Iran

August 2009

Cathy is French but now lives in Germany, we had met some time ago while I was walking my north camino in Spain and we keep in touch by email since.
I asked if her if she would tell me about her fascinating trip to Iran this year, just before the recent troubles we saw so much of on TV. This she kindly agreed to and here she tells you of the start and flight of her trip to Iran.
Enjoy this brave lady's story
Michael

Cathy

Strange how difficult it is this time to write about my trip, it has been so different. Different script !!Different art of writing the numbers (they look like .. well, like what??) Different calendar, we had the second month of ... let alone what year, ? By the way, on my return I was in a complete muddle, and we came back to Tehran one day too early!!! Their weekend begins on Thursday and their holy day is Friday. They eat such delicious things but don't drink wine while they have a town called SHYRAZ too! There are vineyards there, I saw them!!! What the hell do they do with the grapes?
The traffic on the roads ... Oh my God !! THE TAXIS!!! I never believed I would get up into such a scrap heap. The unbearable noise in the towns, the infinite silence of the desert, the stink of the towns while you are being bewitched by the smell of the blossom of the orange trees in the gardens. The b... regulations of the religion, the moving sadness of the melodious shout for the prayer in the evening twilight (it moved me to tears, at 4 o'clock in the morning too, I was luckily sleeping like a log and I never heard it he,he,he!!) The infinite kindness of my host, the incredible brutality of the government... It will need a while till I get it all sorted in my mind.

By the way note the phone number of the fast food shop in this photo?? the last but one line!!! You read it from the right to left of course, chuckle !!! So now I have a tip for you !!! Note on the right side (before the:) this spaghetti must mean ...yes you have it...
Phone : 7845 86219 7472 634263. !! As all the numbers from 1 to 9 are there, suddenly your Persian knowledge has gone up by about 100%. You can copy the figures and compare them with ours. Sahra wrote the figures on a small card for me, I carried this from then on in my pocket. So now I could always compare the numbers I saw, with those on the card. After a while I knew them by heart.
By the way I don’t think they will deliver to your house chuckle. I love the 5 that's the little heart that stands on its head




Iran the Flight

I'm sure that nothing bad will happen as we now get a Mullah on board. Of course he travels in the business class while his bodyguard is travelling in the economic class. He is an attractive bald tall young man of about thirty that would fit in better acting in a US movie with Whitney Houston than looking after an old man.

Pascal has not got his visa so I must travel alone, I will have to change in Istanbul and I must confess that makes me a bit nervous. So I think if I follow in their tracks, I'm sure they will lead me to the right gate. They both are going to Tehran in any case!!

We start a whole hour late! I fear we might get trouble with the connection in Istanbul, I'm famous for missing the trains, I don’t know whether that applies to the aeroplanes too!

I sit between a Turkish woman that sleeps all the time (she probably has not got to get a connection to anywhere!!!) and a Lebanese young man that wants to reach Beirut tonight. He shows me on the map of the airport and points out that the gates are not far from each other, so we might make it through! I hope so!

Inch Allah!!

Well we make up some lost time and we are only half an hour late when we land at Istanbul. In the distance I can see "my" Mullah and his bodyguard, but they go another way, off the common run of people. I find the gate 212 on my own and soon behind the window I can see both waiting, so I know I'm right.

On the 2nd plane I sit between two Iranians, a young man of 20 that lives and studies in London and another man in his forties who works in Munich. They turned out to be pleasant travelling companions. No woman during the flight wears any manteau (a long coat that has to reach the hollow of the knee) nor a headscarf. Before we had started I had taken out mine and stuffed them into the net on the back of the seat in front of me. Now the flight captain announces we were reaching Tehran. At once I rush putting on the coat and busy myself wrapping the headscarf around my head. My companions burst out laughing

"I'm not used to this" I apologize.

"That's not the matter" they reply “It's much to early! Every Iranian woman enjoys her topless time till the last second and Iranian men enjoy the sight longer"

“What does the Mullah think"

"Oh he sits in the lonely business class!!!"

Now completely wrapped and from now on completely illiterate (Different script!! et c., as I said before). I shadow my companions to the baggage counter. To my surprise my suit case is the first that arrives onto the ramp!

Then I must go through the 'passport control'. There are 4 special counters for the foreigners.

