Welcome to Iran!

Stupid Sharia Laws for Women

5 days into Iran, and I'm hating the dress code for women.  We are required to cover our heads, wear long pants, and a shirt that has long sleeves and covers the bottom.  Despite having found light cotton / quick dry options to meet the requirements, I must still say it is utterly ridiculous.  It is of course hot, hot, hot outside, and hte men are still wearing their shorts and light jerseys they wore in previous countries.  It blows my mind that this is a LAW.  The local women have it even worse, as they are probably held to tighter standards about covering the neck.  In this conservative area that we are in, near the holy city of Mashhad, the local women wear concealing black drapes that cover their heads and flow behind them.  From behind, the women look like eerie black ghosts, floating along the streets.  

What I didn't quite realize about the dress code is that we (the female travelers) would have no legal relief from it.  Since we are camping, pretty much all of our time is spent outside, where you are technically supposed to cover up.  (Inside the tent is hot, so you don't really want to hang out there.)  So far, most of our campsites have been in areas where locals also are milling about, making our "private" campsite area feel even more public.  (Not to mention that wherever we are, we seem to attract curious locals.  For the most part the locals stay on the perimeter, but in the past we've had kids wandering through our campsite, looking in our tents.)  Nevertheless, in less busy campsites, we take off our sweaty head coverings / arm coverings for a bit of relief.  So far the local guides who travel with us have said this is ok.

Things are supposed to get better as we move west.  We've noticed how some of the women in the cities only cover the back half of their heads, in quiet protest of the stupid laws.  I've heard that in Tehran, they barely comply with the laws?  I am not sure what that will mean for us, but part of the difficulty is obtaining the right clothes to allow for most comfort.  Until I'm able to wear my bike jersey and maybe just loose shorts over my bike shorts, I reckon it will be uncomfortable.   (Ideally, maybe I'd have very light quick-dry white leggings to wear... but where to find these around here?)

The discomfort of all the extra clothing on the bike is not the only problem with these stupid laws though.  It would be more tolerable if the men were subjected to an equally cumbersome dress code... But it is truly irksome and annoying to be singled out as a woman -- I've never personally experienced such blatant discrimination.  (And i see how lucky I am for this.)  I am not used to being personally regarded and sorted as a Female first, Human second.  To me, it feels just as ridiculous as if I was told I couldn't have any water to drink for having blue eyes.  

As a result of these stupid laws, I would suggest that anyone who was thinking that Iran might be a good tourist destination to nix that.  I'd say no one should visit Iran until they grant women the basic right to dress comfortably on a hot summer day (among other things).   

Friendliness

While Turkmenistan locals presented a scared, plastic front ( they were not friendly, and definitely didn't tell us what they thought), Iranians have been exceptionally friendly and real.  People have come out of the woodward to offer help where we weren't even asking for it.  Especially in the town of Quachan, where we camped in a nearby municipal park, nearly all the riders who rode into the town were greeted by locals.  In my case, several of us were picnicking in the green area of a traffic roundabout, when a local approached us and asked if we needed help with anything.  He ended up fetching us hot tea and toffees from his nearby shop (for free), and giving us information about the town.  Later, the man tending a local Internet cafe refused payment for our time online, saying we were guests.  (He also later asked another rider if I was married, because if not he would marry me. Great!) 

Passing drivers have offered candies (taking candy from strangers!), and lean out their car windows to say "Welcome to Iran!"   Other riders have been invited to dinner (and more) by random people they've met (angry middle class family, single women).  I'm hoping to still meet some random folks who will give me the first-hand lowdown of life here.

Riding

Since entering Iran, we've ridden some fairly nice, over-signed roads through dry mountains, farmlands, and towns.  We've spent a lot of time on a highly trafficked road that leads to Mashhad, where one of 11 holy imams lives.  There has been no shortage of crowded passenger cars with bags and carpets tied to the roof pass us, making the pilgrimage to the holy city.  Likewise, there are a ton of pop-up tents for sale in the towns, and we see a lot of pilgrims camped in local parks and mosques.  

Yesterday we passed through one of the few wooded areas in Iran - Golestan National Park.  It was somewhat surprising to move from a very parched, brown land, through a few valleys, and suddenly be in cool, broad leaf forests.  I wish we could have spent a bit more time there.  Instead we are spending a precious rest day in the Going Bad town of Gonbad.  There is nothing here.  The city is at a lower elevation, so it's even hotter than before.  The hotel we are in has no wifi.  So this very much seems like a day for reading (and catching up on the blog!) 

Over the next 5 days, we'll climb over a few mountain ranges on our way to Tehran, where we'll have a couple days of rest.

Sent from my iPad

No photos for now, but here are some random details on the Turkmen rides

* The difference between beep, beep, beep; HOOOOonk; honk, honk; honk + hollers from the every-other work / Russian army / 18 wheeler truck that passes 

* Fresh paved vs tire grooved lumpy vs elephant skin vs smooth dirt roads vs rocky dirt

* Miles of freshly paved side road that no cars are driving on (but I am)

* Camels, wooly goats, prarie dog-like animals on the side of the road

* Lizards and birds that move faster than I do on my bike

* A small cobra snake that crawled up Canadian Bryan's bike and into his bike helmet while we sat at a Coke stop.  The owners attacked it with a hoe, getting snake blood on his panniers.

