Persepolis: Home of the Achaemenids

Persepolis is Iran’s most famous ancient archaeological site, and was capital of the Persian Achaemenid Empire from 550–330 BC. It was during this time that Xerxies I, leader of the Persians invaded Greece and Sparta, as featured in the film 300. The city was later ransacked and razed to the ground by Alexander the Great in 330BC, and although still remained capital of the region, never regained its former glory.

Over the years, many of the ruins have been vandalised or moved to other sites around the world (the British Museum included), but there is still an impressive array of ruins around the site, which made a welcome change from the Islamic, Roman and Greek architecture and ruins across the rest of Turkey and Iran

After a few hours exploring, we made our way onto the nearby city of Shiraz, but not before making friends with a group of Iranian men:

The nearby city of hiraz is known as the city of poets, gardens, wine, nightingales and flowers. As I have no interest in poetry, birds and flowers, and since the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the region no longer officially produces wine (it’s available for $25 a bottle on the black market, but we couldn’t find anyone who would sell it to foreigners), we paid a visit to the Eram Botanical Gardens.

I suppose you could say that the gardens were green and gardeny (I don’t have much interest in gardens either), but while we were there, we bumped into a group of Iranian soldiers. After my previous experience with soldiers in Tehran, I knew that there was more to them than meets the eye and that they were actually pretty friendly – and I wasn’t disappointed! After realising we were British and American, their eyes lit up and they insisted on taking photos with all of us. Who said Iranians disliked the West eh?

While walking back to our hotel, we were then approached by an Iranian guy who wanted to practice his English on us. It was pretty clear that he wasn’t all there (let’s just say he was ‘One of God’s Special Children’), so we obliged – what harm could it do? He followed us as we walked, talking to us for the next 10 minutes and as we approached our hotel, Gaps made our excuses to leave. Our new friend then leant in for a traditional goodbye kiss on the cheek, catching Gaps off guard.

‘Whoah, what are you doing?’ said Gaps. ‘In Iran, we kiss to say goodbye’ said our new friend. ‘Not in Australia, we don’t!’ He leant in for another, and Gaps rejected him again. ‘But it’s because we’re friends’. As he went in for the third, Gaps had seen enough, and scarpered. Friends or not, he wasn’t taking any chances!

Oh, and while on the subject of Shiraz, how can I not mention the biggest kebab I’ve ever seen? Looks disgusting (and it kinda is), but if you look closely, you can see that it’s actually alternate layers of mince and proper meat, not that processed rubbish we get back home! Bon appétit!

Esfahan: Bridge over…wait, where’s the water?

As well as Imam Square, Esfahan in Iran is also famous for its bridges, crossing the Zayande river. Well, at least they used to; the river has now been diverted elsewhere within the country, leaving behind a dry river bed. As such, the bridges aren’t quite as picturesque as they once were, but this was still a photo opportunity that Chris just couldn’t turn down:

So on a blisteringly hot day, we made our way to Khaju Bridge, had a look around, Norm got quite close to Cindy and made our way back into town.

But it’s at night when the area really comes to life, because just as in Imam square, the Khaju Bridge and its surroundings are filled with Iranians picnicking until the very early hours (still going strong at 1am!). As Elodie and I approached, we could hear a drumming in the distance and as we got closer, found a group of around 50 young Iranian men standing around. There was a definite tension in the air, a feeling that something was about to happen.

As the drumming gathered intensity, the men broke into song and then began to dance, their snake hips moving in ways I didn’t think were possible. Within seconds, police sirens went off, power to the bridge was cut and the crowd scattered. This was Iran after all and dancing in public was strictly illegal.

As we made our way back home, we reflected on how much of a shame it was that these young Iranians weren’t allowed to express themselves in public in the way that they wanted. The Iranians are incredibly outgoing and expressive in other ways, yet it’s such a shame that so much of this has to be done behind closed doors for fear of the repercussions, as the recent  ‘happygate’ saga showed. Although very often in the west, people can abuse the freedoms we have, it really does make you appreciate them all the more when you realise some of the most basic things that millions of other people simply can’t do!