Behind three of them there are young officers that look smart in spotless clean uniforms.

Behind the 4th there is an elderly corpulent officer that smiles under a bushy moustache that tries to hide the gap in his upper teeth. His eyes, behind glass bricks, shine almost fatherly, I decide to go there! I give him my passport and my boarding ticket. He looks at my passport then at the boarding ticket again and again! I begin to sweat, he says something in Farsi ..???? then in a language that seems to be English...?? and after glancing at my passport he says in almost perfect French

"The name on the boarding ticket and the name on the passport are different"......??!!

'Is there a secret jail under this airport?' What can I do when they throw me into an humid dark cellar? Will they allow me to ring the embassy ??? where the hell did I put the number of the embassy in fact?' And suddenly I emerge from my panic attack.

"Oh yes I know !! I'm French and that's a French passport! First is my maiden name and then, look there, there is my married name! But in Germany as they have written it onto the ticket they did it on the German way : First the married name and then the maiden name"

A river of sweat runs down my back!

"Different country, different custom" he replies smiling and waves me away.

POOOH !!!!

Down stairs behind the window I can recognize Sahra. She is waiting for me!! I have arrived safely !!!

Tehran in the morning

Isfahan , the square in the twilight.

Pascal and I had booked from Germany at an Iranian travel agency for a trip in the Zagros mountains located west of Isfahan, but as you may know things went differently, Pascal had not been able to get his visa!

Sahra was not too worried about that but I didn't dare to make the trip alone as it's not suitable for a woman to travel alone there. I have to confess I had not quite realised many of the problems before then. Being a woman has its problems, sure maybe you can go alone to the bakery at the corner of the street, but that's all! Otherwise it is much better you go with an another woman!

One evening in Isfahan while Mahmoud , Sahra and I were making kebabs in the yard of a friends house, when we were speaking about this. Mahmoud said

"My friend and I have been hunters and fishermen since our childhood, we know every mountain and every stream around here. If you dare to go with 2 men I can arrange with my friend to accompany you" I choked "Oh I don't think I can shoot, let alone animals!! I prefer to observe them" I had already regretted my reply 'oh dear what if I have offended him'?

"I don't shoot every time, only when the family is fed up with chicken" he laughed "By the way I am the one who has caught the fish we had for dinner yesterday and these kebabs here are made from the meat of the ibex that I shot last winter!"

'Oops !!! 'The trout had been very yummy! Be good and allow him the poor ibex' I thought while he was carrying on speaking.

"A good hunter must know the habits of the animals, so I think I would be a good guide for you. I know a place where there are leopards and wolves. Are you interested in going there? I don't think we will see them though as they only come down in winter when they are hungry. Also they come in the night but who knows we might be lucky tomorrow "

'Oops, I'm not sure I want it as wild as that!' I think, but ashamed I might offend him, I replied

"Oh! We will see, err! Well OK let us try it"

Now it was Sahra that choked and stammered out while looking daggers at me

"I would like to accompany you!"

So the late afternoon next day, 4 of us set out for the mountains. It turned out to be a great trip although (or may I say possibly because) we never met an animal!

Abyaneh is a village with a mild mountainous climate located 40km north west of the town of Natanz and so it was, one hot day my Isfahan friends and I decided to visit it

A road branching off at kilometre 55 from the highway connecting Natanz to Isfahan leads to the Bazrood Valley where the village lies. Built on top of one another the homes seem to be disguised by the sheer face of the mountain. When you enter the village you might feel a sense of loneliness. But as you move along you get more and more interested and begin to wonder how such a village has withstood the elements through years. In fact there is no evidence showing how far exactly the village dates back, but many buildings date back to the Achaemenid dynasty ( 500.BCE) All though the residents have converted to shiite Islam ages ago( I believe they had to???? ) in their hearts and customs they are still Zoroastrians I believe ( HEY !! don't wait for me to explain that he he !!!For more information about them ,look at Wikipedia Zoroastrian OK!!)

Funny for me was the detail, that there are always 2 door knockers on the doors! One for women, the other for men (in unmistakable shapes hehe ) So those inside by hearing the different noise can know if there is a man or a woman at the door, and the women can hurry to put on her headscarf if it is a man that calls!