Olympic Hotel Tehran

During your tour to Iran, it will be a fascinating experience to take a trip to Alamut in order to be personally familiar with the kind of terrain and location where these people stayed in. It helps you learn and remember why assassins had chosen this site to lead their resistance movement against the foreign Seljuk invaders.<br><br>A Word about Assassins<br><br>As a sub-branch of Shiite Muslims, Ismailis, known as Assassins in the Western world, used to have ...

... and singlet top beaming a welcoming smile at us. I was immediately taken aback by her lack of clothing; I hadn't seem another woman show anything but her face and hands since we'd arrived in Iran. This feeling quickly diminished with the thought that I could strip off the layers and come into this bubble of normality inside the home. Heath appeared from upstairs and ushered us through their palatial new house into the kitchen, where we had our first "drink" in quite some time. We ...

... and our next stops were limited to the bare essentials of life on the road &#8211; diesel and toilet. Diesel was the outrageous price of NZ$1.50 for 100 litres and Mustapha soon chatted up a couple of truckies more than willing to help us out with the use of their gas cards. A simple bribe allowed us to use their card. The bribe, hey we would fill their tanks for them. After all 300 litres only cost $6 usd. <br> <br ...

... class part of society lives. They live a pretty good life here and both have very good jobs. We went back to Amir's place at the end of the evening and he has an amazing penthouse condo - huge - overlooking the city with snow-capped mountains in the background. There is a black market for alcohol that he says everyone in his social circle takes advantage of, so he opened up a bottle of wine, put out some cheese and crackers, and they showed me ...

... the powder skiing made the legs go like jelly. Skiing belongs to the upper class of Tehran and the ski slope is the best place to see how free young Iranians really can be, with the latest burburry jackets and the hair uncovered. yesterday evening we took the night train down to the city of Yazd in the middle of Iran, being of of the oldest cities on the earth. Getting away from the bustling Tehran is great and the calmness here really helps you calm down a ...

... dit des horreurs sur les automobilistes iraniens et la pollution de la ville ; les deux éléments se sont avérés absolument pas nuisibles, les premiers ayant l'honneur d'élever Teheran à la hauteur de l'enfer Cairote et la seconde passant surtout inaperçue. J'ajouterais même, pour le traffic pas si infernal que cela, que j'ai suivi certains de mes trajets avec un ...

... He was most pleased that I wasn't in Iran on business and he said he hoped I had a very happy time in Iran. The Golestan Palace was next on the agenda. This is a complex of fine buildings with ornate decoration and tiling which according to LP is a "monument to the glories and excesses of the Qajar rulers." It was all very impressive and good to photograph but my lack of sleep was ruling my enjoyment of the day. I did enjoy the Ethnographcial Museum within the complex ...

... with a big smile and shook my hand and wanted to know all about what happened inside the embassy. The rest of the afternoon was reserved for sightseeing. We first went to the old US Embassy (referred to as the US den of espionage by the local people). Anti-US and anti-Israel posters could be found against the wall surrounding the former embassy. I was scared to take photos of these posters as there were cameras everywhere but I Ali said it should be ok as there were no signs ...

... as it would be easier and cheaper. We ended up spending 90 minutes in the Bazaar. There were people everywhere. Everyone was dodging workers who were carrying products from parked trucks to individual shops. You couldn't walk more than 30 seconds without someone whistling indicating you should move out of the way and let them push their over-filled wheel barrels by you. It was a fun game to play. You also had plenty of women covered in their black chadors. About 10 minutes into ...

... I decided to wait until tomorrow to do some sight seeing. Being on a bus for 36 hours definitely takes a lot out of you. I did end up going for a walk around my hotel and I even spotted the hostel I initially wanted to stay at. It was just down the street from where I was staying. I decided that I would switch hotels tomorrow as this place was much cheaper and had more foreigners that I could meet. Nice Guy Ali came by at around 8:15 with his friend, Shayse, who had a car ...