressed in desert colours, with zip off trouser legs, will whisper past, en francais. But mostly it's people from all over Iran who flock here. And it feels touristy. I'm asked for directions three times in the week I'm here. It must be time to trim that beard.

The city centres on the Arg e Karim Khan, Built in the mid 18th century when Shiraz briefly became the capital city. Inside, is a courtyard filled with orange trees

The Vakil bazaar is an interesting mix of tourist trinkets and everyday items. But the architecture is just as interesting as what's on sale.

There's a number of famous mosques, The Nasir ol Molk mosque is one of the most photogenic.

And the Vakil Mosque

The two big attractions for Iranian visitors are the tombs of Hafez and Sa'di, poets from the 14th and 13th centuries, though the tombs are nowhere near that old.

It seems to be a popular ritual to touch the tombstones and recite something, presumably either poetry or prayer.

Not being familiar with any of the poetry, it's hard to get too excited, but the gardens are pleasant enough. Actually, my favourite place in Shiraz was this underground teahouse in the grounds of Sa'di's tomb. A hole in the centre looks through to a fishpond a floor below.

But of course the most interesting part is the people. In Shiraz, the chadors have largely given way to headscarves and manteaus. A manteau is basically a housecoat from the 1950's. Normally thigh length, dowdy ones may fall below the knee, and particularly racy versions finish just below the bum. They usually have long sleeves, but there's also short sleeved or sleeveless versions worn with a tight sleeved top underneath. Worn with trousers of course.

In the evening the city comes alive, and there's a distinct asian flavour, with street vendors selling anything they can from blankets lining the footpath.

The traffic has an asian flavour too. Four lanes of traffic use three lanes of road in each direction. To cross the road you have to drift across and let the traffic flow around you, asian style. There's a few perilous differences here. The traffic here is almost entirely cars, and it's flowing enough that the cars are moving fast. The most difficult thing is that every car, private or taxi, stops to pick up passengers, so if you're standing at the roadside, every car comes towards you and toots it's horn. So there's no way you can judge a gap in the traffic. It's like trying to observe an electron. The act of observing it changes everything. It's no wonder the road toll is astronomical.

Shiraz has any number of gardens, parks really, and is famous for them, in Iran. Inside tall walls, they have lawns, trees and flowerbeds. In the shade of orange trees couples sit at angles so acutely inwards they can only be in love. Walking along a gravel path I hear a whistle. Two shrills. A referee. Then again, louder. It's more like a police whistle. The whistle blows keep coming in pairs as a uniformed guard locomotives towards me. I just had my shoes off, walking across the lawn. It was spongey and damp. Fantastic after all that desert. There are small placards staked around the edges, which probably say keep off the grass, but how would I know? I'm ready for the engagement, but his stride doesn't break. The whistles give way to remonstration and arm waving as the guard stops across a flower bed from a young couple sitting against the mudbrick wall. As I had passed there was a whisper. Lips may have brushed a cheek. The couple stand and walk away, the width of the path between them. The park is punctuated with whistles for the rest of the evening, as couples cross some invisible line of demonstrative affection.

Lar to Shiraz

2009-05-09T19:28:00.014+04:30

I have a rest day in Lar. It's Friday. I do laundry. I wander around. I buy sunscreen from the pharmacy using only Farsi. I try to find something to eat that isn't meat on a stick. The town's alive in the evening. I buy Osh e most from a guy on the street. It's the best thing I've ever eaten.

Again, I leave town at 5, in the dark. Only now I don't know what time I've been starting because it took a couple of days to remember Iran time is half an hour different to Dubai time. Then longer to figure out which way it's different. Then later I find out Iran is on daylight savings time. My Afghan friends told me the way I was planning was very long and winding (read mountainous). So now I'm heading towards Jahrom. Floss says 155. The signs agree. I'll probably stop at a small town after 110km, Mansur Abad, then go past Jahrom to the next city the following day.

My legs are rested. I feel strong. When I climb I know I've climbed longer, higher, steeper, harder, hotter. I pull off the road into Mansour Abad. I could push on to Jahrom but it would turn a good day into a bad day. Its a small mudbrick village. It's still early. Not hot yet. People are around.

