IRAN Part 5 ...

A Modest hotel in down-town Tehran


Just another big mad, busy city with well published pollution and traffic congestion problems, or something more perhaps? Yeah, the city sure is busy and for those who aren't confident in wide avenues of teeming traffic, blistering heat and noise, it could be a fearful experience. But keep your head and go at the same speed as everyone else, and the whole thing starts to become manageable.

We're here in July, and after being told the worst of the hot weather usually hits in August, guess that we're experiencing some of the most oppressive summer-time conditions that Iran's capital can throw at us. Our first night in a guest-house was surviveable, but finding things can be bloody hard work. This is not made any easier by a hotel manager who, seems to have little empathy for westerners half way past their comfort zone. Few big shops, dangerous thoroughfares and everything written in Farsi script, make for a destination that's pretty challenging to find whatever it is you're after. Of course, heaps of dosh could make things more attainable, but so far as budget travelling goes, be prepared to have to work hard in order to get what you want.

When booking into the hotel were told we could stand our bikes in the foyer at the end of the night, but when taking our kit up the steps into the reception one of the guys at the door makes signs that we should do so now. We did query the differing instructions, but complied by moving the bikes in anyway. Now, it's a normal routine to get our stuff unloaded, not only for safe storage, but also as it makes tall-bike-Dakar considerably more manouverble in small spaces, such as hotel lobbies. A bit later after hefting everything up into the rather compact room, Bjorn was given a hard-time by the manager who we christened (along with a few variants) Mr No-Empathy', at the fact that the lobby was blocked by our bikes. Hmmmm ... As we'd suspected, there was a bit of a break-down on the comm's front. But no big-deal so far as I'm concerned, and first chance I got wheeled the Dak' back outside. Where the front-entrance was recessed into a niche from the pavement and road, I was quite happy that nobody was going to mess with it, either by doing damage from nosey-poking it about, or being just plain bloody maliscious. Thoughts of which perhaps, should be reserved for Western/European/UK cities? Call me naïve, but I get the distinct feeling, that sort of mindless unsociable behaviour doesn't feature too often in Iran.

It seems I've hit the digression trail again, so will get back to the point and direct some attention back to me parking the bike outside the hotel again. Checking all's well and secure, I leave the bike, with a couple of admirers leering over her sleek yet dirty lines, and go back up the steps into the hotel where I bump into Mr N. E. in the lobby. Letting him know he's got his space back again, he rather dismissivly grunts to show he's understood me, but also lets me know it's alright to wheel it back in at the 11 o'clock Witching-hour.

To take you straight to point of this anecdote, I'd forgotten all about the bike until an hour or so afor we were going to get our heads down. Happily the lack of alcohol meant I could expect a steady wind-down for my tired brain before fatigue became debilitating, as was usual after a couple of beers at the end of the day in Turkey. So it was decided to get everything else done for night-time prep', and make the bike stowing task the last thing to be done before 'hitting the hay'. With care to make sure I kept myself decently clothed even when back and forth for teeth-cleaning activities and toilet, eventually wandered down to see Smiley-Miley the manager, at what I believed to be just gone 10.30 pm. Now call me a Simpleton, or one who's easily led into a false sense of 'what's reasonable in that which can be expected from other people'. But did honestly believe that within half-hour of the given ETA for interring the bike into the foyer, would in fact be good enough. But my enquiry received a solid NO! mumble, mumble ... (which I took to be the Farsi equivelant of 'didn't I make it clear earlier?'). So in getting this negative reaction from him, now felt it had been made patently obvious to me, that the bike wouldn't be coming in till one second before the appointed time at the absolute earliest. My retort of 'Okay matey, I think ... you win 'cos I just don't care that much!' seemed to mollify him.

By now tiredness had well and truly hit! And while maybe not the sometimes instantanous brain-dead experience of a too quickly swilled beer after a long day in the saddle, it was a definite cue to make a start at recharging the batteries with sleep. Weighing up the option of trying to pursaude Mr No-Empathy who'd now turned into Mr Non-negotiable, decided that with the bike tucked neatly into the hotel entrance's niche and a good disc-lock to stop it being wheeled away by any local organised bike theft syndicates, decided it was reasonably safe outside for the night. Not really caring if he understood me or not, made what I thought to be gestures and noises to the effect, that it could stay where it was ... And off to bed I went.

