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Published: August 6th 2007
Orumiyeh - Tabriz - Tehran - Mashhad - Bam - Kerman - Five Finger Mountain - Shiraz 'I wanted to escape, to experience freedom. I left Iran, crossed Turkey & paid a few thousand dollars for a place on a boat, already full of asylum seekers, heading towards Greece. My own passport would get me no further; I disposed of it and bought a fake one from someone else. The journey was treacherous; the boat sailed at night and when we reached land the only way forward was up. Beyond a precarious cliff edge climb was freedom. By the time I reached the top my hands were bloody, I was exhausted. I'd made it; but not everyone else was as lucky as me'
Welcome to Iran; a land of contradictions where people are extremely passionate about their beautiful country, but a land where plenty of those same passionate people are desperate to leave.
Perhaps Iran is home to nuclear weapons, perhaps the government is supporting militias in Iraq & Afghanistan. Whatever they are up to almost everyone you meet will tell you that those in charge are crazy & they certainly don't function with the support of most
the
population.
Forget everything you think you know about Iran, the daily news stories about nuclear bombs, kidnapped sailors & support for terrorists. This is perhaps one of the most misunderstood places on earth.
The journey to Iran begins as we leave Iraq & travel through Turkey to the border. We may have left Iraqi Kurdistan behind but we are reminded of how close we still are to the country throughout the ten hour bus ride. As our minibus climbs up & down through mountains &
valleys, a gushing river runs almost continually parallel beside us. At times we are driving just metres away from Iraq, sometimes the river marks the border, other times it's hidden somewhere in the mountains. Although whilst in Iraqi Kurdistan we were continually
told that Kurds are peace loving people, we are now in an area where the PKK, an outlawed Kurdish organisation is operative. (*A few weeks after we passed through the Turkish military stepped up their presence along the border and apparently completely closed off large parts of the region).
The entire journey is punctuated by stops at military checkpoints. At each stop our presence on the bus delays trip
even longer - being foreigners our passports are taken away, sometimes for a few minutes, sometimes for what feels like hours. A few times we are called away & travel with our passports to small military offices where young soldiers slowly fill in forms with all of our details. Our fellow passengers grow increasingly irate as the journey time stretches on for hour after hour after hour. But they are not unhappy with us, they take out their frustrations on the Turkish military that seem to be so keen to write down our personal details over & over & over & over again. We're never really sure if this is supposed to be for our safety or theirs. A few of the young soldiers along the way speak a little English. It seems that they are as unenthusiastic about the whole process as we are, they are not here in this remote & hostile border area by choice, they are here on their enforced military service, far from their modern westernised homes in Istanbul.
With the border finally in sight we enjoy yet another mountain panorama but I can't really enjoy it - I'm too busy contemplating what the
Drum
James shows the local musician how he would normally play; Kerman Iranian officials will make of Kylie's passport - her Iranian visa is on the opposite page to her Iraq entry & exit stamps. Just getting the Iranian visa was hard enough, to have come this far then find that we aren't allowed in would be a disaster. I’m really not sure what the officials will make of it.
Getting an Iranian visa is not easy; it took us five weeks, a number of expensive international phone calls, lots of bus, train, tuk tuk & motorbike rides, a lot of money and a border crossing to finally get ours in Bangkok. Meanwhile I’d seen news stories on the BBC about how keen the Iranian authorities were to draw in more tourists.
Neither the Turkish or Iranian officers at the border are particularly friendly. It's only when we are on the Iranian side & someone notices my Iran watch that they break into smiles. Suddenly we are given drinks & they start making conversation. I was hoping the watch would have this effect. As we pass through to the mandatory but half hearted bag search I notice a small sign, 'Down with USA' - it's something that I'll notice in
Chador
Can you spot Kylie? Mashhad a handful of random places across Iran.
Leaving the border & the mountains behind we head for Orumiyeh (also known as Urumiyeh), our first stop in Iran. It’s perhaps not the most interesting introduction to Iran but the people are good to us. After our first Iranian dinner my brother, James, sets out to find a SIM card for his mobile phone. In the first shop, before he's parted with any money, we've been bought fresh fruit juices. As we are leaving we’re invited to stay at the home of the shop owner by his wife. Iran is well known for it's hospitality. It's just a shame that
the SIM card James is sold doesn't work in most of the country.
