Ticket to Ride

by Tom Chesshyre

  Travelling along the moon-like landscape beside the muddy River Euphrates, the train comes to a sharp halt. Word comes from the driver that a rockslide has blocked the tracks. We back up and are taken by coach to the city of Van, while the rails are eventually cleared – involving a call to Turkey's minister of tourism, no less. The train is to be transported by ferry across Lake Van to meet us.

  So for a short while we find ourselves in a novel situation: on a train journey without a train. We are transported by bus, then boat, to the handsome, rose-stoned Armenian church on Akdamar Island, and afterwards to the imposing Van Kalesi, a seemingly impregnable castle looming above the city. We also visit a cattery purring with the unusual local breed of cat (the 'Turkish Van'), white-furred and long-tailed with one blue and one goldencoloured eye: both deeply peculiar and gorgeous.

  Under attack and into Iran

  Van to Khoy and Zanjan

  With churches, castles and cats, we occupy ourselves in Van. Then our train arrives by boat… and we have a party.

  Alcohol is banned in the Islamic Republic of Iran. So, in order to avoid mass arrest on arrival, all alcohol must be consumed before reaching the border. In the next five hours, we are to drink the bar dry or else dispose of bottles.

  Naturally, one of those options has a greater appeal within our ranks.

  Festivities begin at around 7 p.m., although it is possible that the Russians and the Austrians may have started slightly earlier, with cognac in cabins. I am at a table with two elderly German women who speak little English, though I ascertain that their names are Erica and Annelisa, and that Erica has a ballerina daughter who studied at the Royal Ballet School in London, while Annelisa enjoys playing golf.

  Beers and glasses of wine are being consumed at a fair rate as the train moves off from Van, amid much jocularity. Frank and the guides are acting as sommelier–waiters, hamming up their recommendations: 'A hint of citrus! An essence of vanilla! From a little Cappadocian vineyard I know!' The realisation that no drinks will be drunk whatsoever at our destination has turned the evening into a version of New Year's Eve, minus the date change.

  As the chatter rises, however, the mood suddenly shifts. There's a thumping sound on the side of the train, followed soon after by another loud bang. We are chugging slowly through a housing estate on the edge of town. Then an almighty wallop comes from a dining-carriage window, with a large mark left right in the middle of the pane.

  We are under attack. Annelisa returns from her cabin looking ashen; she had gone to fetch her 'drinks card' (we all have one to keep a record of what we've consumed so we can pay later, although the wine tonight is free). The window of her cabin has been smashed by a stone hurled at the train. It narrowly missed her and landed in the sink. Another couple of windows have been smashed in the dining car's galley.

  Blinds are pulled down, and some of the group seems frightened, although the 'angry Germans' tell me they think the more nervous should 'show more backbone'. Are we about to call off the trip?

  'Kids,' says one of the train's porters, explaining who he believes is responsible for the attack.

  'Kurds,' says another.

  Either way, it does not stop the train or the party, which continues into the countryside beyond Van with growing abandon as bottles disappear one by one, though I cannot understand a word of what's going on. The Brits (who have got on my nerves for questioning me at length about what 'freelance brochure writer' means: I don't think they believe me), Russians and English-speaking others are in the second dining carriage. I'm in the middle of a German rail enthusiasts' knees-up, heading for the border of an 'axis of evil'. It's a rolling last-chance saloon.

  No further stone-throwers launch assaults, and half cut – or, at least, very jolly – we arrive at the Turkish immigration point, where we file into a room at a station to have our passports checked. The German journalist, I notice, is questioned longer than anyone else. Then we board the train and putter to a station near Khoy in Iran, where our passports are to be scrutinised by the Iranians.

