was heading to Syria, Lebanon, and then Jordan. She showed me her guidebook, and after studying the maps and reading how amazing these locations were supposed to be, I began to flirt with the idea of continuing on after my Iranian visa ran out.
Verity was a good laugh and had gone off traveling on the spur of the moment, much to the surprise and worry of her friends and family, who thought her crazy for wanting to go to Iran. She’d got annoyed with life in Australia, so freed up some inheritance left to her and then simply got moving. She had a sophisticated sense of humor, which was evident by the fact she actually laughed at my jokes. As much as we could have chatted for the rest of the afternoon, my plane’s departure time was not far off, so I had to get moving. Verity was planning to stay in the same hotel as me in Shiraz, so we’d probably bump into each other again.
I grabbed my backpack and hailed a cab to take me to the airport. It was just beginning to get dark as I walked to the airport terminal but was a lovely warm and balmy evening. After what seemed like forever, we boarded and I got a window seat next to a middle-aged German couple who spoke excellent English and introduced themselves to me. The man was called Albert, but I failed to make a note of his wife’s name, so I’ll call her Gertrude. I told them about my travels, and they told me about the family they had in England and their investments in Iran’s infrastructure. They had heavily invested in the country’s ports and transport.
We talked at length and laughed about how many people in the West have no idea how friendly and safe a country Iran is to visit and about all the misconceptions there are about the place. Neither Albert nor Gertrude wanted their in-flight food or drink, so I was the lucky recipient of three meals. I put the third in a paper vomit bag to take with me.
They were both heading into the center of Shiraz, as was I, so when we landed, I asked if they’d like to share a taxi. They apologized and explained that they were being picked up by the tour company they’d booked with. I thought nothing more of it and bade them goodbye.
While watching all the luggage go round on the conveyer belt, I daydreamed about what I’d do to earn cash when I got home. Just as I was thinking how much I hoped things worked out for me back in England, Gertrude approached and held out her hand for me to shake. It was full of bank notes. I tried to refuse but she insisted, saying that she and Albert wanted to pay for my taxi. She stepped back into the crowd and said goodbye. I called out a thank-you after her. Wow.
If I had this sort of luck at home then I’d have nothing to worry about. I hoped it was an omen. While I was thinking this very thought, she returned once again and thrust a load more notes, this time big green 20,000s, into the vomit bag with the in-flight meal that I was carrying. Both my hands were full so I had no way of refusing. She gave me a motherly kiss on both cheeks and said, “We thought you might like a little more,” and left with a smile. This was absolutely incredible! I thought back to when I’d been hitching through Bulgaria and had met a woman called Maria who’d kindly put me up for the night in her home. Maria had traveled a bit herself and told me that whenever she was on the road, she seemed to have tremendous luck and always felt looked after somehow. That was exactly how I felt now, and very happy, too.
I didn’t count the money until I’d booked into my hotel room. It totaled IR210,000 or about forty dollars, which in Iran is a lot and certainly enough for a good couple of night’s accommodation. I drifted off into a contented sleep.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I was in Shiraz, like most tourists who visit the place, not so much for the city itself, although it has some nice attractions to be sure, but to use it as a base to visit one of Iran’s main attractions, the ancient city of Persepolis. Everywhere I’d been in Iran, I’d seen pictures of this place and was excited to finally be going there myself.
Persepolis is a massive ancient palace and city complex that once stood at the heart of the great Achaemenid Empire, which dated from 550-300 BC and was the biggest and most powerful in the ancient world. It spanned 3 million square miles and stretched from northern Africa to the Indus Valley and from central Asia to the Persian Gulf. In its heyday, the city of Persepolis covered an area of 1,345,500 square feet and, although what remains today is a mere fraction of its former splendor, it is still exceptional, with vast ancient statues, bas-reliefs, fire temples, huge stone staircases, stone columns, and much more. I couldn’t wait.