The following day is a Friday, the Muslim Holy Day. Unlike in much of the west where Sunday has become just another normal day, on Fridays in Iran virtually everything is closed. In some towns the odd place may open for part of the day, but most weeks the day is a write off. Perhaps Orumiyeh's greatest claim is that one of the Three Wise Men is alleged to have been buried at St Mary's Church in
Goats & Sheep
Nomads; near Five Finger Mountain the town centre. We didn’t make it there until Friday night, it was closed.
We travel on to Tabriz by shared taxi, crossing the vast lake Orumiyeh on a small ferry along the way. We’d paid a bit extra to travel via the lake but what we see is dirty & grey.
The city of Tabriz spirals outwards from the rambling central bazaar, a marketplace which locals will tell you is the largest in the world. Spreading out along narrow lanes for 35 kilometres (21 miles) perhaps it is. The bazaar also claims to be the world's second oldest, but I'm sure by now we’ve already been to about a dozen of the ‘world’s oldest’ in the Middle East.
In and around the bazaar we shop for manteaus, the Iranian coat that Kylie will have to wear for the next five weeks. The law of Iran states that as an Islamic Republic, all people, male & female, must adhere to the 'hejab' - the Islamic dress code. For men this really
just means a shirt (or tshirt) and long trousers. For women it means their hair & neck must be covered, the whole of their arms must
Mountains
A brief impression of Turkey be covered, their backside & calf must be covered & their clothes musthang in a way that their figure is well concealed. This loosely translates as women must wear either a coat (manteau) & scarf at all times or the full length all encompassing piece of material known as the chador. Chador literally translates as tent & in many ways the outfit is just that, a piece of large, normally black material that entirely shrouds the body & head. Considering that millions of Muslim women wear them they are remarkably impractical - they have to be manually held together under the chin by hand or often with the teeth. It’s not uncommon to see hordes of tent clad women waddling
along, rocking from side to side, looking like hunchbacks with their shopping bags hidden away but sticking out under their black chadors, desperately trying to keep themselves concealed. While strict Muslims of all ages generally wear the chador, many of the young and the not so strict wear a scarf manteau.
Inside the never ending alleys of the bazaar is the usual array of random everyday items, tea shops, gold sellers & a lot of Persian carpet traders. Tabriz
Prayer Stones
These are placed on the floor, men then prostrate their heads to the ground to touch the stone; Masjed Jameh; Kerman is a pleasant enough town, perhaps the location of the Biblical Garden of Eden, a town that along with the bazaar also boasts the usual supply of mosques, museums & ruins. The most interesting mosque being the Blue Mosque - badly damaged in an earthquake hundreds of years ago it's only in the last fifty years that they've started to put it back together again.
Nestled in the countryside outside Tabriz is the fairytale village of Kandovan. Almost the entire settlement comprises of homes carved from inside very large stalactite like rock pillars. Walking through the steep & narrow lanes we are joined by the odd donkey, chicken & child. A woman beckons us up to her house & we enter, expecting to experience Iranian hospitality. The house is small and resembles the inside of a cave, but is it is very well equipped. This cave has windows, a proper front door and family photos, along with the fridge, telephone & gas cooker, just like the modern homes in town. Iranians are always drinking and offering us tea, but not here. We make conversation through the phrasebook with the mother, her daughter and granddaughter and after awhile make a
Three Wise Men
One of them is buried in here. Allegedly. St Mary's Church, Orumiyeh. move to leave. As we do they ask for baksheesh - money. Suddenly the so-called hospitality doesn't seem so great.
From Tabriz we take an overnight sleeper train to the capital, Tehran. Trains are cheap & for a change we can afford first class. The price paid for our beds in the four berth cabin includes meals, a few drinks, television and a random Iranian man. This is a country
where a man & woman aren't supposed to be seen in public together unless they are married. A country where women must all travel at the back of the bus while men ride up front. Get on a train though and it’s quite normal for a woman to be enclosed in a locked cabin with a man she has never met for an overnight journey. The hejab must be adhered to at all times except at home, hence as we are sharing our train cabin, Kylie has to sleep fully clothed, including with her head scarf.
