Monumental Traffic Jam 31 Oct
Good intentions came to naught. Because of the cold we didn't arise till nearly 11am when I went out and bought sugar, eggs, milk, onions and bread. A singular achievement at that time of day! Boiled egg butty and cheese and tomato and onion butty for breakfast, then off to find a flat piece of waste land for servicing the Wave. Did very well to get through it all before sunset so that we could go off and look at the camp site. It's past the airport about 20km out and seems quite pleasant. It apparently costs 40R per person and 20R per car and tent, so no cheaper than the Hotel! Although I didn't record the campsite name the Chitgar Forest Park must be very close.
Who should we find out there but Adrian (in Citroen Bijou). He had driven it into a bollard in Tabriz. Adrian brought news from Fred (Athens) and several others knew of our fame for making Christmas Pud! Also in camp were New Orleans/Londoner plus wife (Christmas pud adviser) in their Nepal-bound Land Rover. Latest report is that they're going to sell it in Kabul. The camp site was guarded and had pleasant garden layout. Toilets pretty horrible, but hot shower, money change and restaurant. Altogether quite reasonable, but oh so cold!
The weather is definitely colder now, though it was another beautiful sunny day and warm in the afternoon. They have some magnificent sunsets here. The sun was going down as we drove out to the camp site, and it lent a simple beauty to the camouflaged mud dwellings where the "other half" live. The very last glimpse of the sun as it illuminated the snowy caps of the mountains was superb.
We left the camp site to drive back into Tehran and as we approached the centre we ran into a monumental traffic jam. As we approached the offending intersection we found there were six lanes in our direction, and one lane out of the intersection. Lorries coming from the intersection could barely squeeze through, they had to mount the footpath. When we eventually got to the intersection we found very irate and equally powerless policemen assisted by hundreds of volunteers gamely trying to get six lanes into one in each direction.
The drivers in Tehran are quite unbelievably stupid! A lot of traffic was turning round and driving away again. One taxi dribbled into another, though neither driver seemed to take the slightest bit of notice. However, when a driver in a clapped-out Hillman tried to edge into another lane all hell broke loose. But for some cunning manoeuvring by Brian we were in severe danger of being squashed first by a bus, then by a monstrous lorry. How can such people be allowed to drive? We escaped unscathed and finally squeezed into the one available lane on the other side of the intersection. What a nightmare, words fail me. Oh, to drive in "quiet" London. Now we had the problem of determining where we were. Eventually we stopped and found, to our amazement, that we were at the end of Amir Kabir Avenue, though the name sign was almost illegible.
