PREFACE: Having been in a major bus accident on route to Tehran — in which an Iranian I’d befriended was killed; now, the prospect of another disaster loomed straight ahead.
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CONTENTS
Crazy Taxi Driver
He drove like a maniac — rushing home to rescue the oven fries he’d left baking by mistake, cutting lanes to get back before his house caught fire.
If this were true, he would certainly serve them piping hot and perfectly cooked.
But being in Iran, I guess this wasn’t the reason. And I assumed French fries, hamburgers, and Coke were frowned upon in Islamic Iran and that everything Americana made the locals sick, given how bleakly Western media depicted the country.
Negative headlines lingered: a devout, anti-Western society obsessed with martyrdom and wrecked by war — a land of fanatics.
I felt this was so as the taxi driver grinned at me in his rear-view mirror and said, “Where you want go?”
Where do I want to go? He’s asked this twice now. I realized that I’d taken the wrong taxi cab; this driver was clueless.
He punched the gas and threw us across painted lanes without checking, tossing me back against the spring-less seat with a grin that said he knew exactly what he was doing. Adrenaline buzzed through my body with every reckless surge; I enjoyed the speed.
He jerked the wheel and wedged the nose into narrow gaps, slamming the horn with his palm and blaring back whenever another grille cut across our bumper.
A swarm of boxy Hillman Hunters hemmed us in, their doors caved in from past collisions and mismatched primer slapped over peeling paint.
My taxi was also a Hillman Payan or “Chariot” — the local variant — though stripped of any extras, missing even its front bumper.
A loop of Koranic beads dangled from the rear-view mirror, swinging with every swerve while the driver locked eyes with me in the glass instead of watching the road.
“Where you want, mister?”
“The Foreign Ministry!”
He grinned in the mirror and said nothing.
“Visa, you know?” I waved my passport in the air, “Visa,” stamping it with my fist.
My first impression of Tehran was of a brown, dusty concrete city clogged with cars like a hive of angry insects. As I’d arrived in late summer, the nearby Elburz Mountains were lost in the haze — much like my driver.
He asked a pedestrian for directions again, then we charged into the traffic.
Iranian drivers displayed skills seen in the West only at demolition derbies.
I wondered: Is there a road code here?
Vehicles ran the gauntlet at intersections where traffic lights failed and no police stood guard. Survival demanded perpetual speeding, swerving, and a relentless hand on the horn.
A cyclist yelled abuse at my driver, having fended us off with a palm against the hood to avert a crash.
At another intersection, three cars circled a fallen cyclist, drivers stalling traffic as they bickered over blame.
Potential accidents occurred every minute, and often three within as many seconds.
Tehran motorists followed an unwritten yet respected hierarchy I’d recognized from other developing countries.
The ‘king of the road’ was a truck, so move aside — or die. Next came the bus, bullying cars, while bigger cars bullied smaller ones. Scooters — the ultimate pedestrian menace — zipped against traffic on both shoulders or wove along the footpaths.
This pedestrian gauntlet was something I’d have to master. On foot later, I would be shown how to cross the hectic streets of Tehran. I stood there waiting for a gap in the traffic so I could cross — but it never came. An old man then took my hand. We dashed amid vehicles, stopping midway as cars whizzed past, praying others would slow as we sprinted.
After half an hour by taxi, we’d finally found the Foreign Ministry building.
The driver sped off.
I strolled up to the gate with a wide grin and a loud “Hello,” but the soldier stationed there merely scowled and blocked the doorway with a stiff hand: “No, closed.”
His answer confused me. Closed at 10:00 AM in the midweek?
So I asked again. “Visa. I need a visa extension.”
“Closed. You come tomorrow.”
A passer-by who spoke English finally broke the news: it was a public holiday.
He pointed up at the emblem on the building and chuckled — I was not even at the Foreign Ministry, but stranded outside an entirely different government office!
Lost in Tehran
So there I was lost in northern Tehran, at least five centimeters off the edge of my paper map.
At a bus stop, the Farsi destinations were incomprehensible, but local help steered me toward central Tehran.
I’d decided on Toopkhaneh Square.
When the battered bus groaned to the curb, the crowd surged like hungry sharks in a flurry of elbows and bags. The old man seized my arm and threw his shoulder into the knot of passengers, hauling me through the bottleneck as ribs and shoulders pressed hard against us until we were wedged within the aisle.
Meanwhile, figures cloaked in black chadors filed through the front door, while a tangle of men still jostled and pressed into the back.
As the bus rolled along tree-shaded streets toward downtown, the old man stayed quiet, just smiling. I thanked him and stepped down into the sweltering, dusty street.
I remembered what he’d said at the bus stop.
“I am happy to be able to help you.” He had pressed a paper ticket into my palm, gently batting away my crumpled rials with a shake of his head. “I do not see many foreigners in Tehran,” he’d murmured, eyes crinkling. “Before the Revolution, many came here. But since then I have seen only three Europeans. I hope your coming to Tehran is a sign that more Westerners will return.”
Standing on that pavement in the late summer of 1990, his warmth lingered long after the bus pulled away — a quiet encounter that dismantled every headline I’d ever read and eventually drew me back to Iran in the winter of 2011.
Travels in Iran – 1990