Esfahan: Iran’s Most Attractive City

To my mind, there are three main reasons to visit Iran – the people, the culture and the architecture. Esfahan truly has the perfect mix of all three.  In a region that is admittedly chocked full of quite similar architecture, Esfahan stands out with some of the most iconic design in the Islamic world. The main draw for tourists is the massive Naqsh-e Jahan (Imam) square, constructed by Shah Abbas at the turn of the 17^th Century AD and still the worlds biggest square completely surrounded by buildings:

Flanked on two sides by Sheikh Lotf Allah mosque and Shah mosque, the square truly is the religious and cultural heart of the city, complete with bus loads of middle-aged German tourists by day and filled with picnicking locals and Norm doing press-ups at night:

IMG7156

The picnicking culture is definitely most active in Esfahan, with what seems like every piece of open space in the city filled with locals who will insist that you share in their sunflower seeds, olives and little green sour apples. The Iranian people love to socialise and this is after all the country in which it is almost impossible to go hungry, in which you can go into any bakery in the country and they will give you bread for free, no questions asked. I even had some problems insisting I pay for a flatbread that was literally thrown to me hot, straight out of the clay oven.

The Shah mosque was designed for use by the public and is still in active use, regularly being closed to visitors during prayer times and with rolled prayer mats strewn across the floor, ready for their next use

The mosque’s dome is also famous for its multi-layered construction, which creates a bizarre reverberating echo that the security guard was keen to show off to Sally by ‘snapping’ a banknote:

Lotfallah Mosque meanwhile was built as a private mosque for the use of the Royal Court and in particular the ladies of Shah Abbas’ harem. Abbas must have really felt the need to impress his ladies (overcompensating perhaps?), as it’s clear just how much time and effort was put into the design and intricate tilework throughout the mosque:

Tehran

Tehran is Iran’s biggest, busiest and most liberal city and although not it’s prettiest, was definitely the city I enjoyed and felt most at home in. It’s a huge, sprawling metropolis, dominated by dull high rise concrete buildings, but it’s not the architecture that you visit Tehran for; the city has played a central role in many of the key events that have shaped Iran’s recent history and is truly the face of Iran’s future.

It’s a remarkably western-facing city, with a surprising amount of imported goods and higher plastic surgery rates than even LA! From speaking to a few locals, it appears that the Iranians don’t like their big noses and it’s amazing just how many women and men you see walking around the country with their noses bandaged!

Tehran also has a proper café and restaurant culture, and was home to the best food and coffee I had in the whole country; in fact, it’s pretty much the only place in the country you can get a decent cup of coffee that foesn’t come from an outrageously sweet 3-in-1 sachet but is made from actual beans.

We only spent one day in the city, so made sure we packed it with as much as possible. As well as seeing the former US Embassy, Ayatollah Khomeini’s Mausoleum and the Behesht-e Zahra War Cemetery, we also paid a visit to Goleston Palace, a complex of 9 buildings including an incredibly ornate house of mirrors that  (no photos allowed) that was testament to the glories and excesses of the 19^th Century Qajjar rulers of Iran.

While the people of Tabriz had been incredibly friendly and would frequently stop to speak with us, we’d had much less attention while in Tehran. But Tehran is a big city after all (14 million people!), so I suppose it was to be expected. That all changed when we got on the metro, where we had some time to stop and chat to some of the locals – or more to the point, they took the opportunity to speak to us. Iranians love to talk (men in particular), with one guy telling us in some detail about the engineering that went into the metro (The Chinese-built carriages have British brake pads apparently), while a really funny surgeon got so involved in our conversation that he missed his stop!

Our last stop in Tehran was Azadi Tower, which is Tehran and possibly Iran’s most iconic building. Situated on a roundabout on the outskirts of Tehran, the monument was built by the Shah in 1971 to commemorate 2500 years of the Persian Empire and marks the west entrance to the city.

After such an exhausting day in Tehran it was just great to sit back, watch the building lit up and listen to the crazy Iranians circling the roundabout and sounding their horns. I only wish I could have stayed longer in the city, to soak up more of its atmosphere but we had to move on. Next up was the historic city of Esfahan.

