The Saruhanyans may live a long way from the big smoke but they are as clued up as anyone in New York or Sydney. The TV is tuned into Moscow these nights and they glance at it sidelong from the dinner table, as if Frankenstein's monster has taken up residence in the living room. Once their thoughts are translated, I know they await the outbreak of hostilities in Afghanistan any day now. They are quiet Christians, and the invasion of their land by MuslimsâArabs and later Persiansâis unforgettable folk memory.
DAY 158 (5 OCTOBER): LAKE SEVAN
Samuel drives me an hour across verdant valleysâwe're still following the Silk Road thousands of kilometres west of Uzbekistanâwhen suddenly, as if viewed over the rim of a silver goblet, the blue-green waters of one of the world's highest lakes take the breath away.
We skirt the shore south-east to Noraduz, a stunning lakeside cemetery of ancient, medieval and modern stone crosses. Known as
kachkars
, these highly decorated crucifixes are uniquely Armenian works of art. In one instance, several
kachkars
line the walls of a tomb vault reminiscent of a small house, complete with its own doorway. Writing with a stick in the sand, Samuel indicates it is a thousand years old.
DAY 160 (7 OCTOBER): YEREVAN
Down a winding mountain our marshrutka snakes its way towards Yerevan, Armenia's ancient and modern capital.
I'm in luck finding a room at the Hotel Erebuni, smack in the centre of town. The hotel faces onto Republic Square; and backs onto a car park that doubles as the pick-up point for buses to what may still be my next destination, Iran. The manager interrupts a meeting to greet me personally and offers me a complimentary bottle (not a glass, mind you) of cognac, the country's most famous product (not counting emigrants). The message is coming through loud and clear: Armenian hospitality never fails.
I remember to ask for a room with a view of Mount Ararat and, once inside, lie down on the bed for a quick rest. Two hours later I lift my head from the pillow and begin unpacking my bags. After a modest drop of the smooth liqueur, I tune in to cable TV. âThis is CNN.' The âwar on terror' has entered a new phase. Bombs are dropping on Kabul. The campaign to oust the Taliban, and hunt down Osama bin Laden, has begun. Propped up by pillows, I sit transfixed till midnight.
DAY 166 (13 OCTOBER): YEREVAN
This must be the Year of Big Numbers. Two weeks ago the Pope was here (even though this is not a Catholic country) to celebrate the 1700th anniversary of Christianity in Armenia, and today is Yerevan's 2783rd birthday. This makes it (as everyone here is proud to tell you) the world's oldest capital city, beating Rome by 29 years.
I join the party, as mass dancers in Republic Square go through a sort of mazurka that should serve Yerevan well if it ever hosts the Olympics. Women in coloured fezzes trailing silver veils either side of their face step out opposite men in gaudy vests and matching pants who resemble nothing so much as a mass meeting of toreadors. Bagpipes supply a sinuous quasi-Oriental accompaniment. Did the Armenians invent bagpipes? Quite possibly. Nearly every other country in the world seems to have done so.
DAY 167 (14 OCTOBER): YEREVAN
I hate to bring up personal details but I woke up this morning with a red-raw patch on my right buttock. I hope the salve from my medical kit will be enough to remove the welt along with the discomfort.
DAY 169 (16 OCTOBER): YEREVAN
Having paid more than the usual attention to my posterior, I am sure that the rawness and soreness result from long hours sitting in minibuses and trains where the constant movement abrades the skin. I've always shied away from fancy and expensive cushions, preferring a simple square of foam rubber, but now that's worn down and I'm going the same way.
DAY 170 (17 OCTOBER): YEREVAN
With the Afghanistan campaign continuing, little time is left to put off the decision where to go from here. To Europe via Turkey is not quite as straightforward as it looks on a map, since eastern Turkey is still considered a no-go zone for travellers because of the âKurdish problem'. However, I could retrace my steps to Batumi, Georgia, and follow the Black Sea coast to Trabzon, and so on to Istanbul, thence to Eastern Europe.
Option two is to continue undaunted, treating the cries of âDanger!' as no more than the natural concern of friends overinfluenced by the media. But, deep down, I know that to treat the Middle East from now on as the same place it was before September 11 would amount to self-deception. More than that, it would ignore my own history, which ought to tell me that when this region is sizzling with uncertainty I cannot sail through it unaffected.
Six or seven hours a day of CNN, with its constant coverage of the military offensive in Afghanistan, is not conducive to the calm atmosphere I need to make this momentous decision, and these past few days I can feel my sense of composure about the journey slipping away. So today I keep the TV turned off, rationing myself to one news bulletin in the morning and one in the evening. I must know what is happening but not be unduly alarmed.
