As told to Elisabeth Easther, Mehdi Shariati is a Persian Tour Specialist.
I am from Iran, from a large farming family, the youngest of six siblings. Often we would get together for picnics in the countryside, and with all the cousins from different cities, there would be almost 25 children around my age, but because I was one of the youngest, everyone looked after me.
Every Iranian man has to do military service and if you don't, you cannot get a passport. During my service, I was fortunate to train as a scuba diver and I loved it. As soon as you dive down, it is like a deep meditation, you cannot think about anything else. You forget about the boat and you are just present, listening to your breathing, focused on the moment.
After serving my two years, I knew I wanted to start my adventures so I applied to universities in Ireland, and all over Europe, The first university to accept me was in Ukraine so I went there, and later Moscow, which is how I learnt to speak Russian.
When I first started travelling, it was always on organised tours. In 2007 I went to Chiang Mai, in northern Thailand and I was on a half-day cycling tour when my bike had a problem. I had to wait for another bicycle and while I was waiting, I met a man riding a bicycle through the forest in the middle of nowhere. He was looking for a lake. We started chatting and I asked where he came from and he said, "Poland". I thought he didn't get my question. I meant where had he come from by bicycle so I asked again. Again he said, "Poland". Then he named all the countries he had ridden through to get from Poland to Thailand. He even passed Iran and I was fascinated. It was the first time I realised that cycle tourism exists.
When I got home to Mashhad in Iran, I joined a hospitality club that specialised in cycle tourism and two weeks later, I welcomed my first guests, a lovely couple from Australia who had been touring on bicycles for six years. They were so inspiring, we spent one month together and we are still friends today. When they left Iran, they went on to Africa, and I got on a plane to Nepal, to go couch surfing in Kathmandu. As this was my first time backpacking, I had some uncertainty but seeing my host waiting at the airport gave me confidence.