The ride is long but comfortable. Soon after leaving Tabriz we pass Lake Orumiyeh again. As the sun sets & we follow the shoreline it looks far more impressive than it did
Hat
Bazaar, Tabriz from the dirty grey ferry crossing a few days before. At a staggering 6000 square kilometres (3728 sq miles) some of it was bound to be beautiful.
Few people seem to rate Tehran, most travellers tell you to leave as soon as you can. I had low expectations but was still hoping to be pleasantly surprised. Tehran is everything you expect; it's big (population approx 14 million), it's polluted & as a relatively new capital it's lacking in much of historical significance. What surprises most in Tehran is that it sits at the foot of a snow capped mountain, one of the cheapest places to ski on the planet. Despite
the pollution we are treated to a few days of rare blue skies, the mountain occasionally emerging from behind the tower blocks.
Perhaps for all the wrong reasons, one of the city’s most famous sights is the former US Embassy, known today as the US Den of Espionage. If you're old enough you to remember the 1979 Islamic Revolution then you'll probably remember the US Hostage Crisis, when
for four hundred and forty four days, fifty three US diplomats were held in the embassy by Iranian students. What
Manteau Shop
It's either this or a full length chador (which translates as tent) for the ladies, Tabriz probably wasn’t widely reported at the time was that the students had stormed the embassy fearing a repeat of the 1952 CIA coup which was America’s first
successful removal of a democratically elected world leader. Funnily enough back in 1952 it was all about oil too.
The embassy is still off limits and is currently home to a supposedly radical Muslim sect. It sits in the middle of the city, on a major road, beside an underground station, opposite shops & offices. Although you can't go inside you can walk around it & look at the numerous anti USA murals that adorn the external walls. As well as the usual 'Down with USA' is a Statue of Liberty, the face recreated at as a skull. At the blocked off entrance the large US seal still stands proud although it's been defaced over the years.
Across the road from the former embassy is the Shohada or Martyr's Museum. Martyr is a term used a lot in the Middle East, perhaps it's overused, perhaps the context is sometimes dubious. The entire ground floor of the museum is a shrine to young Iranian martyrs, most who died fighting in the Iran/Iraq
war in the 1980’s, against the pre Islamic regime of the Shah or against the US & UK. Each martyr’s shrine is filled with photographs, Korans, prayer stones and the odd piece of bloody clothing. Each has an account of how they were martyred as well as comments about their heroism. At times it’s moving. At times it’s very graphic. What can be hard to stomach is that along with soldiers who died on the battlefield are suicide bombers who took numerous innocent lives with them. Upstairs in the museum is a whole wing dedicated to female Lebanese suicide bombers.
Emerging from the first room, unsure what to make of it, I am approached by a reporter who wants to ask me questions for a forthcoming newspaper article. The interview is conducted in Farsi, through a translator, and I soon notice that despite my very short, often one word answers, the translated answer given to the journalist is significantly longer. At one point I notice that Palestine is mentioned in the translation, although I never said the word in my
answer. I'm asked what I think of the museum and what I think of martyrs. Do I like war?
Rain
Nothing better than getting on a train for about 12 hours when you've just been soaked in a downpour that flooded the city centre; Tabriz Do we have museums like this in my country? I answer that I don't like war, that I don't think it's a great thing. When we are finished, an elderly Iranian man who was standing nearby
approaches. He says that he fought for four years alongside some of the people remembered in this museum. I feel bad for saying I don't agree with war and try to explain that perhaps Iran was justified and right to defend itself against Iraq. Iran was invaded by Iraq (Saddam Hussein having at that time been fully supported by the US & UK), those who died in that war died in self-defence. The final question I’m asked is whether or not I will tell my friends about the museum at home. Perhaps I will, I think to myself, but perhaps I’ll try to
talk of the beauty & hospitality before the talk of martyrs & war.
After almost thirty years of post revolution Islamic rule it seems strange that so many of the sights in Iran are pre revolution royal palaces & gardens. One such place is the extremely tranquil Golestan Palace which sits just a mile or so from the main Tehran
Asleep
Lucky Kylie even gets to sleep in her scarf & manteau; overnight train to Mashhad bazaar. The
palace and grounds contain a number of extremely grand buildings, all intricately decorated with colourful tile work pictures. Included around the lush inner city garden is luxurious throne hall and art gallery.
