Stephen Orth - Couchsurfing in Iran - Revealing a Hidden World

Children are the best language teachers in the world. I get involved in a game of pointing to objects and naming them in Persian and English with Saler and Saba. The kids enjoy it so much that they don’t want to stop. We repeat the terms until I can say: sea ( daryâ ), sky ( asemân ), cloud ( âbr ), fish ( mâhi ), sun ( chorschid ), apple ( sib ), ear ( gosch ), nose ( bini ), eye ( tscheschm ), and auto ( mâschin ). Our strolling along the shore does Saler’s language skills some good, as up until now his English repertoire has only consisted of the perfectly pronounced “How are you?” and “Get out of my face, asshole!”

Exactly a year ago, on my first trip to Iran, I also celebrated Nature Day, but with Yasmin and her family. Roughly fifty people had gathered together in a garden surrounded by high walls outside Tehran. We played volleyball and danced forbidden dances to Persian pop music, and inside the house there was whiskey. The streets outside the capital were completely covered by picnic blankets and tents—every piece of derelict land became an outdoor feasting area. When 30 or 50 or even 60 million people leave their secure homes and party just for one day, a state of emergency reigns in Iran.

I was expecting a greater degree of excess on the paradise island of Kish than in Tehran, but Masoud has to work, as airplanes also fly on public holidays. So, we nibble at our saffron chicken, look at the waves, and pack everything together just after midday and head home.

My time on Kish is coming to an end. On my last evening, star chef Mahbube 2 prepares another feast: self-caught bream and grouper with rice.

THE POPULAR TRAVELER’Sgame of ticket window ping-pong goes as follows: the tourist (mostly equipped with a heavy backpack and minimal language skills) tries to mime his wish to buy a ticket for a bus or train, a ship, or a plane and is sent somewhere else. On reaching this place he/she is directed somewhere else, where he/she is again passed on to someone else. This can take up a fair amount of time, but not an eternity, as no terminal in the world has an endless number of ticket windows.

When all the legwork is over, and the tourist has a ticket in his hand and can depart, he wins. As soon as a contact point is mentioned for the second time, he loses. Continuous loop, game over. Variations of this game can be found in tax offices and telephone hotlines of Internet providers.

My round begins at the entrance to the futuristic boat terminal, where the cab driver dropped me. A little man in a blue uniform points to the right: “Old terminal,” he says.

I walk five hundred feet to the right, where a soldier uncomprehendingly shrugs his shoulders and points to two wooden huts, one blue and the other red, which can be seen some six hundred feet way. According to the pictures next to the sales windows, it’s small boats to the left and large boats to the right. The left side of the counter is closed, so I join the line to the right window, where six people are already in the line. Judging by the length of time they spend at the window, they appear to be paying for their tickets by giving an extensive update on the state of health of their extended families. After what feels like an eternity it’s my turn.

“You cannot get ticket now,” says the ticket seller. In my defense I tell him that I was sent here.

“No. Passport first, passport,” he says, pointing toward the terminal from which I had come.

Damn it! Third contact point, ping-pong game over. But I don’t give up so quickly. Back to the soldier. “Passport, passport,” I say, while waving it around. On my surprise return he looks at me as if I were an alien, hunching his shoulders even more than the first time. He points to the two wooden huts behind me. Both of us spend the next few moments thinking about how stupid the other person is.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a chubby port employee appears from the darkness of the old terminal.

“Mister, come here.” He leads me to an office, where there are two other men in shirts and suit pants, one of whom fetches me a glass of water. “Passport, please. Where do you come from? Are you enjoying yourself in Iran? Sit down. Would you like a tea? Where do you want to go?”

“Germany.” “Very much.” “Yes, please.” “Charak,” I reply. That is the nearest town on the mainland, and according to the guidebook, a roughly forty-minute boat trip.

“And where are you going after that?”

“Bandar Abbas.” About four hours from Charak by bus.

“A big ship is going to Bandar Lengeh in three hours; it’s nearer than Bandar Abbas,” he says.

“How long does it take?”

“Four hours. And from there it’s two hours to Bandar Abbas.”

“Then it’s still quicker to go via Charak. Is anything heading there soon?”

“I don’t know.”

One of his colleagues is better informed. “Charak now,” he says, taking my passport from the photocopying machine and beckoning me to follow him. He walks briskly through the hall to the quay just in time to see a sailor releasing the bow rope. The small ship chugs off so slowly that with a spirited jump I might just about have caught it. The colleague waves and shouts, but the boat doesn’t turn back.

So, back to the new terminal, which is ninety feet high and finely decorated in silver, gray, and beige. Flat-panel displays show advertising spots for condos and tourist attractions, for the ancient city of Harireh, Underwater World, and a horse race. I have missed most of the attractions on the island, but the hours spent with Masoud and his wonderful family were better than any dolphin park.

The waiting room is full of passengers, and the detour via the quay meant that I bypassed all the security controls.

“The next ship to Charak departs in twenty-five minutes,” says my helper before disappearing, never to be seen again. All the other passengers are holding tickets in their hands, but I still don’t have one. Eventually, the departure for Charak is announced, a line forms in front of the ticket control at the exit to the quay, and, sure enough, I’m able to pay cash there— 27,000 toman, which is around seven dollars. I don’t get a ticket for it, though. The employee just pockets the money and waves me through.

No ticket, one double visit to a contact point, and I still reach my destination. This bout of ticket window ping-pong is mine.

From: Kian Qeshm

Good morning Today I will arrive qeshm at 3 p.m. Unfortunately because I live in company’s accommodation I can’t host but maybe we can meet.

IN CONTRAST TOthe terminal, the Pelican is anything but futuristic. Tatty upholstery, threadbare Persian carpets, and a motor that sounds like a dying jackhammer. Just as I’m wondering whether it will make the twelve miles to the shore before giving up the ghost, as if on cue, the motor chokes. An angry-looking giant tries to heave his heavyweight-boxer body up the steel ladder to the bridge. His two companions are luckily (a) of a similar bouncer-like stature and (b) of the opinion that beating up the captain will not relieve the technological problems. With a united effort they manage to hold him back.

“Arabs,” says my neighbor scornfully. He, too, is well-built. In comparison, my shoulders seem meager and my biceps modest. “Alamâni: high; Irani: high; Arabs: low,” he declares in broken English. I had already told him that I was German. He points, first to me and then himself, and says “Aryans,” then plumps his thigh-sized upper arm round my shoulders.