Show me Shomal!

I have just returned from 3 days in Shomal, the north of Iran. Shomal means North and is a generic term, pretty much describing all of the regions around the Caspian sea, north of Tehran. To be more precise I went to Mazandaran province, to a house in the mountains between Chaalous and Ramsar. We drove through a constantly changing landscape of desert peaks, lush forests, emerald coloured lakes, the biggest dam and longest tunnel in the country, and finally along the sandy shoreline of the Caspian. I often ask people what colour they associate with Iran. I always pick khaki, an obvious choice, as the scenery I have seen here is always that colour, desert sands or dusty alleys. Khak (dust) that gets everywhere. Somehow the colours in Iran always seems faded, the green leaves on trees not quite vibrant enough, the blue lines painted along curbs washed out and drab, as if a layer of khak has covered the whole country and dulled everything down. But in Shomal the colours are alive. Green leaves of walnut, orange and mulberry trees. The turquoise blue of a salty sea I finally dipped my toes in. Deep purple blackberries picked at midnight from trees over our heads.



I had been told I would like Shomal because the scenery and weather is just like England- green and rainy. The ruggedness of my surroundings seemed far from British though, and indeed along the journey from Tehran and through the Alborz mountains various comments of where we could be were made; this is like Western Canada, or Northern California. Oh, that hill looks like it's covered in heather, just like Scotland. Oh and that stream and those rocks, it looks like the peak district. The fisherman over there in his baggy waders, hanging on to his net, for a minute I thought we were in the Caribbean. We stopped for ashe reshte against a foreboding backdrop, where the people selling soup wore cowboy hats and their skin was the same colour as the rocky mountains behind them. Ah, now it felt we had reached the frontier, of what, we were no quite sure.



Caribbean?

Canada?

California?

A frontiersman and his soup

I had also been told that Shomali's are the biggest wasters in all of Iran- something about the sea air means people are always drunk or high on something or other. I was in for a big weekend, so I thought. On arrival at the villa the fridge was opened only to discover that the 3 litres of aragh sagi (homemade alcohol) were not there. A few manic calls home and we discovered the maid, thinking it was water, had poured it away. A weekend in Shomal without booze? Unheard of. Two of our party went on a mission down the mountain and into town to find some. There are people who can find you a villa, girls and contraband so I was assured that it wouldn't be a problem. An hour later they returned with nothing more mind-altering than sausages, crisps and cake. We would look at this weekend as de-tox, away from the almost nightly whisky drinking I'd been indulging in Tehran (more on that later). Breathing in the sea air, waking up to an incredible view, hearing the moos of cows nearby...I didn't need an altered state to feel that life was all around me, and here it didn't seem covered in khakh, or dirt or the thick layer of pollution weighing down on Tehran. I could get used to shomali life, if lived there maybe I would where chador and tie it round my waist like the local women, maybe I would make mulberry jam, catch fish and every now and then send someone down the mountain to get me something that would make the colours around me even more alive.


A colourful shomali sky