Iran’s Largest Cemetery: Honouring the War Dead

On the outskirts of Tehran lies Behesht-e Zahra, Iran’s largest cemetery. Home to the graves of 1.3 million Iranians, the cemetery also holds over 200,000 young Iranians that lost their lives as part of the desperately wasteful Iran-Iraq War fought from 1980-1988. These graves are in the cemetery’s ‘martyr’ section and it’s clearly a war that is still prominent in the Iranian psyche, with roads, motorways and billboards across the country covered in images of the moustached young men who lost their lives in the war:

The day we visited was overcast and drizzly, which felt entirely appropriate. It’s a sombre and moving place, with row after row  of graves, each one featuring images and personal belongings of the deceased (including over 95,000 child soldiers aged between 16-17),  most of which have now faded under the unforgiving Iranian sun. Most of these young men were not professional trained army personnel, but had joined the Iranian Revolutionary Guard at short notice to help defend their country from the invading armies of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and would be drawn into an increasingly bloodthirsty and futile war.

As Matt & I ventured further into the cemetery and considered the futility of war and colossal waste of human life around us, a taxi pulled up next to us out of the blue.

Out jumped a small girl with a large box of wafers. She smiled, offered them to us, got back into her taxi and drove off.

With us both taken aback by this random act of kindness, the rain began to get heavier and a minibus full of Iranian soldiers pulled up next to us and wound down their window.

‘Oh shit, what have we done?’ I thought as one of the soldiers asked us where we were going.

‘The metro station’ I said. He then told us to jump in and he’d give us a lift there! In any other country I’d question a gesture like this, but this was Iran where the usual rules just don’t seem to apply. So the soldiers made space for us and we squeezed inside.

We chatted to them during our short drive to the station and after establishing that we were English, they told us that ‘the Iranian army is very strong’. I agreed; sat in a minibus full of Iranian soldiers was definitely not the time to get into ‘my army is better than your army’ discussions!

One of the soldiers then asked me about London and said London girls were ‘very nice’. He said that he liked sexy English girls in short skirts with big breasts. I’m not gonna argue with that. Regardless, the comment prompted his colleague to slap him round the back of the head and after a few more jokes, we were soon dropped back at the station, ready to see what else this crazy country has to offer!

Iran: The All-Seeing Ay(atollahs)

In just about every hotel lobby, restaurant and billboard across Iran, you’ll find pictures of Ayatollah Khomeini (below, always on the left) and his successor, Ayatollah Khamenei (below, right looking down over you. The Ayatollahs are Iran’s heads of state and although the country is a democracy, they are charged with leading the country in all all things political, religious and spiritual.

Khomeini had swept to power following the Iranian Revolution of 1979. The country had previously been a secular republic and a close ally of America, ruled by Shah Reza Pahlavi. With the gap between rich and poor widening and the Shah’s rule becoming increasingly autocratic and at-odds with popular opinion, the Shia cleric Khomeini won support with the conservative majority in Iran by promising a return to traditional Islamic values. Following the revolution, in an election that would redefine the balance of power in the Middle-East, Khomeini declared Iran an Islamic Republic and was appointed Iran’s religious and political leader for life.

Khomeini ruled for 10 years before his death in 1989. Official estimates suggest that over 10 million people attended his funeral, which witnessed scenes of mass grief and hysteria. At one point, his wooden casket was almost destroyed, with mourners attempting to tear off parts of his death shroud to keep as holy relics.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2k7mpnPJWDo

The scenes also gave birth to Cardiff City’s famous ‘Ayatollah’ goal celebration:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1MWwce3cTg

To get a better feel for the impact the Ayatollah had on everyday Iranians, Matt and I decided to visit the Ayatollah’s mausoleum and final resting place in Southern Tehran, which is still under construction:

Unfortunately as with so many mosques and holy sites in Iran, no cameras are allowed inside, but the locals are generally quite happy snapping away on their camera phones. So after handing our belongings in at reception (we didn’t get a ticket as they would ‘remember us’) and a friendly chat with the security guard who was pretty damn impressed by my genuine Casio watch, we were inside:

Each June the mausoleum complex accommodates hundreds of thousands of people for the anniversary of Khomeini’s death. It was clear just how much love and adoration those present still had for their former leader, with some kissing the wall of his burial chamber while others pushed money inside it for good luck. It was almost as if he was a religious icon – I’ll never understand the psychology around it all, how one person can be almost worshipped by other humans in death, but it was fascinating to see first-hand!