Old men sit on a step in the shade. I stop. I ask where there is a hotel. There is no hotel. I knew this. People gather. We talk. Eventually I'm handed a cell phone with English on the other end. The voice wants me to visit it in Joyum. 5km away. How will I find you? The voice is coming to me. Soon a car arrives. The voice is the English teacher at the high school in Joyum. He invites me to stay with him. I follow the car 5km.

Entrance to the Eshghi courtyard

Eshghi is alone at home. His wife is with her parents to have a baby. It's due soon, maybe a few weeks. I tour the town on the back of his motorbike. We visit his brother in the grocery store. And his brothers in the computer store. And his wife. We eat lunch and talk and sleep. He wants me to stay for a few days or a week, so he can practice his english. I can't. In the evening we are visited by Friends. Cousins. Inlaws. I will stay another day.

Lunch with Eshghi Junior and Senior

The next day I spend the morning at home with his father. In the afternoon we sleep. He wants me to go to the grocery store with my bike and cycling clothes. It will be great advertising for his brother's shop. I do. I'm a spectacle. Everyone in town knows the Farangi on a bicycle was shopping at Eshghi's grocery store. I stop in at the computer store on the way back.

Later we make more visits, then we go to an orchard for a party put on for the school's teachers by the head master. We sit on carpets under the trees. Eat kebab and talk.

In the morning I leave after It's light. The father wakes up to make me tea, so I don't want to be too early.

Brown wheat fields start to appear. Jahrom 45 becomes Jahrom 75. The signs are messed up. The roads don't match the map.

Harvest. How wheat or anything can grow here I have no idea

I stop in Jahrom. Find a hotel. Try and send an email. Eat pastries and icecream. I'm on a small wire infested balcony when a young woman asks if I want to use the internet tomorrow. I think that's what she asks. Come and see the manager, he speaks English. I think it's the manager of the hotel. It's not. There's a small office on the roof. She is the secretary. We talk for a while. He is a business man. He has just come back from China. He has to visit his building later, on the other side of town. If I want to come with him he will take me sightseeing.

I meet him in the lobby. We drive to the building. It's a construction site. There is one shop open and he is selling security doors, bathroom fixtures, tiles. We talk with his store clerk and the secretary. The secretary's husband. Her sister. Around 9:30 he takes me back to the hotel. There's no sightseeing. There's no sights to see. I eat meat on a stick.

The rig

Cockpit view. The mirror is my favourite thing in the whole world. See that truck coming?

I leave in the dark as usual. Hotelliers hate me. It's 170 to Shiraz. I'll stop half way at Bab Anar. I get to Bab Anar and i don't like it. I keep going. With 100km to Shiraz the signs change and now it's 110. When I've ridden 100km I stop at a lone shop with trees and a fountain. The fountain has donkey shit floating at the edge. I splash the water over my head anyway. I eat and drink cold things. I get back on the bike.

As I approach Shiraz there's more people around. More traffic. More trucks. In the afternoon I'm escorted by fleets of boys on motorbikes. They're going to get themselves killed. Or me. That would piss me off. The day gets long and I get sick of boys on motorbikes. This is why I don't ride in the afternoon. As I get closer to Shiraz the wheels turn faster. I'm a sliver bullet. I'm gone before voices reach me.

By the time I weave through Shiraz's leafy avenues I've been in the saddle for 11 hours. People still wave and shout, but it's different. The voices are different. There's a hint of a sneer in them. I'm in the city.

Chay mikhoram

To Lar

2009-05-09T16:45:00.026+04:30

230km to Lar. Maybe two days. It's dot size says city. International Airport. There are three towns around half way. Probably aim for the furthest. Bastak. Should be 130km. Gotta ease into it. Then 250 Lar to Firuz Abad. Two days. Maybe a day there at the ruins. Then 110 to Shiraz.

That's not how it turned out.

After a day of preparation in Bandar e Lengeh, I'm on the bike at 4:30am. Still dark. I find my way out of town. I've done 15km already. It's starting to get light. Bastak 155. The dental floss was wrong. Should still make Bastak today. Flat. Making high 20's when the grade's with me, low 20's when it's against me. Good speeds. Easy.