DAY 171 (18 OCTOBER): YEREVAN
The first fruits of my calm approach come with a dawning realisation that the fallacy in my friends' urgings to come home, or at least stay away from the Middle East, lies in considering the whole region as equally dangerous.
How often I used to wish, when travelling in Africa, that people back home would distinguish between that continent's many cultures and see how being in Johannesburg was nothing like being in Lagos. Now it is I who have been failing to respect the diversity of the Middle East. By using my brain, and analysing each country in turn, I should steer clear of those where the risk of civil strife or something worse appears too great.
DAY 172 (19 OCTOBER): YEREVAN
After confiding my irritating health problem with delicacy and discretion to a long-term European resident here, I visit a clinic the expatriate population swears by. The doctor, a Muscovite whose nurse translates from Russian into English, recommends a special creamâ and staying off my bum as much as possible.
With a list of Armenian terms for âgauze', âsticking plaster' and other items my first-aid kit ought to have had in abundance, I visit a puzzled pharmacist who equips me for a self-administered recovery.
DAY 173 (20 OCTOBER): YEREVAN
D-for-decision day.
In the West, people not only lump different Middle Eastern countries togetherâoh, they're all Arabs, they'll often say or at least think (although Iranians aren't)âthey sometimes make the mistake of assuming that all Muslims think alike. As the first country I will cross is Iran, and Iran has a poisonous hatred of the Taliban (who torched the Iranian Embassy in Kabul, burning Iranian diplomats alive, no less), I am very sure Tehran will happily stand by and watch the Americans pound Kabul day and night until the Taliban are ousted, and only later turn overtly against Washington.
So I will proceed, cautiously, through Iran. And if the country drifts into hostilities with the US I will catch a flight from Tehran to Istanbul, and follow the East European route. This gives me until the second week of November to build flexibility into my plan.
After looking at the rest of the Middle East I discard only two destinations, and put a question mark over a third.
Yemen has recently succumbed to a spate of kidnappings (well, for the past 1500 years actually, but with special attention to Western targets this year) so it's off the menu.
Even though my guidebook says Iraqi visas can be issued to groups of five or more, I really don't think four other people mad enough to consider going there are likely to turn up: besides, its immediate future in Bush's âwar on terror' appears decidedly wobbly.
In Israel, suicide bombings are not an everyday reality, but the security situation will bear closer watching six months down the track, when I would be heading there. I feel mightily relieved to have this decision behind me.
DAY 174 (21 OCTOBER): YEREVAN
A visitor to Armenia can no more ignore than convey the horror of the genocide Turkey carried out against the Armenians living there at the very time the Gallipoli campaign brought this part of the world to the forefront of Australians' minds.
In 1915 (it is reliably estimated and only Turks themselves seem to be in denial) some 1.5 million Armenians were systematically massacred.
On a promontory just outside Yerevan sits the Genocide Memorial, preserve of concrete and basalt, clipped lawns and memories of a kind and scale far too horrific to grasp.
Pillars surrounding the Eternal Flame are separated by gaps wide enough to allow an outsider to take in the view but narrow enough not to disturb those laying flowers around the flame itself.
Just 25 days ago, a more famous traveller left a message in the garden. His sentiments, dated 26 September 2001, are freshly chiselled on a modest plaque:
O Lord, How the sons and daughters of this land have suffered, and grant Armenia your blessing.
FROM POPE JOHN PAUL II
DAY 175 (22 OCTOBER): YEREVAN
I now spend most of the night and hours by day lying on my side, like a Buddha-in-training. The abrasion is lessening. It hurts now only when I sit down. This is more than a bit of a problem when you've thousands of kilometres to go in a wheelchair, but the recumbent-Buddha posture is not practical in a crowded bus.
On this my last afternoon at the Hotel Erebuni, putting the woes of the world and my buttocks behind me, I sit in the cafeteria and sketch out in longhand an article for the
Age
travel pages.
It's a healthy diversion from doom and gloom to write a light-hearted piece about menu bloopers I've encountered these past few months. The most intriguing one was an item designated âthe cooked language of cattle'. It took me some minutes to puzzle out that this was probably a restaurateur's best stab at translating âbraised ox tongue'.
