Iran. Not the first country that pops up in your head when you think about a possible holiday destination. But it has a lot to offer: rough mountain area (you can even ski in Iran!), beautiful old desert cities, mindboggling mosques, relaxed teahouses and.... very hospitable and friendly people (sometimes too much).
Finally I'm in one of the axes of evil, my god, they drink the blood of christian babies here. After practicing pandaism in Ankara for a very long time, I arrived in Iran almost one week ago. I had to stay there for a long time because money had to be sent over, I had lost my bankcard in Romania, had a new card sent over (which got "lost" in the not so reliable mail system) and finally the money arrived last week. My stay in this not so interesting capital was made more pleasant by the great hospitability of Can and Perry (who let me sleep at their place all this time and stuffed me with all kinds of exquised Turkish meals; thanks again. I will never forget it) and all the friends I made in this relatively short period. I will surely miss you.
So now I'm in Iran and I really like it. People are very friendly and hospitable. I was talking to an Iranian man on the bus from the border. The bus got stopped one time and the Iranian guy was taken outside and his place checked. Later he told me they asked him why he was talking to me. I also found out his sister lives in Bergen op Zoom. This is 20 km from the place I was born. It's a small world after all!
Second day I was walking around in Tabriz when suddenly, from a side street, 50 "black crows" came about (women in black veils), a strange sight you don’t see everyday. The Iranian fashion for women is quite monotone. After the age of 9 every girl has to wear a hejab (veil). I wonder how many actually want to wear this tent when temperatures rise above 30 easily! Even though you sometimes see women in jeans (of course with headscarf), the main womans outfit is of the pinguin/Darth Vader variety. On the street you can buy many posters of Bruce Lee, bodybuilders, an Iranian "pin-up" girl (of course fully dressed with headscarf) sitting on a donkey surrounded by a flock of sheep (I can imagine that this must really tickle the senses of the average Iranian man), and I even saw a poster of the new gouverner of California.
I was also witness of some Iranian top entertainment: renting a boat or waterbike (in the shape of a swan) and pedling around in circles in a very small pool. If it wasn't so sad it would be funny, well actually it was very funny. The Lonely Planet advices you not to talk about politics, but many of the (young) people I’ve met start talking themselves about how they hate the goverment and how Khomeini was a bad dude. So I didn’t have to bring it up. I hope for them things will change and get looser (actually things changed already: in the womans fashion and also they are allowed to listen to music, something which was forbidden a few years ago). President Khatami wants reforms, but in this country it is not the president who holds the power, but the religious fanatics and they don't want changes but maintain the status quo. So the President is right in the middle between those who want reforms fast and those who don't want reforms at all. Not an easy job. It's amazing and sad how the minds of some lunatics can influence the lives of so many.
From Tabriz I went to Quazvin and from Quazvin I went to Gazor Khan, from there you can visit the ruines of the castles of the assassins. For those of you who are not familiar with the story of the assassins, here it comes (with thanks to the Lonely Planet): The cult of the Assassins was founded in the 11th century by Hasan Sabah (1040-1124). This heretical and widely feared sect despatched killers to murder leading political and religious figures. Its followers, the Hashishiyun (assassins), were so called because of the cunning ruse used by their leaders of taking them into beautiful secret gardens (filled with equally enticing young maidens), getting them stoned on hashish, and then sending them on homicidal assignments believing that Hasan Sabah had the power to transport them to paradise.
Unfortunatly there were no hashish or maidens left (only an old Iranian woman), but the views from the castle was worth it. Actually there was almost nothing left at all and they were rebuilding the structure of the castle using cement, not very authentic if you ask me.
One thing about the sign language (which I use often since I don't speak Farsi): in the west the thumb up means okay, in Iran the thumb up has the same meaning as the middlefinger. So when people ask for instance: "Iran okay?", I almost automaticly put my thumb up. I have to learn to do the excellent sign (making a circle with your thumb and indexfinger) which - in Turkey - means gay or something, very confusing.
Of course I also visited some more cities in Iran, like Isfahan (Isfahan is half the world according to an Isfahan saying) with it's beautiful mosks with mindboggling tilework, geniusly repeating floweral designs. At night (because of ramadan) you could place yourself in a thea shop underneath the beautiful old bridges, smoking the nargile (waterpipe). In one of these shops I saw a family with children and there was a kid (aproximatly 7 years old) smoking the waterpipe like an addict. When his father threw away the leftovers from the smoking he got really upset but later when a new pipe was brought in, he was happy again and the first one to smoke it.
On friday (holy day for muslims) I witnessed a praying ceremonie. It was quite impressive to see all this hundreds of people praying with such a devotion. A very special event, even for a kafir (non believer) like me.
One day we met a guy at the Isfahan campus. He seemed like a friendly guy (like so many Iraniens), maybe he was, but after a while we found out he thinks a bit different than us. For instance he started to ask questions to us, non-muslims, like: "What do you do when you find your wife cheating with another man? Would you beat her up or kill her?" (according to Sharia law adultery can be punished by death sentence, if the person who is cheated upon requests this) or "What if you see your sister hugging a boy or putting her hand on his shoulder, doesn't this make you very angry, all this illegal things?". Also this one was very nice: "In Iran, when a woman doesn't wear a headscarf, men will attack her, (something which doesn't surprise me actually, the segregation of the 2 sexes does not really make the male libido smaller, something I discovered myself :-)) how's this in Holland?"
Apart from this total nutcase we didn't meet many people with such disturbed minds. Most people I met where quite open minded, modern and with both feet on the ground. And also very hospitable, helpfull and friendly. It's obvious Iran is suffering from a bad reputation which it doesn't deserve, in one month I only had one bad experience with the people I met. After Isfahan we went to Yazd, a deserttown with a labyrintious mudbrick old city of alleys. Here are also the Towers of Silence; big towers used by the Zoroastrians to bring their deaths, after which vultures would have a picknick there (a priest would watch the vultures feasting on the corpses, if they would first pick the left eye it meant a good future for the soul, right eye meant a slightly less fortunate future or vise versa). Nowadays there are not many Zoroastrians left (it was the major religion before Islam) and also the towers where not that silent because of youngsters riding around on their motors like mad men giving it a Mad Max kind of experience.
Shiraz was next on our agenda, next to it lie the ruines of Persepolis, a city build 2500 years ago by Darius the Great and burned down 300 years later problably by Alexander the Great. The palace must have been enormous: the pillars still standing are 20 meters high (so about as high as a 6 or 7 store building).
Bam was our last stop in Iran, here we visited the 2200 years old fort and citadel. At night I orded a pizza in a place, trying to make them clear by 3 times impersonating a sheep, cow and chicken that I didn't want meat on the pizza and ofcourse I got a pizza with meat. I just ate the damn thing, it was impossible to explain them the concept of vegetarianism, On other occasions when you said you don’t want meat, people would say: "Oh, in that case we also have chicken".
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