55km of coastal plains. Now there's a climb. Should drop down the other side, then follow the valley to Bastak.

Still optimistic. Ignorance is a wonderful thing.

Goodbye to the coastal plains

Hello world of pain

The road ahead is not flat

There's no river valley. The river is in a gorge winding through crumbling hills. I die. I live again. It's hard to explain the highs and lows of cycling across country. Elation. Despair. From 9am I'm looking for shade. At 10:30 I find some. It's a truck stop. A few deserted buildings. A toilet block. A simple mosque floored with carpets. A guy cooking kebabs over charcoal. I've already drunk 7 and a half litres today. I'm in an oven. I'm done.

I spend the whole day on a wooden platform or under a tree in the yard, talking to motorists who stop for cold water or prayer. Most have no more English than "Hello Mister. How are you." My Farsi doesn't add much. Donkeys wander in from the road.

I leave as the light comes. 5:30. Should be 75 left to Bastak. It's gentle for a few then a big climb. My legs haven't rested. They pick up where they finished yesterday. An oncoming truck decides to overtake another. I take to the gravel. It's too steep to start again. I walk up. Too ashamed to wave back to the cars. After a hairpin I can get back on and ride through the top. The descent is much smaller than the climb. Then it undulates. Bastak 25. One hour. Bastak 15. One hour. Bastak 8. One hour. I'll be on my stomach, 100m from Bastak, still one hour away. The traffic still beeps and waves. I'm not waving now. Not even a nod. I can't spare it. It's just me and pain. After forever, I roll into Bastak. It's 9:30.

As the buildings gather there are two men with cars to the side of the road. They want me to stop. This time I stop. They are from Khalij e Fars TV. They want to film me. They call around for someone who speaks English. They get shots of me riding into town. Then I interview myself to the camera. I follow them into town and into the station office. They want me to meet the Station Manager. First I put trousers on.

Inside, I meet the whole building. Into and out of offices. Shaking hands. The one who speaks English eventually pushes through and relays my story. He's a Doctor. Eventually, I'm shown to the Managers office. He holds court. People come and go. Talk. Are granted favours. We drink tea and eat sweets. Eventually there are no more people and I leave too.

The cameraman and the Doctor want to interview me for the camera. The interview starts with an explanation of how Iran is a peaceful country. With very good democracy. And how President Ahmadenijad wants peace. The cameraman keeps interrupting, and the speech starts from the beginning. Then there are the questions. Finished the interview, the Doctor offers that I stay at his house. I follow the car through the town, the cameraman hanging out the window to film me. The Doctor lives with his brother in a new apartment. It's not quite finished. It's a bachelor pad.

I shower, and the cameraman is back. He wants to show me something for five minutes. We go back to the TV Station. I go into the managers office. There are two men. One smiles. One doesn't. Oh crap.

The smiling one asks to see my passport. He makes four phonecalls, land line and mobile, telling details of my passport and visa to the other end. The calls are interspersed with questions. My itinerary. Occupation. Reason for being in Iran. Meanwhile, the one who doesn't smile harangues me at length about papers for my bike. How can you travel by bicycle with no papers? When you got the visa why didn't they give you papers? In Iran we have very strong security. His voice gets louder. He's leaning forward. My voice gets louder. I'm leaning forward. I'm wanted on the telephone. I start to ask "Who is this?" but it dies at my teeth. I answer the same questions. The Doctor comes in. He starts the speech. Then asks the same questions. The cameraman is nervous. He can't look at me.

The man who doesn't smile says in another town they may want to see papers for my bicycle. I should ask the Station Manager to write me some papers. He's trying to help me not screw me. There's air in the office. I drink tea. The smiling man says everything is ok with my visa. No Problem. I can go. He will make a copy of my passport and the cameraman will bring it to me later. Thanks. I'll wait. He really wants me to go. I wait.

With my passport, I'm dropped back at the Doctor's house. It's 1:30. He's home for lunch. We eat. Then sleep. I wake up when he gets home from work again and he shows me around Bastak City. It's not a city. He tells me what he really thinks of Ahmadenijad. And the state of Iran's democracy. He's a Doctor of political science.

