15.05.2001 - Crossing the Border Into Iran

Cass writes...

Maku, Iran. Today we crossed the border. Weaving our way through a hundred lorries, we breezed by a grimy Turkish customs, through a door framed with a portrait of Ayatollah Khomeini and emerged into Iran, more like a spotless airport lounge than an immigration office.

After all our concerns - stashing computers and Western music at the bottom of panniers - it was as simple as that. Except Rosal, very much a singlet and shorts girl at heart, has now donned her veil, covered her hair and pulled up her socks. From now on, beyond the cloistered room of a hotel, no one will be privvy to more than her hands and oval face. Under Iranian law, all females over the age of seven must conform in public to 'Hejab', the all important moral code of dressing, by wearing a chador.

Outside, a turquoise mosque and enormous placard welcome us to Iran, complete with swirling Arabic script and Khomeini iconology. Amongst the cycling fraternity, Iran is renowned as much for its mosques as its quality highways and daredevil driving. Sure enough, a velvet carpet leads us to Maku, as cars and trucks vie for road supremacy. Changing dollars into rials, we check into a hotel and begin the deciphering process of arriving in a new country - currency, traditions and language.

Peering from the window of our room we scout out a lay of the land. Men wandering this way and that across a busy street; traders presiding over bags of cheese and fruit. A group of veiled women, cloaked from head to toe in black capes, hurry home from college, a few fringes and jeans peeping from under shawls.

Rosal adjusts her own Hejab and we venture out. It's hot, the sky washed with blue. Above, a canyon wall rises steeply into a glare of sunshine. Passing the "Cinema of Gods" we window shop our way down the main street - the usual assortment of hardware stores, material emporiums and kebab houses. We inspect the various skewers on display, gleaming in the midday heat and take our chances in a random restaurant.

After only just beginning to make sense of Turkish, we're thrown back into a world of incomprehension. Over salad and Lavash - flat bread torn from a vast bundle heaped in the middle of the table - we enter into a complicated game of charades and Pictionary, gradually gleaning the owner's story...After being turned down by his lover's parents, letters were written in blood (we're shown a neat line of scars across the forearm), a meeting arranged secretly between the two before eloping together to Maku. He holds his hand over his chest: his heart is strong. Clearly this is a passionate country.

Our bellies swelled with food and a few cups of tea, we head back to the sanctuary of our room. Soon, we'll feel more comfortable at negotiating the intricacies and etiquettes of Persia. For now these first few days in Iran, home to a culture so unlike our own and preceded by the hype of Western media, are both exciting and a little daunting...