Now I don't know about you, but after closing my eyes and starting the process of sliding off into the Land-of-Nod, I don't really expect to see any more of the current evening, until the light of next day beckons. Not until after that is, at least a few hours kip. So with some surprise shortly after I took myself off to the room and my bed, there came an insistent banging on the door.

The noise dragged me back to a reality, that it was still the latter part of the evening and that I was in a strange hotel bed. This instantly led me deduce that my message about leaving the bike outside hadn't got across. After a successful first attempt or two at ignoring the banging on the door, was about to get up and explain further, when Bjorn did the biz' on my behalf. Again my foolish assumption that this would lead to some kind of understanding was wrong. Turning over in readiness to drift back to my semi-dream state, the banging started up once more. Once more I began to kick-start my torpid brain to some level of functionality and accompanied by a swift boot from Bjorn, realised I would have to make the effort to get my body vertical and deal with it myself.

Opening the door ajar was ready to confront whoever was doing the hammering, but nobody greeted my semi-somnambulant gaze. When on the point of closing the door and heading bedwards, a figure came into view from the hallway that could be seen down one flight of stairs and opposite the door of our room. He was speaking Farsi, then a little recognisable English to the effect that I should 'come, come', and was making urgent gustures that meant I should go there now. But my sleep-slow reactions weren't really condusive to anything more than telling him that the bike could stay where it was ... The door closed and I crawled gratefully horizontal ready to let slumber take me where it would. R-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-n-g! What the ... ? It's the bloody phone! Now I've never thought for one minute that I'm clairvoyent, but before it went for a 2nd time, I intuitively knew it wasn't someone calling to tell me that the long-forgotten lottery ticket that had slipped down the side of the settee 6 months ago, had been discovered by the most honest person in the UK, who'd subsequently checked it on the way to call me up, and found I'd won the jack-pot prize of several millions of pounds. So I got up out of bed, lifted the reciever and replaced it to blissful silence. Surely ... with no guesswork, coin-tossing or short-straw picking, or indeed any doubt whatsoever, they'd have got the message by now. A lifted and replaced reciever that results in an engaged tone, is usually a dead-giveaway that the recipent doesn't want to discuss the weather. Especially at god knows whatever time it was by then, at any rate.

I'm sure you won't need a crystal ball to tell you that I'd barely got myself back to my bed, when the phone went off yet again. Visions of that Prat of a manager grinning away with the smug satisfaction that he'd managed to disturb me, after I decided not to wait about for his nod of assent to bring my bike in, resulted in a general haze of pinkness colouring the darkness of the room. Times past led me to recognise this as the first signs that usually precedes a state of temporary madness. Soon to follow would be a curtain of red descending over my eyes as the hypothalamus becomes hijacked into action not words. The next and more obvious stage is that my skin turns green before bursting out whatever clothes I happen to be wearing. Which in this case were little more than a pair of Marks & Spencer undies. For those of you that don't know much about Iran, it's pretty restrictive about what you wear, and just as importantly how much you wear. I actually look back with a certain amount of pride in that the little angel of reason sat on one shoulder, had enough clout to prevent me from walking out as I was, so had the presence of mind to put some strides on before storming down to confront the manager.

To this day don't know what did it, but am certain that his reaction to my bare chest brought me to some semblance of wakeful sanity, and allowed me to moderate what could have ended up in spilt-blood. The two young guys in tow, who seemed used to jumping at the command of his superior position, were rooted to the spot head's cranking back and forth between me and him, waiting to see how it was going to end. My 'What the f*ck do you think you are doing?' was answered by initial silence and clear embarrassment at his evident loss of control. Unable to look at me his mumbling was clear enough evidence, he wanted to be extracted from this humiliation ASAP. My fuming mood was somehow allowed to take this in, and was even able to begin feeling a little sorry for his poor judgement in rousing what might have been a sleeping monster. It did the trick, as I no longer felt like wiping the floor with him ... too much. So a short sharp lecture in Australian English ensued, which was to ensure that the bike would stay where it was till morning, and rounded things off by making a suggestion as to where the phone was going to be inserted if I heard it once more that night. There was no surety as to how much of my words were actually understood, but left them confident that the tone of delivery made it certain the remainder of that night would allow undisturbed slumber for me n' Bjorn ...