climate and life

I’ve just seen a bit on Newsnight about troubles in Af-Pak: Pakistan plus Afghanistan, showing people in four wheel drive vehicles going though a checkpoint manned by men with their faces covered. Presumably it was in some area not controlled by the government.

This reminded me of my brief time in Iran 25 years ago, en route to Pakistan. There were four of us travelling in a 30 year old London bus, trying to make up time due to a series of mechanical problems. It was very warm in Iran and travelling during the night made sense at times when we could do so relative safely. As we passed by the holy city of Qom where Ayotollah Khomeni resided, we had to go through a number of checkpoints. I remember sometimes we were asked if we had any whisky, women or videos. I assumed at the time that they wanted them in a country where these would not be easily available. More likely with hindsight they were checking that we weren’t carrying contraband goods.

I was in my 20s and had a beard which was very pale on my chin from the sun. At one checkpoint, a man with a turban and Kalashnikov slung over his shoulder grabbed my whiskers and tugged playfully while grinning at everyone because he found a young man with a ‘white’ beard amusing. He wasn’t being nasty but used his position of power to mock the foreigner. I had to grin and bear it. No harm done.

September 10th, 2009 | Tags: bus, Iran, Pakistan | Category: travel | Subscribe to comments | You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed