Southern India

water buffalo with really long horns

Dear Readers, friends and families,

Mumbai train station

time passes as we travel further south in India. Our last post is from Rajasthan. Because of our short visa ("only" two months) we decided to take a train to the south to continue cycling there. First we wanted to go to Hampi. It should be a marvelous place in the state of Karnataka. But as there where no simple connections from Udaipur we decided to go to Goa first and see what's happening then.

They have a crazy system here in India: if you want to book at the station you have to hand in a paper with all the trains numbers, departure time and so on. Don't know how you are supposed to find out all this data. But fortunately there is one counter for disabled, blind, veterans...and, guess what: foreigners! After some time at the train station and several attempts to book a ticket at this counter, we found a trip with only one change at Mumbai. "Wow, that's cool" we thought. Well, that was before we where in the train and found our that we did not only have to change trains in Mumbai, India's biggest city with 20 Million inhabitants, but also train stations! This meant a trip trough all the whole city of Mumbai with the bikes, all our luggage and the traffic. Ooops.

In the rice paddies

To make a long story short: we made it and it wasn't all that bad after all. And we arrived happily and after some good sleep in Goa. There we decided that we are actually cyclists and wanted to cycle again and not wait for the train to Hampi two days after. We will see this place next time.

Celebrating the hindu "holi" festival on the way to Karnataka

Therefore it was time for some beach hopping, swimming and sunbathing. Goa is a small state in India (once a Portoguese colony) and was one of the last ones to join the independent India after the collapse of the Portuguese dictatorship of Salazar in the middle sixties. The famous party-scene on electronicmusic-,  light drugs- and LSD-basis is concentrated in small spots on the north of the state. Disappointingly we arrived by train in the south, where heavy-drinking British pensioners and new Russian middle-class make up the core of the touristic bulk. Our will to get stoned was less pressing than the will of avoiding the cycle trip to the north to cycle south again, so we decided to take he best of the south part of the state. We spent  good time on some of India's finest beaches like Benaulim or Palolem with marvelous fish dinners on the sand at a price of a bargain and enjoyed the cycling between green rice plantations. Then we moved south to the state of Karnataka to the even better beaches like Kuddle beach, Om beach, Paradise beach near Gokarna.....Yes, it was nice. But it was a bit strange to be afraid of sunburn and having to put on sun blocker. But after 4 months in the fresh air and under the sun, all but our arms and legs is still quite white: typical cyclist-tanned skin! 

Maybe we repeat ourselves, but it was interesting to see how different India can be. If you only know Rajasthan, you wouldn't believe something like Goa can exist in the same country - and the other way round. In Goa colonial influence is still very present with a lot of christian churches (the majority here is christian) and the women wear dresses and no Saris. Some of the younger ones would even show their knees: really vicious! The taxes on Alchool are much lower than in the north, making the prices up to 70% lower. For us European it is strange to associate transgression with Catholicism and Christianity. In our cities often the most "transgressive" suburbs are associated with Islamic immigration, and if you want some weed, often the dealers comes from north-africa or other Mediterranean countries. Here is the other way round! We noticed the same also in Iran in the city of Esfahan, where the local youth got smuggled alcohol and hashish from Afghanistan in the Christian suburb of Jolfa. So guys, In Asia Christianity rocks, and the pope smokes dope!

For Natalie - even nature loves Schnoerkel!

Changing theme, we would like to asses one of the first peculiarity of a country that at first should impress a cycling tourist: How the locals deal with road traffic?
India is an exotic touristic destinations for many travellers and it is easy to identify with it, at least to some extent,  the typical post-hippy-left-minded-shanty-peace&love white people hanging around everywhere in the subcontinent who fall in love with the country (or their imagination of it...). Despite of that, India has since millennia one of the most racists and most terrific social system ever created by human beings: the cast system. It is coherent and inherent to the dominating Hindu religion but influences also the other vast minorites. The cast system has been officially abolished, but in practice little has changed. Without entering in the details of such a complex thema  Matteo is of the opinion the religious and social background heavily influences the attitude of the indians on the roads. Indeed, the traffic system is strictly hierarchic too. On the top of the pyramide there is the cow. The incontestable king (or better queen) of the roads make its existence on every surface of a city or of a road which it elects as its place. It is a common scene to see many Indians on a huge variety of vehicles (often with a huge number of Indians on them) that until a minute before had fight almost to death for every available square centimeter of road, waiting patiently and quiet for a cow. The cow stays in the middle, maybe taking a shit or making the road full of piss and then, but only if it wants, will abandon its position to allow the others to carry on on their way, ignoring them and staring at the world with the its typic odd and stupid expression.