The busiest shopping street in Tehran is Valiasr Avenue, a street that locals are keen to keen to tell you is the longest thoroughfare in the world. It's here that we first see trendy young Iranian women pushing the boundaries with their appearance. Headscarves defy
gravity by sitting perched far back on the head while beehive style hair do's reach out at the front. Before we arrived we saw numerous stories about the Tehran fashion police on tv & the internet - these are some of the people they are looking for. Along with the hair are
trousers that reveal perhaps too much ankle and are definately worthy of police attention. There’s plenty of women who’ve had nose jobs too. Here in Valiasr Avenue the women are prepared to take risks. Hejab is hardly practical, summer temperatures can easily hit 40
degrees (over 100f) on a daily basis. Wearing what is essentially a long sleeved coat, long trousers & a scarf can be quite a
sweaty experience. Along Valiasr Ave are plenty of trendy manteau shops along with boutiques selling what we would consider normal clothes for women too. It's hard to imagine that when the women we see get home they undress & change into miniskirts & vest tops.
From Tehran we take another sleeper train to Mashhad in the far north east of the country. This time we book the whole cabin so Kylie can reveal herself & sleep slightly more comfortably.
Mashhad is closer to Afghanistan & Turkmenistan than to Tehran. It is Iran's holiest city, the name Mashhad means 'Place of Martyrdom' & it is here that Imam Reza, a direct descendant of the Prophet Mohammed died in AD 817. Although the city has a population of just under
three million, around twelve to fifteen million Shiite pilgrims visit from across the region each year.
The vast shrine complex is huge and still growing today. The area includes mosques, courtyards, a university, museums, a cemetery as well as the actual shrine itself. As non Muslims we are not permitted to enter the actual shrine - not because we are not welcome, but because there are specific cleanliness rituals
& prayers that have to be performed before entering. Although we are unsure where we are allowed to go, we do manage to look around most of the complex. For some it is a place of sadness - Imam Reza was murdered and buried at night, something that still troubles pilgrims today. Despite the
sadness it’s a lively place, full of families coming and going. In a vast open courtyard we sit on a large carpet, surrounded by pilgrims, minarets, beautiful domes & tile work and watch the thriving activity around us.
Not sure how far we should stray, we send Kylie to a room labelledsomething along the lines of ‘office of assistance for foreign women pilgrims.’ She comes back with a guide and before we know it we are sat at the back of a room full of men and women praying. Kids run
around them, oblivious to the scene they are disrupting. We are taken to a museum and told this is all we are allowed to see. Following the obligatory old vases and rusty coins is a bizarre collection of medals from wrestling competitions and the para-Olympics, all
interspersed with holy relics from the shrine. We
Nomads
near Five Finger Mountain are unsure of the relevance of the medals, we have travelled thousands of miles to be here, and this is all we are allowed to see?
The guide had told us that if we ventured much further both he and us would be in trouble - we would be spied on the security cameras and expelled. Despite the authority’s unwelcoming stance, the locals seem happy for us to explore. Again we sit on the carpet, just metres from the shrine and watch the pilgrims pass us by.
We walk around some more and see a large part of the complex. As we are about to leave I spot a window that appears to overlook the actual shrine. All around the complex are suited men carrying colourful feather dusters. Apparently they are not cleaners, they are
officials and guides. I ask if we can approach the window, the answer is yes, so we look at the shrine from just a couple of metres away through the window. Men and women are segregated, so beside me are other men, touching and kissing the metal bars on the window overlooking the shrine. Inside a crowd of people moves around the large
Hejab
Kylie becomes a Persian square box that contains Imam Reza’s body. There’s a large glass cabinet, covered by a glittering golden cage. All I can really see is a heaving mass above the tomb, arms all reaching out to touch it, faces trying hard to place a kiss.
Back outside, the streets around the shrine are full of shops selling locally produced saffron along with prayer mats, prayer stones & kitsch photographs of kids superimposed in the shrine grounds. With millions of pilgrims travelling from far and wide to be here, there's
plenty of shopping to keep them busy.
