Blogs from Iran, Middle East - page 46

I always knew my headscarf would never be approved by the government, but never thought I'd be dragged into a room by kurdish girls who'd strip me of my clothes and dress me up in local formal garb! On the way north, we stopped by a little village called Sanjud, who'd rarely seen foreigners. Let alone a mere toilet stop... Farsi is still the official language, and I asked if we could take photographs...a girl told me that all of us foreigners were invited to her little home for chai (tea)! and voila, we walked in...tho it bloody cost me my clothes. I screamed in surprise. Entering an open room with a handsome carpet, I examined the contents of a Kurdish home. A central living room containing no western furniture, but cushions all around the ... read more

Kurdistan. You're ready to take more sexy daily snapshots. But locals drop everything they're doing just to see you get off your bus. Their jaws drop when you light a cigarette. All school classes come to a halt as kids pour out of their classrooms to see if you're really a fellow human being. Masses of youngens approach you for your autograph while others timidly just snap out there camera phones. Only if you're Eastern Asian in Iranian Kurdistan. I've never been stared at like I had a tulip growing on top of my head, but anything's possible here I learned, alongside uber-cheap gasoline, tulips and illegal whiskeys. Feeling like Elephant Man tiring of crowds, I was 360 degree camera-phone conscious with kids tearing at my clothes while they mimicked Street Fighter Oriental 'Achooooooooooooou' karate ... read more

Imagine being in a sauna turned up to the max. Despite the marvellous sites to visit in south-western Iran, I was dying to the point that nicotine addiction didnt take effect, and locals (and tourists) were laughing at how beetroot red i'd become due to the scorching heat. I sadly don't tan due to my dad's genes, I just roast like a suckling pig. In the Persian language, '-stan' is translated to 'the place of'. Hence to this day, we have countries and provinces which used to be part of the humongous Persian Empire, ending with such (eg. Kurdistan - 'place of the kurds'...ok, you got me). My second trip to Iran focused on the west, where it seemed that majority of the provinces were called 'something-a-rather-stan'. Touring around national borders was absolutely fantabulous, as ... read more

So a reader sent me a short youtube link to a redonculous parody travel ad to the Middle East: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_hH1cPRXI0 Sure, it's black humor to it's deepest darkest black hole, but 'oh dear' enough to check out. Thanks for the worries, but Iran's really not all that dangerous once you're there as long as you don't confuse the country's name with its western neighbour's! (it has happened, no joke, at a UN Ambassador's university seminar. The guestspeaker who congresswoman made the mistake was not on 'wanna grab drinks after this gig?' terms with the Iranian UN Ambassador at least. Much of the American media, including the popular Glenn Beck, has said a lot of harmful comments about Iran. I'm a frat-party-ridden college kid so I cannot say that I am a specialist about the country...but ... read more

Have you ever been to the UN building's Hall of Nations in New York? I've fortunately had the opportunity to visit it for free since i'm a penniless college kid in Manhattan improving ramen recipes. But anyway, if you have gone there you may have noticed the plaque marked with the following lovely passage: بنى آدم اعضاء يك پیکرند، که در آفرينش ز يك گوهرند چو عضوى به درد آورد روزگار، دگر عضوها را نماند قرار تو که از محنت دیگران بیغمی، نشاید که نامت نهند ادمی "Of one Essence is the human race, Thusly has Creation put the Base; One Limb impacted is sufficient, For all Others to feel the Mace." This is the work of the famous Persian poet, Sa'adi. Iran's produced a number of fantastic writers who're popular amongst both Iranians and ... read more