milking cows in front of our hotel

Below the cow, the rest of the person and animals taking part to the road traffic rules itself also hierarchically: by dimensions. Dimension is the real key to interpret the traffic here, and the acceptance of the fact that a bicycle count much less than a truck, is of vital importance on Indian roads. The unification of this simple rule with the general attitude of the Indians to cheat and to come better off, lead to the other major characteristic of the Indian traffic: a wild honking. Every vehicle tries to gain importance and hike the stairs of the hierarchy by cheating on its dimensions by a louder honking than its competitors. Surprisingly, the public transports buses, which by rule of dimension should be already almost on the top, have a private fight with the trucks, and mount the most powerful and loud honking systems on earth. It is something you cannot imagine how loud they are. The serie-honking systems on Indian vehicles are much louder than in Europe, and many mechanics offer to tune them even louder. It's common to find piaggio Ape which honks as loud as a complete drunken brass-band. This is not the exaggeration of an European tourist who wants to sound cool or to be funny. It is really so, and it is hardly funny. Of course in some cities it's worse than in others (To our experience Jaipur is the worst) but on average it's almost the same everywhere. The problem is that this wild honking system has already come to a saturation. Actually, if you imagine a Cartesian system where on the X axis you put the frequency and loudness of the honking and on the Y axis the effect you obtain on the other people, the curve you get is a parabolic curve with the alfa therm < 0. That is, the effect the street competitors will steadily increase with the increase in the honking up to a maximum to decrease as steadily if you increase the honking further. Paradoxically here there is such a wild and constant honking that nobody cares that much about it. This is a common effect (I am thinking about the Italian politics and its language for instance). It bears for sure the name of some mathematician or sociologist that described it. I am not sure that it can be represented with a parable but I hope you got the principle (and if you want you can discuss it by posting a comment).
Once you get this simply rules, to cycle in India it is really enjoable and so far surprisingly easy. Nothing to do with the horror that a German cyclist described at one party in Munich. To him to cycle here was simply impossible and he gave up after few days. Either he was just a German or Mascha and me are becoming just too tough. But overall, India is just beautiful.

Public viewing for the Cricket final: India is world champion!



Matteo in the Mysore Palace



Incredible India

In Rathambore we didn't see the tigers, but their food

Hallo dear readers, our first stage in India is almost over! We travelled in Rajasthan the last two and a half weeks, cycling  from Jaipur to Rathambore national park and over Bundi and Chithorgarh to Udaipur. Today we will leave Rajasthan by train towards south, after having managed the adventure of buying a train ticket at the station only 2 days in advance... - but from the beginning:

 It took a couple of meters to remember ourselves that  in India they are driving on the left side on the road. Thank you British Raj! But is wasn't all that bad. We were lucky again and we arrived on a Sunday early morning. So the streets were relatively calm for Indian standards. But in general the traffic is much much better than we expected it to be - or are we just used to Iranian standards?!? We were quite relieved and rather

Normal street landscape

 amused by all the things we could see on Indian streets. There are cars of course (but few), motorbikes of all kinds (Matteo was fascinated by the Royal Enfields), Tuk-Tuks, Piaggio Ape, Cycle Rickshaws, but also carriers pulled by horses, oxes and even camels! There are cows everywhere, standing in the middle of the traffic, not impressed by the people who try to drive by. The pigs that feed themselves of all the rubbish left on every street corner are also quite calm. Only the rats seemed to have some problems crossing the steerts.  On every corner we see a temple, some with monkeys....to make it short: a lot of impressions....

India is crazy, wild, different - so far we love it! (But you have to accept a couple of things though...)
All the different people, with different languages, faiths, clothing and casts can be very confusing. Especially if you want some information. e.g. "Do you/Hindus eat meat?" the answer can be "Yes" or "No! Never!!" depending which cast you ask.

Will Matteo bring her back to the real world?

