....previously, we were busy in Shiraz and Ahvas......
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Masouleh village viewed from the hillside
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Sangan
We never realized, before Iran, how much we take the internet for granted. We are by no means
addicted to the web, but after three months in Iran with little access to banking, blogs, Facebook, booking
tickets or planning onward trips, we were beginning to feel out of the loop.
Internet cafes were not bad, but the workers were usually unwilling or unable
to do anything about the filters for many websites. As we've said, many
households have internet, sometimes with a VPN (don’t ask us what it stands
for, but it breaks through the filters somehow!), but as these people had
kindly given us a place to sleep and fed us, we felt it would be rude to spend
time on the internet in their homes, ignoring them! Most of the time we stayed
with local people, time was spent chatting or sightseeing, which was obviously
fantastic, but it didn't leave a lot of time for catching up on personal stuff.
This partly influenced our decision to make an
uncharacteristic (for us) long bus trip from stinking hot Ahvas in the south-west of Iran
to Tehran, the capital in the north.
Although, as previously stated, we don’t like big cities, we felt this one
might be a necessary evil. Our friend Mostafa from Qeshm Island had recently migrated to his place in Tehran for the summer (it is extremely
hot in the Persian Gulf at this time
of year). However, we discovered on arrival that he didn't live in Tehran at all, but in a village about one
hour away from the city. Best laid plans! Although we had a lot to do, we
decided a few days with easy-going Mostafa might be very pleasant..... and it
was. Sangan village wasn't the most
beautiful place on earth, but we enjoyed hanging out with Mostafa, eating very
well, indulging in the occasional tipple, and giving him a hand getting his
house in order. The perfect temperature was a joy, with delightfully cool nights
and sunny days. It is a huge fruit growing area, with the majority of trees
being cherries, with some walnut and other varieties mixed in. Mostafa has a
problem with his leg, but we were able to get out for a few walks and visit
some attractive natural parts of the area.
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| Rich and Mostafa walking along the river, Sangan |
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| One of few traditional buildings in Sangan |
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| Tunnel in the pathway, Sangan |
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| Spiky wildflower, Sangan |
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| Walking in the hills, Sangan |
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| Common local transport, Sangan |
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| Butterfly, Sangan |
On one walk through the village, we met a family from a
nearby place, who were practically peeing their pants in excitement about
seeing and talking with us. After a quick chat and exchanging emails, we went
on our way. The next day, we received this e-mail, which we wanted to include
as a very typical message we receive here all the time on our phone, or
e-mail.:
Hi my friend,
I'm Nahid from Iran. I
saw you today in Sangan (in Can road).You gave me your email address. Do you
remember?! You and your husband were so kind and friendly. I really like to
invite you for a lunch or dinner, my house is about near Sangan (in Ayatollah
kashani Street).Do you accept my invitation? Because I really like to know
about your culture. I’m looking forward
to hearing from you.
By the way, I don't
know your name!!!
Tehran
Before too long, we knew we had to get back to the dreaded big
city, so we left Mostafa for a second sad time, and set off to stay in our
first mosaferkhaneh (basic local’s
guesthouse). It was surprisingly good, with very friendly staff, a big bright
room with three beds, a fridge and clean shared bathrooms and toilets. At
AU$15, we couldn't complain!
Unfortunately, the cheap hostels in Tehran are mostly around a
big, busy road full of hundreds of car parts shops, and we disliked the walk everyday to get out
of this area. We actually really hated the traffic in Tehran. Maybe it was because we had been in many smaller places,
but it felt overwhelming and constant, and difficult to even cross the street.
It really spoilt the atmosphere of the city for us.
Unfortunately, one of the main reasons for us coming to Tehran was internet, but the internet
cafes we could find were no better than the rural areas we had been in, and we
were no better off. So, we decided to see a few sights, and then leave the
place.
We discovered a lovely, peaceful park near our hotel, and
escaped there a few times to drink coffee by the lake, and chat with local
people when the traffic noise got too much, and the surprisingly first-rate
Modern Art Museum served the same purpose. We loved looking at many great
masters’ works- Picasso, Warhol, Matisse, Dali, Monet and many others. It’s a
pretty interesting place, as during the Ahmadinajad years (the previous
president) all the great paintings were locked away in a basement, deemed too
western for Iranian eyes! We were happy they had been let out, and put on
display for a tiny entrance fee.
The National Museum was another sight we enjoyed. Actually,
it was fascinating, as we had been in Iran
for a while and knew a lot of the history and had visited many of the sites
where many of the items displayed had been found, so we could relate quite well
to the exhibits. We were especially amazed at the finds from Persepolis- it actually would have been
better in some ways to skip the site, and visit the museum, as the quality of
discoveries were spectacular.
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| Amazing Persepolis reliefs, National Museum, Tehran |
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| Persepolis finds in National Museum, Tehran |
We left Tehran
without too much sadness, and headed for Rasht,
a big town near the Caspian Sea
coast about six hours north of Tehran.
Rasht is famous for rain, and for
that reason the Iranians love it. It certainly was green as we drove to the
town, with HUGE olive and garlic growing areas all around.
Rasht
We had contacted a woman who we had met in Zahedan, who had offered us a place to
stay in her town, but unfortunately it ended up she had rather a lot on her
plate, and it really wasn't the best time for us to be there. But we made the
most of our few days there, and found Rasht
to be extremely friendly town, and so pleasant after Tehran, with little traffic, large shady street trees and wide
footpaths making it easy to walk around.
