Full Tilt by Dervla Murphy Read Free Book Online Page B

daily paper) stopped and said, ‘Dervla going to India, yes?’ I blushed with becoming modesty at this proof of fame and replied that I was indeed Dervla going to India, so he invited me to spend the night at his home, where I now am, having had a shower and a huge supper. It’s quite impossible to retain one’s youthful curves in these countries: to refuse food is an insult so one merely unbuttons one’s slacks in a surreptitious way and goes on and on eating. Before the meal everyone consumes a vast amount of biscuits, oranges, pastries, figs stuffed with almonds, toffees and bon-bons of all descriptions, pistachio nuts and endless glasses of tea. Then you’re expected to welcome with a glad smile a mound of rice you can hardly see over and masses of meat and vegetables.
    This is a big town (8,000 population) with electricity, no less! My host’s house is full of mod cons, including a telephone, fridge and washing-machine. But inevitably there’s no bath because of the Islamic law about washing in running water – the bathroom is a marble-floored outfit with a shower. (In fact every room in every Persian house is marble- or mud-floored because of the shortage ofwood.) My host’s wife is away in Teheran on a Now Ruz visit to her family and will be home tomorrow. This is the last day of the Now Ruz festival but my route today was so gloriously desolate that I saw little evidence of the traditional picnicking in the open. The four children here are delightful – two boys, two girls – and are tickled to bits by my arrival, having read about me in the Teheran paper. We were joined for supper by a twenty-year-old nephew of my host, with his sixteen-year-old wife – a made match that was clearly not working very well.
    I’m in for torture with sunburn on my right arm – not, I now realise, the result of lying in the sun, but the result of cycling every day due east so that this arm is continuously exposed; and though I don’t feel it when cycling it is a fierce sun. There’s nothing like carrying six tubes of sunburn lotion across two continents and then forgetting to use it in time!
ABBAS-ABAD, 3 APRIL
    We covered eighty-three miles today, but that meant breaking my ‘not-after-dark’ rule and cycling till 9.30 p.m. However, in such uninhabited country I don’t think there’s any danger and bright moonlight showed the way; it was indescribably beautiful on the huge sand-dunes, which look like mountains. I’m at last getting used to the uncanny silence of desert landscape and to the odd experience of seeing things that disappear as you approach them. Also I’ve discovered that what looks like a village two miles ahead is actually a village twenty miles ahead, and I’ve got acclimatised to fine dust permeating every crevice of self and kit. In short, I’m broken in!
    There was an amusing interlude today when an American engineer going back by jeep to his work in Afghanistan pulled up to investigate me and the following conversation took place:
    American: ‘What the hell are you doing on this goddam road?’
    Me: (having taken an instant dislike to him) ‘Cycling.’
    American: ‘I can see that – but what the hell for?’
    Me: ‘For fun.’
    American: ‘Are you a nut-case or what? Gimme that bike and I’llstick it on behind and you get in here and we’ll get out of this goddam frying-pan as fast as we can. This track isn’t fit for a camel!’
    Me: ‘When you’re on a cycle instead of in a jeep it doesn’t feel like a frying-pan. Moreover, if you look around you you’ll notice that the landscape compensates for the admittedly deplorable state of the road. In fact I enjoy cycling through this sort of country – but thank you for the kind offer. Goodbye.’
    As I rode on he passed me and yelled: ‘You are a goddam nut-case!’
    I regard this sort of life, with just Roz and me and the sky and the earth, as sheer bliss. My one worry at the moment is Roz’s complete disintegration. So far the