IRAN

Zahedan (14/05/99)

  Happy to see women (at last)... They were all dressed like "ghost" but at least, you could see them behind the counter of shops or administration. You could even quickly speak to them and get a charming smile in return...

  Iran seems to be a brand new country with nice highways, clean and organised cities (it looks like some european communist eastern countries) ...

Tourism : Bam and its sand citadel, Kerman and its Bazaar and magnificient Tea House, Shiraz and Persepolis.   Yannick also spent a night in the desert with some nomads. An interesting experience!

Tehran (01/06/99)

"Hi! I am writing to you from Tehran, I am half way home!!! My Bullet and I survived the desert of Balutchistan and we were very happy to cross the border and find amazingly beautiful roads in Iran. Despite its very long history, this country looks very new (I guess this is thanks to Sadam). Cities are clean and well equipped but they all look the same. I'm getting a bit bored. I have seen some beautiful things though : Persepolis,the ancient capital of the Acheminians Empire as well as Esfahan and its magnificent Masjed-é Eman Mosque. You'll get the photos as soon as I'll reach Turkey since, in this country, it is forbidden to send attached documents. Today is Tuesday, I should cross the border by this coming week-end. I'll then stop in the first village in Turkey and drink myself silly and invite a woman for diner. Ciao, "

Tabriz (04/06/99)

"On Friday morning, 4th June, as I was ready to leave Tabriz to go towards the Bazargan border and , I must say, quite happy to leave Iran, my Bullet would not start. I checked everything. The electric system was down but I could not locate the problem. Of course, within two minutes, about thirty people were around me. They were all making comments in Persian which was not helping me much since after ten days in this country my vocabulary was still limited to "khodafez" (goodbye) and "merci" (thank you as in French). They offered me to push on the bike to start it. We tried several times, it did not work. eventually they pushed me all the way to a mechanic or I should say to a few mechanics since at least five of them jumped around my bike and started to diamantle it. They must have read some stress on my face since they very soon invited me to sit down and they brought a soft drink and some food. This did not help much, I was freking out but what to do or what to say. After about an hour and a half, while I was biting my last nail, they managed to start it! I was so happy but I soon remember I had just 8000 rials left (approximatly 1 US$), that is to say just enough to buy 20 liters of petrol to reach the border. It was Friday and also the anniversary of Eman Khomeiny'death so the bazaar was closed and there was noway I could change any dollar. I then decided I would give these guys a 10 US$ note which is a huge amount of money in this country. They refused !!! They would not take any money from me !!! And they even took me to a petrol station, filled my tank and they paid for it !!! I was feeling really bad since I had cursed so much on Iranian people during all my stay in Iran and now, as I was just about to leave their country, they were giving me a big lesson of generousity. So I shall apologize here to all Iranian people. If my stay in Iran was not a positive experience, it must be my fault. Maybe I did not do enough efforts to try to communicate with them."