Desert browns give way to mountain greens as Geoff Hill and Patrick Minne eat up the miles on their Enfields. The third of four reports on a remarkable motorbike journey
In the teahouse in Esfehan, the women flung their chadors back wantonly to reveal an earlobe. One dazzling beauty wearing a white silk wrap flung decadently over her chador was flaunting both shamelessly. Even more remarkably, they speak to you.
I had already fallen in love three times in the space of an hour when a sultry temptress came in with her mother, and I moved aside to let them sit down on a cushion.
"Please take this seat," I said in appalling Farsi. "You are very kind," she said in English. "Do you like Esfehan?"
"Yes. You must be very proud of it."
"Why no, I'm from Atlanta, Georgia," she said, popping her bubblegum.
We left at midnight, full of tea and almond cake. All the beauties had already left, gliding serenely out the door.
I had become convinced that, like nuns, Iranian women had no bodies, and simply floated along five and a half feet above the ground like hovercrafts, supported on an invisible cushion of spiritual well-being.
We rode north the next day, ever closer to the Turkish border.
Around us, the landscape changed from sand to fields of wheat and a colour which had been lost to our vocabulary - green. A rich, sap-filled green, alien to the parched south. Sadly, for most of the time I was seeing it through a glass darkly, for I was stuck behind a tar lorry which covered me in a delicate tracery of black lines so that I looked like an Iranian road map.
Still, since I was more accurate than the map we had, I threw it away and followed myself to the border.
That night we found ourselves in the unsung town of Agri, and checked into a hotel which resembled a Siberian mental asylum. The shower down the hall was a pipe in the wall from which a stream of icy water poured onto the concrete floor. One 40-watt bulb lit the entire building and gibbering idiots paced the corridors, mostly Patrick and myself.
But that evening, I saw four remarkable things I had not seen for quite some time - a driver using his indicators; a man wearing a tie; a woman's hair; and the beer which was sitting in front of me. Especially the beer.
The next day we rode through fields of lavender, poppy and buttercup, climbing through the mountains until we were shivering so violently that for a change it was us shaking the Enfields to pieces, rather than the other way around.
In Kurdish villages, tiny children ran out to greet us, geese scattered and women waved from the kitchens of white cottages where they were making whatever it is that Kurds make. Whey, I suppose.
We slept in Erzerum, high in the mountains of eastern Turkey. Next morning we went looking for insurance, since so far we had proceeded safely only by the will of Allah. Following the directions of the hotel receptionist, we found ourselves in an imposing office, and walked up to the nearest desk.
"Good morning," said Paddy. "We are riding back from India on two motorcycles, and we were wondering if you could organise insurance for them."
"Well, I'm afraid that would be quite impossible," said the man behind the desk, taking off his spectacles.
"Oh? Why is that?" said Paddy imperiously. "Because this is the office of Turkish Airlines."
When we finally found the right office next door, they charged us €10 each, gave us a piece of paper which assured us that both ourselves and the motorcycles were comprehensively insured for a year, then gave us a lift back to the hotel.
Now why can't all insurance companies be like that?
Next week: Across the Bosphorus and back into Europe and the home stretch to Belfast