 

The price system is at least as confusing. For the same (really the SAME) sari on merchant wanted 2200Rs (1Euro = 59Rs), another one a few meters away charged us 200Rs. Where is the logic?! Well, maybe there isn't any. It is just a matter how much you are willing to pay. Some merchants do charge too much, of course, but it can be the complete opposite as well. In a shop we wanted to buy a string which was 5Rs, while chatting Mascha accepted a tea from a street seller who was payed by the shop keeper (5RS). The same shop keeper refused to accept the payment of 10Rs afterward, and accepted only the 5RS for the string (which means zero profit for him ->crazy India). A similar story happened one evening, the sun was setting down and we were in a hurry to find a camp site, but had to get some water before. On a street stand we refilled our bottles with water from some big clay jars. We did not want to take the water for free, so we tried to buy some bread as well, to make a little business for the family running the stand. But instead they prepared a whole dish with bread and daal - and did not accept ANY money for all that afterwards!

In any case, in India  everything is really so heterodox and so heterogeneous that you cannot estimate the average attitude of the people without accepting a huge standard deviation, I think much bigger than in every other country we have ever been. So, you always have to deal with a situation as if it would be almost your first time. To make an example, in Iran we had the impression that everyone who started to talk to us on the street was friendly and wanted to help us. And it was really like that. In India the same may also happen, but you never know, and behind a big smile (here everyone is smiling) you can either find a real friend ... or someone who wants a commission .... or someone who just wants sell you something..... or someone who is just smiling because he is happy ... or someone who wants to cheat you and so on. It is part of the game, and it is part of the fun here.    

having a tea

From the cyclist point of view, we travel on all kind of roads, from dirt traks to highways. We enjoy pretty much the kilometers we do in the country side, which is at the moment completely green of  crops (mostly wheat and some opium). The work in the agriculture is still to the biggest extent done per hand, and with the exception of chemical fertilizers and pesticides to protect the crops (which seem to work really well), I think it is pretty much the same as it was in Europe 100 years ago. We choose normally small roads trough the villages and we have the impression that we cannot do 100 meters without seeing at least one person. People are everywhere, and we are really a huge attraction in all villages (even more staring than in towns, if that is possible). If we stop to repair a puncture also 20 people just stop to watch at us, if we drink a tea suddenly the shop gets crowded and so on. Once, we drank a tea at a road stand and one boy brought Matteo a message on a small peace of paper from the teacher of the local school. He wanted to meet us and speak with us. He said we were the first tourists, who have ever been in that village, and for many villagers the first European or simply white people they had ever seen in their life. We had a nice conversation and we got invited from an other teacher to his house. It turned out that this second teacher was from the cast of the Rajputs, the highest class in all Rajastan, of the few casts who are allowed to eat meat. He brought us to see his fields, approximately not more than 5 hectars (about 10 rugby fields) cultivated with papaya and wheat, some chicken and four female buffalos. Three families (about 15 people) were working the fields and living there in small open huts. He could pay his workers and even make a profit just with 5 hectars of grain! It is absolutely incredible for our European standards, unless you imagine how low the work of a man is payed in India. Anyway, all the people were happy and in good health. In our honour our host wanted to offer us meat, therefore we had to catch one of his beautiful rooster. It run so fast and it was so smart that it was almost impossible to catch it. Matteo tried to say " It deserves to live, we eat vegetarian again, actually it was not that bad to eat vegetarian in the last two weeks!". No way, our host wanted to offer us the meat, maybe to show us the privilege of his cast? The farmer and all the kids could get the rooster after many, many difficulties and one really dirty trick (basically breaking one of its legs with a long stick), the farmer killed the roaster and after a couple of minutes it was ready to be slaughtered. Once arrived in his house in the village, our host refused to do it, so Matteo had to do the job. We spend pretty much all the afternoon at his home. He explained Matteo that according to the Hindu culture the meat of different animals has a different effect on the human body. The rooster is supposed to have prodigious effects on the male sexual activity. Since the host deserved the best parts for himself and just some bones for Matteo, we understood why he wanted to kill that rooster...
 

Mascha in tutta la sua bellezza

Matteo training for the next Oktoberfest

P.S.
If Mascha wasn't a cycle traveler, she would be a photographer and would only travel around
India taking pictures of old men (they are too cool and cute here!)

If Matteo wasn't a cycle traveler, he would make deals selling traps for flies he just imagined, sewage water
treatment systems and so on.    