DAY 176 (23 OCTOBER): YEREVAN
At 8 am, right on time, our luxury coach pulls out of the Erebuni car park bound for Tehran. I'm getting off in the northern city of Tabriz. An hour out of Yerevan, the snow-mantled magnificence of Mount Araratâon Turkish territory now but once part of Armeniaâdraws the passenger's gaze as irresistibly as a magnet. Soon afterwards we take a road branching off to the left, the beginning of a detour that will add hundreds of kilometres to the journey but one made unavoidable by the ârealities on the ground' after the Nagorno-Karabakh war of the early 1990s. The old bus route is no longer followed, the conductor and relief driver tells me cheerfully, because it's landmined. (And here am I reassuring people about how safe the Middle East is: if only they knew!)
Twice in the late afternoon our route takes us across the international border into Azerbaijan â for three minutes on the first occasion, four on the second. The driver assures us this bus does the trip three times a week and no one ever shoots at it. Travelling with optimists makes a huge difference to one's mood.
We reach the lonely border post of Meghri about 8.30 pm. In theory, the Christian Armenian West should bid me a fond farewell while the Islamic Republic of Iranâwhich has played hardest to get of all the visa-issuing countries on this entire journeyâshould treat me as a decadent Western infidel. Yet again, travel confounds expectations, with the Armenian officials playing hardball.
They appear to be angling for a bribe in exchange for an exit stamp in my passport. The Iranians, may Allah bless their souls, greet me like a long-lost brother. We are on the south bank of the Araks River, now inside the Islamic Republic. It will be five or six hours before any of us can lay our heads on a pillow in Tabriz, but I already feel as if I've arrived somewhere suspiciously like home.
Chapter 12
THE MUSLIM HEARTLANDS
When one of the caliph's ministers was invited to Persia he refused on the ground that he would need four hundred camels to carry all his books
.
PETER MANSFIELD
T
HE
A
RABS
OCTOBERâDECEMBER 2001
IRAN: 23 OCTOBER-10 DECEMBER
Having no choice but to live out of a suitcaseâhow else to carry the urological gear that makes up a paraplegic's portable survival kit?âI made a virtue of necessity and packed it even fuller with 27 books before leaving home. Finding someone willing to lug it 100 or 200 metres from train station to taxi, or taxi to hotel is not an insuperable problem, although at times I felt it would have made more sense to travel with my own caravan. But in this part of the world camels are expensive.
The Persians founded a civilisation in the true sense: a culture based on city life. Persepolis pointed the way, and 2500 years later the city of Isfahan still proudly calls itself âhalf the world'
(nagsh-e-jahan)
, an instance of civic hubris that dwarfs even the Big Apple.
Whereas desert Arabs were, by and large, ascetic deniers of the âgood life', keeping their gaze fixed on Paradise in the hereafter, Persians even in ancient times were known for letting their hair down. The ancient Greek historian Herodotus wrote about the Persians of his day:
If an important decision is to be made, they discuss the question when they are drunk, and the following day the master of the house ⦠submits their decision for reconsideration when they are sober. If they still approve it, it is adopted; if not, it is abandoned. Conversely, any decision they make when they are sober is reconsidered afterwards when they are drunk.
The Persian genius is for artistic expression and theological speculation, but you would be wrong to assume they are a stern-visaged people after the fashion of Ayatollah Khomeini: the sense of humour here can be rich and sharp as a minaret. An Iranian I met in a Tehran museum told me of his experience in Williamsburg, Virginia, when he was the only non-American in a tour group being shown around the 18th-century colonial town. Noting that our friend was the only member of the group not asking questions, the guide approached him afterwards and said, âAren't you impressed with our fabulous culture?' Pausing to collect breath, the Iranian replied, âIt's very interesting, but my fruit-and-vegetable vendor back home has more culture in his cauliflowers than you have in this whole town.'
These people are mentally lively, historically aware and no cogs in anybody's Axis of Evil, whatever certain other fundamentalists would have you think.
Geography dictated that Iranâthe only non-Arab country in this part of the world, apart from its mortal enemy, Israelâwould be my first port of call in the Middle East. But the fact that Persians are not Arab was enough to focus my mind on what Islam had contributed to the world and whether they were a backward, dysfunctional branch of the human family, as you would believe from much of the West's media coverage, or just members of the human race, one and genetically indivisible, about whom we are remarkably ignorant (because for various reasons their minds and motives are a puzzle to us, as ours are to them).
At the time, when I was weighing up whether to heed my friends' warnings to abort this part of the journey, or at least put it on hold, I was convinced thatâentering the region less than three months after the terror attacks on New York and Washingtonâmy timing couldn't have been worse.