* Apparently Lada drivers are nicer than newer car drivers

* A 80km ride to lunch that takes 82 km.  Oof.

* Canal water that has a bloated, dead rat in it is still basically clean, right?

* The pleasure of an established squat, pit toilet; over dig-your-own hidey hole

* Hand-off of a bottle of cool water from a random woman in a car, right when I needed it at the end of a long hot ride

* Turkmen women's long, colorful dresses and cylindrical headdresses

* Still there are melons; still tomato and cucumber salad; mince meat kebabs

* French construction workers in Ashgabat who say they must haggle with cops who would fine them for everything. "You have a dirty car // I don't have dirty car, I just washed it // You have a dirty car - pay me."

* Military men on every street corner in Ashgabat.  White marble ministry buildings on every street.  Ministry of Fairness. Gold leaf plating on the palace. None of which you can take photos of.  No one lets you take photos of anyone; they hold up their arms in an X - no photo.

* Groupthink of day-in-day-out group riding. Pelaton riding.  Tire widths. Holding a line.  Concentrating on someone's back tire for long periods of time.  Beats fighting the headwinds alone.  

* Loneliness, desperation, inspiration from long solo riding into a hot headwind.  Dividing 120km into 30km chunks, then 10km, then 5, then - let's just make it 1 more km, so that i can make it to another one.

* Sweating in a tent at night, waiting for the air to cool down.  

* The one more morning i missed my 4:30am alarm, and woke up at 5:45am.  All other tents were packed, everyone had had breakfast, and riders were already on the road. What!  I packed in 10 min, missed breakfast, rode all angry-liek to catch up

* Gruel for breakfast; but supper = feast.

* Pull-up PR (using rafter of a shade structure at the last camp before Ashgabat.)

* Well-water bucket bath = awesome.  On the days with no water at camp, I use just 1/2 liter of water in a bowl and wet wipes to keep cleanish.

Turkmenistan

Dear friends, Sorry for the delay on the update on the blog / Facebook.  I have been sitting on the blog story of "Tale of Two Cities" about Bukhara and Samarkand in Uzbekistan.  I learned a lot about these ancient cities, and it's quite a bit to process into a single post. For now, use your imagination on what a riveting post on those cities might be like -- I'll hopefully get to it one of these days.

But for now, Turkmenistan is quite worth blogging about (and this one's a bit of a rant without spellcheck, as this is the first internet access i've had since entering the country!).

I reckon I was pretty surprised at how locked up this country is.  We spent a good number of hours waiting at immigration for visas---I guess that isn't too surprising.  But after our first night in the country, we found out we'd been assigned a police escort.  Our cop took to driving up and down the long line of us cyclists that undoubtedly reaches 10-20 miles, telling us something over the loudspeaker in Russian.  Later I learned he was telling us to stick together, so that he can properly escort us.  Well, that's not going to happen -- that's not how we roll out here. 

In the town of Mary, we were set up in a hotel with no wifi, that normally doesn't accommodate guests apparently, 10k away from town.  When a couple of our guys tried to catch a ride into town, the cop told them that wasn't allowed.  Our tour leader eventually worked out htat we could take the huge passenger bus that the local support provided as a luggage truck to go into town at set times, or we could leave by bike (on our rest day!).  This rather curbed my desire to explore  the local archaelogical site of Merv, 12 miles away - probably the #1 to see in Mary.  One couple did go, but paid $240 for the guide.  We were also offered a round trip there for $150 (no guide) -- that's an insanely expensive taxi.

The 3 days between Mary and Ashgabat were hard, flat riding days, facing a significant headwind the whole way, 75mi - 90mi each day, often on bad roads.  The cops took to just riding with the fastest crew of bikers and leaving the rest of us alone.  On the last evening, the cop fetched cold drinks for us... Not too bad. 

The arrival into Ashgabat today was unreal and ridiculous.  3 news cars and a cop greeted us about 10 miles outside of town, stopping traffic, filming everything we did, etc, as they escorted us through beautiful streets and a magnficent downtown that could have competed with the Wizard of Oz's emerald palace if it wasn't pearly white. 

Apparently, the previous and current presidents here have spent garrish amounts on fabulous buildings and highways -- that apparently the people can't use? 

At the hotel I was interviewed by news crews who wanted to hear great things about their country. In truth, between the police control, the long, hot roads through the long-winded desert, multiple construction zones, and the general grind to make it through the miles on days I don't feel well, it's hard to say a lot of very good things about Turkmenistan.  So, ... " the people are nice, the desert is hot, ..  very beautiful country." 

Today, before entering Ashgabat, the road paralleled a mountain range that looked like a formidable wall.  This is Iran -- we'll be arriving there in 2 days!

Facebook, youtube, blogger are blocked in Turkmenistan, but hopefully will be able to check in with the hotel wifi and vpn later, and post some photos.