Dave Tapsell
Overland Buses (xvi)
Persepolis, Iran: 25 December 1971
It is the morning of Christmas Day 1971: the 37-seater AEC Reliance bus I was driving from London to India is seen here parked beneath the forty-odd feet high Grand Terrace at Persepolis. That's not an item of seasonal traditional decoration behind the windscreen — it's an inflated condom.
Eventually we had arrived in Tehran, running about two weeks late. Once we entered Iran the weather slowly began to improve, so that when a diesel injector pipe split on the engine I was able to replace it, even though the temperature had warmed up to about minus 15°C. At the time we were on the almost deserted main trunk road from the Turkish frontier to Tabriz; the absence of traffic was because the road was a continuous sheet of ice – and no-one else was daft enough to drive on it. While I fixed the engine the passengers were enjoying themselves sliding down the road – and then the bus slowly began to move. With the bus side panels opened up to access the underslung engine, I squatted in the road and wondered why the injection pump was moving away from my hand that held the spanner – the bus was very slowly sliding on the ice, with the parking brake on, and nobody in it . Someone heard me shouting, saw what was happening and jammed a couple of the large wooden chocks under the tyres and luckily the thing finally stopped moving.
We stayed in Tabriz that night and drove on to Tehran the following day and booked into the usual place – the Amir Kabir Hotel. This establishment was the halfway-house on the overland trail to India, and a favourite haunt for travellers; but this time, one night there was enough – it was far too cold in the unheated rooms, which were on open balconies. Most of us moved to the nearby Armstrong Hotel; it was more expensive but the rooms had heating. Another plus-point of the Armstrong was that it sold alcohol in the basement restaurant. The local beer came from the Shams brewery in Tehran; of course, all that went with the overthrow of the Shah at the end of the 1970s.
Overland Buses (xvi)
Persepolis, Iran: 25 December 1971
It is the morning of Christmas Day 1971: the 37-seater AEC Reliance bus I was driving from London to India is seen here parked beneath the forty-odd feet high Grand Terrace at Persepolis. That's not an item of seasonal traditional decoration behind the windscreen — it's an inflated condom.
Eventually we had arrived in Tehran, running about two weeks late. Once we entered Iran the weather slowly began to improve, so that when a diesel injector pipe split on the engine I was able to replace it, even though the temperature had warmed up to about minus 15°C. At the time we were on the almost deserted main trunk road from the Turkish frontier to Tabriz; the absence of traffic was because the road was a continuous sheet of ice – and no-one else was daft enough to drive on it. While I fixed the engine the passengers were enjoying themselves sliding down the road – and then the bus slowly began to move. With the bus side panels opened up to access the underslung engine, I squatted in the road and wondered why the injection pump was moving away from my hand that held the spanner – the bus was very slowly sliding on the ice, with the parking brake on, and nobody in it . Someone heard me shouting, saw what was happening and jammed a couple of the large wooden chocks under the tyres and luckily the thing finally stopped moving.
We stayed in Tabriz that night and drove on to Tehran the following day and booked into the usual place – the Amir Kabir Hotel. This establishment was the halfway-house on the overland trail to India, and a favourite haunt for travellers; but this time, one night there was enough – it was far too cold in the unheated rooms, which were on open balconies. Most of us moved to the nearby Armstrong Hotel; it was more expensive but the rooms had heating. Another plus-point of the Armstrong was that it sold alcohol in the basement restaurant. The local beer came from the Shams brewery in Tehran; of course, all that went with the overthrow of the Shah at the end of the 1970s.