A Policemen's Tea Party
The trip to Tehran the following day was long and dusty. The landscape comprised mostly of desertlike nothingness, punctuated occasionally by mud hut villages, all universely beige and flat-rooved. The general colour theme to Iran was ‘Neutrals’, as though a mid-90s interior decorator had gone overboard. We saw a hut with ‘Down with Israel’ painted fairly unambiguously across its walls. We got flagged down by the police, and deemed it best to stop. They were stern and unsmiling, and checked our passports formally. They asked us where we were going, in a manner that suggested we were unlikely to make it there unimpeded. We beamed graciously and remained unworried. We asked them where the nearest tea shop was. The second-in-command accidentally offered us some of their tea from a handy flask. We thought it an excellent plan, ignored the system of ‘tar’of’ conveniently, and parked up the bike. There stood we, drinking...