Neither East nor West: An Iranian rhapsody

Revolutionary Ride

On the Road in Search of the Real Iran 

Lois Pryce 

Hachette 

287 pages 

Rs 499

In 2011, protesters, livid at the sanctions imposed against their country, stormed the British embassy in Tehran and set it on fire. In retaliation, the British government shut down the Iranian embassy in London. At about the same time, Lois Pryce, the author of the book under review, found a note tagged to her bike parked outside the Iranian embassy in Kensington.

"I have seen your motorbike and I think you have travelled to many countries,” the note read. “Please do not think of what has happened here and in Tehran. These are our governments, not the Iranian people. WE ARE NOT TERRORISTS! Please come to my city, Shiraz. It is very famous as the friendliest city in Iran, it is the city of poetry and gardens and wine!!! Your Persian friend, Habib."

Intrigued by the note whose writer Ms Pryce could not locate but eager to go on a new adventure after successful trips to South America and Africa, she set about organising a trip that would prove foundational for her understanding of not just Iran but the larger West Asian world with its, to the Westerner, secret codes and inexplicable social etiquettes.

No sooner had Ms Pryce firmed up plans to travel to Iran than she was bombarded by warnings about the land. This was reasonable, given that Ms Pryce was to cover the country on a bike, an idea that may not have many takers among the ruling establishment. She was reminded of the strict mores enforced by the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij, armed militia that took orders directly from the religious order helmed by Ayatollah Khamenei.

Yet, Ms Pryce’s earlier travels had taught her that the impressions of a land gleaned from media and popular perception often differed significantly from her private experiences during travel. Armed with this burst of optimistic thinking, Ms Pryce boarded the train from Turkey that would drop her off at Tabriz, in northwestern Iran. From there, she would travel close to 3,000 km by bike to finish her journey in Shiraz, Habib’s promised land.

The book is a compendium of the people Ms Pryce meets and the experiences she has, most of which are surprisingly pleasant. She is welcomed by strangers everywhere she goes –– in the bazaar at Tabriz, she is asked by a family of three to join them for dinner. “I was struck, not only by their hospitality and kindness, but [also] by the ease of it,” she writes. “There was no muttering between them as to whether it was appropriate, or checking that they were in agreement about the plan.”

Her fears about the Islamic Republic largely prove unfounded. She meets ordinary Iranians who assure her that images of the angry protester shouting “Death to America” beamed on screens around the world represent a minority. In upscale Tehran neighbourhoods, she mingles with men and women who live Westernised lives, drinking bootleg liquor and wearing well-fitting outfits that are as far from the chador and hijab as they could be.

In due course, Ms Pryce comes to know a country whose image as a victim of Western sanctions tells only part of the story. She meets prosperous Iranians who have studied in the West but since returned to run family businesses or become entrepreneurs. “Yes, I know it sounds strange but in Iran I feel alive, even when I am out, walking around in the streets,” a software engineer tells her. “In Canada I often felt alone, lonely, cut off, even with other people. It is as if they are not fully alive…”

Due to her contacts, Ms Pryce naturally interacts with well-off, Westernised Iranians, the kind who denounce the religious order running the country. She meets youngsters who feel oppressed by the series of regulations they are meant to live under and long for the pre-1979 era that had defined their parents’ youth, during which the Shah, even though corrupt, permitted greater personal freedoms.

Apart from the political nature of the trip Ms Pryce undertakes, the book is particularly good at capturing the dichotomy of the lonely traveller as she both longs for and is reluctant to partake in company. After spending a rapturous night in a hotel in the foothills of the Alborz mountain in the company of bohemian Iranians, Pryce longs for the solitariness of the road, of the picturesque route along the Caspian Sea that she is eager to travel.

But her plans are torpedoed by the remnant of a heavy snowstorm from a few days ago. Ms Pryce, nevertheless, makes the trip as far as she can and only when confronted by the possibility of utter and total exhaustion and possibly death does she give in and retrace her steps.

It is pluck of this sort that sees this daring woman through her long journey into the heart of Iran. Luck plays a role no doubt, particularly when a friend saves her from an altercation with four members of the dreaded Basij. Yet, the joyful tone of the book is a testimony to how safe, ultimately, Iran turns out for her. Ayatollah Khomeini’s ominous words for his country — “neither East nor West” — turn into altogether less sinister in Ms Pryce’s humour-filled telling.