Steven Raucher's World Tour
2000-11-22 in Mahneshan, Iran
Arrested Development
The smart money was always on us getting arrested in Iran�
About 300kms out of Tabriz we found ourselves on a mountain road heading in the direction of Takab. When suddenly the road ended. And I don�t mean another one began either (see picture).
After navigating our way past the bulldozer (seriously. See the picture) we wound our down the pass on the gravel bulldozer tracks, these bikes go anywhere!
We made our way into a lovely little town called Mahneshan at about 4pm where the local Paramilitary (the Sepah-e Pasdaran to give them their full title) stopped us and demanded to see our passports. I would like to point out how easily two South Africans on BMW motorbikes can be confused for 1. Kurdish Rebels or 2. Drug Runners. This is where the fun began.
After a quick inspection of our passports by the officer we were told that we could go, only thirty seconds later we told to give out passports back to him and follow him back to base. Ever seen an Iranian Para�s eyes when he first sees a shiny Beemer parked in his drive? Well, we were questioned and paperwork demanded from us (which we gladly supplied � a Carnet de Passage and insurance paperwork was as alien to these folks as a roll of loo paper, I don�t know why they bothered asking). We were then lead one by one to empty the contents of our luggage onto the floor and let the boys do their best to understand what ear buds really are. By the time they had seen my laptop, I was at the end of my tether, they decided that they would find the incriminating evidence in the file system of the laptop.
Another 15 minutes go by and the general arrives to give us back our passports and tell us we can go. Two minutes later, as we are starting our engines he changes his mind and demands our passports back (d�j� vu?). He then informed us that he would personally be escorting us out of town and on to the road to Zandjan, where we would presumably have been given back our passports in exchange for a couple of hundred greenbacks. This, however, never happened because as he was getting into his jeep another guy arrives. Picture this: pale beige suit, ghandi collar shirt, almost albino white complexion, and an afro that made the Jackson five look bald � did I forget the horn-rimmed glasses? Just kidding. This guy looked and dressed exactly like the bad guy in Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. He then led the general and us back into the interrogation rooms/general�s office where the general handed him our passports and another soldier was called in to make notes in Farsi. (Can anyone imagine the state of our stomachs/trousers?) . Another 30 minutes goes by with little said besides our new friend making notes and examining our passports.
Eventually we are told that Afro-Man will be guiding us back to the main road. It is now 7:30 pm and pitch black outside. We follow A-M right back to police headquarters where he instructs us to follow him inside. We are seated in his office when in his best English he tries to re-assure us by explaining that he is �Race Police�. He goes on to tell us that he is very sad about what has happened and is our friend. In truth, we sat in his office painfully for about an hour and a half while we exchanged phrases from the back of the lonely planet. There is this really good one in there: �shoma mosalman hasfid?� - �Are you a Muslim?� well the answer to that one is everybody knows what good Catholic boys the Rauchers are�
A-M organized us a room at the local mosaferkhune (a lodging house for locals�) and re-assured us that all would be well in the morning. We were dismissed and still had our passports! We were told to park our bikes in the police garage for the night (all this time no one has noticed that we have two way radios fitted on our bikes, which is quite amazing in itself since there is an aerial on each mud guard and a walkie talkie in each tank bag. � Damn these boys are good!. Because of this nondisclosure we were absolutely petrified that they would be discovered and be the final nail in our coffin.) So you can imagine our delight when halfway through dinner one of A-M�s henchmen tries to explain to us in his best farsglish that we are required back at the police station. �But wait till you finish your food�, he says. OK, if I am going to die, I tell myself, I refuse to let my last meal be the disgusting roadkill-kebab upon which we were supping.
We finish dinner and are escorted back to the police station and told to bring our luggage (i.e. tank bags - gulp). We were lead upstairs into the officer�s quarters and seated in front of an Italian League soccer game � really, I prefer to have my teeth pulled! The next torture is even worse: we are systematically fed a cornucopia of Iranian delights, from pomegranates, to sweet lemons; to my all time favourite, �dugh�, which is like runny tzatziki and drunk by the glass! During our last dugh-swigging moments A-M disappears to make us up a room in their quarters. And who said the Race Police aren�t a friendly bunch. OK, so here is the challenge: try fall asleep in a police station in the mountains in Iran with a mouth tasting like the nether-regions of an Iranian mountain goat (�cos we forgot our toiletry kit on the bike).
The next morning we sprinted out of bed got into our leathers and blasted out of there before you could say: �See ya Afro-man!�. In light of our �off the beaten track� excursion we deemed it prudent to make up as many kilometers as possible whilst finding a large city at the same time. We made our personal best daily distance yet: 950 kms in 9 hours, this includes 150 kms of the mountain pass we had taken to get there in the first place!
 spot the bulldozer!!! |
 it is still a pretty picture |
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