....previously, around the Caspian 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 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.
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| The lush mountains.......... |
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| ....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.
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| Typical Iranian feast, Chabahar |
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| Simple but tasty omelette breakfast, Zahedan |
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| Healthy breakfast, Zahedan |
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| Kebab man, Bandar Abbas |
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| "Light" dinner of salad and rolls |
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| Another feast |
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| Yet another Iranian feast |
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| A variation on the Turkish dish, dolmade |
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| Iranians love their rice with a crust |
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| One of the many varieties of ash, a delicious soup |
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| Farm feast |
The mixed green herbs (mint, basil, garlic chives and other unidentified salad items) that accompanied many meals were also great.
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.
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| Fake beer |
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| 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.
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| Massive strawberry, Kerman |
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| Yazd ice-cream |
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| Mulberries are very common in Iran |
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| 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!
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| Iranian snacks |
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| Oliveyeh salad (like potato salad) |
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| Enjoying felafel, Ahvas |
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| Felafel toppings |
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| 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.
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| Inside Iranian train carriage |
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| Typically nice Iranian bus |
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| Inside typical Iranian bus |
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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!