How Arab Muslims viewed September 11 and its consequences was obviously going to be a matter of some importance to me. One thing I could be sure of when travelling through their world in the closing months of 2001 and the beginning of 2002 was that Riyadh and Muscat, not to mention Dubai, were unlikely to be overrun by tourists. Even if they were, strict Muslims would probably find their view of Westerners as hedonists and materialists confirmed rather than confounded.
It helped to have a respect for Arabs and their contributions to global culture. It was Islam, in these lands, that kept the flame of ancient Greek learning alive throughout Europe's Dark Ages, and transmitted paper and gunpowder from China to Europe. Their artistic genius flowered in calligraphy and music: the oud, ancestor of the lute, is an Arab invention.
But these are superficial signs of a people's greatness: its essence resides in aspects of character that cannot be seen with any eye but that of sympathetic imagination. To exercise that imagination is to take a broader view of the race, and with no people can this perspective be more useful than the oft-maligned Arabs.
Islam was spread by the sword, it is true, and many of us in so-called Christian countries (forgetful of how Christianity was spread) regard the Muslim creed as barbaric for that reason. But I cannot think of a creed in whose name blood has not been shed, and Islam lays down a strong ethical foundation enjoining hospitality, charity and a colourblind humanitarianism nobody can deny.
The first discovery awaiting the happy wanderer is that, contrary to what fearful friends back home may be thinking, the Muslim millions don't go to work every day armed with scimitars, the better to hack down infidels who cross their path. There are âholy warriors' (I would soon meet one in Qatar) and indeed madmen with knives (ditto Syria) but they are a minority. No one was waiting to kill me, although more than a few were eager to convert me. But, wherever I went, most Muslims regarded me first and foremost as a human being, and respected the differences between us.
Anthrax may come and sarin may go, but politicians are constantly infecting the thought supply with such historically reckless statements as George W. Bush's declaration of a âcrusade' against militant Islam. (That the first three or four Crusades were not a string of brilliant successes ought to have deterred any historically aware Western leader from mounting his steed and charging into a âwar on terror'.) Fortunately, Bahrainis and others in the region with whom I discussed this statement tended to regard Bush as a danger not because of his rhetorical excesses but because of the historical ignorance they revealed.
DAY 177 (24 OCTOBER): TABRIZ
A chill is in the air at 3.30 am as our bus pulls into Tabriz. A taxidriver overcharges by a factor of five to take me and my small baggage mountain 400 metres to the modest Ark Hotel. But it's too late and I am too tired to argue. There is also the fact that he has no English and I no Farsi, so he drives off before I can go through the usual argy-bargy.
Somehow I find a nightwatchman not actually asleep who shrugs helplessly but courteously unlocks the door. His shrug makes perfect sense when I see that all the rooms are up a narrow spiral staircase. I sprawl out on an armchair in the dimly lit foyer like a mannequin left overnight in a department store. Morning will rouse me to life.
DAY 178 (25 OCTOBER): TABRIZ
Tonight I kill two birds with one stone. After installing myself in Room 304 of a more habitable hotel, the Azarbaijan, I take local advice and search out a crowded coffee shop on Ferdosi Street, just off the city's main avenue, predictably named Imam Khomeini. Here two passions will be on display in a country often thought of as repressed. One is what the Egyptians call a hubble-bubble, the Indians a hookahâa water pipe, for the smoking of
shisha
, which Westerners always assume to be marijuana and Iranians (not to mention Gulf Arabs) always diffidently assure them is something far less thrilling, like apple shavings. The âhigh' is definitely in the head, but whether it's physical or mental no one cares to speculate after a couple of satisfying draughts.
The other passion is soccer. Tonight Iran play the Emirates in a Dubai qualifying match for next year's World Cup. Through thick smoke I can make out an Iranian goal as it catches the inside corner of the net, and a split-second later the coffee shop erupts with the roar of 200 (all-male) voices in full-throated battle cry.
DAY 179 (26 OCTOBER): TABRIZ
Here is the Shi'ite Muslim equivalent of a mission statement, from a framed poster in the first-floor conference room of my hotel. Under the arresting title âIn the Name of God', it declares:
As long as a tourist is in an Islamic country, the Islamic government is responsible to guarantee his safety and comfort. If a tourist in an Islamic country loses his properties, the government should support and provide him with the lost property.
IMAM ALI (PEACE BE UPON HIM).
In this corner of Iran, seeing another tourist is something of an event in itself. So, over breakfast at my hotel, I fall naturally into conversation with a young English family who are also staying there. Later, on our way to the medieval brick-tiled bazaar that is the glory of this former Iranian capital, Rebecca Hathaway impulsively asks whether I would like to stay with her family when I get to Tehran. After months of hotels and guesthouses, the offer comes like manna from heaven. I arrange to ring her when my bus gets in on Sunday night.