In the evening we eat dinner. My clip should be on the 8 o'clock news. In the human interest section I'm trumped by a riderless horse at a racetrack galloping into a ridden horse, cartwheeling all three, and a goalkeeper who throws the ball at an opposition player, repeated in slow motion. Maybe on the 10 o'clock news. Then we have visitors. I don't see the news. I'm not entirely sure if the whole TV thing was legit.

Friends from Bastak

I leave in the dark. It's 120km to Lar, with two hill sections. I climb gently out of Bastak, then drop into a long winding descent. I crack 77km per hour. I hope this is one of the hill sections. I pass police cars and checkpoints without stopping. I cross a wide flat mountain basin.

Much better looking back

A car with man and woman pass. A girl with bowl hair and earings stands on the back seat looking back at me. The car slows down and pulls over. The man waves me to stop as I pass. I call Salaam and ride on. The car pulls out and passes me again. So far so common. The car stops again and the man waves me to stop. I stop. We exchange greetings and he says he's a police man. This is the scam. Fake police. Want passport or money. But with wife and kid in the car? I show non-understanding and he shows me a green covered booklet with an emblem with guns and repeats. Police. I still shrug. He pulls up a shirt from behind the seat. It's green. With badges. Okay. I make conversation. He says something which I think means police station. We fail to communicate until we stop trying. I say khoda hafez and ride away. This time when the car passes it doesn't stop.

I reach the second big climb. It's the range that divides Bushehr and Fars provinces. At the top there's a guard house. I don't see anyone. I try to negotiate the chicanes of tractor tyres, judder bars and tyre spikes quickly and quietly. I can't do both. I go for quickly. As I bump over a judder bar I see a person in the doorway. Don't look. I pass the last tyre spikes and change up gears, trying to accellerate without making it too obvious. Then I'm pointing downhill. Flying into Fars.

I grind out undulating miles and it gets hot. There's a town. It's the last town to stop at. Lar is still maybe 45k. I'm going to stop here. I don't stop. I find a spot of shade and stop for lunch.

Finding shade for lunch

It's still getting hotter so I don't stop for long. I crawl my way up to Lar. It keeps getting hotter. There's a parking area with trees and a family are picknicking. I see a sign P 1km. I'll rest there. There it is. No, P 500m. This is it. No, P 100m. P. There's no trees. No shade. No stop.

12 km to go. I just have to climb this hill and roll the last 12 km into Lar. A motorcycle slows. He wants to pull me up the hill. How I've imagined holding onto truck bumpers are car windows. He holds out his hand. I grab it. He changes up the gears without the clutch until we can't go faster. A car comes, and we let go. He drops behind and I pedal on, energised. From the top I do roll all the way into Lar.

Riding towards the centre a grey beard and salwaar kemis yell at me from a motorbike. I give the usual Salaam and ride on. He's next to me again and yelling. He drops behind. He follows me at a distance. I watch him in my mirror. He's on a cell phone. Finally he's gone. I've, gone the wrong way. I'm heading to the airport. I turn around. There he is. He pulls beside me. Now he has a boy and a teenager on the motorbike. They're Afghans. The teen has good English. We talk about the troubles Afghan refugees have. The lack of human rights. Whether it would be better to try and go to Europe. What it is like for refugees in New Zealand. The Beard keeps wanting him to ask me to help getting a visa, but he doesn't ask. They have a wedding party tonight. I'm exhausted. They tell me where the hotel is. There's only one and it's easy to find.

Lar. This one speaks for itself really

Into Iran

2009-05-09T11:00:00.013+04:30

I wake as the engine slows. We are already inside the sea wall. A row of dhows tied beam to beam drifts past the window.

Berthed, only the group of black shrouds clustered forward on the port side are moving. The men scattered around the ferry know we won't be getting off for a while. I watch a dhow negotiating a berth, it's wooden rudder worked back and forth by chains from a blue and white painted wooden crossbar. It's diesel soot coated Iranian flag hangs limp. I've never thought of Persians as boat people. Maybe these are Arabs.

The women are gone. I don't see them again. The door is still closed. Men are gathering around the door. I take my place at the back. Friends from the passenger terminal and ferry ride smile and nod to me.

