Let me in, I'm muslim
Trip Start
Jun 18, 2007
1
94
150
Trip End
Ongoing
Mashhad,
Iran
Thursday, February 21, 2008
I Csed again however I found out that he couldn't be there for the first day so i was left in the hands of his parents who couldn't speak any English - nevertheless I made myself understood and this provided me with an amazing opportunity to witness the inner workings of a very conservative Muslim family - the praying and the fact the wife wouldn't let me see her without her scarf on was amazing. I also got to see many pre- revolution pictures of the family and all the women had no scarfs on and were wearing clothes that would certainly excite men today.
Again i meet some uni students and was invited to play board games and drink chai with them - again I was told that they wanted change and they hated how they the western media portrayed them. However the MOST funniest moment was when they said they would take me too THE shrine of Iran - the shrine of Iman Reza. There was an intense discussion in Farsi and when i asked what was happening they said a few could come as they need to have a shower...why.. well they sorta just had a wank (not together) and there not allowed to go into the shrine ("unclean") ha ha
Well this was shrine I was certainly not allowed into as a non-believer so I was stuck in the middle of my new friends and told not to speak so i did. However we went during prayers and it was so busy there was no time to figure out I wasn't a Muslim.
This shrine was amazing and during prayer time it was amazing times 10 - thousands of people kneeling at once in this huge mosque and then there was the shrine - my god you should have heard the weeping and wailing. Then the bombshell happened when one of the students whispered too me "this is all just so much BS" in the actual shrine! I later found out he was an Iranian atheist - though a secret one
And i guess thats somes Iran up - its not what you think - go and see it for yourself