Tehran: The US Den of Espionage

Despite what you may have heard, the Iranian people actually like Western (American) people and culture. They just don’t like the American (or British) government and their foreign policy. Now, the last thing I want to do is get political with this post as that’s really not the point of this blog, but it is worth pointing out. The Western mainstream media would have you believe that Iranians are all chador-wearing Islamic fundamentalists, hell-bent on destroying America and its allies, but after spending any time in the country, you’ll realise that this couldn’t be any further from the truth for the vast majority of ordinary people.

A lot of these misconceptions stem back to the admittedly frosty relations the Iranian government has had with the West and in particular America and Britain over the years. Central to these relations was the former US Embassy building in Tehran, now intriguingly known as the US Den of Espionage.

 

The CIA had orchestrated a coup d’etat from here in 1953 that had brought down the Iranian government, and in an attempt to stop the same happening again following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, a group of students stormed and occupied the Embassy building. They held 52 US Embassy staff hostage for 444 days, with the crisis finally ending in 1981 just minutes after the inauguration of Ronald Reagan. The USA, concerned that Iran had violated its international duty to ensure immunity from arrest for diplomats never regained diplomatic relations with Iran.

The building is now occupied by the Sepah Militia, a group dedicated to keeping the Islamic Revolution alive. It operates as a museum (open in February only), containing documentation of the of the US Espionage and spying that was carried out there, while the outside walls are decorated with anti-USA and Israel propaganda and rhetoric:

Press TV, the English Language state-owned ‘independent’ Iranian TV channel perfectly sums up the Iranian state view on British foreign policy in the title sequence to its fantastically one-sided show ‘Monarchy’, a weekly show that tells of all that is bad in Britain:

But despite the history of tensions between the countries, we didn’t get any sense of any bitterness or anger from any of the Iranian people we met. They are very much aware of the bad press their country gets internationally, which has inevitably (and undeservedly) influenced the way that ordinary Iranians are also viewed.

They’re an incredibly friendly and welcoming people, completely at-odds with how they’re so often portrayed. Just walking around town, you’ll have people constantly stop you to welcome you, ask your name, what you think of their country and whether your perceptions of their country had changed now you’d seen it yourself. To most ordinary Iranians, being from Britain or America is a good thing; mention that you’re from London to them and while sipping their Coke Zero (brewed under license in Iran), they’ll tell you how beautiful the city is and how much they’d like to visit if it wasn’t so expensive and the visa wasn’t so difficult to get!

Tabriz: The Pimp in a Wig

Iranians eat incredibly late and with most fun night-time activities banned in the country, there’s almost nothing to do in Iran after dark, apart from picnicking and shopping. So we decided to find a shisha bar. After asking around and being told in no uncertain terms that we should not smoke that in Iran as it was a gateway to heroin, we hastily consulted our dictionary and realised that in Iran, ‘shisha’ is cannabis. We asked again for a ‘Qaylan’ and were soon pointed in the direction of a nearby tea house.

After finding the tea house and rejecting it because the pure tobacco shisha was far too strong for our pure, undamaged lungs, we found another tearoom that had proper shisha, including double-apple, mint and milk-coffee flavours. As we entered, we were immediately greeted by a middle-aged Iranian guy sat on the upper floor who told us there was plenty of room upstairs. We went upstairs and he was right. One room was completely empty while in the other, he was sat like an Iranian Fagin with his handlebar moustache and elaborate hairpiece, wearing a sheer bedazzled white shirt under his black velvet waistcoat. He was surrounded by 10 young Iranian boys in their late teens, at least one of whom I’m sure was wearing eyeliner. We naturally opted for the empty room, taking a seat along the wall and within seconds, the Iranians got out of their seats next door and came in to sit directly opposite us. Some of the boys had matching tattoos (including one who had a swastika), while two of the boys had identical scars on their arms, where I’m pretty sure tattoos had been forcibly scratched out.

