Culture Crashes...

Would you step onto this rusty-looking catwalk?

I said in my last post that Istanbul feels very European. Istanbul truly is where East crashes into West, and the differences go beyond the call of the muzzins from the mosques.

For instance, the catwalk in the picture is inside the turret of a 15th Century Ottoman fortification. There's a 20-metre drop to the bottom and I got to it by climbing a narrow stone staircase on the outside wall that was open on one side and didn't even have a railing. In Britain, tourist attractions like this that charge admission have barriers and warnings all over the place, as well as security guards to make sure no one jumps over them. But nobody stops you here.


Another difference between East and West is how entrepreneurs here string up balloons and charge people money to burst them with pellet guns. They set them up at parks and along the seawall, and one even strung balloons up the side of the ruins of a Roman aqueduct. Try doing something like that in Brighton and see what the police do.


It all means you have to be a bit more careful here. The Ottoman fortress was actually a whole lot of fun and was wonderfully quiet. I suspect it's because tour companies are afraid of being sued if they bring anyone there. And the culture crash produces some incredible sights. A few days ago I saw a young woman dressed in a full chador making out with her boyfriend outside a Shell staion. Really.


So did I step onto the catwalk? Place your bets and I'll reveal my answer in my next post, which should be from the Cappidocia region of Turkey.

Istanbul!

It took 76 hours for the Trans-Asia Express to go from Tehran to Istanbul, which is only four hours less than the Orient Express took to get here from Paris. Sadly, I lost my camera in the railway station right before the trip, so you'll just have to imagine what it looked like when the Iranian passengers tried to teach me Persian dancing in the dining car.

The dancing began right after we got off our Iranian train in Turkey and boarded a six-hour ferry accross Lake Van, which later connected us with a Turkish train. It was past midnight and the boat hadn't even begun to move when the party started. Many women removed their hijabs and someone found beer at a store near the dock. Finally -- in Turkey -- I got to see Iranians being themselves!

There was dancing every night for the rest of the trip. There was usually a fight every night, too. At one point an elderly man had a heart attack, and we also hit a car. I was even interviewed by a reporter who wroks for an Iranian women's magazine.

It was too late to check into a hostel when we finally got to Istanbul so I jumped into a van with some Iranians. I followed them to their hotel, and when I stepped out the door in the morning I had no idea where I was.

Istanbul is a remarkably European city. On the ferries between the European and the Asian sides they even serve tea on the decks. The food is fantastic so I may stay here a bit.

Khoda Hafez, Iran!

I've been spending a lot of time in Iranian cities which suffer eye-watering automobile pollution, so I was desperately seeking fresh air. The most popular car here resembles the 1960s Vauxhall Viva, burns leaded gas and lacks a catalytic converter. Tehran on many days is like living in an exhaust pipe.

I took a trip to the Caspian coast but that was disappointing. I was beginning to despair until I arrived in a mountainside village called Masuleh, which is so steep that cars can't get into it. Restaurants, hotels and homes are supplied by wheelbarrows and when the taxis at the bottom of the hill leave for the day, the only sound left is the murmur of conversations in the open-air tea houses. It was magical.

Unfortunately, the conversations I have with Iranians who speak English always end up being about how desperately they want to leave Iran. The government only allows most citizens to travel to countries that meet its moral guidelines. Ironically, one of these countries is Dubai, where a man told me he goes annually to meet with prostitutes. Another guy told me he was so desperate to see another country that he took a bus to Iraq. Women here rarely speak to me, so I don't know much about what they think, although a teenaged girl who was with her family in Masuleh told me she dreamed of one day visiting Orange County, California, which she's seen on satellite TV.

I admit it's only one segment of Iranian society, but when everyone you meet seems so eager to get out of Iran, is tends to rub off on you. So by the time you're reading this I'll be riding the Trans-Asia Express, a three-day train from Tehran to Istanbul, Turkey. Khoda Hafez, Iran, which is Farsi for "goodbye." I wish I could bring some of you along.

Crash!

There was an accident but I'm okay. A car hit me from behind and I flew rear-first through the air before sliding 20 metres on my back to a dusty stop.

I have a lot of bruises, a limp and some minor road rash. It shook me so badly that I was only a mouse-click away from booking a flight back to Canada. I was more than a little paranoid at the time. I only spent 45 minutes in hospital, but had to endure six hours in five different police stations before I could convince a judge -- via interpreter over the telephone -- that I didn't want to press charges or sue the driver. At one point the judge pulled a copy of the United Nations Declaration of Rights from his bookshelf. This made me gulp, but he simply wanted to give it to me. He even signed it!

As for the driver, well he was an alright guy, too. He was a dentist with a very nice family. I stayed with some of his relatives that night and he paid for my taxi back to Tehran.

The bike is toast and I've given away the camping gear that survived the crash. I've bought a small, cheap backpack and will complete the rest of my trip on trains and buses. No more biking for me in this part of the world. The drivers here are just too crazy. Even the sidewalks are dangerous because motorcycles use them.

My bike -- though loved -- was just a piece of metal. I'm really lucky to be alive.

Messages..

At its peak, the ancient city of Persepolis was the centre of an empire that stretched from India, through Europe as far as the Danube, and into Ethiopia. But it fell into a slow decline after losing to the Greeks at Marathon, and Persepolis was eventually sacked by Alexander the Great.

During its rise, each new king built a new palace for himself next to his predecessor's. But there is a mystery monument/palace in the middle of the complex that somehow never got finished even as the the city continued to grow. My guide said no one is sure why.

I have a theory. Just outside Persepolis are the remains of a tent city the Shah built in the 1970s for a lavish ceremony celebrating the 2500th anniversary of the Persian empire. Foreign dignitaries were put up in the luxury tents, some of which apparently had marble bathrooms. But few Iranians were invited and the whole expense turned into a domestic P.R. headache for the Shah.

My guide told me the Islamist government burned the tents after the revolution but it left the metal supports standing. There's a metal fence surrounding them that probably cost as much to put up as tearing the the tent supports down would. It's as if this government left them there so people wouldn't forget the failures of the previous one. I'm guessing that's what the unfinished monument at Persepolis was meant for, too.

The good news is that I got my visa extension while I was in southern Iran and I'll begin riding towards Turkey on Friday. I confess I'd been fretting a lot about the start of bicycling here. But I met two cycle travellers here yesterday who've come from the other way, so I'm feeling more confident.