Hospitality of Esfahan out of this world !!!!

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I woke up around 7:30am and the rest of the people were fast asleep. I tried to go into one of the rooms to get my stuff and to shave and have a shower but the room was locked and I didn’t know where the keys were.

I spent the next two hours with my mobile deleting text messages and updating my contacts list as I couldn’t do anything else till these guys woke up. They finally woke up at 9:30am and we had breakfast. I love this Iranian breakfast of cheese, walnuts, butter, honey and Lavash (one of the 4 types of bread in Iran). Oh yeah they also have yogurt as well but I ate yogurt with sugar while they ate with lavash. These Iranians drink so much tea it’s not funny; three cups of tea at any one sitting is normal.

We set off to the Khaju Bridge area in the morning, this time with two of Hadi’s cousins as well. I couldn’t spend much time with Hadi as he was quite busy studying for his masters entrance exam. Nevertheless I am thankful to him for organising my accommodation in spite of the very short notice.

The cousins were also going on about my belief in god and finally I had to tell them “that I am not interested in this conversation”. I don’t know if I was being rude but it was annoying. I later told Hadi about it and he said that they were joking and not to worry about it.

I had promised to call Ali in the morning but due to the time that we got out of the house and I tried calling him around 11:45am he was not in his room. I felt quite bad. Ali doesn’t have a mobile phone.

While the guys were taking me around suddenly they got a call saying that their father had met with an accident and go to hospital as soon as possible.

They dropped me on the road and went away. I had no idea where I was, so I quickly got to a phone box and I called Ehsan and gave the phone to a person nearby who explained my location and Ehsan came and picked me up.

Afterwards Ehsan dropped me at the Imam square. I decided to go inside the Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque, one of the mosques in the Imam Square to see what’s happening inside. The other mosque is Emam Mosque. The inside was extremely beautiful.

I called Ali but still not in and hence decided to walk out of Imam and go towards Chahar Bagh Street (CBS). The only problem was I didn’t know which way to go. However I kept walking and I met this guy on the road. I asked him do you speak English for which he replied “Yeah man” I was like oh finally someone on the street who spoke good English. His name was Beyruse. He used to work in London for a couple of years and hence his English was pretty decent.

I asked him how to get to CBS and he said he was going that way and that he could take me. He said he was free till 5pm and would show me around. From the location we were we had to take a taxi to CBS. We took a share taxi and we both got into the back. The taxi stopped to pick up two more people and they both got into the front seat. I don’t understand even though there was space at the back for one more they still opted to sit on one seat in the front.

We walked about more in CBS and thereafter Beyruse went and I called Hadi and I took a bus to his place. Hadi was quite tired as he had a long study session for his exam.

Hadi said even though he has guests it’s still ok for me to stay at his place. Had dinner again on the floor and went to sleep inside my sleeping bag.

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