MAHINDRA IRAN DRIVE
Join us on a 3500km journey across the length of Iran as we (re)open the International North South Trade Corridor while celebrating 70 years of Indo-Russia friendship
We reopen the International North South Trade Corridor on a 3500km journey across Iran
“DO NOT TAKE PICTURES EVERYWHERE,” warns Captain Khan as we begin our first few kilometres on Iranian soil, in a bus as it turns out because our cars are still stuck at the port. Customs will be dealt with later, for now the all-important briefing and orientation on a country that none of us have ever visited, about which we know very little and whatever we do know has been shaped by the Western media. Who don’t seem to like or know much about Iran, another thing we will come to. “The people are great, very respectful,” continues the naval attaché to the Indian embassy in Tehran tasked with making sure we do not cause a diplomatic incident while driving through Iran. “You might hear the phrase, ‘kabile shoma na dare’. It translates to this service is not worthy of you. That’s how polite people are, so please do not say everything that might come your mind!” And then looking at your correspondent and our two photo/ videographers he repeats, “Please ask before taking out your cameras. You never know what could be in the background.” Left unsaid is the fact that tensions are high (at least on the diplomatic front) as Trump’s eventual withdrawal from the landmark nuclear deal is just two weeks away.
Right then. Be polite, no shorts, and go undercover with the camera. Iran, we are ready.
Heard of the INSTC?
Neither had I, and that’s what we are in Iran for. The International North South Transport Corridor is our answer to China’s One Belt One Road project, starting from St Petersburg on the Baltic Sea and using sea, road and rail to bring goods, oil and gas through Russia, the CIS states and Iran to India. You see transport corridors are a very big thing, and seaports are a critical part of the puzzle. Captain Khan explains how geography has been cruel to Afghanistan – they don’t have access to the sea and hence have to depend on our mutual and not-so-friendly neighbour for goods and trade. A crucial part of the INSTC is the Chabahar port on the south-eastern tip of Iran being built (and will be operated) by India, and that will connect to next-door Afghanistan by a road also being built by our NHAI. With Kandla port in Gujarat just 500 nautical miles away this will be India’s gateway to supplying aid and goods to Afghanistan, helping rehabilitate the war-ravaged country and reducing their reliance on Pakistan. And of course once fully operational the INSTC is claimed to lower the cost of goods transport by a third.
We are on the INSTC Friendship Rally, the brainchild of – would you believe! – Russian premier Vladimir Putin. Apparently at the BRICS summit in Goa a few years ago Putin recommended to our prime minister a car rally to popularise the INSTC. Eventually the task fell to the Kalinga Motorsport Club, the guys who did the very first ASEAN rally (before proper roads were built through Myanmar, even spending a night in the capital of the Golden Triangle – go look it up!) and opened the BBIN route (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal) among others. These guys know what they are doing, except they overestimated the time it takes for customs in Iran to process 18 cars.
SOMETIMES WE ARE TOO OPTIMISTIC for our own good.
Adventure 1. Dubai airport. We are refused boarding passes for our Iran Air flight to Bandar Abbas. The transfer desk refuses to believe we are driving through Iran and insists on a return ticket. Eventually we strike a deal – we will all show 1000 US dollars in cash at the boarding gate, proof of funds to buy a return ticket if Iranian immigration throws us out at Bandar Abbas. Credit cards, you ask? Don’t work in Iran.
Adventure 2. The ship with our Mahindras only berthed at Bandar Abbas on the Saturday we arrived and we expected to hit the road on Sunday. Fat chance! A blazing hot Sunday is thus spent camped out at the port taking pictures of all the cars and trucks that pass us by until, with the intervention of the Indian embassy, our Mahindras are released at sundown. Shiraz, here we come!
The old Silk Route
Without meaning to sound immodest I’ve been all over the world, but I haven’t been as excited about driving through any country as Iran. My mother’s side being Parsi this is also the land of my ancestors. Zoroastrianism originated in Persia and even though this is now the Islamic Republic of Iran, old traditions, most notably Nawroze (that we know as the Parsi New Year), is still celebrated as the Persian New Year.
