Deserted - Saturday, February 20th

My nocturnal tryst with the cat had left me somewhat sleep deprived. But I had another date with a 7am bus bound for Yazd so there really was no rest for the wicked.

Yazd is a mud forged desert city that was nearly three milennia old.  Marco Polo had  given it the seal of approval, calling it ‘a very fine and splendid place.’ It’s heyday was in the 14th century and many of those buildings still stand so this day. So this was going to be a potential highlight. Which is hard, because there have been a fair few of them already.

When my taxi arrived at the bus station there was a sign in Farsi saying that the only bus out of Khur to Yazd would not be running that day. Apparently no one had reserved it so they assumed no one wanted to go.

With only a brief puase for thought my kindly old taxi driver was helping me hitch rides off the side of the road. Hitchhiking doesn’t really happen here so this was a wee bit of a long shot.

Fortune eventually came in the form of two enormous flatbed trucks. They were carrying dry concrete and stopping via Na'in. From there I could take a bus to Yazd.

This was the first time I’d ever gotten a hitch from a truck before so I was  rather excited. The driver was a warm, jolly little man called Sayed. For an Iranian truck driver he knew a surprising amount about UK politics. We somehow managed to eek out a conversation about the EU referendum. He backed David Cameron. “He’ll be so glad to hear that.”

Once politics was done, we switched to more cerebral conversations about women. Sayed had a seemingly endless stream of naughty pics in his old Sony Ericsson. I remember the phone fondly. It was one of the first colour screen phones and at 16, I was using it for naughty pics
too.

It’s important to bear in mind that the women in these pics were still clothed and many still in head scarves. They just had very lascivious looks to camera. That’s more than enough around here. It probably would have been for me at 16 too.

The 2003 London post cards I had bought were becoming the purchase of the  trip. As it’s rude to give money for generosities so these were the next best thing. People really loved them and I’d brought 20 so could afford to be generous. Sayed put his proudly on display in his truck window. “Londan. Very Good!” He exclaimed.
'Wait till you see the tube at rush hour’, I thought.

We stopped and Sayed’s slightly less cuddly friend got out from the sleeping area behind the driver’s seat. They offered me the flat bed and I was more than happy to oblige. I thought about explaining the reason why I was so tired but it would only have led to confusion.

After a few precious hours of sleep both trucks stopped for a spot of lunch. A mat was put down on the floor of the lay-by and the four of them treated me to a lunch of tomato, cucumber, cheese, dates and fresh bread. Oh, and tea of course. Lots of tea.

I tried to imagine a British truck driver settling down to the same  healthy spread, but couldn’t. A sweaty Rustlers cheeseburger sprang to mind.

We got to Na'in and said our goodbyes. Being on the flat bed in the truck was the most comfortable (but by far the slowest) method of transport I’d used so far. Highly recommended if you’re not in a hurry. They left me by the roadside and the bus arrived half an hour later. The Iranian equivalent of synchronised mass transport.

It seems that instead of the government paying for anti-speeding adverts here, they just take the wrecks and place them on platforms near motorway checkpoints. A bit grizzly but probably quite effective. I’m glad they took the bodies out first. Think that would have been over egging it a bit.