....previously, Tea and Rice Growing in Iran......
As we’ve said previously in posts, the best thing about Iran by a mile is the people. Everyone knows they are friendly, but until you are here, you cannot imagine the genuine hospitality and consideration they show their guests. It’s true they adore foreigners, probably because they so rarely see them, and it was not at all uncommon in our travels for complete strangers on the street to welcome us to their country or tell us they love us!
As we’ve said previously in posts, the best thing about Iran by a mile is the people. Everyone knows they are friendly, but until you are here, you cannot imagine the genuine hospitality and consideration they show their guests. It’s true they adore foreigners, probably because they so rarely see them, and it was not at all uncommon in our travels for complete strangers on the street to welcome us to their country or tell us they love us!
As for the sights, it was the desert, especially in Sistan Baluchistan that captured our hearts. The ragged mountains, the gorgeous colours, the desert castles, the mud brick villages, the total lack of other tourists and the more than welcoming locals, made our time so special in this area. Other highlights were the unique culture of the Persian Gulf towns, the unique cave village of Meymand near Kerman, and the completely different, green and lush village of Masouleh in the far north of Iran.
In some ways our three months in Iran flew, and in other ways we seem to have packed such of lot of adventures and fantastic experiences into such a short time. Literally just after Richard was finally granted his visa in Delhi, the rules for UK passport holders changed, and now, like the Americans, Brits are only allowed into Iran as part of a tour group, and no independent travel is allowed. So, although we would absolutely love to return to this amazing country as soon as possible, it very sadly will not be on the cards for us until the government changes the visa rules.
 |
| The lush mountains.......... |
 |
| ....and the dry desert- hard to believe it's the same country |
FOOD
We had heard mixed reports about the food in Iran- some raved about it, but most said it was pretty average. Maybe we are easy to please and needed a change from Indian food, or maybe it was because we stayed in people’s home so often, that we found the food to be unbelievably delicious and varied.
Often several dishes (khoresht or stews) are served with either rice with a crusty top or one of many different kinds of bread (our favourites were lavash and sangat). Ingredients for the stews include eggplant, chickpeas, beans, tomato, pumpkin (kaju), and lamb, chicken, beef or fish in coastal areas. Other common dishes include kashk, a yogurt based sauce in any number of different styles; ash, a soupy dish with meat and vegetables; various kinds of kebabs (our favourite was the yogurt marinated lari with beef or chicken); biryani; zaresht polo, chicken and rice with delicious barberries which we think might be unique to Iran; kukoo, an frittata-type dish with egg and potato; olviyeh, a potato and egg based salad eaten in long bread rolls; fessun jun, an unusual sweet dish made with chicken, pomegranate and walnuts; and ghormeh sabzi which is close to a national dish, and Sal’s overall favourite.
 |
| Typical Iranian feast, Chabahar |
 |
| Simple but tasty omlette breakfast, Zahedan |
 |
| Healthy breakfast, Zahedan |
 |
| Kebab man, Bandar Abbas |
 |
| "Light" dinner of salad and rolls |
 |
| Another feast |
 |
| Yet another Iranian feast |
 |
| A variation on the Turkish dish, dolmade |
 |
| Iranians love their rice with a crust |
 |
| One of the many varieties of ash, a delicious soup |
 |
| Farm feast |
Alcohol is strictly forbidden, although we’ve already talked about its availability. Iranians love a malt drink packaged to look exactly like beer, and actually tastes quite a lot like beer, but of course has no alcohol. We couldn’t really get into that one. Alternative options included doogh, a fermented, salty yogurt drink, often mixed with mint-(it’s better than it sounds); carrot juice and ice cream (again, sounds weird, tastes great!); banana and melon shakes; and any number of delicious juices. But tea is the number one drink in Iran, sometimes made with cardamom and sweetened with various kinds of sugar. It is served in every home, and we came to the conclusion that Iranians have bladders of steel due to drinking copious amounts of tea since a young age! We were forever running to the toilet.
 |
| Fake beer |
 |
| Iranian juice |
Fruit was abundantly available cheaply, varied from region to region, and included pomegranates, strawberries, sweet oranges, mulberries, melons, dates, grapes, apricots, figs, sweet and sour cherries.
Desserts are popular, with ice cream leading the way, and falooda a close second. Most ice cream is flavoured with rose water, cardamom, saffron or pistachio, and falooda (a noodle like substance made of corn starch, eaten through most of Asia and the Middle East, but originating in Iran,) comes in different varieties depending on the region. Dates and fruit are often served after a meal as a dessert. Kolompe is a famous date biscuit from Kerman we became addicted to while there, and klucheh fuman it’s walnut yummy counterpart in the north near Rasht.
 |
| Massive strawberry, Kerman |
 |
| Yazd ice-cream |
 |
| Mulberries are very common in Iran |
 |
| Ginger cakes, Masouleh |
Iranians love to eat, and that includes in between meals. Popular snacks include sandwiches (baguette rolls filled with hot meat and salad), falafel in bread rolls, tomushi (a thin pancake similar to the Indian dosa with various savoury fillings), olives, tokh me (sunflower or pumpkin seeds), nuts (especially walnuts), chocolates, biscuits..... it’s no wonder we’ve left Iran with huge bellys!
 |
| Iranian snacks |
 |
| Oliveyeh salad (like potato salad) |
 |
| Enjoying felafel, Ahvas |
 |
| Felafel toppings |
 |
| Rich's favourite, famous Iranian carrot jam! |
Fast food is very popular, and when we weren’t staying with families we indulged in pizza and lamb and chicken kebabs, which were all excellent.
