JPG Magazine: Stories: Photo Essay: Getting There (Anywhere)

Getting There (Anywhere)

By Phil Moore

4 October 2008

With the ease of air travel, we have forgotten what it is to 'travel'. The word itself implies movement, and it is this act of deplacement that embodies travelling, yet it seems to now be limited to the experience that one gains when one has reached ones destination.

The idea to take a "holiday" in Iran was born from an article in an English newspaper, The Guardian, about the Trans-Asia Express. This is a train which departs Istanbul - where East meets West, Europe meets Asia - once a week, on a Wednesday evening, and after traversing Turkey and Western Iran, arrives into Tehran, three days later.

Once the idea of the trip had taken hold, the intrigue of visiting Iran soon took over; seeing the mark left by centuries of culture, religion, art on what once formed of Earth's great civilisations. But the act of 'getting there' would provide a fascinating and worthwhile prelude.

The overwhelming tone of the trip was one of blind optimism. Before I set out, leaving the ordered, Haussmannian streets of Paris behind, nothing went according to plan. Not that there was really much of a 'plan' to speak of. This was to be a trip of letting fate take hold.

The Iranian visa didn't arrive before I left. That would have to be taken care of once I reached Istanbul.

There were no places left on the train. Persistence managed to acquire a seat.

I couldn't withdraw any money due to a weekly ATM withdrawal limit. Some thriftiness in Turkey would suffice.

And my travel buddy dropped out the morning of the day I left. New friends would be made.

It is for this last point that taking the train, overcoming that qui en vaut la peine, as the French say.

New friends were indeed made: from Paris to Venice; Venice to Belgrade; Belgrade to Istanbul; in Istanbul itself; from Istanbul to Tehran; and all across Iran.

In train travel, there is one of the cold, apathetic faces that an airport departure lounge seems to induce.

I shall not dwell on the details of the journey itself, instead leaving the images to tell their own story. Suffice to say that the people I met en-route, both on the train and during the stops on the way, for exceeded my expectations.

The people of Iran are the most friendly, amicable, welcoming people I have ever met. A far cry from the politicised image that we too frequently receive of the country.

To travel, for me, involves getting there; and that, as the saying so aptly puts it, is half the fun.