Blogs from Tehran, North, Iran, Middle East

We started from Tabriz in the morning of the 18. September in direction to Tehran. We were happy when we were out of the very stinky exhaust gases of the cars. The highway went through somewhere of nowhere and it was quite seldom, that we crossed a village, or even town. Even to get a petrol station or little shops to get some water and food was not so easy.But we have survived :) But the scenery was amazing, the dry mountains around us! One evening we stayed at a truck stop. The cook could speak very bad English but we think that he was a soldier in the Iran-Irak war. He was quite fanatic. He always made some signs as to shoot at somebody and made "Rat-tat-tat". We didnt feel very comfortable at him. He ... read more

SatJan15 – Shanbe Well, I will keep the long details out of this day’s events. Suffice to say, I went terribly awry picking Reza to be my CS host. I will be much more careful in future. Consequence of this mistake was one long wasted Shanbe in Tehran. One thing of real value learned this day was how to grapple with taxi drivers over fares; the other was how to make use of the Tehran metro. This is clearly the cheapest means of getting around and it costs only about $1 per trip!!! Why use a taxi, except perhaps when lost? With ease of travelling with the metro now in hand, I make my way to the Bazaari district and then on to Golestan Palace; unfortunately, while this is a cheap tourist site, only 33,000IRR, the ... read more

16 June 2010 Salam from Iran! Get this: I’m actually watching the BBC hospital drama ‘Casualty’ in my room in Tehran. This is just one of many strange and wonderful things I’ve experienced since I arrived in the Islamic Republic of Iran. But firstly nearly everyone has looked at me aghast and said: “Iran? Isn’t it dangerous?”. Barring a dodgy part of Baluchistan in the deep south east it’s perfectly safe - think of it as a part of London’s Kensel Green being “a bit dodge”. That's not to say that Iran does have a definite image problem. It's a member of the ‘Axis of Evil’ - according to the Bush administration, then it’s the whole Islamic theocracy of a government (the enforced wearing of the veil for women, the banning of alcohol, Western music etcetera), ... read more

Wie schon angedeutet, sollte der Freitag Nachmittag im Zeichen klassischer Flugzeuge stehen. Es gibt nicht wenige Menschen, die genau und ausschließlich deshalb in den Iran fliegen, und das ist durchaus verständlich, bedenkt man was hier noch so herumfliegt: Die Boeing 707 steht dabei freilich an vorderster Front des Interesses. So auch bei mir. Zunächst verlasse ich Shiraz jedoch mit einer Iran Air Boeing 727-200. Diese kultigen Dreistrahler findet man in der westlichen Welt fast nur noch als Frachter, in Südamerika gibt es allerdings auch noch vereinzelt Linienflüge. Wie alle Flüge hier, verlässt auch dieser Shiraz mit einer guten halben Stunde Verspätung. Im Flugzeug selbst lerne ich dann noch eine US-Iranische Familie kennen und während des Fluges unterhalte ich mich recht angeregt mit der Tochter, die in Kalifornien für die Lokalpresse arbeitet. Die Flugzeit nach Teheran ... read more