Food is always eaten sitting down together as a group, usually on the floor, with a plastic sheet as a table cloth. Sally struggled with the speed with which Iranians ate, with them preferring to chow down the meal quickly, clear up, and then sit back and relax. Rich struggled with his knee becoming painful after sitting for long stretches, although, of course, Iranians were very sensitive about this, and always offered for him to sit on a chair!
TRAVEL COSTS
Because we stayed with local hosts for most of the time in Iran, we had a different experience to if we had been travelling as we usually do, and the matter of costs was totally skewed. Some days we didn’t spend a cent (or weren’t allowed to!), and other days we spent more than we ever would in SE Asia. The four or five hotels we stayed in charged between 250,000 rial (US $8.30), and 700,000 rial (US$ 23). A meal in a basic restaurant cost between 50,000 and 200,000 rial (US$1.50- US$6.50) for the two of us with soft drinks. A smoke on a shisha with tea in a cafe cost about 50,000 rial (US$1.50). Fruit and snacks were very cheap, as were juices and other drinks. Travel was quite cheap, due to the price of petrol being 30 cents per liter. There are many different types of buses to choose from, but we usually just got on the first one going. The VIP buses with only three seats across seemed to cost a bit more. Share taxis are very common, and only cost a bit more than buses, but the drivers are invariably mad, and we avoided them like the plague.Trains were the cheapest form of transport, but also the slowest. The biggest expense by far for us was the entrance fees. We didn’t notice this at all during the first month of our trip, as things in the south and east are either free or very cheap (or people were so happy to see us they didn’t charge us at all!), but when we reached the more popular destinations such as Yazd, Shiraz and Tehran, we had to be more careful. Although not terribly expensive (most sights were 150,000 rial (US$5)), the prices added up if we both wanted to see several things on one day, or in one city. It is the result of a recent Government idea to charge foreigners eight times more than locals for most tourist sites.
 |
| Inside Iranian train carriage |
 |
| Typically nice Iranian bus |
 |
| Inside typical Iranian bus |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A last few oddities, we couldn’t fit in elsewhere!
We heard that in big cities in Iran, if you are caught driving your dog in your car, you could be fined, have the dog taken away, or even the car!
Nose jobs are hugely popular in Iran, and so many, mainly women, walk around proudly displaying their bandages. Apparently it’s a bit of a status symbol!
When registering a baby’s name, the list to chose from is strict, and it cannot be a Western name!
When getting married, all couples must legally sign a pre-nuptial agreement, in which the man promises to give the woman money and gold if they get divorced. This could explain the low divorce rate!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
**We’ve made a list of the misinformed ideas some people seems to have formed Iran through the western media. Some points we also thought were true before we arrived here.
MYTH 1: All Iranian women wear black
This varied greatly depending on the places we visited. Yazd was the most conservative town, and almost all women wore black clothes and black chadors. Baluchistan was mixed. The women wore beautifully coloured and embroidered clothes at home, and usually a black chador when they went out. In stricter families the faces were also covered in black, except for the eyes. Shiraz,Tehran, Bushehr and other big cities were much more liberal with many women in tight trousers and bright coloured manteuas and scarves. Bandar Abbas was by far the most colourful. Women all wear traditionally colourful outfits, particularly the trousers, and when they cover up to go out, it is with a patterned or more brightly coloured chador than the traditional black.
 |
| Zahedan colour |
 |
| BandarAbbas colour |
 |
| Beautiful Shiraz host |
 |
| New friends, Qeshm Island |
 |
| Bandar Abbas fashion |
 |
| Persian Gulf colour |
 |
| Colourful face masks, Minab |
 |
| Women's colourful clothes in the market |
 |
| Wedding colour |
MYTH 2: Alcohol and drugs are not available in Iran.
We were offered some kind of alcohol, whether it was “Islamic vodka” smuggled from Tehran, homemade wine and beer, cans of Philippine beer or Johnny Walker, at almost every place we stayed in Iran. We were surprised, of course, not least because of the price. A four litre box of Australian wine that would cost AU$15 in Oz was AU$100 here, and a can of beer was AU$9! Drugs were also on offer, and of course, not wanting to spend time in an Iranian prison, we declined all those offers! Apparently, opium is a common and cheap drug in Iran, especially in the east.