In Mashhad we find ourselves staying with a supposedly typical Iranian family. The father is a carpet seller, the son a teenage rebel, the daughter a quiet student & the mother a timid, devout Muslim. Their house looks modern but aside from the television there’s no furniture. In the lounge we sit the traditional way, on one of the many carpets on the floor. When we eat a food mat or carpet is laid, again we sit on the floor around it.
Ask a tourist or a local in Iran and they will probably tell you that the best or perhaps only
way experience good Iranian food is to be invited to eat in an Iranian home. Unlike anywhere else I remember travelling to, Iranians are not known for eating out, and there is a very strange lack of places to eat in most towns. Walk a few streets in most towns and you could be forgiven for thinking that pizza andburgers were the traditional Iranian food - by and large this is all you will ever see. Iran may say the USA & the West is the 'The Great
Satan' but that hasn't stopped them opening a phenomenal number of pizza & burger joints; they are everywhere.
Even when you do find other places to eat, getting vegetarian food can be as good as impossible, it is a concept that is really not understood. Although there’s some delicious vegetarian dishes in Iran, they are rarely seen outside of people’s home. The only dish
seen on a regular basis is an eggplant & yoghurt one. It’s nice the first few times, but after eating it once or twice a day, every day, it gets a little hard to stomach. There’s plenty of bread, cheese and honey too, but even bread and
cheese can get you down after a few
weeks.
While it's easy to get pizza or eggplant, it's not easy to get vegetarian pizza or anything else without meat floaties. Beef, chicken, fish - while most people can grasp that these are meat, they still seem to think that if they are only included in small amounts then they are vegetarian. What’s hard to get your head around is sausage; even those who claim to truly understand the concept of vegetarianism think that sausage is not meat. After the umpteenth pizza laced with hidden sausage we gave up on pizza for good.
Our friend at the homestay is a budding guide as well as carpet seller & he soon has out in the hills exploring the village where he grew up. Having spent so much time in polluted cities in Iran it was good to breathe some fresh country air & see some greenery. Driving
on through the hills we arrive in Kang an old mud brick village built into the side of a hill, where each house is built along the roof of the house below, creating a step like setting.
Being such a busy pilgrim
Dizi
Meat Stew. sight, the buses, trains & planes out of Mashhad fill quickly. Our lack of planning ahead left us leaving the city on the least preferred option - a nineteen hour overnight bus ride. Although it seemed a good option, getting the front seats on the bus was perhaps not the best idea. There’s at least two drivers, a male hostess and perhaps a few of their mates hanging out at the front, talking, laughing & drinking tea. Whenever I look up the driver is engrossed in conversation, the road ahead just an inconvenient diversion from the mate he is facing beside him. Tea flows throughout the journey, the driver holds his cup out of the window as many Iranian drivers do, to cool it down. From our
grandstand seat we have a clear view of the road ahead of us and of the bus drifting from side to side across it. We'll soon realise that this is quite normal. Drifting in and out of sleep in the early hours, I suddenly notice a huge flame beside the driver. We aren’t on fire, his mate is firing up a large portable gas stove and is burning coals on it. When the
coal is ready, he sets up the water pipe (Qaylan in Iran) which he proceeds to hand around. Suddenly they want to befriend us - we get talking (through the phrasebook) & he offers
us the pipe - pointing as he does so to the big 'no smoking' above him, telling us to blow the smoke forward so the other passengers don't find out what they are doing.
Our destination is Bam, a small town in the south east of Iran - we are now closer to the sometimes troubled Pakistan border than we are to anywhere else of note in Iran. On 26th December 2003 Bam was hit by a massive earthquake. At least 26,000 people were killed and most of the town was levelled. It's not something I remember hearing about on the news. We came to Bam to see the Arg-e Bam - an ancient mud brick citadel, a city atop a hill, surrounded by fortified walls, overlooking the rest of the old mud brick town below. We knew it had been damaged, but nothing really prepares you for the devastation that is still obvious across both the old citadel & the new town around it.
Mountains
near Kang A few years may have passed but the majority of buildings in town are still shipping containers that people live, work and shop in. There's barely a single original building left, just rubble, dust and building sites.