The roads that we are on are similarly ancient. Ancient as in historic! This is evident by the ruins of caravanserais alongside the road we are driving on. These were shelters with water and shade for traders plying on this harsh and desolate land. It is said that centuries ago 12,000 Indian merchants used to ply this route and there are even graves of Indians merchants out here in Iran. So what happened to the trade? In 1453
the Turks invaded Constantinople and the trade route was no longer safe, forcing the Europeans (desperate for our spices and salt) to get on to ships and discover new routes. The first to arrive in India was Vasco da Gama who fought with the Zamorins in Calicut, made a deal with them, then came to Cochin (Kochi), struck a deal with the kings there (both of whom were already trading with the Arabs), and sold the goods he picked up in India at a 400 per cent markup in Portugal.
Trade, you see
This was the forerunner to the Brits washing up to our shores and India losing her independence. And it can all be traced back to a trade route getting blocked!
This gives you an idea of the significance of the INSTC, and why it’s so important that India has a counter to China’s OBOR.
Roads, gardens, ruins and the currency First impressions – the roads in Iran are fantastic. Some patches are a little bumpy but there’s not a single pothole and the road markings excellent, all in English, though English is hardly spoken anywhere in Iran. Highway 75 from Bandar Abbas to Shiraz is mostly dual carriageway with proper dividers but even where they narrow down to a single carriageway, they are a breeze to drive on.
Second impression – the Iranians love gardens. We visit the tomb of Shiraz’s most famous son, the poet Hafez, and it’s in the middle of a garden in full bloom with roses the size of footballs. The architecture is beautiful, the aesthetic sense exquisite, and the currency crazy.
At the hotel my eyes pop out at the number of zeroes on my room bill. One crore thirty six lakh rials! At the gift shop everything is in the hundred-thousands. I convert 200 US dollars and have my cargos stuffed with notes. The official rate for one US Dollar is 42,000 Rial but on the street you get 59,000 rials. For a single US dollar. Once you get over the shock of the number of zeroes you do realise everything is very, very reasonable but fact also remains that years of sanctions have really
We are on the Friendship Rally, the brainchild of – would you believe! Vladimir Putin
hammered the currency. 100,000 bucks for a tea at a petrol pump! What!?!
From Shiraz – from where the Shiraz grape gets its name; ironic that Iran is (officially) a dry state – we head to the ruins of Persepolis, once the greatest city of the greatest civilisation of the world. Sacked by Alexander the Great in revenge for the Persian destruction of Athens, it is built on an elevated terrace that you climb up via a dual stairway of 111 steps, short steps so that royalty ascending the steps would not run out of breath and could hold a conversation. And then your breath gets taken at top of the stairs when you see the Gate of All Nations, massive stone pillars soaring into the skies. Giant pieces of pillars, figurines, lie all over the place, just as Alexander’s troops left them. The main assembly hall was said to have had 100 pillars of which only half a dozen remain and my imagination runs wild piecing together how aweinspiring that hall must have been. Everything is carved with figures and figurines that look familiar from the Zoroastrian books my grand mum read to me – bearded men, winged horses, massive bulls, griffins. This is where the religion took root before dying out with the Muslim invasion. Persepolis takes at least a day to explore but we have a schedule to maintain and onwards it is for Isfahan.
“Esfahan nesf-e-jahan”
It translates to Isfahan is half of the world and basically means Isfahan is so beautiful, so overflowing in awesomeness, that if you’ve seen this city you’ve seen half the world.
Isfahan is spectacular. What a city! Everything that they say about the Iranians – their aesthetic sense, their love for nature, their courteousness, their succulent meats – we experienced it all in Isfahan. The crazy side too, going by the hooligan bikers, but it’s impossible for anything to take away from what is one of the world’s great cities. At the heart of the city is the ancient Naghsh-e Jahan square, one of the largest city squares in the world, full of gardens, fountains and two utterly beautiful mosques. The She-ie-kh Lutfullah mosque to the east of the square is claimed to be the most beautiful in the world, except at the far end of the square is the blue mosque that is a worthy rival to the claim. Both have intricate artwork covering every wall and every arch, all done in a beautiful shade of blue (or is that Indigo, I’m not sure), and for a car-journo
it’s honestly difficult to find the words to describe just how wildly beautiful everything is.
What I can describe are the roads. Isfahan is connected to Tehran by an expressway, the first toll road we encounter in Iran, and it is like any Autobahn you’d encounter in Germany except there’s less road work, less interruptions here in Iran. The speed limits are strictly enforced but with traffic moving at a quick pace you can stick to the 120kmph limit without a problem. The courteousness of the Iranians also reflects in their driving habits and of course their curiosity knows no bounds at the sight of the Mahindra Adventure convoy.
