Dibai House Esfahan

... vyrazíme<br> smer Ka&#353;án - zkusíme se podívat do pou&#353;te (autem :-)) a dá li Alláh i na<br>solné vyschlé jezero Namak (skoro jako ta hliníkárna :-))<br><br><br>Málem bych zapomnel zmínit, &#382;e u&#382; nekolik dní jsme milionári - ka&#382;dý z nás<br>má u sebe cca 1 000 000 riálu, co&#382; je docela &#353;tocek, vzhledem k tomu, &#382;e<br>nejvy&#353;&#353;í be&#382;né bankovky jsou 20 000 cca ctycicetikoruny). U&#382; jsme zahlédli<br>i 50 000 bankovku, ale ty máme tak 3.<br><br><br>

... the house (I would guess she was in her early 30's) was Iranian but grew up in Ibiza, which explained some of the European/Persian touches. She and her mother took turns between Esfahan (running the guest house) and living in Ibiza. I couldn't think of two worlds that were such polar opposites. Ibiza, where scantily clad people enjoy music, dancing, swimming in the ocean. They freely express love and have freedom of expression. Here in Iran, as we've mentioned many times, women and men ...

... pages, by some eccentric German. <br><br>Then it was off to the tomb of Abu Abdollah, famous for its twin shaking minarets. I expected to see them wobbling away in the wind, but the shaking required human intervention. Several times a day, a man climbs one minaret and starts rocking from side to side, causing it to shake. This in turn starts the minaret opposite to ...

... coloured and sparkling. Many of the young women are petite, with beautiful facial features and no shortage of makeup &#8211; large doe eyes, full lips, perfect skin and bright smiles. <br><br>We avoided manteaus and chose the 'one size fits all&#8217; options in Indian cotton (R75,000), with cheap cotton headscarves to match (R20,000). While we felt scruffy in comparison to the local women, the heat was too much for us to ...

... up and down the pedestrian promenades. Just like anywhere, the teenagers were definitely dressed to impress. No chadors in that part of town, almost all the young girls wore scarves that barely covered their heads and very form-fitting "manteaus" - essentially a shirt/house dress that is mid-thigh length - enough to cover you from the back lest you elicit desire in men who apparently can't be trusted to control ...

... qualité esthétique de la ville) des airs bien déprimants. Il y eut en outre le retour non-triomphal du mal de ventre touristique, la perspective de passer mon entière seconde semaine iranienne provoquant chez moi nombre de sueurs froides. Enfin, comme s'il fallait vraiment ...

... and maybe some fear of the darkness. Wonderful imagery - touching the darkness. We did make it to the Ali Qapu hotel in Esfahan, dismounted and it turned out that due to a near full hotel Rus and I would be sharing a room. I was relaxed about the whole thing. As it turned out Rus and I had a suite. A room each, huge bathroom and a sitting room with tv, frigde, settee etc. Hard to complain about that ...

... work and live in six months time. First in Quebec, and then out west. Him and his wife both speak French and English (which is a must to be allowed into Canada apparently). He has a degree in civil engineering, but he works, of course, as a carpet restorer. We drank tea for hours and walked around the bazaar having the most wonderful political and spiritual conversations. Everything was tied in together and I felt so inspired about life as we both felt very much ...

... explain to the bus company that I wanted to be dropped off at Toudeshk as it wasn't an official stop between Yazd and Esfahan. When I got to the bus station, I was a bit confused with what was going on. The older man who took me to the bus station didn't speak any English. The only thing I could make out is that I couldn't get on the 1 pm bus and that I would need to wait until 2 pm. I was fine with this. So I paid 35000 Rials for my bus ticket. A few minutes ...

... were studying to become mullahs. They were all males except for four girls properly covered up in their hejab. They asked me about my life history, my job, my impressions of Iran, life in Canada. One of the students asked me about American designs on Iran, and I rather innocently blabbered on about George Bush and the war in Iraq. At that point, the teacher got up from his chair and walked up to the desk where I was sitting, re-arranged some books and papers in ...