Despite the death & destruction the people of the town are remarkably friendly. Having lost their one tourist draw card few people pass this way anymore so they are bound to be pleased to see us. Having travelled 19 hours to see The Arg it's a little disappointing to find
that it only takes about ten minutes to see what is left. Although the site is huge, almost all of it is off limits - there's just one long boardwalk from where you can try & make out how magnificent it used to be. The Arg dates back to 200AD when it sat on an important
trade route between India & Pakistan, The Persian Gulf & Europe. Along with trade people of the day, Marco Polo passed this way too. Walking through the rubble it's amazing to think that anything survived at all - the entire place appears to have built from mud & straw.
Most tourists who pass through these
are those overlanding to or from Pakistan. There are plans for reconstruction, perhaps an exhibition of before and after photographs, but for now there's little to attract tourists. We leave after just one night; it's a shame to leave so quickly but there really is nothing left in the town to do - there's barely even anywhere to eat.
A few hours away in the relatively small town of Kerman we quickly find ourselves sat in a tea shop near the middle of the bazaar. The building is an old hammam (bath house) that has been carefully restored & converted - a very serene setting in which to lose a few hours or days. We're joined by a local guide for lunch, Kashke Bademjan (more aubergine & yoghurt). After the meal James steps up to join the local musicians playing traditional music. Although their style of playing the drum is quite different to his, he gets a very favourable response from the local patrons around us.
Trying to walk from one end of Kerman's bazaar to the other can take all day; there's a constant flow of locals waiting to befriend you & talk about life, politics &
Iran. Around the bazaar are a handful of interesting sights, the Friday Mosque, tea shops, a hammam museum, the caravanserai & courtyards. It’s here that I first meet a young person who supports the current president & the regime. But while he tells me the regime is good for students, he can’t give me any actual reasons why. Whether Iran has intentions to develop nuclear weapons or not, there are a few who will perhaps rightly tell you that Iran
does have the right to defend itself. After all, if Israel and the USA can have nuclear weapons potentially pointing at them, why can’t they have them pointing back.
Close to Kerman is Mahan with it's beautiful Bagh-e Shahzade, a small palace with a magnificent terraced garden and water feature. Beautiful as it is, what is most stunning is that that this colourful oasis exists in the middle of an arid desert.
From Kerman we travel into the countryside; most towns seem to be home to at least one lonely middle aged man who’s been left by his wife and who has become a guide of sorts. For a change we take up the guide on his suggestion
Kang
near Mashhad to sleep with nomads, so having seen numerous nomads in the countryside as we speed past on buses we finally meet some & spend a night with them. Together with him and a few random Spanish people we take a public bus from Kerman and after a few hours get off in the middle of nowhere. Out in the fields & hills around us are randomly scattered nomads, their tents & their animals. After a
very vague introduction we take a look around their homes and the land they live on. There's a lot of empty space, a lot of sheep, a lot of goats. They own a few dogs, donkeys, horses & chickens, a motorbike or two, perhaps one pick up truck & the tents they live in.
Although most nomads across the region have now settled in one place, these people still move on every six months.
Their tents are made from animal hair, their lifestyle is very simple. There's no electricity, no television, gadgets or telephones (although sadly cellphone coverage does stretch this far). Their daily life revolves around the animals, feeding them and feeding themselves. They milk the goats, make yoghurt, collecting food for the
Martyrs
You see billboards like this everywhere; Shiraz animals and prepare food for themselves.
Our Farsi is still limited, their English almost nil, but conversations are made through the phrasebook. We learn that everyone is related, all those old enough are either married to their cousin or plan to be soon. The grandfather of the whole family sits silently in the corner, occasionally drifting off to sleep or letting out a loud belch.
Being in the countryside we expect the toilet to be basic, in fact I'm told there isn't one, only nature. The next morning whilst walking around I notice a few deeply dug holes, slightly hidden from view. Later I see the old man emerge from one whilst fastening his belt. Having gone to great efforts to earlier dig a hole & bury my evidence I’m not sure if I was being taken for a ride or not.