Unrest in Oman

Ok, neither Mascha nor me will be hired from a news agency or will become free-lance journalists.
Actually, the day after we updated our blog from Oman, saying that everyone loves the Sultan, hundreds of people demonstrated in Sohar and a couple of days after that also in the capital Muscat demanding democratic reforms and better salaries. Between 1 and 6 people (depending on the source) were killed from the police.  

To read a little bit more:  http://www.presstv.ir/detail/167954.html and http://www.breakingnews.ie/world/protestor-killed-in-oman-unrest-495304.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/19/us-oman-protests-idUSTRE71I0V920110219

We are already in India, in Jaipur. As soon we have more material to write a decent post we will come back on air.

Oman

Oman is a beautiful country –  glad we did not stop in Muscat, because a lot beautiful parts are further south. We were impressed, every day. I don't know what I expected from the Orient, but it is all different in reality.

History and society

Oman today



Oman used to be an important country in the region, and it was even called "empire of Oman". There was a lot of trade with goods and slaves from Africa. Even part of Pakistan used to belong of the empire as well as the island of Zanzibar. After slavery was banned, Oman's economy was severely hit and within few years Oman became the third poorest country worldwide. The population was divide in several tribes in war with each other and the semi-nomadic population lived of sheep and goats farmin in the desert and fishery on the coast. The situation changed dramatically when 60 years ago oil was discovered the country's health rose again. His Maesty Qaboos bin Said Al Said (Up to now Oman is a Sultanate) in power since 1971, drove most of the change. He managed to stop the tribal wars and almost all the society could gain wealth from the oil ectraction. Enough to understand this boost is to know that in 1971 the country there were only 5 km of paved road and 1 hospital… The rapid development is the main reason why here everyone seems to love the sultan. The uprising in the rest of the arabic world seems from here really far away.   

Oman should protect his historical heritage! (or at least the tourists...) 

In regard to the development, the local work force was not sufficient to follow the rapid growth and a lot of workers from India, Bangladesh and Pakistan were called to build the infrastructure that the boosting economy needed. Although the number of guest worker has decreased, over a population of nearly 3 million, still about one third is not Omani. You can easily recognize it crossing any of the villages in Oman on one of its cities: Almost all the coffee shops and restaurants are run by Indians, the barbers or other shops worker in general are also from there and all the workers in the construction sector are still foreigners. Omanis used to work mostly in the Military (even here the military is an easy method to employ a lot of people and give them a salary: Oman for instance has the biggest military orchestra in the world).  But, due to recent legislation wanted by the sultan, a minimum fixed percentage of Omanis hast to be employed in each sector. Anyway, the sensation to be in a two classes society is strong, with the indians to play the role of the mule and the local Omani having the stick in the hand. Despite of that, the influence and the presence of the whites from europe or USA is much less than in the united emirates and it is quite marginal.   

I was surprised to see even less women then in Iran. Those we saw where covered all in chadors. In the villages women wear very beautiful colorful ones. In the cities the chadors are all black, covering either all the face or leaving only the eyes free. City women believe that this is modern in comparison with the village people. ..well...I'm not sure! At least not only the women dress in a traditional way. Men mostly wear their traditional cloths as well. It is basically a long white kind of dress with different variations of turban covering the head and mostly a thin stick in one hand.

Cycling and nature

Always ride on good paved road is also boring...



Cycling in Oman is easy going. This is to some extend due to the roads which are even better than those in Iran. But it is mostly because Omanis are very polite as well and mostly they are laid back drivers.  There is less honking, and if a car had to overtake us they generally slowed down and let more than enough space between them and the bikes. That is way we got used to cycle mostly in pairs and chat a lot. 



Not all Oman is flat!

 

Sunset tea.



Regarding our lifestyle, we broke our record of camping in a row. Since we left Ben's house (see previous post) in Muscat we camped every night mostly near the sea or in other scenic places in the desert. The really nice temperatures also in the evening and the good company of Tim and Dan and Niel made possible the preparation of really delicious food. We learned that "Two stoves are better than one". 

   

Yes, I love donkeys!

