Lisa and I had had a few pissy moments, each of us taking out our discomforts on the other. As I trudged back into the hotel to pay, Lisa made the last few adjustments to her bags. She looks thoroughly dejected.

Open frozen plains dusted with fresh snow turned to tight and twisting curves as we climbed higher up and over the Alborz Mountain range deep in the Parvar Protected area. Try as we might relaxing was impossible between the black ice on the newly laid asphalt and the biting cold we were both holding the handlebars with a death grip. With each 1,000 feet climbed the temperature dropped until finally at 7,000 feet I had to pull over. Ice had formed over my gloves and around the switch gear, Lisa was the fairing no better, although it appears her tolerance for this is clearly higher than mine…she was keen to keep going.

As I lifted my visor an audible cracking gave me cause for concern until I realized that the sound had been from the ice breaking in the hinges of the helmet and not the visor itself breaking. Peeling off my gloves and giving them a couple of good whacks against the seat loosened most of the ice. Not content we then spent ten minutes pacing the road whilst our gloves thawed, laid over the scolding cylinder heads of Tinkerbelle.

We were both cursing our decision to send our winter riding gear back to the UK.

Ahead of us, seemingly without end, a long straight road delivered us to the outskirts of Semnan. We were soon absorbed into the hectic traffic of the city and once again playing dodgems with gawking road users, many still leaning out of the windows reaching to take our photo with their cell phones.

Thirty minutes later and the waving arm of a police officer from a new looking sedan had us pulling up on the side of the road. I thought the timing was brilliant, the cops didn’t know that I’d been looking for someone official for the last ten minutes in the hopes of getting some directions to the area where Masoud lives.

With documents asked for and quickly handed over I was soon asking for their advice and assistance. No matter what the uniform, everyone likes being asked for advice, it adds to their sense of self importance; especially in this kind of situation where they feel they already have the upper hand. I certainly wasn’t going to tell them that all the documents they were holding from driving license to ID cards were all fakes, the result of my Photoshop tinkering. Instantly the atmosphere had changed, relaxed. Our protagonist had suddenly becomes new friends eager to help with directions and advice as to how we could best find and contact our friend, until finally one of them handed me his cell phone and offered that we call Masoud.

The screech of tyres behind me had me spinning around as an unmarked car pulled up hard and fast behind us. As I spoke with Masoud the tall and stern stranger was demanding our passports. I was curbing my knee jerk reaction of wanting to tell the guy to ‘fuck off’ as I was clearly busy and on the phone. Besides I had absolutely no idea who he was. “New country, new rules, new lessons to be learned”, I told myself silently. Masoud would be here in five minutes. With the call ended I could give my full attention to this new guy, who was now getting prissier by the second.

Again the demand for documents came. With one of the police translating I politely declined, whilst wearing my best disarming but cheesy smile. All this to the obvious frustration of this new stranger. The fact that both the officers were bending to his authority told Lisa and I immediately that he was indeed an official of some kind. I politely explained via the police officer that this stranger was in an unmarked car, had no uniform and had offered us neither any identification nor reason for his request.

Bizarrely this logical explanation of our subordinance deflated what was quickly becoming a tense situation.

Masoud had now arrived and after a few warm hugs of hello with me (not appropriate for Lisa) I was knee deep in questions. Who was he? Who were we? Why were we here? Were we with the press? Did we have authorization to ride the motorcycles here? Had we been anywhere near the restricted area to the south of town? Etc, etc.

Twenty minutes later and we were through. ID had been shown our angry little ‘X-files’ encounter had been explained. “…yes, no It’s OK now, he was Iranian Secret Service”, Masoud explained. “They know you are coming from Turkmenistan and then Mashhad” Masoud continued. “They knew?” I blurted, surprised by the idea that we’d been tracked. Masoud carefully chose his words to explain that the secret service is everywhere and they have what he called spies in every town. I'd gone from thinking that meeting the secret service was cool to now being more than a little intimidated.

With a wave to almost forgotten police officers we were soon following Masoud and within minutes pulling into his concrete garage beneath his rented apartment.

It turned out to be an interesting evening as the apartment filled with Masouds flat mates, a group of typical young students all attending the University. Lisa’s evening was going to be more frustrating. Being the woman here it seems as if she was expected to cook. There was no question. Don’t get me wrong, Lisa loves to cook – but when it’s kind of expected…presumed, merely because of her gender – that pisses her off a bit. No one likes being taken for granted. Not wanting to offend our host, Lisa bit her tongue and cooked up a large bowl of spaghetti.

