Blogs from North, Iran, Middle East - page 9

Teheran var vild, hektisk, kaotisk, anderledes, meget spændende med meget venlige og imødekommende mennesker. Vi blev budt velkommen af præstestyret i lufthavnen paa store plakater, 2 x Khoumeni. Møntfoden var vanvittig, og vi blev indehavere af 2,9 mill rialer for blot 100 dollar. På hotelværelset var vi sikre paa retningen mod Mekka !! godt for det !! Fru Koudal var hele tiden behørigt indhyldet i gevanter, her ses i nydeligt aften dress. Smukt foto fra Goldenstaen Palace med chaddor klædte kvinder. Over alt i Tehran var der propoganda paa husgavlene, gerne i mange meters højde, både præstestyret, militær og ikke mindst USA. Billeder fra Tehran vartegn samt Milad Tower, hvorfra vi kunne se hele denne enorme by med 17 mill indbyggere ! På gaderne var der indsamlingsstandere til fattige, børn og ældre.... read more

Iran Wednesday 25 September: All morning spent travelling. Picked up at hotel and taken to the airport in Istanbul. Check-in, Immigration no problems – smooth as. After that – well I won’t complain about Sydney International Terminal again. The arrivals area is friendly and airy, the people helpful. Sort of the opposite in the departure area. People (shop assistants in Duty Free) less than helpful and give erroneous advice. Would you believe that there is only one ATM in the whole departure area at Ataturk International Airport and that is hidden away in the HSBC VIP lounge. Doesn’t dispense USD – only TL, Euros and GBP. Had to withdraw in Euros. The Flight I was on was Turkish Airlines TK 0870 and was code share with Iran Air. The departure boards at ... read more

It has been seven years but I am back in Iran and this time I will concentrate on the north west of the country. I left Agarak a little after 8 am and was driven to the border by a very old man in an even older car, I then had quite a walk from the Armenia border post across a bridge spanning the Aras River, getting my passport checked by a multitude of officials, police and soldiers along the way. Finally I arrived at the Iranian immigration area and after a short wait passed through changing my dram to rials before exiting the building and meeting my driver and guide. First stop will be the town of Jolfa which is on the border with Azerbaijan where for some reason they dropped me at the hotel ... read more

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

SJan16 – Yek Shanbe Got a good night’s sleep – as far as I remember – and up early as a result. I take advantage of the metro, walking west along Taleghani to Moffateh St. to get the Taleghani Station and I casually make my way to Behest-e Zahara cemetery where most Tehranians or Iranians are buried, including those killed in the 1980-88 Irag-Iran war. First, I visit the Holy Shrine of Imam Khomeini. The Shrine is not a particularly pretty site to visit but I try to make the best of a bad thing. I enter a Mosque for the very first time (first ever as a Muslim, sshhh?). I take off my shoes, check in both Canon cameras, but not the iPhone, which they allow everyone to retain. I walk around and am actually ... read more