I don’t know where my mother got her adventurous streak.
She always felt her surroundings in Iran were too confining to pursue what she called her “soul flights.”
She got her driver’s license at a time when only a handful of people in her hometown owned cars; she was one of the first women there to drive. Then, it was unusual for women to travel solo beyond borders. It still is.
It was 1975, and my mother had moved from her hometown to Tehran to teach English at the Kharazmi Institute, a language school, which was also affiliated with a hotel in London. After finding out she could make a reservation at the hotel, she booked a flight to London. This was long before the likes of Rick Steves and Anthony Bourdain inspired everyone to keep on traveling and explore parts unknown.
There, she became unstoppable. She toured the hotspots: Buckingham Palace, London Bridge, Madame Tussauds, The British Museum, Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square.
As a Kharazmi instructor, she was given VIP treatment. Informing the hotel manager of her plans to travel to France to purchase a Peugeot, she learned his wife had recently ordered one – and my mother could buy it from them. “Just like that, the Peugeot became mine!” she tells me.
She planned to drive her light green Peugeot to Iran. Joining her would be new friends she’d made in London: the owner of a construction business in Tehran, and a pair of newlyweds from Mashhad. Two weeks later, they boarded a ferry for France. “It was my first sea voyage! To have a new car, be on a ferry, and find myself surrounded by endless waters all at once,” she remembers, “felt surreal.”
Arrival in Paris was by sunset. On a two-night stay, the group visited Notre Dame, the Louvre, and the Champs Elysees. They then drove south, with my mother marveling at the vast rows of vineyards, until they reached a point near Lyon where the roads were under construction. Although she spoke no French, she managed to have the Peugeot lifted onto a train carriage until the roads were clear and it was possible to drive again.
Once in Lyon, the group discovered a hotel with a red carpet and decorations as if to host newlyweds on a honeymoon (who just so happened to be among them) and spent the night there.
They reached Milan close to midnight. Still, the restaurant at the hotel they checked into was open. They hadn’t expected such an upscale ambiance as they sat down for dinner, complete with silver dishes and utensils fit for royalty!
As the cliffs surrounding Lake Como came into sight, my mother led the way in exploring. They stopped at cafes, where the Italians were singing and laughing. My mother socialized in English with the locals. “Wherever words fell short,” she recalls, “I resorted to smiles and gestures.”
The adventure continued through the forests of what was then Yugoslavia, then onward to Bulgaria. At the Bulgarian-Turkish border, the patrol officer found an issue with my mother’s driver’s license that she couldn’t quite understand. They were held there for several hours before everything was resolved. My mom and her friends spent a night in Istanbul, visiting the Hagia Sophia and exploring the city the next day.
On the road from Istanbul to Ankara, it became apparent that a group of thugs was following the Peugeot. They suddenly swerved in front, got out of their vehicle, and approached with threatening gestures. But my mother didn’t flinch. “I stepped on the gas and charged in their direction. When they realized I could throw them under, they scrambled aside.”
She had filled up her tank in Istanbul, but every filling station on the road to Ankara was out of gas. The Peugeot finally gave out beside a train terminal on the outskirts of Ankara. Leaving her friends in the car, she hailed a taxi to the nearest gas station. The driver, realizing they were tourists, told her it was impossible to find a vacancy in hotels, but they were welcome to stay at his place. My mother noticed he was keeping well away from the main roads. She took his address, but after filling up the car and driving through town, she saw hotels welcoming guests at every nook.
On through Sivas with its mosques, madrasas, and minarets, they made their way to the Turkish border town of Dogubeyazit. They planned to stay overnight and cross the border in the morning, but found only one coffeehouse full of shady types lounging around and chain-smoking. Finding nowhere else to stay, they braved the way to the border. Still, a patrolman delayed them, citing customs regulations for the Peugeot. “I offered him whiskey and pistachios,” my mother remembers. “I also slipped in some cash between the pages of my passport as I handed it to him. On the condition that we would settle customs in Iran, he allowed us to cross.”
Tireless and determined, my mother could have gone any distance at any time. Without realizing it, she challenged the norms of her time. In an era when fewer women dared to venture off into the unknown, she set her own trekking trends, executing plans on the spot to hit the road. And all before social media, Google Maps, and the Internet.
The exposure my mother gained on her journey expanded her worldview and influenced her to immigrate to California, where I was born.
We would eventually move back to her homeland, but periodic visits with relatives in Europe and elsewhere heightened my cross-cultural perspectives.
In 2006, while visiting Germany during the FIFA World Cup, Italy’s win in the championships piqued my curiosity. On a whim, I set off for Venice on my own. Upon returning home, I completed the language immersion program at the Scuola Italiana di Teheran. Maybe I was destined to revive my mother’s legacy, which began with a dialogue with the locals in Lake Como all those years back.
But it’s not about Italy or any one country. It’s about going beyond borders and taking the initiative to experience other ways of being – sometimes at the cost of going against the grain of one’s community.
Yet, that’s a small price to pay for the freedom to travel. Travel has shaped who I am. I owe this freedom to my mother, who blazed the trail before me. To her, whose life has been filled with adventure along a road less traveled.