After note: we’ve just been visited by Shams, the English professor whose classes we will be talking in tomorrow. He’s just left having stayed for 45 minutes. Basically he wanted to look us over and ‘ensure’ we understood what can and ‘CANNOT’ be spoken about. He was very keen to understand how we will deal with any questions regarding religion, politics and what he referred to as other inflammatory subjects; although he assured us that his students would not pose such questions as they understood what ‘is correct’!!

A different type of day.

After sleeping only in patches last night, we were up early and wearing our cleanest clothes, having agreed to speak to the students at Semnan University.

Shams, the professor of English had paid us an ‘interesting visit’ last night and laid out a few ‘ground rules’, relating to how best handle what he described as problematic questions. Fundamentally he was checking us out and making sure that our liberal and honest answers didn’t’ open up a can of worms. It was noteworthy.

By early morning we’d arrived at the university having been picked up by Shams as promised. With another quick chat concerning those delicate questions we were whisked into the auditorium, and sat in front of a hundred or so students. Mic’s were turned on and the show kicked off. This was a bit more than we’d expected, which had basically been to chat to a few small classes.

The questions came thick and fast; what did we think of Iran? Why were we here? How is it different to Europe? Was our marriage traditional (arranged) or a love marriage? Were just a few of the earlier questions? Shams ruled with an iron fist, firmly stomping on questions that he deemed inappropriate.

Many of the questions that were stamped on were clearly going in the direction of “how is the UK different from Iran, does the government dictate how you must live and interact”?

It’s not surprising that most of the students believed that as westerners we were infidels, unclean and of low moral standing. Just like the west criminalizes Iran, Iran does the same. Painting the west as a place of loose women and criminals where we stab each other in the back on a daily basis.

I remember later in the afternoon and talking with Shams English class a particular instance. Shams was sat to my right and Lisa to my left. A student had just asked a question which required an answer that put a positive light on the idea of women deserving the same rights as men, although my answer had not been anywhere near that secinct . Needing to equal the balance, Shams leant forward and spoke earnestly; “Simon, you would have to agree though, that when back in your own country, England…when a women walks in the streets naked, it is…distracting”. I waited for the punchline and then remembered where I was. He was serious! I asked carefully, “do you mean naked metaphorically as in not wearing a Hejab or do you mean naked literally”? “No, no literally…you have many naked women in your streets….yes?”. I’d noticed that when Shams became a little flustered his grasp of English faltered. Lisa was giving me a look that stated “I want to punch this stupid man in the head”.

I wanted to answer this ridiculous question carefully and not leave any room for interpretation. My answer went as follows. “…you see, I knew that Iranians had a great sense of humour…its sad that Iran promotes this ridiculous idea that the west is a den of sin and populated by people of low morals, just as it is sad and inaccurate that the west promotes the idea that Iran is full of or those that would do harm to all westerners. In reality, in England and the west we simply don’t have naked women walking the streets”. I was absolutely desperate to add ‘more’s the pity’, nudge, nudge wink wink.

“…you must understand that the only way this bizarre scenario could play out, is, if a mental patient escaped from a hospital for the insane. Of course she would be quickly arrested and returned. That kind of behavior is totally unacceptable and is disrepectful of women and society in general”. I was aleady patting myself on the back for my answer.

A look of shock crossed Shams face as though his world had just been rocked. I continued, “ We certainly have a different dress code and it is not unusual to see women wearing short skirts with their lower legs visible, however seeing the body is not taboo and therefore we do not see the body as a simple sexual object. “..but you are not distracted or attracted to wrong behavior when you see a womens knees?” Shams asked firmly.

“No of course not. Knees are merely a mechanical device that allow the leg to bend and allow us to move forward. Women make up 50% of the world population and they all have them, for that matter 100% of the world population have them, they’re really not that special or terribly interesting??!!!” A muffled giggle swept through the classroom, as if to agree with my logic.

A young man in the back of the class with his arm raised then quickly asked if we lived together before we were married. He was actually asking if we had sex before we were married. Shams felt the need to confirm…”you are both married aren’t you?” “yes I have the bills to prove it” I’d answered trying to laugh off this stupid question which we’d gone over last night.

“but in the west being married is unusual..yes?”
“No, it’s is normal, a boy meets a girl, a girl meets a boy, they fall in love, get married and start a family” I answered matter of factly.

The can of worms had been opened.
“but why do you get married, because everyone has many sex with no marriage, so why get married?”

