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Published: September 30th 2007
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Finally, this is our next blog entry... it took a while and is short wrap up of our last 10 days in beautiful Iran.
Esfahan This city is the beauty queen of Iran. We stayed 4 nights but could have stayed a lot more. The biggest attraction is the Imam Khomeini Square. The second biggest square in the world (the biggest is Tiananmen Square in China) is not only huge, but it is surrounded by nice buildings. Among others two of the most wonderful mosques in the whole Islam. We visited both, the Imam Khomeini Mosque and the Sheik Lotfollah Mosque and were deeply impressed. The square is also home to close to hundreds of souvenir shops as part of the bazar and as a tourist you are begged 10 times per day to buy a carpet. But it is all very relaxed.
We also visited other places including the Jameh Mosque (biggest mosque in Iran) and the Armenian quarter Jolfa with its very nice churches, a cathedral and lots of coffee shops.
It's really a place to rest a few days. If only you could combine the quality of the accommodation in Yazd with this city
you could stay forever!
Kashan On the way from Esfahan to Tehran, we decided to stop in Kashan where there are nice restored traditional houses. Maybe we had bad luck, or we didn't stay long enough, or we were too tired, but at the contrary of many other travelers we met, our experience of Kashan was not the best. We had our first bad experience with Iranians! In fact, while we were walking from the train station to the hotel, some young people on motorcycle pitched fireworks at us!! We didn't really understand the why, but it was evidently done on purpose. One even burned Annamaria's shirt! Fortunately, it was an isolated event, but it left us a strange impression of this city! After a night in a really bad mosaferkhune (very basic hotel) without shower, we could at least visit two magnificent traditional houses, before taking the bus to huge and noisy Tehran!
Tehran We didn't appreciate a lot Tehran where we spent 4 days. The city is huge (14 mio of inhabitants) and has not many interesting sights for tourists. But we met nice people at the hotel (very kind Iranian receptionist, Mr
Moussavi, at the Firouzeh hotel and other travellers) as well as two Iranian women we met through the website couchsurfing.com. Nasrin invited us to a delicious traditional restaurant in the northern part of the city (the richer part) and took us to some nice places with her car. We were very interested to have women's point of view, for once, in this country where we mostly met men. It was especially interesting to exchange with Nasrin and her friend Hanita, because they are very open-minded Iranian women, concerned about women's rights.
Nevertheless, we felt a bit tired and Tehran is really not the place to rest! It's very noisy and you risk your life every time you try to cross a road! In fact, we realized that despite the international image of Iran, the biggest risk in this country seems rather to be hit by a car than killed by a bomb! Also, we were expecting to find more flexible rules in Northern Tehran, but it was there where we felt the most the weight of the religious restrictions. It's also there that we (especially Annamaria) experienced the most that life is really not easy for women in this
country! One thing is that she felt that men were looking at her in a way that made her very uncomfortable (maybe because she was not wearing a tchador or her hijab was not always covering completely her hair, which can be interpreted as a invitation?). But the most impressive example is that evening when Nasrin took us to a very popular place with a nice view of Tehran (Tochal telecabin) and where a lot of young people meet on Friday night. It was very crowded and some policemen were watching the people entering the site. As we tried to enter, they stopped us, pretending that Annamaria was not properly dressed. When she explained that she was wearing this long shirt during one month and nobody told her anything, they said that she could be arrested while wearing this in the street! This experience shows how the rules are not precise and how control is applied in a very arbitrary way. This made us feel angry, because we really tried to follow their rules the best we could! Also, for a lot of activities, men and women have separated spaces for many things in public. For example, in the bus,
we couldn't sit together. In most of Iran in the city buses men sit in front and women in the back! Once that Annamaria just wanted to ask something to the driver, a man pushed her in the back with his can!! Men and women also often sit separately at the bus stop and there is often separated lineups in the shops and the offices (for example when you wait to buy bread or at the bank!). It happened more than once that a woman kindly came to conduct Annamaria in the right line!
But at the same time, we heard that there is a lot of private parties in Tehran, where you can find plenty of alcohol and women without hijab! It's also the city were we could see most women showing a large part of their hair, wearing a lot of make up and tight clothes! It seems that this city is full of contradictions and maybe this is what makes it interesting!
Mashhad The idea to finish our Iranian journey in a homestay was one of the best decisions ever. We spent two wonderful days with Vali, his family, a French and a Japanese
guest in his house in Mashhad. The morning we arrived we went directly to the holy shrine. This is the place every visitor or better pilgrim goes. Millions of Muslims come to Mashhad every year. The shrine of Imam Reza is the most important pilgrim place for Shiites Muslims after Mecca. We managed to go through security and guards and reached the holy shrine although it is technically off limits for non-Muslims. It was impressive to see with how much devotion the people threw themselves at the shrine, kiss it and often break out in tears. Absolutely irrational, at least for non-Muslims. The next day Vali took us on a hike to a remote village, which is just as beautiful as you can imagine. We went with public transport and also hitch-hiked a part, really a great way to meet local people. At home we had the greatest Iranian food we ever had.
!!! In the next entry (to follow tomorrow hopefully), we tell you why we are still in Mashhad and not in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, as it was planned !!!
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Yannis
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I'm sooooooo jealous!
Hello guys, it's nice to see how exciting your traveling is, but it's not always nice to read your blog from cold and rainy London... You look great and not tired at all! At this rate you'll go round the world in 80 days.. Have fun, xxxxxxxxxxx Y.