Blogs from North, Iran, Middle East

Horror stories abound these days, due to the corona virus. For example: A recent article by url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/30/treated-worse-than-criminals-australian-arrivals-put-into-quarantine-lament-conditionsThe Guardian revealed the terrible conditions that Australian citizens who are reentering the country are facing as they are placed at the Sydney InterContinental, a five-star hotel that’s been turned into a government quarantine center. Instead of hand-crafted, Instagram-worthy meals for in-room dining, citizens are receiving meals that are barely edible and that don’t take their dietary restrictions into consideration. Instead of being able to, at the very least, enjoy the stunning views of Sydney that the hotel is known for, those in quarantine aren’t allowed to leave rooms with windows that don’t open. Other Australian citizens being quarantined at ... read more

Budicek dost neskoro, kym som sa vymotal 1000 prec. Takze 12hod (podla cs) tura na kolakchal (3340m) nebude. Nasadam na modre metro, prestup na cervene a vyskocenie na konecnej tajrish. Vo vagonoch predajcovia blbovin, neskor aj hudobnici. Metro dost vytazene. Listok som si kupil v pokladni. Dostal som papierik s qr kodom, ten som prilozil k citacke, dvere sa otvorili a uz som bol dnu. Vacsina ludi mala nabijatelne karty. Na konecnej nekonecny vystup na povrh. Ked som myslel, ze uz som tam, prisiel dalsi eskalator. Na vystupe listok nebolo treba pipat avsak kartu hej. Na povrchu kopa obchodov, trznica a kvanta ludi. V pekarni kupujem nieco na cestu. Tu ma bezocivo predbehla jedna zenska, pri kupovani listka taktiez. Iranci su dobre oprskli teda. Jebnuty za volantom aj pri stati v rade. Problem najst niekde vodu. ... read more

Twenty years ago, if someone had told me that I'd one day be going to Iran, I would never have believed it. In fact even now I was met with raised eyebrows when I told friends and colleagues of my holiday plans. Requiring a deal with major world powers to curb nuclear ambitions, being a conservative Islamic republic and having recently and arbitrarily detained foreign nationals, the country gets a bit of a bad rap in Western media but even taking this into account, I was still slightly concerned about what might happen to me while over there. But then on the other hand, I had heard of many tourists who had been there and I had never heard anyone say a single bad word about it; only that the food was amazing, the architecture beautiful ... read more

Saturday. Another day another castle! Some of our group decided that a day exploring Tabriz would be fun, the rest of us headed for the hills to see Babak castle. This remote site on a crag was three hours from Tabriz by bus then about 20 minutes in ancient four wheel drive jeeps followed by a 40 min walk. Not as strenuous as we thought it might be but the final steps up and across the cliff felt exposed to the drop. The views were worth it when we reached the top. After a good bumble about and picnic snacks we headed back the way we had come. Back in Tabriz we all went out for dinner, a good 40 minute walk away from the hotel - sadly the restaurant recommended in both the guidebooks had ... read more

Preamble: I can’t really remember when the idea of visiting Iran first made its way into my head. It might have been over ten years ago when I bought a book on Islamic architecture and gazed at photographs of amazing tilework at mosques in Esfahan. In late 2016 we started thinking of where to go for our next sabbatical and Iran had by then made it to the shortlist. When we started looking at the practicalities we realised that this wasn’t as simple as buying a plane ticket and making it up from there. Politics raised its inconvenient head and as Brits we needed to go on an organised trip. Finding that a visa would cost £165 meant that we wanted a trip that would last a few weeks and found the Explore “Iran in depth” ... read more