Lisa had been quite for a while, that was about to stop.
“”not everyone has sex before marriage” Lisa said The look on the student’s faces was incredulous. They obviously didn’t believe her.
She carried on;” most religions state that sex outside of marriage is a sin, including Christianity, the major religion in the west”…..more looks of disbelief.
“It’s up to the individual to decide as to how to live their lives which is of course affected by their own religions leanings and whether they believe that they’re actions on earth will determine where they spend eternity.”

Her answer seemed to hit home the message we were now quietly yelling from the roof tops. The class was still getting to grips with the idea that what the Iranian government had been telling them all these years was in fact not true.

“Shit”..That was deep for and afternoon chat,I remember thinking!

The reality is they’re just as indoctrinated as we are about what goes on in the countries of the western world as we are with their country. Mind you, their negative beliefs are not that surprising as most of the western films they see (illegally) portray women as loose, sex starved with legs on hinges that swing open faster than a broken gate! Lisa was honest enough to admit that there are some of those around too!

Lisa was eventually asked if she was muslim, well, she was wearing a hejab. When she told the class that even as a western tourist she had to comply with the law of covering her head, many of the class appeard to be truly shocked by this, especially when Lisa explained that it was a possibility that if she declined to cover her head and dress modestly she would run the risk of being arrested. They genuinely seemed to be shocked by this news.

For a brief moment the mood of the class and the students lifted when Shams had to leave the room. For those few minutes he was away the students relaxed and tried to ask many of the questions they knew their professor would squash. However, he didn’t stay out long enough for us to have a real open chat with them and vica versa.

It was obvious that when Shams called a halt to our ‘talk’ as time was up that the students had many many more questions they would have liked to ask. Many of the girls who had been quiet during the talk now all stood clamouring around Lisa trying to ask as many questions face to face rather than out loud in the class. Lisa later said to me she thought that they were afraid of Shams and his terribly strict and unbending rules.

What a sad situation.

With a quiet eveing sleep came easily and quickly.

It had been an easy 3 hours ride form Masoud’s to Tehran. The driving was some fo the worst we’ve seen anywhere and at times just plain dangerous. The usual swarm of mopeds and small bikes swarmed around us as we hit the city proper. Lisa rode well; she rides so much better when she pissed off.

Finally admitting we were totally lost we’d pulled over at the side of the road and ended up then following two guys on mopeds who’d kindly offered to lead us through Tehran to find the hotel Firuoza, which we’d highlighted in our Lonley Planet. Quickly picking up on the fact that there was no secure parking we headed around the corner and checked into the Hotel Kayyman as somewhat dark and somber looking place but with a good vibe none the less (you can find it at GPS: N35 41.232 E51 25.733)- with good and secure parking.

We spent the entire evening prepping all of the documents we’re going to need to apply for our Pakistani visa’s, which include a printed itinerary of all the countries we’ve visited and a photocopy of every visa stamp in the passports. Great!!!!!!

With an early start we headed out into the already bustling streets amongst the throng already busy persusing and haggling with the shopkeepers. Like so many towns in cities in Asia, each street specializes in a particular type of good. A street for fish, another for tools, another for clothes and this area, quite clearly for automotives from bearings to car horns.

It had taken us nearly two hours, 3 taxi rides and secret meeting with an African shamen to finaly locate the Pakistani Embassy. OK I totally made that last one up (Pak embassy at GPS: N35 42.801 E51 23.105). After all our effort our meeting was disappointingly short. We would now need to to make our away across Tehran and acquire a letter of ‘no ojection’ and recommendation, which I believe are one and the same. Here in lies what I see is going to be our next big problem. Currently the UK Foreign Affairs website has a travel warning for all UK passport holders, advising against ‘all and any’ travel to Iran. In which case although the British government can’t stop you applying for any visa they can and do turn down requests for the ‘letter of recommendation’.
So with that troubling reality rattling around our little heads we pitched up at the intimidating UK embassy complete with its 25 foot high wall, bomb proof gate and razor wire. I’d already formulated an entire sales pitch, which involved copious amount of bullshit and groveling in the hopes of acqurieng above mentioned lovely letter.

Inside the walls of the compound we passed half a dozen security checks which stopped short of a finger up the ass and a female cavity inspection. A pointing finger from a security officer lead us to a small and charactless office, which looked more like a backwater post office than part of an embassy. Behind 2 inch thick glass an attractive young Iranina women her head uncovered, asked how she could help in perfect English.

“We need two letters of recommendation to…”

I got no further and didn’t come close to delivering the intricately worked and verbose monologue I’d been preparing in my head all across town.

“Right, OK. That’ll be 36 pounds ($70) each. Are you married?”

