Monthly Archives: May 2018

where cars come to die

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When I woke up and left Neka, it was already noon. But I didn’t have to walk very far today. Maybe twenty or twenty-five kilometers, I figured. So I was going to take it easy. Especially since I still hated the highway. I was somewhat happy when I passed a place where a few cars […]


cakes

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After a great night of laughter and music, I left my friends and the little village of Gorji Mahalle. The sky looked like it didn’t want me to leave: The highway was roaring as usual, but there was the occasional roadside clothes stand: And there were people who stopped to take pictures… …or to have […]


where are all the Ali Babas?

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Said goodbye to my friend Borzoo today: Then I walked through the sunshine in Behshahr: Passed a toy store: And a propaganda mural that warned seemed to warn of evil forces grabbing girls by their school uniforms: When I took a closer look, it seemed to be more of an advertisement than a warning: I […]


silly boats in the shapes of swans

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My friends took me back to Abbas Abad today, so that I would be able to see it in the light of day. They were very patient with me while I was wandering around looking for an angle to shoot: It turned out that I was fascinated by these silly boats in the lake: They […]


the photographer

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A while back – I think it was last year – someone on Instagram told me to look up an Iranian photographer. They said something along the lines of: “if you’re interested in the real Iran, check this out!” The photographer’s name was Masoomeh Bahramii, and I clicked follow on her Instagram account. I ended […]


wary hungry angry

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The night had been shitty. Went to sleep at two. Woke up at three and saw a pig, a wild boar, going through the trash next to me. Went back to sleep, then woke up again at five thirty because a pack of street dogs was going through the rest of the trash. Then the […]


the Caspian Sea

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Finally, this morning I said fudge it and left the motherfudging highway. There was a little dirt path and then a secondary road a little bit to the north, so I was going to go there. Come what may. There were orchards: And there was silence: Sometimes there were little villages: And often there were […]


apricot to the rescue

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Today was going to be another short walking day. Kordkuy, the town where I wanted to spend the night, was less than 20km away. However, walking along the highway didn’t feel very easy at all. Rarely was there a moment like this one where there were no cars or trucks or motorcycles roaring through my […]


a pool for me(n)

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When I finally left Gorgan this morning, I knew that I would end up missing the place: the winding alleys of the old town, the bazaar, the people. Gorgan said good bye with a sunny sky and a rather peculiar looking little tower: Then we were on the open road, the Caboose and I. There’s […]


how to take a selfie

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I still maintain the tradition of taking a selfie every single day of my trip. Otherwise I wouldn’t have this ridiculous beard and hair, you know. Anyway, I was going to take one with the mausoleum and the little tower in the background today: So I went there, and I found it a bit challenging […]


I look just like Babrasse

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Did some more back alley wandering in Gorgan today. Looked at some old buildings, or sometimes just parts of old buildings: And I tried to learn from the photography style of my friend Evgene Chernyakov, but I found it to be very difficult: I was utterly lost at some point, and this gentleman came and […]


to live in a house with an orange tree

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So apparently Gorgan has a nice old city center, a bit like Bukhara or Isfahan. I walked around in it today. There was a little shrine called Noor Imam Zade Holy Place: It seemed to be a pretty standard Shia shrine: Lots of green. Lots of gold. A chandelier. There were some alleys leading through […]


good pain, bad pain

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Ah, the pain. Again, it was a mix of different things. My body was sore, which felt good. But my right foot hurt more than it should have, which was bad. I decided to rest for a few days. Eventually I did end up taking a little walk around the immediate neighborhood of the hotel, […]


too much walking

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I woke up in pain. It was good, full-body pain, so I wasn’t alarmed. Also, my foot hurt, but not too much. So I decided to do another 40k and walk all the way to Gorgan in one day. When I left the hotel I noticed this: In a country that had outlawed alcohol, cocktail […]


9-0-0-0

Today was going to be a big day. First of all, it was the beginning of Ramadan, the month of fasting in Islam: people wouldn’t eat or drink as long as the sun was up. As I understood it, in Iran this was a mandatory thing for all able-bodied adult Muslims (who weren’t currently doing […]


stay longer

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I generally don’t like walking in the rain. Not for long periods of time, at least. So this morning, when I looked out the window and saw that the weather app had been right, that the weather was indeed going to be shitty all day, I decided to say fuck it and stay in. The […]


the road I would take

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Day off. Went to a supermarket. Looked at stuff. Shampoo. Rope. Pickles. Seasoning. Diapers. Potato chips. Tea. Chocolate. Pasta. Oil. Tissues. Sanitary pads. Bought these biscuits, mainly because the picture on the label somehow spoke to me: When the day was old and the sun was about to go to bed, I went on top […]


between wheat and rice

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I haven’t shown you Hotel Ghaboos, yet. Well, here it is: Hotel Ghaboos right behind the Caboose. Gonbad bid farewell to me with a strange statue of a Dalmatian dog: Then I was on the road: I left the main road after a few kilometers of noise and bad air, which was when I took […]


graduation

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I needed to wax my shoes. So I went to a shop in the city and obtained the necessary tools: They had sewing machines from China: When I looked at them I felt a sting in my heart. Ever since I had left China almost two years earlier, a part of me had been missing […]


a detour and a sprint

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I decided to take a detour. Instead of sticking to the mountains in the South, I would go westwards to Gonbad Kavus and look at an old tower there. This would cost me one walking day, but I liked old towers. Also, there was a hotel in Gonbad that was called Hotel Ghaboos, which sounded […]