I’m in a brand new S11 Scorpio, the new thirdgen Scorpio, the best Scorpio Mahindra has made (their words, and one that I fully endorse). I’ve always maintained that the Scorpio is a great SUV for mega mile munching, effortless and very relaxing with very comfy seats and great visibility; now with the upgraded engine this Scorpio is even better, even nicer to drive and thanks to the sixth gear a more relaxing cruise. The extra power also comes in handy while scurrying off for photography and then re-joining the convoy.
And the Scorpio is getting massive attention. You see the sanctions have meant Iran’s car industry is well behind Europe, even ours, and there’s nothing like our Mahindras out here. The most popular car – the Iranian equivalent of the 800 – is the Saipa 131 SE, a smallish Kia sedan from the nineties, an era where Korean cars were dire. Our guide in Tehran took us around in his Saipa and I can tell you it is quite a horrible car, costs 7000 US dollars (quite expensive for how basic it is!) and he says in three years it cost him another 7000 US dollars to maintain. The new best-selling car is the Logan, except here it is badged the Pars Tondar 90, and has a rather neat facelift (actually bum-lift). Iran is sedan country and the only hatchback you see in big numbers is the (nineties) Peugeot 206 while the Peugeot 405 sedan – from the late eighties – is the ‘big’ car and continues in production with a facelift as the Peugeot Pars. Both the French majors, Renault and Peugeot, have tie-ups with Iran’s biggest and only manufacturer Iran Khodro who also make their own locally (re) designed cars, the most popular of which is the Samand. It is the size of our Honda City with a big(ish) 1.7-litre petrol engine and popular with the cops. You do see some decent cop cars, we spotted a few W203 C-Class and even the W211 E-Class. I believe Mercedes used to make cars in Iran. Trucks for sure. And all in partnership with Iran Khodro.
The Chinese are here in full force. Brilliance, Chery, FAW, Geely, JAC (whatever that is, haven’t heard of them before) all are here in Iran, especially in and around Tehran. But there is nothing like the Scorpio or XUV and over dinner the Indian ambassador lets the cat out of the bag – that Mahindra is planning assembly operations in Iran.
Shattering perceptions
We had dinner at India House in Tehran! It’s an unexpected invitation and I don’t even have a jacket for the occasion but these aren’t opportunities to pass up – especially since our Indian ambassador had the Azeri and Russian ambassadors join us for the dinner. That we could finally have a drink and tuck into Indian food was an added bonus.
Not that we were struggling with Iranian food. Far from it! Their meats are extraordinary and all our meals were either kebabs with rice or kebabs with their fantastic naans (noon as they call it). As you can imagine in a capitalist-hating nation there’s no McDonalds or KFC so even our petrol pump meals were succulent kebabs. But, weirdly enough, Coke and Pepsi are everywhere. And their fruit! The melons we get back home just aren’t as juicy or sweet.
Leaving Bandar Abbas I tweeted about being unsure if Iran was a developing or developed country. Their cars, trucks, bikes, all are developing country material. But then I realised their roads, their cities, they’re as good as the best in the world. Tehran has snow-capped mountains visible on a clear day. On every bridge, on every outpost, Iranian flags flutter adding both colour and a deep sense of nationalist pride. The public facilities are phenomenal – Tehran even has a pedestrian bridge, designed by a lady Iranian architect, that overlooks lush gardens. Nowhere in our country do we have public facilities like they do in Iran. Every single city has gardens and parks, and with no pubs or theatres to kill time in, the Iranians love their gardens. Along with rich oil reserves Iran is also rich with history and culture, no wonder they consider themselves superior to their immediate neighbours. The Iranians are very cultured, for tourists there is no tension, no reason to be nervous; I cannot give you a single reason not to visit Iran. Everything is very reasonable too! Of course women are expected to cover their arms and wear a scarf but this is not a burkha, and what’s the harm in respecting local traditions? In fact the only restrictions on freedom I faced was that Facebook, Twitter, even Google is banned, though everybody uses VPN blockers. Even Iran Air, which I was very nervous about flying, is a perfectly good airline operating a modern fleet (at least out of Dubai).
And despite having our cameras out everywhere we didn’t get busted for taking pictures. It’s true what they say. Travel is the best form of education.
Next month we head to Azerbaijan and Russia for the second part of the INSTC Friendship Rally. ⌧