Well I've made it to Esfahan - that's about half way through my Iran journey.
I've spent the last few days here and tomorrow I leave - back onto the road toward Shiraz.
The second night before I arrived here in Esfahan was rather eventful and I got no sleep from 11:30pm until the following night. I made camp in a field with the permission of the three workers tending the field that afternoon and also the owner (their father? - holding the veg. in the photo) who sat and talked to me for 20 minutes outside my tent before loading me up with fresh produce from the farm for dinner.
I settled down to sleep after it got dark and was awoken at 11:30 with the sound of shovelling. A common practice as they open up a portion of channel wall to flood a paddock for irrigation. I wasn't at all concerned as the owner knew I was here and I had his blessing. A little while later an old man appeared beside the tent with a Kerosene lamp and shovel saying "Aab Aab". I couldn't believe it - surely they don't want me to pack up so they can flood my paddock tonight. I tried to let him know that the owner knew I was here and that if the plan was to irrigate then it could wait until tomorrow. His voice however got a bit more serious and he stretched out with the shovel - holding the kero lamp high to reveal a dark patch approaching across the field only meters from my tent and moving our way fast... Suddenly the situation had become a bit more serious. I grabbed my Down sleeping bag - stuffed it into its sack as quickly as I could in the panic that was setting in, put it on a high bank beside the tent and went back to grab the camera, passport and other items that were also sitting on the floor of the tent. Clothes and everything else - except the thermarest followed. The bike was moved a little higher up the small paddock side bank that it was resting against, and I returned to unpeg the tent which was now floating in 50cm of water.
With the tent in my hands - poles still in position - I now had everything except the groundsheet and 1 of the 10 pegs. (I hoped that was all). The man disappeared to the next paddock and more digging. I attached everything (except the tent) as best I could to the bike and carried the bike over the irrigation trenches into an adjacent dry paddock where the onions and tomato's had come from and headed toward a light I could see at the far side (the direction the owner had appeared from and disappeared to.) When I got to the light it wasn't a farm house as I'd hoped but a street light on a dirt road. I tried to get a response from a nearby house that had lights blazing but no response at all. (other than the dogs). I returned to the paddock to get the tent then back to the street lamp. By this stage I had put on a pair of sandals and a shirt so I was no longer running around the paddocks in only my jocks.
As I stood under the light contemplating whether the tent would be at all usable and if so where I would put it a row of headlights approached - one with the distinctive green stripe of the Iran Police. The policeman asked to see my passport and for some reason seemed surprised when he said "Aab" pointing to the wet passport. I said "Aab, Aab" and swung my hands around to show that everything around me was wet. The man with the shovel was also there so he had obviously gone to get the police once he'd finished flooding the paddocks. ( I suspect that it was the owners father with the shovel, either that or a farm worker - but knowing the way the economy and families work here father seems the logical choice).
The Police wanted me to follow them and I could camp at the police station 1.5km away. I rode out to the highway and along the highway in front of the police car - still in my jocks - until we got to the local Mosque. The mosque was to be my home for the rest of the night, but it would take many hours to get rid of all the interested parties and lie down with the lights off - hoping for sleep. Lights out was 3am and at 4am the first people arrived in preparation for the 4:30 call to prayer. I hadnt slept at all in that hour and wasn't going to get any after the call to prayer either.
When the people arrived at 4:00 they brought with them a bowl of food to heat on the kero heater, so that I could - like them - have a meal before sunrise and the start of the days fasting for Ramadan.
With no sleep I decided that the ride into Esfahan that I would have made that morning could wait a day or two and that I would wait for another rider Roli (Swiss rider I met in Istanbul) who I believed would be about one day behind me. I rode back to the field for photos 
and in case I could find the missing tent peg - I actually found a cycling glove which I hadn't realised was missing and the peg, then set up my tent beside the road in plain view with my bike locked to the sign welcoming you to the town. All in plain view so that Roli wouldn't miss it. I also wrote a message - his name - in dirt on the black bitumen with an arrow. Then I lay down until it got too hot and moved to the shade of some nearby trees. I figured from my last email communications with Roli that he would arrive in the late afternoon or maybe the next morning - depending on where he chose to camp. He arrived earlier than I expected, about 2 or 3 o'clock and had 90+km on the clock already that day so we passed through the town and started looking for a place to camp before we both headed to Esfahan the next day.
and in case I could find the missing tent peg - I actually found a cycling glove which I hadn't realised was missing and the peg, then set up my tent beside the road in plain view with my bike locked to the sign welcoming you to the town. All in plain view so that Roli wouldn't miss it. I also wrote a message - his name - in dirt on the black bitumen with an arrow. Then I lay down until it got too hot and moved to the shade of some nearby trees. I figured from my last email communications with Roli that he would arrive in the late afternoon or maybe the next morning - depending on where he chose to camp. He arrived earlier than I expected, about 2 or 3 o'clock and had 90+km on the clock already that day so we passed through the town and started looking for a place to camp before we both headed to Esfahan the next day. Esfahan is known in Iran to be "half of the world" - because it is so beautiful, the beautiful places in the rest of the world (combined) can only just try to compete. And wow - it is stunning. Compared to anywhere else I have been it is stunning, and compared to the barren hills in this part of the world it is truly spectacular. Boulevards lined with green trees, the river banks lined with magnificent grassy parks and park lands equal to any in the western world. Even the back streets are lined with magnificent trees and beautiful creeks with grass parkland. You also see no litter - which is such a change from anywhere else in Iran (or any of the last few countries I have been through). I sat with Roli by a small creek off a side street the other day eating lunch. In the half to three quarters of an hour we were there not a single item of litter past by in the creek - no paper, no bottles, only a couple of pieces of water grass that must have been uprooted by the flow. And a crab sat on the other bank for the whole time. I've not seen a creek so litter free in a city ever.
1. A new Hillman Hunter
2. Carrot washing
3. A message from me to Roli the day before the big wet - he took a similar photo at the same place at 11am the following day.
Esfahan - Half of the world
For all those interested in rock climbing. Iran of course is loaded with places to climb and here in Esfahan we (Roli and I) have so far visited two climbing walls. One outside the Fire Station (and Mountain Rescue centre) and another indoor one in a sporting complex. The climbing wall in the sporting complex is fantastic - but there are NO easy climbs. There are no walls on an angle beyond vertical _/ . Everything is either _| vertical or _\ overhanging!!!! There is also a lack of gear - the government funded or helped fund the fantastic wall but you cannot hire gear there so it is primarily used for bouldering. They really need to pull some of the very impressive overhanging roof panels off and make some easy climbs - but then I guess they'd need harnesses, belay devices and ropes. One of the guys who runs the place got out two harnesses and a rope that they do have and showed us some serious climbing.
To Shiraz....
Jeff