The door opens and the group funnels through. Last, I step through the portal into the heat and glare. It's too bright. I can't see anything except steel treadplate. Four steps off the gangplank and I'm in Iran.

We file onto a bus. It's blue and white, with WELLCOME TOO MY BUS arching over Mickey Mouse the wizard. I didn't expect them to be so profligate with lettering.

The buildings are blue and white. The ships are blue and white. The overalls unloading cargo are blue and white. Everything is blue and white. Except the sky.

We file off the bus, through a chainlink fence and into a concrete building. We are queuing to go through a doorway in a wooden partition. The queue compresses until everyone fits inside, then begins to shuffle slowly forward. I don't see the timber plate across the bottom of the doorway. I kick it. Hard.

I slide my passport into the booth and the woman types my details into a dusty computer. She mouths New Zealand, and I can hear her breath making the words through the holes in the glass.

She hands my passport to the next booth. The man looks through the passport carefully. He looks up "New Zealand" I don't know if it's a question. I nod anyway. He thumps a blue circular date stamp next to my visa.

Immediately behind the booths baggage is coming round a carousel. My bike and trailer have only minor wounds. I hitch them up and walk through the crowd through a large doorway. There are four inspection tables, with one in use. I walk slowly through, waiting for directions. I pass the tables and am just about through the doors when there's yelling. It's not unfriendly yelling. I'm waved back to a group of men, some in uniform, others not. One of the uniforms looks at my passport and tells the others I'm from New Zealand. He holds the door open for me and I wheel down a ramp into a carpark. I was expecting something difficult. I loop the carpark looking for an exit, avoid an inbound car, and roll into the street. Now I am in Iran.

I need to turn right, off the coast road, and the hotel should be on the left. At the corner there's a group of young men in the shade. there's hooting and one yells "American aren't you." It's an accusation. I yell "New Zealand" and ride faster. This is why I have the flag. Why didn't I set up the flag. Grandad said people would assume I was American. Why on earth would an American come here?

I don't see the hotel. Motorbikes ride slowly past, leering, then loop around to leer again. It's 3pm. I'm sweating. It's not just heat. One motorbike veers in and brushes me, the accelerates away. What the hell am I doing here. I turn corners into a quieter street, then stop. The guidebook map has five streets. There's more than five streets and none of the names match. Grandad said I should go to Bushehr. Why didn't I go to Bushehr. The whole town is young men. Young men are the worst. Young men are idiots. Where is everyone else.

The whole town is in ruins. It's all crumbling mud brick steel bars and concrete block. There's rubbish and piles of rubble everywhere. I can't tell if it's bombed out or broken down. Even the mosque is only held up by scaffolding. What the hell am I doing here. I have to get out of here.

I double back to an old man I saw on a corner. He's roasting peanuts. I ask for the hotel, and understand nothing, but I think I know where to go. I have to go back to the corner where they think I'm American.

I ride fast, hugging the curb, to a sign with a knife and fork. The restaurant. The hotel should be upstairs. I lean the bike against the wall. The windows are dark. I can't see in. A man with glasses rides a motorbike out of a doorway and makes a locking motion with his hands and points at my bike. They're all thieves. This whole town is full of bandits. I follow his advice.

I push open the glass door and there's a man at a desk. the whole place is packed with men. I don't look around. He asks if I want to eat, and I ask for the hotel. He gestures that it's back outside and up the stairs. Back outside and four doors along is a stairway. There's no sign. Not in English. I transfer the bike to the stairwell and lock it to the banister. It's the hotel.

I negotiate a room in Farsi, with a discount for two nights. When the bike is inside the room I open the map over a cigarette scarred bedspread and plot my escape. I curve dental floss against the red scratches then straighten it against the key. Six hundred kilometres to Shiraz. Why the hell didn't I go to Bushehr. It's so close. Only three hundred kilometres.

It gets dark. I need to eat. That means I have to go out. I don't want to but I have to eat. In the hall there's a well dressed couple. She has high heels. In the stairwell I'm greeted by the heat. And the traffic noise. I walk outside.

