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Tabriz - Tehran
E.Route : Tabriz - Teheran : ETD 0500 : ETA 1800 : Dist 418m.
A.Route : Tabriz - Teheran : ATD 0506 : ATA 1842* : Dist 401m.
- Depart Tabriz 0506
- 0647 - 0737 Breakfast and brake failure
- 0906 - 0943 Shop stop
- 1015 - 1020 Bog stop
- 1248 - 1355 Lunch
- 1511 - 1535 Crew change and swimstop
- 1628 - 1645 Bog and refreshment stop
- 1745 - 1748 Crew change
- Arrive Teheran 1842*
Est.A.Spd 32.1mph : Gross A.Spd. 29.40 mph : Net.A.Spd. 39.30 mph
Stop time 3:22 hr : Speedo TD 6984.6 : Speedo TA 7385.1
Comment : Log gives 1842-1850 as period of wait for escort in outer Tehran - this was presumably the stop at the airport road roundabout - Despite having directions to Manzerieh, time of arrival at the site was in fact 2059, However, time of arrive in Tehran taken as 1842.
Jim Lindsay's diary:
2 August
A rest day in Tabriz. The campsite was a fenced-off portion of a park built round a square artificial lake,
where local families enjoyed picnics complete with giant tea urns, and enjoyed the view of the travelling
oddities. Not a lot happened. It was very hot and nobody had very much money. The plan was to go into Tabriz
in the afternoon but then we were told that there would be an escorted visit in the evening. We mooched around
and visited the few shops around the park entrance. There were chapattis to eat and traditional iceboxes of
soft drinks. The trees were full of ripe apricots and we harvested quite a lot of these to make jam, using a
lot of our sugar reserve.
There was some interesting wildlife, including frighteningly large red ants, and I found an ant lion. For those
who do not know what this is, it is the larva of a kind of dragonfly, which digs a pit in the sand. Ants and
other creatures fall in and slide straight into the jaws of the ant lion, well dug in except for its jaws.
Anyone looking for a fascinating fact to throw into a dinner party conversation might note that the ant lion
does not have an anus.
When the time came we went into town in convoys. We were caught by the local press, who asked the inevitable
questions about the ideals of youth, what we liked about the city etc and then we went through the bazaars and
finished having our first but not last chelo kabab.
Back at the camp site, Comex had wrecked the toilets and drunk all the beer in the café.
3 August
We discovered some interesting things about the roads today. One was that there were a great many tunnels, and
the road surface inside these was really rough. This certainly slowed us down, and it might have been meant to
do so. Alternatively the maintenance crews did not bother mending them because it was dark in there. This was
also the day when we discovered that a row of little stones laid across the road meant "road closed" or "diversion".
Johan navigated us through one of these and we damaged our brakes on the rough road that followed. Jim Moyes brought
us to a halt with cries of "no brakes" and we stopped for repairs (using Don C's soldering iron). Within seconds peasants and their sons and
donkeys had gathered to watch. I had to ferret out our emergency triangles for the first time. [Later experiences
encouraged us to keep them in easy reach]
It was hot and dry and in looking for somewhere shady to eat, we followed a side road down to a little mud-brick
village, where men were doing things with poles and other tools in the irrigation ditches. We stopped and had
lunch next to a pumphouse and an irrigation tank, and some people jumped in. The villagers were amazingly relaxed
about it all.
John Stephens (Kent) was travelling with us and as a musical person had the bright idea of offering a Scottish
choir as a cultural event. The positive side was that it offered a less painful alternative to the Midsummer
Night's Dream. The downside was that we could have "rehearsals" on the move. Eventually we approached Tehran,
and once again we were escorted, with special permission to use a freeway that was usually open only to cars.
Despite the escort, it was an awful journey, since the traffic was ferocious and the convoy kept being broken
up by lane-hoppers. The deep gutters at the sides of the road were not helpful to coaches trying to navigate
sharp corners. Just at the stage when we had given up hope, we arrived at Manzarieh.
The evening meal that night was spaghetti. It was amazingly salty. Investigation showed that every cook had
salted it independently and then we all as a matter of habit had salted our own portions. Bill had to go behind
a bush and be sick. The rest of us were probably too tired to notice the taste very much.
Reflections on our outward journey from the Iranian border to Tehran by Liz Y
There was a sense of relief when we crossed the border from Turkey into Iran, although we didn't immediately
meet any Iranian people, apart from the border officials. We had an afternoon's drive through arid countryside
in the direction of Tabriz. The road was better and villages we passed seemed less impoverished.
We arrived in Tabriz in the early evening. The camp was to be in a park, a pleasant location, landscaped on
different levels with a grove of apricot trees and an artificial lake. Here we received a warm Iranian welcome
with refreshments and other preparations for our arrival. It was quiet and restful on the campsite, with a view
of distant hills. One of the girls (Carol, Eileen, Pru or Roz, I can't remember) had the idea of making jam with
ripe apricots. This was a brilliant idea and the jam served us well for a considerable time on our journey. Even
after it began to ferment, we ate it smeared on pieces of unleavened bread for breakfast or lunch on the road.
Wherever we went in Iran, we found people who were open and friendly. In Tabriz down by the lake, I was approached
by three women wearing floral patterned chadors. They smiled as they drew near. One of them spoke a little English
and they stopped to talk for a while. They enquired about who we were, where we came from and hoped we would enjoy
our visit to Iran.
The heat here was dry and very pleasant. We had a clear day in Tabriz and the campsite was a good place to relax
and recoup for the next stage of our journey. In the evening we were escorted in convoy round the city and were
interviewed by Iranian journalists. Apart from general questions about ourselves, one of the questions they were
eager to ask was what we thought of the Shah's 'White Revolution'. I don't think any of us really knew much about
this or could really give an informed opinion.
The avowed, worthy objectives of the White Revolution were for modernization of Iran including industrial
development, land reform and eradication of illiteracy. The Shah's personal lifestyle was, however, extremely
extravagant. History has shown that most of his plans were seriously flawed and underpinned with issues of
dynastic ambition and corruption, running roughshod over the views of both traditional and religious leaders
as well as those of significant progressive groups, who saw him as a puppet for Western economic (mainly oil)
and strategic interests in the area.
We appreciated the escorted tour of Tabriz. In addition to being a main regional capital in modern times,
Tabriz has been an important city over many centuries, even millennia. It has a rich cultural heritage and
we didn't have enough time to learn a lot about it. Tabriz was for example a significant city during the 13th
Century as part of the Mongol Empire. Marco Polo in his journey along the Silk Road reportedly described it as
"a great city surrounded by beautiful gardens" and other Western travellers of the period talked of its magnificent
buildings. There has even been speculation, probably no more plausible than any other suggestions, that the Garden
of Eden was located near Tabriz.
Between Tabriz and Tehran we had a long, hot, dusty day of travel, with an unexpected chance to plunge into the
clear, refreshing water of a road-side irrigation tank in the afternoon. Local people busy with irrigation work
in the fields nearby were bemused and did not object to this. I vaguely remember that some of us jumped in fully
dressed. It was a chance to cool off and thin cotton clothes dried quickly in the sun, even if you were wearing
them.
We had left Tabriz at the crack of dawn, had a long, hot, stifling day on the road and finally got caught up in
an early evening traffic jam in Tehran. It had been another challenging day for the driving crews and there had
been a mechanical problem with the brakes on the way, but in the end Cuddles brought us in one piece to the
Manzarieh campsite.
