Greetings from Iran

I'd buy it

Keep up the reports Kevin, wonderful stuff

 

heheh, cheers,
Lance Bombadier Sir Ernest Laurence Basildon-Chapney
at your service!


~(cont)

I'd met Taher on the plane where he totally thrashed me at chess. (I've since learnt that Iranians love chess and billiards. I've lost all games of the former but won easily at the latter). Anyway, Taher is from Afghanistan originally and brought me to his family's home as soons as he knew I was in town.

Various alleys and streets whizz past before I arrive at the house. Luckily I'd put clean socks on. (NB backpackers - pack lots of socks when visiting a muslim country). Taher showed me into a room chocked full of men and lads of all shapes and sizes. I had to do a lot of hand shaking, salams and salam aghas (for one's elders). There were a couple of giant and glorious carpets reaching from wall to wall and we all sat down on them with tapestry cushions between us and the bare walls. I was immediatley befriended by an old happy looking man, Samad, with pure white hair and topaz/silver rings on his dark worn hands.

What followed was a lot of friendly questions leading over all sorts of topics, mainly culture clash astonishment and reflective philosophy, right down to the crudest of jokes and macho sillyness. (No sign of the women of the household). Taher was translating to and fro but plenty of communication is possible when talking in a string of occasionally familiar nouns and body language.

Later Samad, Taher,a couple of lads I went out of town a bit up onto a hill full of stone terraces and drank tea overlooking the city of Shiraz. Samad was rather poetic that night, he was leaving for Afghanistan at the end of the week.

~
well, I got back rather late to the hotel and the next day was more of the same round at Taher's own house but stepped up a notch. Lots of fun and laughter, I was sorry to finally leave (which was made quite difficult anyway!).

All in all Shiraz certainly had me impressed - the city was alright to.

~

Esfahan is most definately a city of craftsmen! The workmanship -in metal, ceramic, carpet etc - is stunning. I'll have to get some pictures up next year when I'm back.

The hostel was quite a comedown from the welcoming time I had in Shiraz. Other western travellers can be quite pretentious and generally get on my tits! I made a good friend there though - from Argentina, he was heading East. Infact... everyone I've met is heading East - I'm the only one going westways, against the direction of this hit & miss guidebook too!

So anyway, Esfahan - not a huge baazar but definately the most fine array of goods. A rotund man, Achmed the retired teacher, adopted me for a bit and showed me around that part of town. There were some hidden gems - ancient caravanserai courtyards etc. I got the guy some tea/chai and a smoke. He made sure to find his local teahouse because it served honey and saffron with the drink.

The giant Imam square in the centre of town is quite impressive - more so than Tianeman(sp?) square. There were a few students there who would occasionaly leap from the shadows to practise their English on me with grins from ear to ear.

So Esfahan, beautiful and bustling but I didn't feel like staying long. I heard of a mountain village - Abyaneh - said to be out of the way and truly ancient so found a bus driver who said he would take me there.

 

So, a bit of Farsi, miming and stupid grins later I was on the coach racing away into the night. And it was about 1am when I was told to grab my bag and alight... in the middle of NOWHERE. "Abyaneh! Bist o do kilometres!" Announced the driver as he gestured to a dirt track near the road and promptly sped off into the distance.
Bist o do .... Hmmm flick to the back of my book... numbers... bist o do... 22?? 22KM!! shit! I looked around. The road stretched flat from left to right into pitch, freezing cold darkness; the desert stars were out, there was a biting wind.. Lets see... I've got one of those tiny metallic thermal blankets packed away somewhere...

 

salam aghas ? anyone

 

Agha - Sir / Mr
Salam - Hello

 

Thank You Agha

 

I reckon you already knew the meanings...


am i being mocked?

 

Salaam means 'peace' really, but essentially hello....

 

aye, all context and language, i was dealing with Farsi here...

 

Not at all - I thought knew the meaning of Salam, but did not understand if Salam Agha was a greeting, a gesture such as a bow, or an honorific. All would have worked in context and a web search was not helpful. So I addressed the question to you or anyone more knowledgeable than I am. When I thanked you I included (or attempted to include) my new understanding of the word. I would never ask a man for information then mock him for being kind enough to provide it. My thanks were perhaps clumsy but sincere.

 

yes 24/7 watch your back agha.

 

ahh, hippypaul, the endless ambiguities born of limited communication through bare text! (or the paranoia of the reader)

As for watching my back I've got that covered. Stole an alien ray gun last time I was over at Zabblebreep's for xmas. It has wing-mirrors.

 

ah thank god you stole the one with the wing-mirrors!


did you have fun at Zabblebreep's?
i might go this xmas, wanna come along?

 

That`s amazing. I was reading about that guy Sir Alfred and have become really interested in Iran. Some of the political stuff that`s happened over the past 100 years is pretty brutal though.

 

sounds like your enjoying it.

 

I'd really like to go to Iran. I met alot of people in India who've come overland, but the route now excudes Afghanistan. They all said Iran was a great country. Maybe if I come back to India I'll go over land.

 

Spacer,
You can cross into Pakistan via Zahedan(Iran)
One train weekly via Nokkundi..Dalbandin etc..
it goes to Quetta(Baluchistan)
everybody carries a dagger there...
and everybody smokes weed
If you need information..P/M me
Emiel.

 

Salem Aleykom! Final greetings from Iran.

A lot has happened, fell way behind on the dispatches of course. I’ve been through deserts, medievil villages, mountain ranges, ancient ruins and hazy polluted cities. At the time of writing this wee note I was sitting snug betwixt the disturbing undulations on the roof of my wee hotel overlooking the mountain city of Tabriz. (I found a way up using the random array of jutting beams outside my room window).The miasma of Brown haze in the distance catches the sunset well on the horizon and can set the clear mountains on a kalaedescopic mantlepiece of fug here and there. Pituresque, unnervingly still. I would half expect this glorious vista to wobble and move like some steam-cranked rolling canvas mechanism installed in a high class Victorian opium den if it were not for the cold crisp air around me and the impressing silence of the mountains.

I’ve been doing well in town with the Farsi I’ve now managed to learn but’ll have to de-programme it all for some Turkish when I set off to cross the border tomorrow.

Iran has been a wonderful experience. It’s truly confirmed my deep mistrust of the media. The people here, from what I’ve discovered, resent their own government quite a bit for what they think is a backwards attitude. A fun place to travel for a man, (rather stressful for a woman) but on the whole a very welcoming country.

----------

p.s (I only spent a quarter of what I budgeted! Iran is mega cheap!)

p.p.s You can travel Afghanistan now. Just be sensible of course!

 

Ahh, great reading

Keep safe and keep keeping us informed! (too many keeps eek)

Love Clairexx

 

Yeah that's the way everyone is going now. On my next travel, maybe I go Turkey, Iran, Pakistan and over the Karakorum (sp?) into China. Still in India at the moment and off to Thailand in the morning after 9 months on the Indian sub-continent. I'll miss the place!