We had the chance to see a lot of different animals like lots of camels in the villages or slowly crossing the street without being impressed by the cars that have to break because of them. In all the villages we have seen, lots and lots of sheep and goats are free to go where they want (until the moment in which they are slaughtered of course, since their meat is a primary source of calories here in the desert…). And between the villages herds of wild donkeys! Actually it was the first time we've seen donkeys in a herd running across the rocky desert. 

 As well there were huge birds, and we suppose they were eagles and vultures. One flew really upon us. The with of the wings was really impressive, we guess even bigger that a Matteo in horizontal position.  The sea is rich as well, stingrays jumped out of it, water turtles came up to breath and a huge snake scared us while we were swimming. But the two highlights were the following:

The first were two sheep running against each other: The male was not happy with the behavior of the female. After the big bang of their heads one of them (the female…) fall down immediately and stayed on the ground having a fit. The strange thing was that nobody cared except us…



Wadi Shab



The second was our visit on turtle beach during the night and seeing how they crawl out of the water, dig massive holes into the sand and lay about 100 eggs into the sand, cover the nest again and return in the water - all this in about four hours. They were really big (about 100-200 kg). And we saw also one small baby-turtle coming out of the sand and crawling into the ocean. If the temperature in the nest was above 28 celsius, it was a female, and it will have the chance to be one of the 3% to return to the same beach in 37 years and do the same as its mother.



Oh Oh, the road is finished...

Ok, we go by foot.

fishing boats on the shore near Barka (north of Muscat)



Nature is surprisingly various, for a desert country. The coast north of Muscat is almost an endless row of fishing villages, palm and banana plantations and other small agricultural activities. The rest of the country that we saw was mountainous, with rocky desert and its strange vegetation, and of course sand desert and its wonderful oasis. Really beautiful are the Wadis (rivers). Most of them are dried out but some still have water and represent a tongue of intense greeen out of the brown landscape. The most beautiful one is maybe Wadi Shab.  There, at first we missed the actual main attraction (the pools and the cave). Despite Ben's advices "You can't miss it." "If you think it's the end - it's not!"  after almost 3 hours of walking and with the river gone, we concluded that we missed it anyway. Like this we ended to do the most important part backwards. We found the last pools, climbed down a waterfall, dived into the cave that was actually full of water and swam out of it through a small crack in which only our head had enough space over the water. It was really great this way as well, maybe even better than upwards. The only disadvantage was that we could not leave our stuff at the beginning of the pools and we had to get completely wet. We try to save saved the camera in a plastic bag. It worked!  

Good jump Tim!


Ok, the first part of our random-riding seems to be finished. Tonight we fly to India!

Pictures update

Hi everybody,
we've just updated the pictures on our last couple of posts (from irn etc.), so now it is getting interesting also for the more visual type of reders...

Statisitcs

We left Padua on the 20th of November and at the moment we are in the sultanate of Oman. Everyone here really loves the sultan... Also, no revolution at the moment. The next stage will be India. 
After almost 3 months of travel it may be good to provide some statistics...

Technical notes
Bycicles: Cicli Zarma (www.ciclizarma.com)
Frame: Aluminium 
Gear: Shimano Alivio
Rims: Ambrosio Duetto 28’’
Breaks: Shimano V-Brake
Suspension: Front, RST Neon
Tyres: Continental tour-ride (anti-puncture)


