Merry Christmas
After a very cold day driving out of Turkey I made it
into Iran. I didn't have a "Carnet de Passage", but it
gave almost no trouble as they just entered the facts
into my passport the same way as all the countries
south of the Rio Grande did in the Americas, so I was
very pleased.
The prices in Iran is very pleasing too, for one dollar you will get 35 liters of gasoline. That, the perfect roads, and the large distances mostly through desert or dry-land, has changed my driving speed from 80-90 km/h to 110-130 km/h and the fuel economy of the Beemer has changed from bad to worse, with little impact on my economy.
In Denmark one of my colleges is from Iran, so I went
to visit his family in Isfahan, to experience muslim
hospitality at close range, and it is very special.
You feel like you are the center of the universe, it is
almost too much. Bijan the brother of my college at home
helped me extend my visa, showed me the sights, but the
thing which made the biggest impression on me was when
we visited an old man who was a master of the Iranian
flute.
He played for us and recited and played a poem,
I think it was by Hafes, about a flower and a nighting-
gale, although I didn't understand a word, I think I
understood the poem - As he said: try to remember your
emotions while I perform the poet, and later when I told
him, and he told me how the story was - the differences
was not big, a very nice evening indeed. I got a record
where he plays the flute and when I get home I will put
a sample here. Of course I know that this will not be
the same as the experience of that night - even if I had
had a video-recorder it wouldn't have been able to
capture it all, you have to be there, and sometimes you
are lucky to be at the right spot.
After Isfahan I went to Shiraz visiting Persepolis on the
way. Persepolis being 2500 years old and once the
capital and major major city of this part of the world -
Shiraz mostly famous for raising some very famous poets
and being a home for science a millennium or more ago.
From Shiraz I drove down to the Persian gulf and followed
it south-east for a 1000 km. before I went inland to Bam
where you can see a very nice 1000 years old citadel
and well worth a visit. Here Ali, had on his own
initiative, started a hotel called the "Tourist
Guesthouse" some years ago (probably not a good name to
choose). Although there were no other hotels within a
few hundred miles the authoratives closed down the hotel
since it was illegal. So Ali had to go to study in
another town and learn how to run a hotel. After he
finished studying he was could to open a new hotel (same
address) and he calls it: "Ali Amiri Legal Guesthouse".
This is the nicest pension I have stayed at since "Koese
Pansyon" in Turkie., and I am happy to tell you that Ali
hasn't adopted all the skills which is normally found at
the hotels here in Iran - he does not charge foreigners
double price compared to Iranians.
All in all Iran has been very different to what I had expected - standards are good, prices low, and the girls are not hidden away, but are moving freely around everywhere, their eyes reviling the warmest smile. In Denmark we say the the shortest distance between two people is a smile, bearing that in mind I have to admit that I have been closer to the girls here as I have been in many countries in the western world.
Pakistan was next - Yes I am here, but there is no way I can get my bike into the country without a Carnet. So I am sitting here wondering what to do next, being exactly halfway through my journey - time wise.
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Peter L. Petersen Hermodsgade 12 DK 9000 Aalborg DANMARK  (+45) 98 16 76 97  peter@lorenzen.usClick to try my home-page |