There are cars and motorbikes. Peugeot. Citroen. New. French. There are pedestrians. Couples. Families. The island that separates the traffic is lined with fluorescent pink lotuses. The other side of the street has glowing globes. Blue. Green. Pink. Yellow. There's a green windmill in small lights hanging from a telephone pole. It's whimsical. Delightful. I breathe.

Viscous traffic swirls at a roundabout with a neon fountain. The fairy lights strung diagonally overhead flash on in turn, a slow propeller. It's the corner with the old man and the peanuts.

The restaurant is bright. Lots of marble. Balustrades alternate white and yellow. There's a round, tasselled carpet sitting on each seat. People come in and collect takeaways. I eat fish, rice, charred whole tomatoes, raw onion, salad, bread, yoghurt, crisp green chillies. It's good. It's three dollars.

The book shop. It took me a while to find.

The Emirates

2009-05-06T19:37:00.008+04:30

No, not the airline. That would have been nice. I was flying Royal Brunei, whose fleet of 767s haven't had a decor or entertainment system upgrade since the 80's (Free Willy played on a wall 20 rows away by a projector the size of a suitcase).

My concerns about excess baggage turned out to be unfounded. My bike wouldn't fit on the scales at check in, so it went through unweighed.

I arrived in Dubai after midnight, Thursday morning, assembled my bike, talked cricket with some indian airport workers after they saw my New Zealand flag, and got a few hours sleep on the airport seats. I wanted to try and get to the Dubai branch of Bank Melli (Iran's largest bank), open an account to resolve my cash problem, then make it to the 11am sailing to Iran.

Riding from the airport to the Bank was no problem. Not too hot in the early morning, and traffic heavy but manageable. I was there when they opened.

But it is not possible to open an account without a residence permit, I am informed by the customer service agent. I explain what I am trying to do. You need ATM access? Yes! But it is not possible to have an ATM card without an account. It is not possible to open an account without....Yeah, yeah, I know, a residence permit. I check at Bank Saderat Iran accross the road, but it's the same deal. I ask whether it is possible to change travellers cheques: No Problem. No problem changing travellers cheques? No. No problem. At main branches or any bank? Any Bank. What types of travellers cheques? Many kinds. American Express? No. Only Iranian Cheques.

The banks don't sell the cheques, I have to wait for an exchange shop to open. I change a large portion of my money, to get cash down to the level insurance covers. First I have to change US$ to UAE dirham, then dirham to Iranian rial. It means I lose some on the double transaction, but it's worth it for the security of travellers cheques. He sits the cheques on the counter. I count them. It doesn't make sense. The calculations are in toman but the notes are in rial (I'll explain later). I count again, and he explains the calculations. It's right. Where do I sign the cheques? No need to sign the cheques. So when I change the cheques how do they know they are mine? No problem, just like cash. So if they get stolen or lost? Just like....Right, just like cash.

Sharjar: Sitting on the grass in the shade was too hot

Well, that was great. Looks like the cash problem is unresolvable. But it's only 9:30 and I can still make todays ferry. I have to cross the river to get to the ticket office. Through a tunnel. Going into the tunnel, there's a stormwater grate with gaping slots. I make it across, and look out for the one at the exit. I see it, but I'm going too fast. I find out that you can't bunny hop a bike with a trailer. My back wheel drops into the slot and hits hard. There's scraping metal and the bike goes everywhere. I think the trailer is wrecked. It's only a flat tyre. And dinted rim. I change the tyre fast and can still make it to the ferry. The office is only for cargo, not passengers. Stupid internet. I have to go to a travel agent back on the other side of the river. I might still make the ferry. I walk across the grates on the way back through the tunnel, but I still get a flat tyre coming out. Changing the tyre will be faster if I don't unhitch the trailer fully. Bad idea. With the wheel loosened, the trailer load goes onto the quick release skewer and bends it. I manage to bend it back without snapping it. There would have been no replacing it. It's a very Zen and the Art moment. There will be no more rushing on this trip. I won't make the ferry.

At the travel agent I discover there is no Thursday ferry. Stupid internet. The ferry goes weekly on a Sunday. From Sharjar, not Dubai. Never heard of it? Well it's a whole different Emirate.