Other random statistics
Km effectively cycled                                                                                                                  3011
Flat tyres (Matteo)                                                                                                                      2
Flat tyres (Mascha)                                                                                                                     7
Spokes broken (Matteo)                                                                                                             6
Spokes broken (Mascha)                                                                                                            5
Accidents                                                                                                                                    0
Times drivers spountaneously offered us to carry with their pick-up/truck                                      4
Times we accepted                                                                                                                      4
Drivers who were able to speak a language other than farsi or turk or arabic                                 1
Nights on the road (tent or similar)                                                                                                35
Nights on ship, bus or train                                                                                                           9
Nights at the places of friends or simply of people we met (thereof couchsurfing)                           30(2)
Nights in Hotels, Hostels or guest houses                                                                                      16
Times Mascha called Matteo you idiot or similar                                                                           7
Times Matteo called Mascha you idiot or similar                                                                           0
Times Matteo said something like Ok, you'll go north and I go  south!                                           2
Times it was everything Ok again within one hour                                                                          2
Condoms used                                                                                                                          * note below
Number of rings purchased to pretend to be married                                                                     2
Days Matteo required to lose his ring                                                                                            8
Invitation to drink tee                                                                                                                    countless
Times we were generally in danger or we felt not safe                                                                    0                     
Times Matteo washed his cycling jacket                                                                                        4
Times Mascha washed his cycling jacket                                                                                       5
Times Mascha got diahrea                                                                                                            1
Times Matteo got diahrea                                                                                                             1
Times Mascha ate as much as Matteo                                                                                           1
Times we got lost                                                                                                                          2
Times Mascha used her epilator                                                                                                     3
Times Matteo shaved                                                                                                                    1
Average time elapsed between two proper showers - first month                                                   2.5
Average time elapsed between two proper showers - second month                                              3.5
Average time elapsed between two proper showers - third month                                                  5.1
Average time elapsed between  two proper showers - fourth month (extimate)                        fuckin' hell!
Time elapsed from the last shower of a Spanish cycling tourist we met                                       1 month
Liters of beer Matteo totally drunk in this trip                                                                            less than 3
                                                                                         (almost immoral for a rugby player, I apologize)
Glass of illegal and self-made Iranian wine                                                          5 (vinegar, simply vinegar)
                                                                                                          



* In the arabic world, and in Iran in particular where is severely punished, sexual activity of any kind between two not married persons is illegal. Therefore, we cannot satisfy your curiosity. Sorry.    

If you have any other curiosity, just leave a comment on the blog. We will answer as soon we will find an other internet point. I may takes some days thought...       

Sharjah to Dubai to Muscat

First Camp with the other three

Harbor of Sharjah

A couple of days ago we took the ferry from Bandar Abbas to Sharjah north of Dubai. As the ferry was supposed to leave at 20:00 we had to be there at 18:30. But it turned out that we had to wait longer, because the ferry actually left at 22:00...The good thing was: at the port we met our first other cycle travelers. They were three guys, two from Germany and one from Spain. And we were most happy to discuss our experiences during the evening. On the ferry we got invited by one of the workers to hang out in the VIP area next to the captains room, to have tea there and sleep there as well. But the ship was rather small and sea was a bit rough, so it got pretty shaky up there. The only one who enjoyed the hammock feeling was Matteo who spend the night there, all the rest preferred to sleep somewhere on deck. Must be very weird for the crew to see those foreigners, who were offered the VIP lounge finally to sleep on a bench outside....

The next 4 days we spent all together, first visiting Sharjah camping on the beach and then visiting Dubai.

Hitchhiking (Aquarium of Sharjah)

biggest building in the world from our campside

First we were a big afraid of the prices in Dubai. Especially because of the Hotel prices. But in the end we managed to find a perfect camp side in Dubai as well. Just next to the world's biggest building is a huge wasteland where the locals use to drive their huge cars through the sand. There next to some palms we camped for the next three nights. It was amazing! In this crazy city, every thing seems possible. The first morning a police car went by and asked us what we were doing there. When he found out that we cycled from Europe to Dubai he wouldn't believe first. Then he just laughed "Mashalllaaaah!" and went away.... cool man.

One evening in the beach we basically cycled into two other cyclists from England., who just flew in from Egypt because the situation there was getting to dangerous. So our group consisted already of seven people. It was getting nicer and nicer on our little camp side.

The whole cycling gang: Klaus, Tim, Miguel, Matteo, Dan, Kai (Mascha taking the picture)

our new team mates: Tim and Dan

As the to English wanted to go to Muscat as well we decided to go together. So we left the other three and went towards the border. We were lucky to be blown up the mountains from an incredible tail wind that lasted for the next two days. It was really nice. We spend a couple of day cycling slowly down the coast. On the one hand because I (Mascha) have a sore knee on the other hand because now we are with Tim and Dan from England who love tea soooo much. I have to admit I was very glad about this. But with a break for tea every couple of kilometers and a long break for lunch we still managed to cycle 80km per day. The nights we mostly spend on the beach after a short bath there, where I once swam into a snake....don't know if there are any dangerous ones here.          

Right now we are glad to stay and Ben's and Sabine's house near Muscat. Ben is English and  Sabine comes from Alto Adige in Italy,  with a very cute baby who we met at the border. Rather brave of them to let four  dirty and smelly strangers into their house. All of us not taking a proper shower since we arrived in the Emirates....Actually Matteo and I wanted to take a plane from Muscat to India, but then Ben told us about many nice places south of Muscat....and we decided to join Dan and Tim and cycle more south to see more of the old Oman.