  We are in for a surprise. It's almost midnight, and I'm worried that I might be singled out. Yet at the brightly lit station it seems as though another party is going on. As we judder to a halt, the sound of drumming and piping rises. Through the windows we can see women in costumes approaching, waving green, white and orange Iranian flags. A media scrum of TV crews and cameramen is waiting. Flashes flicker. Microphones are pushed forwards. Officials dressed stiffly in suits beam as we step onto the platform, while women in traditional costumes distribute roses and little plastic boxes with biscuits, walnuts, sunflower seeds and honeycomb. The pipers launch into a new tune, which has a high pitch, strangely reminiscent of Scottish bagpipes. It is chaotic, confusing and fun.

  We have arrived in Iran.

  A sign says: WE HEARTILY WELCOME HONOURABLE TOURISTS. So much for fears of an icy reception. In the dead of night, a festival has broken out to welcome the country's first chartered tourist train. Judging by all the cameras, we appear to be regarded as heralding an important new phase in the country's tourism; perhaps seen as a foreign-currency cash cow that will lift the gloom of foreign sanctions on Iran. Even the soldiers in jackboots and army fatigues are smiling.

  Once we are all on the platform, we are taken through a hall with a security X-ray, though officials do not seem to be paying much attention. The main purpose seems to be to delay us for a while, during which the train will be checked by another team searching for irregularities (i.e. booze). Frank has collected passports and given them to immigration officials. In the meantime, we are to listen to the music and a short welcome speech by a local governor, as camera crews fight for position to capture his words. Clutching roses and guidebooks extolling the virtues of tourism in Khoy (though we never get to see the city), we return to our cabins, where we await our passports, while reading about local sights. Khoy is not only the 'city of generals and 1,000 martyrs' but also the 'city of religious authorities, devotion and mysticism' and the 'city of beautiful sunflowers and a history of chivalry'. Pictures show monuments, grand roundabouts, beekeepers, mosques, waterfalls, 'tulip plains' and 'the new fresh fruit and vegetables mall of Khoy'.

  There is a rap on the cabin door. Is this a border guard about to interrogate me?

  No. It's Frank, with my passport.

  I have been accepted into the Islamic Republic of Iran. The stamp says that we are at the Razi border point, just outside Khoy. It's a quarter past midnight as the train moves on: no going back now.

  My first daytime sight of the 'axis of evil' is of soft pink light on undulating grassland. Rose-hued mountains rise in the distance. Red and yellow wildflowers line the track. We pause at Mīyaneh station, where hard-eyed soldiers in olive uniforms stare into the carriages. The train, we soon learn, is on an unscheduled stop here; there has been a complaint from an officer.

  Frank makes an announcement over the loudspeaker system: 'Local people are not used to seeing women who are not wearing headscarves. So even though we have declared for this journey that the train is a private space, please can women either wear headscarves or close the blinds when we arrive at stations.'

  I go for breakfast in the dining carriage. Frank is at a table, looking remarkably calm. He tells me over scrambled eggs that Lernidee used to offer a train trip from Istanbul to Damascus in Syria. A group like ours had been in Aleppo when fighting broke out between President Assad's forces and rebels.

  'I got a call from my boss, who said, "Get everybody out, now!"' On the way to the border, the two back carriages of their train slightly derailed. 'Oh my God, I almost had a heart attack. We got everyone into the front coaches and left the other carriages behind.' While the group was at the border, a locomotive was sent to collect the righted carriages.

  The stoning at Van and a few complaints from Iranian soldiers are nothing compared to the outbreak of full-blown war, so Frank does not seem particularly perturbed: 'Everything is OK.' The window of Annelisa's cabin
had, remarkably, been replaced by the train's engineers while the last-chance saloon was in full flow.

  Frank fills me in on the train in Iran. Somewhere in the night we have switched locomotive. We are now being pulled by an IranRunner diesel-electric locomotive designed by Siemens and first put into service in 2010. It is operated by the Islamic Republic of Iran Railways.

  Iranian train details: check.