“er, yes” Lisa answered a little surprised by the forthright way the question had been asked.

“Oh right, well then why don’t I just write you one letter and save you some money! Can you hang for 20 minutes and I’ll get it typed up now. Would that be convenient?”

Brilliant! No hassle no drama. We’ve become so used to everything we do becoming involved, convoluted that we’ve come to anticipate it. True to her word 20 minutes later and we were clutching our shiny new ‘letter of recommendation’ complete with a rather impressive UK Embassy stamp and elaborate water mark. Jumping in a taxi we high tailed it back to the Pakistani Embassy, this time made all the easier as we’d GPS’d it. Our run of good luck was about to fizzle. We’d missed the cut off time by 10 minutes. There was no getting around it. We have no choice but to come back on the Saturday the 5th as Thursday and Friday here is their weekend.

Worked on emails

Sleeps comes easily and quickly.

We haven’t played tourist in a while; today seems like a good day to just wonder the back alley’s of Yazd. At least we can get a feel of the real Iran and not just one or two key cities and the capital.

A quick check on the bikes puts us at ease; they’re still tucked up safe and sound. The The 800 year old Masjed-i Jamé mosque ames an impressive silluhoutte, the narrow street we’re now walking leads right up to the Grand Iwan (Arched entrance). The two minarets are the tallest in Iran. To the left of the entrance small shops spill their goods onto their street; a mixture of throws, scarf’s, woolen goods and other odds n’ sods. A brightly coloured selection of scarves displayed in colour order catches our attention. The shop keeper yells a welcome and with a wave of his arm beckons us in. “Later, we’ll come back “, we yell truthfully.

Old Yazd is literally a warren, a tangled maze of narrow and sometimes subterranean allies leading in every direction. Crème and or light green paint colours the street walls and off each alley dozens of low small wooden doors lead to homes that have been occupied for a millennium. Much like our time in Morocco, the older traditionally dressed locals cautiously squint as we pass, wary of the infidels and the problems we may bring.

We are buzzed continuously by the young men on mopeds or beaten up 150cc bikes as they speed down though this stone maze, the handlebars at times scraping the walls.

I take what photos I can until in the afternoon I pluck up the nerve to ask an older man permission to take his photo. To my surprise he agrees, if a little reluctantly. When I’m done I pass him a few coins for his patience and Lisa and I take the time to talk with him as best we can. He’s been homeless or 12-years, his children now all dead, from what we don’t know. His face and demenour that of total rejection and resignation.

It’s been good to just walk the city, take in the feel of the place, the smells, the history and the culture of what I romantically think of as the ‘real’ Iran’, all a million miles away from the international whirl-wind of uranium enrichment and control of political power.

Like most of the world we’ve seen, people here are more interested in getting htrough their days as cleanly as possible, protecting their own and providing for their families.

Much like Akbar had said last night we were going to get a military escort to the border with Pakistan, wether we wanted it or not. True enough at 7:00am the police and military turned up complete with fully automatic machine guns. “Christ, I don’t know if I feel safer or worse off surrounded by these guys” Lisa whispered to me as we walked to the bikes.

A gruff karkhi dressed soldier in Farsi and then broken English demanded our poassports. Each of us in turn quickly rummaged through our respective bags and handed them over. With a fanit sneer the soldier stuck them in his pocket and walked towards the lead 4x4. The 4 of us exchanged concerned gances and Nico and I alike thought ‘screw this’. Quickly catching up with the soldier we stood in front him and politely but firmly asked for the return of our documents. A raised mono-brow and a laugh were our reward as he pushed past us. Again moveing in front of him we asked the same question, this time a little more assertively.

“No, I keep docuumeeeents” he said again as if we were bothering him. Five minutes later and this scenario had played over several times with each of us getting more pissed off by the minute. The situation was becoming tense.

It is illegal for anyone to retain your passport, without your express permission ie getting a visa at an embassy etc. This bullshit was just a control game, but the 3 of us were in no mood to play. Whilst they had our passports we were at their beck and call, and they knew it.

Frustratingly we were getting no where metaphorically or physically and it soon become clear that for now we were going to have to concede on this one. There was no way they were giving us our passports back.

With a wave of a hand we were off. It had been made clear that we follow the lead 4x4 whilst another picked up the rear. I did my best to see the bright side of this new but slightly intimidating experience, but I was still fuming 30 minutes later as we cleared the outskirts of Bam. Fucking Iranian military” I said aloud I my helmet.

By nightfall the novelty of the escort hadn’t so much worn off as been totally scraped off by coarse sand paper. Riding with these guys was like pulling teeth but just less fun.