Myth 3: Iranian women are suppressed
It surely would not be pleasant to be forced by law, under fear of punishment to cover one’s head all the time, but in many other ways, Iranian women are more liberated than you would think. Many of them work- even mothers and it’s good to see them present and working. This is also partly due to necessity- most people in Iran have two jobs. There are religious areas of Iran where the women are segregated from the men of the house, and are responsible for all the cooking and child-rearing (such as Baluchistan), but in other, more liberal areas, such as Kerman, Bushehr and Shiraz it’s the opposite, with men and women freely mixing in the same rooms, even if they are not related, and scarves coming off the minute the women enter the house .We both hated seeing women wearing black chadors (which, incidentally, is the same word in Farsi for tent), and in some towns, such as Yazd this was very common. Worse still were the Sunni areas where most women were covered up completely in public, except for their eyes, by a burka and chador. Thankfully many other places were more open-minded, and the colour and style of the women’s clothing was less oppressive. Although not up to what most would class as ideal, they are still way ahead of many other countries.
Myth 6: Iran is dangerous
The only danger in Iran is exploding from being force fed delicious food everywhere you go! Seriously, that’s it. We have never felt so safe in a country.
Myth 4: The government controls TV and internet
Everyone had satellite TV. It’s illegal, but if the police do come around (a uncommon occurrence), they just smash up the dishes which are then immediately replaced by the owner; there’s rarely a fine or jail. Also many people have internet in their homes that bypasses the filters on forbidden websites such as Facebook. Admittedly, the public internet cafes can be much trickier, hence the speed with which these blogs have been coming out! The government has filters on certain words, and you cannot access websites with those words. So it isn’t possible to look up breast cancer, breast feeding, or oral hygiene, for example. Another difficult one for us trying to book flights was Virgin Airlines!! So stupid!
While on the topic of the Government, here are a few more interesting facts........
An interesting point relating to Iranian politics is that anyone who wants to stand for election must put in an application to the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini, who then approves about eight candidates. They are obviously all in line with his political and religious ideas. Then the Iranian people get to choose from those eight during the election. Some people we spoke to were extremely cynical about the new President and Government due to this process, while others remained hopeful there may be a real change on the horizon.
Rohani (the president) has a Facebook and Twitter account, although for the rest of the population it is, of course, illegal!
One of our hosts poked fun at the Government constantly, and she always referred to the Ayatollah Khomeini as “The Supreme Leader of All the World’s Muslims”, which is apparently his official title. We wondered what they have to say about that in place like Indonesia!!
Most people told us quite openly they are critical of the Government, some even saying they hated it. It’s very obvious meeting different generations that things are transforming slowly, and hopefully the change will continue in a peaceful manner. Almost everyone told how much better everything had been under the Shah, and that they wish he was back in power. We never met anyone who had a problem with the treatment of people opposed to the Shah’s Government, and didn’t seem to know or care about the many stories we have heard in the west about the negative reasons he was ousted in the Revolution.
Myth 5: Everyone is a religious fanatic
Most Iranians say only 10% of them are “devout” in the sense the Government would like them to be. Actually, we heard that in general people were more religious before the revolution than now, as they quite rightly resent having religion shoved down their throats, and also having it mixed with politics. With the families we stayed with, none went to the mosque regularly; some prayed at home, most didn’t pray at all. Iran is a Muslim country, but we were surprised at the number of young people we met who declared themselves Atheists, and many more who were Muslim in name only. Many activities banned by Islam, such as drinking, sleeping together before marriage and eating pork are widespread.
A contrast to travelling in Indonesia and other Muslim countries is the absence of loud speakers on the mosques. Occasionally we heard them, but usually they do not broadcast, as people don’t like it. Also Shia Muslims (the majority in Iran) only pray three times a day instead of the usual five (actually the do pray five times, but squeeze them into three sessions to save time, which we thought was a very good idea!)
Another interesting discovery was that when Islam came to this area, and Zoroastrianism was overpowered, many traditions from the ancient religion were slyly kept, such as No Ruz (the Iranian New Year), and most old mosques were built on former Zoroastrian temple sites. Islam was adjusted to fit into Iranian life and ideals, and this is why Persians follow the Shia branch of Islam, which is different from the rest of the Arab world who the follow the Sunni branch.
During our trip in Iran we met we met Sufis, Zoroastrians, Sunnis, Baha’is and Atheists in addition to the mostly Shia population.
Myth 7: There is nothing in the shops
A big shock to us was the amount and variety of “stuff” in the shops here. Some things are imported from China, but mostly things are made here. Household goods, clothes and shoes, perfumes, plastic wear, toiletries, furniture and even cars are all made in Iran, and most seem to be good quality. Shops are also filled with every electronic appliance one could want- I-Phones, flat screen TVs, cameras, computers and house-hold appliances are easy and cheap to obtain. Food made in Iran is also good. Everything in the shops is excellent quality- from the fruit and veggies, which are mostly local due to Iran’s huge climate diversity, to the dairy foods that we loved. Yogurt, cheese, milk and cream were delicious, and even mundane things like canned beans, jam, potato chips, bread, processed juices and nuts tasted special.
 |
| Goodbye Iran, till next time!! |
No comments:
Post a Comment