Kowsal Hotel Tehran

(Jim)<br><br>We awoke early the next morning and made our way to the airport, looking like a Persian carpet refuge with all of our extra purchases in tow. I was worried about how much our new carpet was going to put us over whatever baggage allowance Iran Airways had in place &#8211; it weighed a ton to carry and wasn't ever going to fit into our backpacks. We were at the mercy of the local check-in staff. As it turned out I shouldn't have worried &#8211; our bags and ...

... with a few Northern Tehrani's, who appeared to be dressed so liberally compared to other places we had visited in Iran. The woman wore their head scarfs (hijabs) showing quite a bit of the front of the hair (god forbid!). They also dressed as modernly as they could with the restrictions they lived under. We were surprised to see many of them with thick layers of make up, dark eyeliner and rouged cheeks. Apparently because of number of foreign diplomats that lived in these parts the ...

... via the Embassy (which doesn&#8217;t issue Visa&#8217;s) and an apartment block. Lesson learnt &#8211; always assume the taxi driver doesn&#8217;t know where you&#8217;re going and always ensure that you do. If you can, have someone write the address in Farsi, but don&#8217;t bet on the driver being able to read (although you&#8217;re bound to find someone who does). No taxi driver will ever admit to not knowing where you wish to go!<br><br ...

... L'après midi, quatre musées. Le "national", regroupant de manière assez paresseuse un paquet d'oeuvres remontant jusqu'à la préhistoire, bon. La visite fut surtout illuminée par des "bouts" de Persepolis ramenés à Teheran, donnant un allechant aperçu du site (que je visiterai en fin de séjour, à Shiraz). L' "Iran Ebrat", du nom de la prison principale du r ...

... Mohammad yek and do would be driving (well Mohammad yek would be driving - Mohammad do seemed more of a helper, and a go-getter of his ciggies at frequent intervals) the paddy wagon all the way from Tehran to Shiraz and would join us in two days time. Now if you look at a proper map, and not the red dotted effort in this blog, you'll see that Tehran to Shiraz is not to be undertaken lightly. That and the distractions of Mohammad yek's well-dodgey Turkish pop videos (dubbed ...

... especially because we became quickly aware of one particular monitary predicament: namely, they do not take Visa cards in Iran (we should have seen that coming), so we had the grand sum of 20 English pounds to change into Iranian Rials and stretch over however long we might spend in that vast country. We were never really worried. Something was always going to turn up and, sure enough, something - or someone - did. His name was Iman Haghighi and the Haghighi family ...

... He answered "Just say hello." I laughed. I was then more specific and asked if I was allowed to say hello to the women. He said that wouldn't be a problem. I asked if I could shake their hands and to that he said it would be best if I didn't. I asked if I could talk t the women. He said that wouldn't be a problem. I knew the rules now. At break time, the teacher came out and said he would go downstairs and ask the Main Man if I was allowed to enter the class as a guest ...

... party he once belonged to over 20 years ago. I didn't ask any more questions after that. The guy then felt the need to tell me about how bad his family life was back home - in front of his young daughter. He explained how his wife just left them for some guy she met on the internet and that now the wife was trying to take the kids away from him. I really didn't want to hear it, especially with his young daughter there. I just said I wished him luck and that I hope that he and ...

... scrambled eggs and mushrooms that morning, so we didn't get off to a good start! We then spent the next few days getting up stupidly early to run around the city like nutters sorting out our Pakistani and Indian visas. This proved very draining and would not have been possible on empty stomachs (have to justify our hopeless attempts at fasting). The month of Ramadan is another bizarre paradox in this country - 90% of people I spoke to in Tehran were not fasting ...

I felt safe in my taxi cab, although I became increasingly concerned about how to deal with the chaos on the street when I leave the cab. I have been to many countries around the world, and they've got nothing on Iranian traffic. Pedestrians regularly hop-scotch, somersault, back-flip, pole vault, kick and chop their way directly through 12 lane boulevards of trundling buses, homicidal cement trucks, screaming Paykans, and slithering motorcycles. Sprightly young men in ...