As he supped on his pipe, he struck up conversation with us, while his boys seemed fascinated by the group of Westerners sitting opposite them. He claimed to have lived in America when he was younger, and proved this to us by showing both of his social security cards (with different numbers on each) and his US driving license, with his picture showing he was as bald as one of those really ugly bald cats. There was something very odd about the whole setup, but who am I to judge? This was Iran after all and close male friends are incredibly touchy-feely with each other, frequently play-fighting, holding hands and kissing each other’s faces. So after finishing our (disgusting) milk-coffee Qaylan, we left them to it and stuffed our faces with ice cream.

Iran: Tabriz

Our first stop in Iran was Tabriz, in the North-East of the country. There’s not a great deal by way of sights in the city, but this is easily made up for by the city’s shopping district, featuring the largest covered bazaar in the world. Shopping is a national pastime for Iranians, and wandering through the bazaar was a great way to meet ordinary Iranians and see how they live their lives day-to-day, as well as seeing some of the more unusual shops on offer:

While wandering around, we got speaking to Ahmed, a friendly carpet salesman who invited us into his office to have a look around. After wiring the kettle into the socket on the wall (luckily Dr Matt was on hand in case anything went wrong), he made us some of the best tea we’d tried so far on our trip.

Although tempted by his full-sized carpets of the Mona Lisa, a scene from 18^th Century Vienna and a woman posing with a wolf, I had my heart set on picking up a slightly more traditional carpet from Turkmenistan, so we made our excuses and left. As we carried on exploring,  I had a string of people stop and ask me to take their photo, including this watermelon seller who found Matt (standing to my right at the time) absolutely fascinating:

We made our way to El Goli park on the outskirts of the city, where it was fascinating to see the young couples together on benches around the park, chatting and getting close (but still no kissing). That was until the moral police arrived to ensure that the country’s strict moral code was upheld, prompting the couples to immediately move apart from each other.

There’s a growing trend worldwide toward installing outdoor fintness equipment, and this really is apparent in Iran, with almost every park having its own set of admittedly largely rusting and unmaintained fitness equipment. As we were on an enforced alcohol detox for 19 days while in Iran, Matt and I decided now would be as good a time as ever to start our health kick:

With almost no dining culture in Iran and dinner that night being an all-you-can-eat buffet (or should that be eat-as-much-as-you-can buffet?), we’ll see how long this particular health kick lasts.

The Iranian Border

As we set out for the Iranian border after a month in Turkey, we were all very aware that we were about to enter an Islamic country with Sharia Law and a pretty bad (and as it turns out, largely unjustified) reputation around the world.

Alcohol is officially banned in Iran, so we’d already made sure that all our alcohol was finished, then bought some more and finished that too. We’d also made sure that we didn’t have any items on board that might offend local decencies, (no magazines with ankles on show or books critical of the government) and given the truck a good clean.

Most importantly, we’d made sure that we were dressed appropriately, which for the women meant wearing a full-length Manteu or trenchcoat, ensuring that arms and legs are fully covered and wearing a headscarf so no hair was showing. It was a blazing hot day and I felt for them in all their layers, as they’d really struggled to find the right clothing in the right sizes in Turkey.

Somehow Elodie managed to look more Iranian than half the Iranians we encountered!

It wasn’t just the ladies that suffered though, as us guys gave up our shorts and flip-flops, instead wearing long-sleeved shirts, trousers and shoes. This may even be the only picture in existence of Malc (third from the left) wearing shoes:

We did all dress more conservatively than we needed to as the Iranian dress code (like so much of the country) is not as it first seems, but this was a border that none of us had crossed before and we weren’t taking any chances!

The border itself was much slower that any of us had prepared for. There weren’t any real holdups and we were kept moving throughout, with visas being checked (many times), forms being completed and fingerprints taken (Brits and Americans only). It just all happened painfully slowly. But after 7 long hours at the border and feeling hot, hungry and tired, we finally made it away and grabbed a much-needed (and actually really tasty) kofte sandwich from the border café.

Next stop: Tabriz in North-Eastern Iran.