Muscat festival, the audience is strictly divided into male and female

Sultan's Palace - kitsch pure

Collapsed in the shades

    

Iran: politic and religion

Hello everybody,
 this chapter politic and religion should require much more time than the few minutes that I can write from an internet point, but I will attempt anyway. I write this topic also because now we are in Dubai, and I can write without the fear of the cyber-police...
From where or when should I begin? from the Pahvlavi dynasty and the story of Reza Shah? From the coup d'etat organized by the CIA and the British M16 against Mossadegh in 1953? Or from the Islamic revolution leaded by Khomeini in 1979?
I probably know the answer, but it would request too much time. Despite of that I will start from when I got not so friendly controlled from 9 members of the Islamic secret police, actually it was only two months ago...

In the Iranian political system everything is double, making  the Islamic Republic of Iran a strange democracy. Iranian people actually elect their president (now is the famous Ahmadinejad) and even a parliament. The president forms a government and the parliament can makes laws. Until here it seems normal. The problem is that in Iran there is the double of all of this. And the double of politic is unfortunately religion.
The supreme leader (at the beginning was Kohmeini itself, from his death in 1989 on,  Khamenei) is the highest religious authority of the country and has a lot of political power too. He is the head of a council of 12 people (directly or indirectly chosen by himself...) who can, among many others things, stop and veto every law made from the parliament and decide who is "suitable" to be candidate to the elections. If they do not like someone, maybe because he or she is too progressive or not maybe islamic enough, they have the power to stop their candidature both of the presidential election and even to that of  the parliaments member. The source of the Iranian constitution is the Koran and its following interpretations, and it is given. That is, it cannot be changed, there are no "legal" ways to change the constitution if the supreme leader does not do want so.
As I said, everything is double: if the government control the police and the army, the Supreme leader control the islamic police (sepah) and the special troops (pasdaran). Islamic fanatic volounteers (basiji) do the dirty jobs, as infiltrating demonstrations, kidnapping and killing as it happened during the demonstrations after the ridiculos elections in 2009. Briefly, that time the president Ahmadinejad got about 5 milions votes and the "progressive", or at least not so conservative opponent Mousavi, about 16 milions. Well, this outcome was not comfortable enough for the clergy men, so, you know who is president now. The problem is that they did not only enormously cheated, but also killed many people (I have heard number from 76 to about 1000, I do not really know the real count) who rebelled against this obscenity.


 Note of the authors:
Sorry, I started this post already a week ago, I was unable to finish it properly for real lack of time.
I post it anyway even if it is not finished and not complete. Sorry for that. Actually we are in Oman since one week already. I hope to find a quite place and time to post everything properly. .

New chapters on Iran!

Hospitality

How can we explain the Iranian hospitality? Well, at first we intended to stay 1 month, than maybe a week more and finally we are still here after almost two months. Within the last weeks we had a lot of possibilities to experience this hospitality, which is really unusual for an European. It is something really special and it makes this country unique. Here hospitality means a lot of things and it ranges from the people on the street greeting us with all the English they usually know (Hey mister!, How are you?, where are you from? and welcome to our country!) to truck drivers offering us oranges or other fruits, to car drivers stopping us to ask if we need some help and then leading us to our next destination. As well we got a lot invitations to tea or dinner and it is not unusual to be invited to stay for the night from people that you have just met on the street. The best way to discover Iran is just to open yourself to it, and the rest will follow naturally. We did it and we enjoyed the time a lot.
Anyway to write down all our experiences with Iranian hospitality would take ages. We will tell you just few examples, so you can have an idea of we are speaking about:

On our first day in Iran, we tried to meet with Perla, a nice and pretty girl who spoke Italian who we had met on the train to Tabriz and who had invited us to stay at her place for a couple of days in the same way we in Europe are used to invite someone to drink a coffee in a bar. Unfortunately she did not come to the meeting point. As our European mobiles does not work in Iran, we asked some men on the street to help us and to call her with their mobiles. They did it of course and it turned out that she was waiting at another crossing with the same name - and we turned out to sit in the strange car of the men who phoned to her. After a couple of meter the car got broken, and the driver picked up a second person on the street who had a car (I do not know if they knew each other), he explained him the situation and the new guy drove us to our friend!