We're fed a feast for dinner & keep the family up late, well after 9pm, their usual bedtime. As many of us as will fit sleep in one tent - the extra body warmth helping to fight the cold night air. Although the day was hot, the night is bitterly cold out here. Having drunk
Masjed Jameh
Friday Mosque; Kerman too many cups of tea before bed I dread having to get up in the night. It may be a hassle, but when I do emerge from the tent in the early hours, it is worth it just for the sight of so many millions of twinkling stars.
Leaving the nomads to milk their goats as a couple give birth around us, we head off on yet another bus to Shiraz, a modern town littered with ancient and historic relics - mosques, shrines, a castle & a the obligatory bazaar.
Close to the city centre is the final resting place of Hafez, an Iranian poet who still has a strong following a few hundred years after his death. Although young people tell us that they love all things western, there's little access to Britney Spears, Pop Idol or Iranian equivalents in Iran. Instead poets like Hafez are the idols that people young and old worship.
While at first it seems strange to us that at their idols are poets, perhaps that’s better than some of those we choose in the west. People may be restricted in what they have access to, in particular from the west, but
Doogh
Yoghurt Water. Nice. perhaps we would be better off in a world that didn’t revolve around Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, Big Brother and Playstation. In all honesty, would we rather our children grow up playing computer games, watching movies & listening to rappers who glorify guns & murder?
We spend a few hours at Hafez's tomb. As the sun sets, the gardens light up and poetry is gently broadcast over an old tannoy system. Enjoying the scene and paying their respects are people of all ages, both locals and those from afar. While some stroll through the
gardens others sit and read poetry with their loved ones.
Visited Countries Map 
Wellington - Sydney - Bangkok - Khao Lak - Chaweng (Koh Samui) - Lamai (Koh Samui) - Bangkok - Macau - Guangzhou - Yangshuo - Guangzhou - Zhengzhou - Guangzhou -Shanghai - Huang Shan - Shao Lin - Beijing - Xi'an - Chengdu - Leshan - Kanding - Tagong - Litang - Xiang Cheng - Zhongdian - Lijiang - Kunming - Hekou/Lao Cai - Hanoi - Cat Ba Island - Ninh Binh - Hanoi - Hue - Hoi An - Hue - Hanoi - Sapa - Lai Chau - Son La - Mai Chau - Hanoi - China Beach - Hoi An - China Beach - Quy Nhon - Kon Tum - Saigon - Phnom Penh - Pursat - Battambang - Siem Reap - Anlong Veng - Siem Reap - Kompong Cham - Kratie - Ban lung (Ratanakiri) - Kratie - Phnom Penh - Kampot - Sihanoukville - Bangkok - Kanchanaburi - Bangkok - Rangoon - Bagan - Monywa - Mandalay - Pyin Oo Lwin - Hsipaw - Kyaukme - Inle Lake (Nyuangshwe) -Taungoo - Bago - Kinpun (Kyaiktiyo) - Yangon - Bangkok - Ayutthaya - Bangkok - Koh Kong - Sihanoukville - Phnom Penh - Bangkok - Vientiane - Luang Prabang - Bangkok - Bahrain - Luxor - Cairo - Dahab - Nuweiba - Aqaba - Amman - Petra (Wadi Musa) - Wadi Rum - Amman - Damascus - Palmyra - Aleppo - Hama - Tripoli - Beirut - Damascus - Deir Es Zur - Silopi - Dohuk - Sulymania - Erbil - Silopi - Orumiyeh - Tabriz - Tehran - Mashhad - Bam - Kerman - Five Finger Mountain - Shiraz
New Zealand - Commonwealth of Australia - Kingdom of Thailand - Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China - People's Republic of China - Socialist Republic of Vietnam - Kingdom of Cambodia - Union of Myanmar - Lao People's Democratic Republic - Kingdom of Bahrain - Arab Republic of Egypt - Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan - Syrian Arab Republic - Lebanese Republic - Republic of Turkey -Republic of Iraq, Kurdistan Region - Islamic Republic of Iran
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laura kemp
non-member comment
pie and chups
yes, yes, it's all very interesting, but i do hope you're going to put your trip to cardiff on the blog and give my pie and chups a mention :) it was great to see you both and hope to see you at jo's bbq on sunday xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx