A backpackers experience.
The guy slows down his motorbike, pulling up alongside us as we walk the cracked pavement by the side of the road. Anywhere else this could be trouble, but not here. The guy lifts his hand in greeting, flashes us a grin, then yells to be heard over the burble of his engine: "You are welcome in Iran!"
Then he tears off along the street, still waving with one hand. My friend Michelle and I look at each other, shrug our shoulders and smile. Another one.
The true strangeness of this situation is that it's not strange at all. Something similar to this scene has been playing out constantly for the past week that we've been in Iran.
It happened just 10 minutes ago. A kid who can't have been more than 18 nearly ploughed his motorbike into a fruit shop, such was his determination to wave to us and call out hello while negotiating a pavement full of pedestrians on a fairly big machine.
It happened before, too, on the busy streets of Tehran, of Esfahan, of Yazd and of Shiraz. You can see the well-wishers coming from the corner of your eye. You're wandering down the street, minding your own business, and an Iranian will swoop, like some kind of extremely polite eagle.
"Excuse me," they'll say, "can I ask you are from which country?"
The friendliest people on the planet | smh.com.au
The guy slows down his motorbike, pulling up alongside us as we walk the cracked pavement by the side of the road. Anywhere else this could be trouble, but not here. The guy lifts his hand in greeting, flashes us a grin, then yells to be heard over the burble of his engine: "You are welcome in Iran!"
Then he tears off along the street, still waving with one hand. My friend Michelle and I look at each other, shrug our shoulders and smile. Another one.
The true strangeness of this situation is that it's not strange at all. Something similar to this scene has been playing out constantly for the past week that we've been in Iran.
It happened just 10 minutes ago. A kid who can't have been more than 18 nearly ploughed his motorbike into a fruit shop, such was his determination to wave to us and call out hello while negotiating a pavement full of pedestrians on a fairly big machine.
It happened before, too, on the busy streets of Tehran, of Esfahan, of Yazd and of Shiraz. You can see the well-wishers coming from the corner of your eye. You're wandering down the street, minding your own business, and an Iranian will swoop, like some kind of extremely polite eagle.
"Excuse me," they'll say, "can I ask you are from which country?"
The friendliest people on the planet | smh.com.au