Another story happened in the city of Na'in. We were supposed to call a friend of a friend (his name is Rohab) who we had never seen nor spoken with,  to meet him to go to the town of Khoor in the desert to spend new year's celebration together with other friends we had met few days before in Esfahan. Matteo called Rohab and after a few minutes he just asked us to hand him the first Farsi speaking person passing nearby. We did it and the first farsi speaking person passing nearby talked some time on the phone, then hung up, and then he picked up a friend who had a small motorcycle and they accompanied us. They drove in front with the motorcycle and we followed them with the bicycles. After some searching and asking they stopped in front of a house. It was not the house of the friend of a friend (Rohab), as we thought, but the one of a friend of him (Mohsen), who was already in Khoor with Rohab. So, we stayed there for a couple of hours, we took a shower, we ate delicious food and chatted with his lovely family, which actually did not know us. In the evening they accompanied us (I mean the whole family of 5 people plus Matteo and Mascha in a car as big as a Fiat Panda) to a square where we took the bus to Khoor. And all that happened even though we did not know nobody of these people before we met them.

This scene is also typical: we were cycling trough a city. Just arriving after a few days on the road. Somebody in a car stopped us and gave his mobile phone to Matteo. The phone call was a little bit strange but at the and it turned out out that the driver couldn't speak any English, but as soon as he saw us he called his friend who spoke English and was a cycle tourist as well, because he was sure that he would have wanted to meet us. After a couple of minutes of waiting on the next square, the cyclist showed up. He was exited to meet some other cycling tourists and invited us to his place. Which was actually his friend's place, but the evening turned out nice and we even went together on a one-day trip few days after.

with Vladimir in Genu

The last story it a proof that fortunately not only Iranians are hospitable. On our third day in Iran, we met a russian couple in a park in Teheran, we started to talk and after a while they invited us to their place if we would ever be near Bandar Abbas. Well, some weeks later we really arrived in Bandar and called Vladimir, who ist working here. His wife, who was here just on holidays had already left a few days earlier. And now we are already at his place since more than a week - our record in one place on this jurney. And we're enjoying the time a lot, relaxing and gathering strength for the next weeks on tour.   

Bandar Abbas

Fishmarket in Bandar (yes, its blood...)

Bandar Abbas, or just Bandar as the locals call it, is the biggest and most important container port in Iran. It is quite different from the rest of Iran. First it is much warmer, and just like in Europe the people from the south are different. They have more temperament, wear much more colourful clothes (the women as well! It is so good to see some other coloures instead of the all black shadors). The Bandaris, as they are called are quite mixed. They come from Iran, of cause, but you can also find lots of Indians, Africans, Pakistanis, Afghans and many Arabs. So apart from other faces, we observed as well other food - a lot of food stands on the streets - but also other behaviour:
Once we had a strange discussion with a taxi driver. He wanted to be polite and asked us if he could drink. We were quite stunned at first, but then we understood that he had a can of beer in his hand, and not an Iranian 0% beer, but a real one. He, afterwards was quite stunned that we did not want him to drink while he was driving the taxi. And it all ended up with a long discussion about drink and drive...

on the wild boat trip back from Hormoz

Another story happend on our trip to Hormoz Island. According to Iranians, we went there with fabolous wether: it was raining. Hormoz is a tiny island a couple of kilometers from Bandar with a small fishing village and a portugese fortrest from 1500 AD. As we examined the castle we could find a lot of different stones coloured in brown from far away, but if you come closer you'll see blue ones, green ones, orange and red ones. It was quite amazing. Later on we learned that this island is famous for its different coloures of sand.
When we returned to the harbour, we found a lot of people waiting. There were rumours that no boat will be leaving that day bacause of the stormy sea. Actually there were only a few waves, but the boats a small and all open. Finally one of the fishermen agreed to go, but he charged more than double the price (as we found out later). The trip back was like riding on an attraction at the "Oktoberfest" in Munich, but maybe not as save...We enjoyed it, but some of the passengers were quite afraid, maybe they could not swim and of course there were not any lifejeckets on board. Despite some girls were crying of fear, Matteo incited the direver to go faster. We arrived, all wet and shaken, but exited and happy.

More chapters on Iran following soon!