“YOU A LONG WAY FROM TEHRAN NOW, AIN’T YOU BOY?”
The noise of traffic outside the window and the shuffle of feet, talking, screaming children, and banging doors that had kept us awake late into the night resumes early. Our day’s agenda: we have a cunning plan to get our visas extended here in Nōshahr.
But best-laid plans do often go awry. The police won’t issue extensions until one day before the visas expire. We decide to stay on for another day here and move on to Gorgan tomorrow. There isn’t much to do, and we pass a lazy day in the hotel while outside the grey cloud patterns change in the sky over the Caspian Sea and the waves continue to batter the shoreline.
Far away, beyond the indigo horizon, lies Mother Russia, Eastern Europe, and England. Writing this at eight-thirty p.m., with the shadow of the spinning ceiling fan strobing on the page, I listened to a song by Chris de Burgh, “We said goodbye to it all…“
CurseOfTheTraveller 