As we leave Agra, I take a good look at famous Mount Ararat in the distance. Not exactly my idea of a snug harbor, Noah!
This morning my traveling companions are ferocious looking Turkish soldiers and a nice Italian mountaineer who speaks English as fast as he can thumb through his Italian/English dictionary.
The Iranian border police are not too pleased to have me show up without a visa. Grudgingly, they issue me a three-day transit visa. This seems like a big country to cross in only three days, but what the hell…
On the Iranian side of the border a hundred or so Pakistani refugees huddle together in family clusters. The clothing of the Pakistani women resembles a Halloween trick-or-treat ghost costume from my childhood. They have substituted a cloth-tape lattice instead of the usual two eyeholes, but you can only guess what they are like under it. In fact, it is such a good disguise; they might not even be women!
I met a Pakistani in Africa who told me that he liked Americans but that we didn’t know how to treat women. His sister, he said, was an example of the proper way to bring up a lady. “She is twenty-five years old and has never been out of our house.” And it looks like I am heading toward Pakistan!
I join a taxi-full of travelers, and our driver weaves through the refugees, honking and calling them “animals!” in English.
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