Zahedan

Wednesday 12th October 1983 We trundled on through the desert and arrived at Kerman at 06:00 hrs. We were dropped off at a wide street lined with bus co-operative offices and we hot footed it into a cafe for breakfast. This consisted of a huge, tea-towel sized pancake of nan bread and jam, washed down with tea. We then did the rounds of the low square offices in search of a bus destined for Zahedan.

When an English-speaking Iranian appeared offering assistance, we almost took it for granted, and with him, eventually we discovered that there was a bus leaving at 08:00 hrs. The helpful Iranian had spent a year in England until his sick mother had caused him to return. He was waiting for his wife who was coming back from America after getting a master’s degree in Civil Engineering.

The Iranian people were so friendly it was hard to believe, especially as earlier we had stopped at a toll gate overshadowed by an anti-aircraft battery and a large mural depicted a sorrowful looking child looking up at 4 dropping bombs sporting the flags of America (The Great Satan), Russia, Israel and the Great British Union Jack!

We got on the Zahedan bus and continued our journey through even bleaker, hotter desert with occasional primitive mud-brick buildings (and even these with Ayatollah Khomeni pictures stencilled on the walls). After a while we stopped at an oasis where palm trees grew in abundance and a clear rapid stream ran in a channel by a crude fruit stall. Here I sneaked my first photographs of Iran.

We moved on and stopped again at lunch time at a restaurant. Here we saw a Neval motorbike such as George owned, but without the side-car, and we examined it as the sun beat relentlessly down from the clear blue sky. Neval motorcycles were made in Minsk in the former Soviet Union (now Belarus) by Motovelo and were imported into Great Britain and to other parts of the world. Coach loads of white robed turbaned men also arrived to eat while we sat and sipped “purified” water from our flasks.

We now began to see many camels and donkeys in the arid wastes and we were continually breathing in dust thrown up by vehicles on the road. Arriving at Zahedan at 17:00 hrs., we were met by a host of open back Toyota and Suzuki pickup trucks and we leapt into one of these at the bidding of a Pakistani fellow and we drove through the primitive township to the border bus co-operative.

The Pakistani paid the driver and urged us to continue to the border town of Taftan (Urdu: تفتان ), (Balochi: تفتا ‎) which is a town located in Chagai District, Balochistan, Pakistan. It is one of Pakistan’s border crossings with Iran. It is situated over 600 km from Quetta and 9–12 hours drive. The border crossing point on the Iranian side is at Mirjaveh.

However, we had had enough of buses and we booked into a primitive looking, but surprisingly clean, hotel for the night. We had a kebab and nan bread feast before turning in for an early night, and a shower as we were filthy!