These days I feel as if I’m obsessing over any and every travel tale coming out of Iran. Until I get there on my own, I’ll envy everyone who goes and comes back to share their experiences with me. I want to see it for my own, walk it on my own, breathe it on my own and hear Pink Floyd fans in Isfahan recite lyrics on my own…. Sigh.
In the latest issue of Perceptive Travel, Roy MacLean recounts one of his stops during his retracing of the Asia Overland “hippie trail” that was popular with Westerners in the 60’s & 70’s. Roy talks about times when English girls could hitchhike alone across Iran and when free-spirited teens from Berlin and Boston were both welcomed on Baghdad. The times have changed, but Pink Floyd obviously still remains. As the author tries to find the moment of ‘rare absolute peace’ as described by travel writer Robert Byron he is distracted by young Iranian Pink Floyd fans. They go on and on reciting lyrics from Dark Side of the Moon and question their new Western friend on some of the albums tracks. Although Roy makes his own suggestion, no one sounds very sure and just as soon as the young men had come they were off again.
Oh, to have been Roy on this day or even a fly on the wall, or maybe when I go I’ll run into some Bob Marley fans. I’d love to sit and chat about the Marley man in Iran.