  We move alongside a pistachio-green river. The sky is porcelain blue. Wispy clouds cling to mountaintops. An announcement is made that a bureau de change has been set up in one of the dining cars. We queue to change money into rials, the local currency. For 50 euros you are supplied with 1,750,000 rials, including a crisp, blue, one million rial note. This has a picture of the Tachara Palace at Persepolis on the back and one million rials written, rather unexpectedly, in English on the front.

  Millions distributed, we soon arrive at Zanjan. This is our first major stop. Pipers and drummers are waiting at the station for the honourable tourists from Istanbul. More roses are handed out. We watch a performance before being driven away in buses, led by a local team of guides from the Azadi International Tourism Organisation. These guides, we soon realise, are both extremely knowledgeable about the line-up of sights we are to see and also, one cannot help but sense, picking up knowledge along the way (keeping an eye on us).

  From the off, the journalist from Germany is a particular point of interest; fortunately, thanks to doing my best to act like a freelance brochure writer on a jolly, no one seems much interested in me. In Zanjan, after we visit a curious, subterranean, 1920s public laundry room and are taken to the breathtakingly large brick dome of the Oljeitu Mausoleum, the German journalist tells me he has just been collared in the street by a young man who is clearly a member of the security services and asked him lots of questions: 'What do you do for a living? Which newspaper do you work for? Why are you here?'

  The German journalist has taken to joining me from time to time, which makes conversation tricky as I do not want to talk shop about papers. Without being rude, I decide to keep out of his way the best I can. People are definitely watching.

  As we are shown the sights, it's impossible not to notice the official anti-Western slant of the Iranian state. Outside the Oljeitu Mausoleum, for example, anti-internet advertising placards line the street; one depicting a satellite dish connected to a grenade as though the World Wide Web and foreign television might destroy anyone who logs on or tunes in. Another picture shows a human brain being injected by a medical needle attached to a satellite dish. CNN and Facebook are singled out for attack.

  When you add the almost omnipresent pictures of Ayatollah Khomeini, leader of the 1979 revolution against the Westernbacked Shah, there's an eerie feeling for Western tourists in Iran. It's all a bit confusing: are we, the honourable tourists, really heartily welcomed? There is a distinctive sense of 'be careful' about visiting the country, journalist or not.

  Careful we are, especially the women when it comes to headscarves.

  'I have never worn one of these before,' says Lisa, a German archaeologist, shifting her scarf. She has been employed by Lernidee to impart her in-depth knowledge of Persian history. She is a former lecturer at the University of Würzburg, and is an expert on analysing samples of ancient clothing; she was recently employed by the Egyptian government to investigate the cloth found in the tomb of King Tutankhamun.

  As the tour progresses, it is easy to detect an undercurrent of discontent among the Iranians we meet. Not all locals are happy with the set-up of Iranian society: far from it. One, in a cafe, well away from other customers, whispers, 'Life is life. What can we do?'

  Another, clearly angered, says that he is sick of fundamentalists' control of the upper echelons of the country, and of the conservatism of the regime: 'Eighty per cent of the people want to be open to the Western world; it is only twenty per cent who are hardcore about these things.' I am not, for obvious reasons, mentioning his name.

  In Zanjan, while waiting for the Russians and the Austrians to complete lengthy negotiations to purchase souvenirs – Boris and Maria have developed a penchant for pots with intricate blue patterns – local kids cheerfully try out their 'hellos' and ask where I am from. Their curiosity and openness say it all: they clearly would like Western ways in their country, no matter what the internet- and satellite-dish-hating ayatollahs say.

  On another occasion, a woman, who works at an art and history museum with displays about the sad fate of the Armenians in Turkey, says, 'A friend of mine married an Englishman.' She quietly gives me her email address.

  Meanwhile, the only British tourists I meet who are travelling independently – not part of our train group – seem to think that troubled times lie ahead for the country. They are three women in their early thirties, one of whom says, 'We wanted to see Iran while we still could.'

  Happy in the Islamic Republic of Iran?

