Iran - Andrew Burke [313]
SECURITY CHECKS
Although soldiers and policemen roam the streets and patrol the highways checking on the movements of pedestrians and road users, they rarely trouble foreigners. You can expect the usual inspections at airports and in some public places, such as the shrines of Imam Reza in Mashhad and Imam Khomeini in Tehran. Foreigners are expected to carry their passports with them at all times. This can be tricky as hotels also like to hang onto them throughout your stay. However, as the hotel only needs your passport at night you can retrieve it by day: highly advisable if you’re planning any excursion beyond city limits. It’s also worth having a couple of photocopies of the front and visa pages handy just in case.
In the eastern provinces, or if travelling late at night, your transport is likely to be stopped more frequently by police searching for drugs and other smuggled goods.
Traffic
Forget religious fanatics, gun-toting kidnappers or any other threats you’ve associated with Iran, you’re more likely to get into trouble with the traffic than anything else. Iranians will tell you with a perverse mix of horror and glee that Iran has the highest per-capita number of road deaths on earth – in 2006 that was nearly 28,000 people, with another 270,000 injured. Somewhat ironically, Iran’s president Ahmadinejad holds a PhD in traffic management. He has promised to reduce the death toll: ‘The rate of accidents is below our nation’s dignity and should be reduced,’ he said in 2007.
If you’ve travelled elsewhere in the region Iran’s traffic chaos may come as little surprise, but if you’ve arrived from the West you will likely be horrified. No-one pays any notice to road rules. The willingness of a car to stop at a busy intersection is directly proportional to the size of the vehicles in its path; that’s right, it’s survival of the biggest. Playing on this, some cunning motorists have fitted deafening air horns, usually found on trucks and buses, to their Paykans and Prides. A quick blast sees other traffic suddenly screech to a halt, fearing they’ve been outsized. Meanwhile, the modest little Paykan/Pride sails through the intersection. Size (or at least the perception that you’re big) matters.
Some cars and all motorbikes also use the contraflow bus lanes (along which buses hurtle in the opposite direction to the rest of the traffic). Motorbikes speed through red lights, drive on footpaths and careen through crowded bazaars.
While traffic in major cities rarely goes fast enough to cause a serious accident, never underestimate the possibility of dying a horrible death while crossing the road. Vehicles never stop at pedestrian crossings. You will quickly realise that there’s little alternative to stepping out in front of the traffic, as the Iranians do, and hoping that the drivers will slow down. It may not be much consolation, but the law says that if a driver hits a pedestrian the driver is always the one at fault and the one liable to pay blood money to the family of the victim. Until you’ve got your head around the traffic, perhaps the best advice comes from one pragmatic reader: ‘Cross a busy street with an Iranian person, but make sure the Iranian is closest to the approaching traffic.’
Unmarried Foreign Couples
There was a time when unmarried foreign couples found getting a room in Iran difficult. Recently, however, hotel staff are starting to understand the weird wishes of foreigners and don’t usually ask too many questions – if you are asked it’s most likely to be in a low-budget establishment.
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EMBASSIES & CONSULATES
It’s important to realise what your own embassy – the embassy of the country of which you are a citizen – can and can’t do to help you if you get into trouble. Generally speaking, it won’t help if the trouble you’re in is remotely your own fault. Remember that you are bound by the laws of the country you are in. Your embassy