I asked at the hotel’s reception about how to get there and was offered an organized tour of the area. This had a very rigid itinerary, which didn’t appeal in the slightest. I made up my mind to make my own way there instead, and after grabbing a bag full of cakes from a nearby shop for breakfast, I hailed a cab and got down to the local minibus station.
I couldn’t get a bus direct to Persepolis, so I got one going to a small town nearby called Marvadasht. From Marvadasht, I caught a taxi to Persepolis some seven miles away. The taxi stopped far back from the ruins at a traffic barrier. The city’s walls and huge stone columns loomed ominously in the distance, framed by a rugged desert mountain range. Every cell in my being tingled with excitement at the sight of it, to the point where I almost felt like running toward the ruins in a frenzy. The furnace-like heat put a stop to that idea, and instead I walked at a brisk pace all the way up to a ticket office at the foot of a huge stone staircase that led into the ancient city.
When I got there, I discovered it was no ticket office at all but simply a place where you were meant to hand in your pre-purchased ticket. The place to buy a ticket, I now learnt, was all the way back where the taxi had dropped me. By the looks of it, I wasn’t the only one who’d made the same unfortunate discovery after walking all the way up here; on the way I’d passed several other tourists traipsing back in the opposite direction with disgruntled looks on their faces. I traipsed back myself now, but without the disgruntled look, and bought a ticket. A few minutes later, I was climbing the imposing stone staircase leading into the mysterious Persepolis.
As I reached the top of the stairs, the scale and magnificence of the site came into view for the first time. It stretched across a vast area and was full of huge ancient statues, the remains of grandiose buildings, spectacular bas-reliefs, massive stone pillars, and crusty aristocratic British pensioners. The British blue hair brigade were on a private tour and had all congregated at the top of the stairs near two giant stone statues.
“I say, is everyone ready to begin, what?” called out an old chap who looked like his mother had married her brother and then given birth to him. He looked like the plastic surgery mutant Liza Minnelli married but with a slightly British aristocratic bent, sporting terrible gap-ridden goofy teeth and as much hair flaring from his nostrils as he had on his flaky head. He finished the look with a thick smothering of sun block, which was intermingling with a bath of sweat and dripping down his face. The poor chap was suffering big-time in the heat, and I’m not surprised, as today was by far my hottest yet in Iran and rather stupidly he wasn’t wearing a hat. What he was wearing was a small day sack on his back with a large badge that announced proudly, and I kid you not, EXPLORER II, EXPEDITION TO THE WORLD’S LOST CITIES BY PRIVATE JET. Very nice, too, although I’m not quite sure sipping a gin and tonic in a Learjet really counts as an “expedition.” The old-timers obviously weren’t short of a buck or two.
All the toffs nodded their willingness to begin, and after a quick “Oh, good-oh!” Mr. Private Jet introduced their tour guide. The guide was an Iranian chap who spoke excellent English and seemed to know his stuff, so I decided to tag along with my fellow countrymen and women and listen to what he had to say. He started off by telling us about the stone staircase we’d entered the city by. It was, he said, carved purposely with shallow steps in order to allow Persians wearing their traditional elegant robes to ascend gracefully to the top.
At the top of the stairs would have been a group of trumpeters who belted out a quick number to announce the arrival of important foreign delegates coming to meet the king. These dignitaries would then be led by servants of the king through a monumental gate and into a palace, the remains of which were nearby. The guide led the group over to the gateway. It was very impressive and consisted of two massive stone creatures whose heads were partially missing. To me, they looked like either powerful horses or stylized bulls. I was pleased to hear the guide confirm a second later that they were indeed meant to be bulls.
The gateway was called the Gate of All Nations and the bulls gracing it were apparently reminiscent of the statues of Assyria, not that I’d have known this, of course, but a few of the group seemed to be familiar and stated knowingly, “Oh, yes indeed.” In fact, they all seemed to know their stuff, as evidenced by the complex historical
