it’s difficult to believe they think at all. My Afghan driver was much more alert than the average Persian; he’s an awfully nice bloke, giving a good first impression of the ‘savages’ of Afghanistan.
On arriving here I took Roz to the cycle shop and after infinite trouble found a screw to fit, seized it by force from the proprietor and personally did the job with my own screwdriver. In future, if anything goes wrong I, myself, am coping – or dying in the attempt.
I seem to have lost the thread of my narrative somewhere – I was going to say that after thirty miles the rest of today’s journey was through sand desert, with only a few tiny villages. This town is a pleasant little place, where I am staying at the hotel, having been through the Customs and got an exit stamp on my passport, so that I’m all set for Afghanistan first thing in the morning. Not one word was said about the expired visa, which shows what you can get away with if you try – thirty-two days on a fifteen-day visa!
I’m quite sorry to be leaving Persia. Beneath all the physical dirt and moral corruption there is an elegance and dignity about life here which you can’t appreciate at first, while suffering under the impact of the more obvious and disagreeable national characteristics. The graciousness with which peasants greet each other and the effortless art with which a few beautiful rags and pieces of silver are made to furnish and decorate a whole house – in these and many other details Persia can still teach the West. I suppose it’s all a question of seeing one of the oldest and richest civilisations in the world long past its zenith. But I’ve decided that the Persians, though it’s impossible for me to like them as I do the Turks, are more to be pitied than censured. Hundredsof years of in-breeding and malnutrition have undermined the race and it is only when you approach them from that angle and treat them with the necessary patience that you can come to terms with them.
I’ve gone completely native myself and now wash face, hands, teeth and clothes in the jube , though I remember being shocked five weeks ago at the sight of the Persians doing just that. However, I’ve now realised that the dreadful colour of the water is partly due to soil erosion, one of the chief national problems; there’s no such thing as a clear stream here. But I do draw the line at drinking the jube water!
At the moment I’m sitting in the hotel courtyard, writing by the light of a full moon, beside a nimble, sparkling fountain, with richly scented shrubs all around me and the mountains of Afghanistan jagged against a royal blue sky on the eastern horizon. The air feels like silk as a little breeze moves among the birch trees that enclose two sides of the courtyard. The town’s electricity supply has broken down and the tall pillars of the verandah look very lovely by moonlight.
Actually I shouldn’t be here – on arrival the proprietor told me that no women are allowed outside the Women’s Quarter. I meekly went off to same but it consisted of a tiny room with six beds and just enough space to walk between them. One bed was mine; the other five were occupied by women who possessed a minimum of two infants apiece – all being fed and changed at the time of my appearance. Both window and door were tightly sealed and the stink was appalling, so I got hold of an Indian, also staying here, and used him as interpreter to tell the proprietor that ( a ) The Shah condemned the segregation of women, ( b ) The Government was trying to encourage tourism and ( c ) I was prepared to respect religious conventions within reason but was not prepared to lock myself up for hours in a room like that when I could be sitting in a courtyard like this. The proprietor said, ‘Very well, if you don’t mind being stared at’, to which I irritably replied that I’d been getting stared at by every man I met for thirty-two days and that if they had nothing better
On arriving here I took Roz to the cycle shop and after infinite trouble found a screw to fit, seized it by force from the proprietor and personally did the job with my own screwdriver. In future, if anything goes wrong I, myself, am coping – or dying in the attempt.
I seem to have lost the thread of my narrative somewhere – I was going to say that after thirty miles the rest of today’s journey was through sand desert, with only a few tiny villages. This town is a pleasant little place, where I am staying at the hotel, having been through the Customs and got an exit stamp on my passport, so that I’m all set for Afghanistan first thing in the morning. Not one word was said about the expired visa, which shows what you can get away with if you try – thirty-two days on a fifteen-day visa!
I’m quite sorry to be leaving Persia. Beneath all the physical dirt and moral corruption there is an elegance and dignity about life here which you can’t appreciate at first, while suffering under the impact of the more obvious and disagreeable national characteristics. The graciousness with which peasants greet each other and the effortless art with which a few beautiful rags and pieces of silver are made to furnish and decorate a whole house – in these and many other details Persia can still teach the West. I suppose it’s all a question of seeing one of the oldest and richest civilisations in the world long past its zenith. But I’ve decided that the Persians, though it’s impossible for me to like them as I do the Turks, are more to be pitied than censured. Hundredsof years of in-breeding and malnutrition have undermined the race and it is only when you approach them from that angle and treat them with the necessary patience that you can come to terms with them.
I’ve gone completely native myself and now wash face, hands, teeth and clothes in the jube , though I remember being shocked five weeks ago at the sight of the Persians doing just that. However, I’ve now realised that the dreadful colour of the water is partly due to soil erosion, one of the chief national problems; there’s no such thing as a clear stream here. But I do draw the line at drinking the jube water!
At the moment I’m sitting in the hotel courtyard, writing by the light of a full moon, beside a nimble, sparkling fountain, with richly scented shrubs all around me and the mountains of Afghanistan jagged against a royal blue sky on the eastern horizon. The air feels like silk as a little breeze moves among the birch trees that enclose two sides of the courtyard. The town’s electricity supply has broken down and the tall pillars of the verandah look very lovely by moonlight.
Actually I shouldn’t be here – on arrival the proprietor told me that no women are allowed outside the Women’s Quarter. I meekly went off to same but it consisted of a tiny room with six beds and just enough space to walk between them. One bed was mine; the other five were occupied by women who possessed a minimum of two infants apiece – all being fed and changed at the time of my appearance. Both window and door were tightly sealed and the stink was appalling, so I got hold of an Indian, also staying here, and used him as interpreter to tell the proprietor that ( a ) The Shah condemned the segregation of women, ( b ) The Government was trying to encourage tourism and ( c ) I was prepared to respect religious conventions within reason but was not prepared to lock myself up for hours in a room like that when I could be sitting in a courtyard like this. The proprietor said, ‘Very well, if you don’t mind being stared at’, to which I irritably replied that I’d been getting stared at by every man I met for thirty-two days and that if they had nothing better
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