The rest of the day was spent getting a new tyre. Fortunately, the 40 bike shops listed in the Dubai Yellow Pages are all on the same block. Because I had to go to all of them to find a tyre for my bike. Turns out it's not a popular size here. The old tyre was torn by the stormwater grate, which explained the repeat puncture.

Friday, I rode the 20km to Sharjar in the heat of the afternoon, just to try it out, and because nothing was open anyway and hotel checkout wasn't until 1pm. It was no problem.

I spent Saturday in Sharjar finding the ferry terminal and killing time. Sunday, onto the boat.

The real Sharjar: If it's not under a building it's dust.

Back on the Grid

2009-05-06T18:52:00.003+04:30

Apologies avid or anxious blog readers. I've been in the wilderness. But the anticipation is over: I am in Shiraz. Shiraz is a city of 1.75 million people, and according to the scrolling headlines on the news (in english, everything else was farsi):

USA resists change...........President Ahmadenijad visits Shiraz..........Ahmadenijad: Shiraz is Iran's centre of Ancient Culture........

The one about USA never came back around, so I didn't find out what change they are resisting. El Presidente was referring to Persepolis, the ruins of the ancient capital of the Persian Empire that spanned from Ethiopia to the Indus Valley in the centuries before 330BC, when it was sacked by Alexander the Great. These ruins are Iran's biggest tourist drawcard. But there's plenty of time for all that. First, there's seven hundred kilometres of no Lonely Planet entries and less english than I speak farsi, to be described.

And as for the internet connectivity: Lar, a 'city' with a supposedly international airport had an internet cafe, but I was there on Friday. Jahrom, a city with a population of more than 100 000 people had an internet cafe consisting of five computers on one dialup connection. In 45 minutes I couldn't open gmail, so I gave up to do something more productive - sleep in air conditioning. Apparently data was moving through the network, but without being a geologist I can't adequately describe it's speed.

So, back to the beginning:

Time to get going

2009-04-21T14:31:00.008+04:30

"Adventure is just bad planning" according to Roald Amundsen, who skiied to the South Pole and back with relative ease, while his erstwhile competitors, Robert Falcon Scott and his men, perished on the ice.

With 12 hours before I get on a plane to begin a four month cycle trip....cycle tour.....no, cycle odyssey across the Islamic Republic of Iran, I can't help but review my preparations:

1. Grow a beard. Yip, got that one well taken care of.

The first real obstacle was obtaining a visa. A little over a month, an internet money transfer to Turkey, and telephone reassurances that in fact, no, I am NOT Iranian (by my Dad. I wasn't home when the embassy called), and it was in the bag....... er, passport.

Two key ingredients: a visa and a fat wad of crisp American banknotes.

They don't make it easy to travel to Iran. Their financial system doesn't intersect with the rest of the world. Which means, no credit cards, no travellers cheques. Cash Only. Which is probably fine for a week or two. Travel funds for several months in cash means a quarter inch stack of benjamins in your pocket. Not good if you're the nervous type. So far, no luck opening a bank account online or through a travel agent. It's first on my list when I get to Dubai.

Travel arrangements made, equipment became the next focus. A bike, obviously, is important in this type of excursion. I considered taking the 10 speed that has been stashed in Mum and Dad's garage since high school. But it's behind so many boxes that exhuming it seemed impractical. I settled on a new-ish second hand hybrid. Theoretically it's sturdy enough to take the beating, without being too sluggish on the road. Time will tell.

Then how to carry the load? Following some advice of dubious quality, I decided on a trailer. The alternative was panniers, and I didn't want to spend half the trip looking through dozens of little pockets and pouches wondering where the hell I put whatever it was I had misplaced.

Together, those two items fill my entire baggage allowance. So, I'm not really sure yet what other equipment will actually make it on the plane.

Which leaves training. The last time I did any serious road cycling was on that 10 speed, trying to make it to first period. But, I'm in peak physical condition. Maybe slightly off-peak. How hard could it be..... really......... gulp.

And of course route planning. Which depends on how I get to Iran from Dubai. Which I don't know yet. So I don't really know what my starting point will be. Makes planning a route tricky.

So, I guess I'm ready. For three months in Iran, and a month in Turkey or Armenia or somewhere like that.

Adventure here I come.