This afternoon I cannot shrug off the suspicion that some intruder to my room (it can only have been someone sanctioned by the hotel authorities) has spirited off two or three film rolls. Should I take management up on the God-given replacement guarantee? I think better of it.
When I comment on the harum-scarum quality of the local drivingânotorious even by Iranian standardsâPouria Taghavi, a Tabrizi assisting a travel agent with whom I hope to do business, tells me, âIt is easy to get a driving licence in Iran.' âWhat do you have to do?' I ask. Taghavi replies with just the hint of a smile, âPark the car.'
DAY 180 (27 OCTOBER): TABRIZ TO TAKHT-E SULEIMAN
Salve alone does not bring salvation: my gluteus maximus is now red-raw, and this morning the skin over my right buttock breaks open. Even a medical ignoramus like myself knows that I am suffering what the nurses warned me so fearfully about in the hospital spinal-injuries ward ten long years ago: a pressure sore. As the day wears on, my backside wears off and it dawns on me that what was so recently just an irritation now poses an inevitable check to my travel plans. If the skin is broken, so must my journey be.
En route I show the driver my guidebook, with its sketches of Iranian leaders. Ayatollah Khomeini elicits a tight grimace; President Mohammad Khatami an approving nod; but when he sees the âhated' Shah he pulls the book from my hands (at some cost to his steering control) and kisses it. This is how you have a political conversation with someone who doesn't speak your language.
Dusk is gathering as we arrive at the entrance to Takht-e Suleiman (the Throne of Solomon), an archaeologist's Paradise on Earth. Here the rubble of four mighty epochs is scattered across remote rural slopes, a ruined palace here, a ramshackle temple there. The taxidriver urges me away, bemoaning the lateness of the hour and anxious to renegotiate the agreed price even as we roam around the site.
DAY 181 (28 OCTOBER): TAKAB TO TEHRAN
I cause a near-riot in the bus park at Takab. This is a town so remote that the sight of a wheelchair, let alone one whose occupant is determined to board a bus, is so alarming the police are called. Only with great difficulty and after thorough examination of my passport are they persuaded that I have the right to be on this planet. Even then, I suspect, their decision to let me go is made in the interests of public safety rather than because I have a ticket. This is the only place so far where I have become an object of hostility, but then I have a long way to go.
Into Zanjan province we ride, through a pelting downpour that brings the first rainbow of the journey, and as darkness falls we squelch our way through the suburbs of Tehran, city of 12 million, the appreciation of whose splendours must wait on sleep. Hopelessly lost after a taxi ride from the bus station to the city centre, I phone Rebecca Hathaway, who patiently rides to the rescue, and by mid-evening I am out of the rain, into the welcoming surrounds of a comfortable home in the suburbs.
DAY 183 (30 OCTOBER): TEHRAN
It is embarrassing, but I have to tell my hostsâwho, I am sure, were expecting to put me up for just a few daysâthat my arrival has coincided with something of a medical emergency. All my travel plans are in limbo until this skin rupture heals.
Rebeccaâwho, after just a few months in Tehran, is well connected to the expatriate communityâcalls in a Dutch doctor, Jorik, whose career history tending elderly patients in the Netherlands makes his prognosis less than reassuring. âYou must stay off the affected area, rest on your side for hours a day. This must be for weeks until we see how you improveâbut in my experience once the skin is broken this will always be a problem for you.'
Suddenly I want to hear more about his current work with Afghan refugees.
My worn-down square of foam rubber has now been replaced by a round inflated tube resembling a large orange Life Saver. Sitting on it minimises pressure on the buttocks but I cannot imagine travelling like this. Still, I am under doctor's orders and there is no alternative: the journey must be put on hold.
DAY 184 (31 OCTOBER): TEHRAN
Hallowe'en in Tehran. After spending most of the day lying sideways on my bed staring alternately at a book and the bare wall, I balance myself on my orange tube and accompany the Hathawaysâoilman Tom, Rebecca and their two sonsâto the Hallowe'en party at the British School. As I wander around the schoolgrounds, carefully avoiding pumpkin-headed kids playing dead beside makeshift crosses, I meet some longer-term residents of Tehran. One of them, the wife of a Canadian diplomat, gives me better advice than I am to receive from the much-too-knowledgeable but under-analytical officials at my own embassy. âYou should realise,' she bends down to tell me, âthat if you go on to the Gulf states in the current climate the odds of anything calamitous happening to you have just risen from one in a million to one in a hundred thousand. How do you feel about that?'