Tehran on Jom'e Chahardah Jan2011

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Get up early, have breakfast, not unlike the previous, or any other, day for that matter. Today will be a getting-to-know-the-city-better day.

Around 8:30 am, I go for a walk but since this is a holy day, jom’e, the streets are mostly deserted. Only a few people are about, making their way around this early, very likely only because, in Tehran, ‘they must’ for reasons of their own.

I am able to take photos of deserted streets. I make my way westward along Taleghani to Felestin Square and then travel north on Valiasr; don’t know how far, but I am sure of it having been quite some distance. Along the way, I get stopped by a policeman, who speaking Farsi, tries to ask what I am up to and points out that I can’t take photos; however, before long he discovers that I am a tourist and lets me go along on my merry way.

I observe a most unusual scene on the streets – 2 policemen stop a motorcyclist for a moving vehicle infraction of some kind and actually make the owner take the air out of his tires, obviously to prevent the bike from being ridden any futher. He was forced to push the bike along the street to the curb and I guess finally home. Curiously, this appears to be a truly and effective means of imposing, and enforcing, a penalty!

I continue to walk the streets and come upon more people on Valiasr, the longest street in Tehran running from the poorer bazaar district right up north where richer Tehranians live. (About 35 years or so ago, this part of Tehran was scarcely populated and semi rural but frenetic expansion of the city pushed growth north and new apartments were built, and taken up by mostly the rich.) At some point, I made my way through a very large park right in the middle of the city, a little bit of green space and peace and quiet from the quick and loud pace of traffic on Valiasr.

I managed to buy some shwarma on Valiasr, and got a drink and soup thrown in for less than 4 tomans. I tried to pay with 3 x 50,000 IR (rial) notes before a kind young Iranian woman pointed out that one note would suffice, and I got change back as well! I think I now have the money figured out properly. 50,000 IRials are 5,000 toman and this is $5C. (Toman was the name for the previous currency before a re-issue during/after the Iranian revolution.)

After a time, I realize that I am lost and have been back and forth trying to find my way. I ask some passersby for help; they ask a taxi driver and he gives me a ride – of course, he wants to earn a taxi fare from me, however, most drivers don’t know the Hotel Atlas, or more likely don’t understand what I am trying to explain to them. I have a iPhone pic of the map to the hotel to show but it does not seem to help. He is lost now as well as me. Somehow, I get back to the Atlas.

Later, I meet up with Elham, Yasman and Ehsan for ice cream and after that a late night pizza.

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