  Yazd to Isfahan, Persepolis and Shiraz

  We clatter onwards overnight to Yazd. The cabin beds are comfortable and I find it both relaxing to be behind a locked door away from 'observation' and easy to sleep. At Yazd, we are met with yet more drumming and dancing at the station. Accompanied by our ever-watchful guides, we visit the marvellous Towers of Silence. These circular, stone, Zoroastrian structures, created by the followers of the religion begun as early as 1500 BC (no one is quite sure when), are on a pair of hills overlooking the city. Zoroastrians, of which there are about 150,000 globally and 20,000 in Iran, believe that the natural balance of the world would be upset were they to bury their dead. Instead, the deceased should be left in the open to be devoured by vultures and other birds. The Towers of Silence were last utilised in the 1960s, and now different places are used as the towers are too close to the encroaching city.

  'People did not want their children finding bits of hands or feet dropped by birds in their back gardens,' says one of the guides.

  We visit a striking blue-tiled mosque that Robert Byron photographed in the 1930s during his journey through Iran writing his vivid travel book The Road to Oxiana. Copies of his pictures are shown in a little exhibition. Byron was struck by the mosque's 'narrow tapering arch' and 'perfect' fourteenth-century mosaics. He also witnessed a Zoroastrian funeral: 'The bearers were dressed in white turbans and long white coats; the body is in a loose white pall. They were carrying it to a tower of silence on a hill some way off.' I have brought the book along – considered by some to mark the birth of modern travel writing – and one section particularly stands out. When Byron entered Iran, travelling by motor vehicles, horses and donkeys with his friend Christopher Sykes, they agreed to use a code word for 'Shah' so as not to get themselves in trouble with the authorities if overheard. They opted for 'Marjoribanks', which Byron also used in his diary. Keeping a low profile in these parts has clearly been going on for many a year.

  Byron waxed lyrical about our next stop, Isfahan, describing the city as being:

  '… among those rarer places, like Athens and Rome, which are common refreshment to humanity… the beauty of Isfahan steals on the mind unawares. You drive about, under avenues of white tree-trunks and canopies of shining twigs; past domes of turquoise and spring yellow in a sky of liquid violet-blue; along the river patched with twisting shoals, catching that blue in its muddy silver…'

  It is indeed a Very Beautiful Place. The main bazaar is set around a giant city square, with fountains, lawns and alleyways leading into cool passageways teeming with carpet and pottery shops, as well as stalls selling exquisite chessboards with elaborate decorations and skilfully carved pieces. Little cafes with ceiling fans and tables full of locals serve delicious ginger- and mintflavoured drinks. Chaotic emporiums crammed with antiques line hidden courtyards. Mosques with soaring blue domes and labyrinthine interiors are open to outsiders (though you must take off your shoes). Horses clatter past, pulling old-fashioned carriages with Iranian couples, plus a few Italian tourists from a bus, enjoying pleasure rides. Bridges wit
h geometrically perfect arches span the now dried-out beds of the River Zayandeh. Within these arches, old-timers gather to exchange stories and lovers meet to whisper sweet nothings.

  The Russians and I are taken to a carpet shop by one of the guides. Various colourful examples are unfurled, the most expensive being 10,000 euros. The Russians, I presume, could easily afford a few, but they are unimpressed. They prefer Persian pottery. We leave the shop, and the guide mutters a few Iranian words in exasperation (commissions can be 30 per cent or more).

  'He's very angry,' says Maria.

  We stay at the Abbasi Hotel in Isfahan, which is on the site of a former caravanserai dating from 300 years ago. Queen Elizabeth II is said to have visited in 1961. The hotel is set around a large courtyard filled with lush gardens and a jumble of cafes and restaurants. At one of the latter, I have a run-in with the Germans. A meal has been arranged and I sit at a table with some of the other guests (avoiding the other journalist).

  A dour woman turns to me. 'You do know we speak German here.'

  'Ah, yes,' I say.

  'Why don't you speak German?' she asks. She has a cold look in her eyes.