4 years on a bike

I use the local Uber - Snapp application (the first photo) to move in Tehran. The cost of 5 miles is £0.3. I put my hand out the window and film the traffic and motorists especially, one of whom turns out to be a civilian police officer. This results in stopping and suspicion due to the miniaturization of GoPro cameras.

At the police I am trying to extend my Iranian visa also, but I wasn't be allowed get into the building because I had a biker outfit. Friendly officers with loaded rifles bring me their private clothes and I enter, having the honor of committing myself face to face with a stern police officer, whom at the first visit I fail to convince about the necessity to prolong my stay in the Republic of Islam.

Success in the form of a bonus + 30 days comes at the second appointment when I was supported by young, handsome friends who know Farsi. The extension cost was $2 instead of $150 proposed by all Iranian agencies.

Sometimes I come to the city and is too late to get to know someone and expect a spontaneous invitation. When it rains the process of searching for accommodation can be speeded up by sending some sms to local bikers offering free apartments on the famous page warmshowers.org.

The registered people represent interesting occupations often like yesterday when came the Land Rover with the architects and operators of the camera. They took me to house by the lake in the mountains.

In the valley between the yellow-red trees, in front of the town of Tuyserkan, man with glasses on the motorbike Apache is starting to follow me. He drives one time shyly after me, afterwards before me, finally he gets the courage to go at the same height, proposing to escort me to the suburbs.

He is a young doctor with wages $100 per month. He complains that he pays $50 for renting an apartment and no money to survive. I advise the European direction where similar specialists are in constant demand but he retorts with a lack of funds for learning a foreign language.

I look at his fuel tank, whose content is the equivalent of a book, and I see rather the desire to remain a small-town Iranian or psychological barrier, a belief in the impossibility of competing in the western world.

He invites me to be his guest. His farewell question, "Could you support me financially?" reveals the ruins left after the former pride and splendor of the Persian empire.