We’d chopped and changed escorts countless times each time we crossed from one military or ploice controlled zone into another.

It was pitch black when we entered Zahedan and finally pulled into a police compound, where we told to park. Off the bikes we were simply stared at then then ust ignored for another hour, until fatigue and hunger got the better of me and I very firmly asked if we should stay here and erect our tent. 20 minutes later and something had happened and another escort lead us through town and to the front of run down hotel.

With our bags in the filthy room and with 30 or so locals watching our every gesture, Nico and I rode the bikes around back int the yard and somehow managed to get all three bikes through a narrow door and into the lower hallway of the hotel. I’ve got no idea how we did It or how we’ll get them out tomorrow.

None of us feel at ease here; Zahedan is a know problem city here in Iran, a relatively lawless city where most of the cities money come from drug trafficking between it and Afghanistan. Crime here is a way of life and an extra set of eyes in the back of your head is a great idea. Even the police look jumpy.

OK, that’s it, Im off to bed. We’ve just eaten in the tiny downstair café and my eyes are closing. Lisa went upstairs two hours ago and having just checked the GPS after 13-hours of riding we only managed 198-miles…what a friggin joke!

Bear in mind that from Zahedan the Pakistani border is 18.3-miles to the west.

With set off this morning at 6:30am and again were forced to hand over our passports to the sulky pissy escorts. With a group of 50 or so onlookers we even tried calling their bluff and suggested we’d ride out of the city without their company. They simply blocked us in!

Finally on the road we rode all of 2-miles before pulling over and being told to wait. We waited for 30 minutes for the next escort to turn up. WTF???!!!! By the time we’d managed to ride 14-miles we’d changed escorts 5 times and it was mid morning.

The day played out the same.

So, right now we’re in an over priced hotel that we had to fight to get the price down to a level where we could even consider staying here. We are still in fucking Iran…..aaarrrggghhhhhhhh!!!!!!!! and after an entire day of bullshit and police control we’ve ridden exactly 68.8-miles.

In the afternoon we even rode up to the border and at the last minute turned right and into the town of Mirjaveh, which is only 3.2-miles form Pakistan.

At the last police checkpoint Lisa, Nico and I had refused to ride any further and forceably demanded the return of our passports. Jeses, we were all of 2-miles from the border what’s the problem. With a group fo 6 military around us there was only so far we could take this. I even tried to tell the soldier holding them that we just needed to check our Pakistani visa’s and that after I’d hand them back. He refused. The 3 of us were livid.

After another hour of waiting were told to give one of the soldiers a ride on the back of a bike and he’d take us to the hotel where I’m now writing this. All of us are carrying bags and so have no room for a passenger. Finally we followed one of the soldiers on his own 150cc Honda into Mirjaveh. We’d been signalled to stop by a policeman on the other side of the railway track, none of us were in the mood to indulge his ego, there was no reason to stop he just needed to flex his authority. Well he can just deal with the disappointment.

If there was a hint of civility or professionalism in their conduct, then our attitude would of course be different…but there isn’t. The manner in which they deal with Lisa riding her on bike is just rude and ridiculous. The start with confusion and then with what we interrupt as distain. Most of the military won’t look at her let alone talk or deal with her.

As you can tell I’m just furious that we’re not in Pakistan

At the hotel reception they wanted the equivalent of $90 each and are obviously running a scam where they give a back-hander to the police for the business.

We ended up plainly ignoring the receptionist demand to park our bikes in plain view of the road and just parked them around back where we can see them from the rooms.

As we parked up Nico had answered his cell phone to find out that Alex was a few miles behind us and having just as a frustrating time of it. The police were demanding he sleep at the station which was all of 1.3-miles from the hotel. Ridiculous!

After an hour he convinced them that he’d be better at the hotel and to escort him to us. Now Alex is a very chilled guy, very ‘in-control’. Even he was spitting feathers by the time he rolled into the yard of the hotel and was still ranting 30 minutes later.

We’ve just got back from a ten minute walk into this dusty little town after giving the hotel reception guy an aperplexy. He demanded we not go out until he called the police. We already knew they weren’t going to come out and we were all bloody hungry. With each of us carrying a weapon of some kind or another we visited a few stores, had a laugh with the shop keepers who obviously saw us as a novelty and picked up some noodles, coke, bread and fruit.

I’m now just wondering how long the police can drag out the 3-miles to the border tomorrow.

Yeah, I know it’s sad, but it sounds like we’ll all be glad to be out of Iran.