When Jamie Maslin decides to hitchhike the entire length of the Silk Road, he decides to travel first and plan later. Then, unexpectedly stranded in Iran—a country he's only read about in newspapers—he wonders whether he'll make it out alive. After crossing the border on foot from Turkey, Maslin finds himself suddenly plunged into the subversive, contradictory world of Iranian subculture, where he is embraced by locals who are happy to show him the true Iran as they see it—where tourists are treated like royalty, where cab drivers shout abuse at Mullahs from their car windows, where unmarried men and women mingle in Western clothes at secret parties, and where cans of whisky (the possession of which is punishable by lashings) is readily available on the black market. This is the charming and astonishing account of one Westerner's life-altering rambles across Iran that illustrates first-hand the attitudes and aspirations of a nation in flux.