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| Artists at work, Rasht |
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| Local Rasht man |
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| Garlic for sale, Rasht |
Lahijan
Our day trip to the small town of Lahijan, the main tea growing area in Iran (yes, tea!!) was delightful, and one of those days in Iran where we veered off the plan and
went with the flow! We had been dropped by the cute little minibus 20 minutes walk
from the centre, a kind man had escorted us into the attractive town,
we had checked out some unusual murals on a mosque, and were trying to peer
into a ruined old hammam (bath house),
when two brothers invited us into their office, which was part of the hammam. Although they spoke little
English, we understood that their father had been the engineer for the reconstruction of this building, and
many others in Lahijan before he
died. Now the hammam was a mess.
After some chai and looking at photos of the restoration, we stood up to say
goodbye, but the brothers had other ideas! They spent the next few hours
showing us around the atmospheric back streets, small mosques, a traditional
house, a grand tomb out of the town, and their land high on a hill. It was a
great example of communication with little common language skills. After a kebab and mirza ghosemi (to die for
smoked eggplant dish) lunch together, we gently refused their gifts (humongous
bag of tea, a seedling, cigars, various bags of fruit and some sunglasses!) and
said farewell. We will remember them as some of the kindest people we met in Iran- and that really is saying
something!!
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| Traditional old house, Lahijan |
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| With the kind-hearted twin brothers, Lahijan |
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| Old mosque, Lahijan |
Masouleh
We decided to get out of our Couchsurfer’s hair, and set off
for Masouleh, a small village a
couple of hours from Rasht. We were
dubious about visiting this place, as many Iranians had told us how “beautiful”
it was, and we thought it might be touristy and tacky. We were very pleasantly
surprised, however, when we were dropped at the quaint little village after a
gorgeous drive in a share taxi through lush, green rice paddies!! It was so
strange to see rice growing in what we had always thought would be a dry and
barren country. The done thing in Masouleh
is to stay in one of many rooms the villagers rent out, as the hotel is
terrible. We quickly found such a place, with plenty of room for sleeping on
the rugs, heaps of bedding, a small kitchen and bathroom, and then set out to
explore the attractive area.
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| Our room, Masouleh |
The village was made up of tiny cute houses mostly
made from wood and stone on different levels disappearing up the hillside,
each roof forming the path of the layer above. We walked around a great deal in
the few days we spent there, and although it was so small, there always seemed
a new part to discover, each more enchanting than the last.
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| Old doorway, Masouleh |
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| Masouleh street |
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| Houses in a beautiful setting, Masouleh |
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| Masouleh house |
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| Quaint village houses, Masouleh |
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| Tempting stairway, Masouleh |
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| Sal in a pumpkin |
Staying alone, we were able to make our own timetable, and
we enjoyed getting up early for a change on the clear mornings, and setting off
into the GREEN hills (many alder, birch and hazelnut trees, with some walnut) for walking and then coming back for a midday relax
before the afternoon mist rolled in.
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| Wild poppies, Masouleh |
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| An early morning break, Masouleh |
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| Walking in the hills, Masouleh |
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| So much green, Masouleh |
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| Look familiar?? |
We also enjoyed cooking for ourselves in
our kitchen, and the self catering came to a high point the day we had fresh
bread, tuna, fried mushrooms, boiled eggs, yoghurt, crisps, oliveyeh salad (sort of like our potato salad), tomatoes, olives,
goat’s cheese, pomegranate juice, with local ginger cake for dessert!!
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| Masouleh in morning sun..... |
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| Masouleh in afternoon mist |
Our evenings were usually spent having tea, shisha and ash (soup) and people watching from one of the many teahouse/restaurants
in the main “hub”. It was lovely to see the mist come down into the valley, and
all the lights come on in the little houses. As it was a public holiday, there
were quite a lot of Iranian tourists around, but it was certainly not crowded,
and very easy to escape the visitors.
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| Scenic spot, Masouleh tea house |
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| Our man preparing our kelyun |
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| Busker, Masouleh |
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| Old woman knitting on roof, Masouleh |
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| Old boys, Masouleh |
Tabriz
The road to Tabriz
gave us flashbacks to Baluchistan
with barren hills and mud house villages, but gradually gave way to green hills
and farms with massive snow capped mountains in the background.
Things were moving in a bit of a rush now, and we hadn't had
time to search for a Couchsurfing host, so we again stayed in a basic hotel-
this one quite funny, as it was filled with old Turkish people, and it was the
first time we had to pay for a shower!! The room was very cheap, so it wasn't
expensive, but we wondered if there were people who stayed there for the price
and didn't shower!!
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| Our hotel room, Tabriz |
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| Weird toilet seat over Iranian toilet, Tabriz hotel |
We immediately liked Tabriz.
It was an easy city, with a huge mix of people, including a lot of Azeri
people. Funnily enough more Azeri people live in Iran than Azerbaijan,
and a large number of them in Tabriz. All the interesting and useful things were
contained within walking distance of the city centre where we were staying. The
bazaar is the main attraction- we
loved wandering around the old sections, with the carpet section being
especially photogenic.
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| Fat for sale, bazar, Tabriz |
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| Carpet section, bazar, Tabriz |
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| Some fellow travellers in the bazar, Tabriz |
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| Old Tabriz lady in the park |
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| Blue eyed sandwich man, Tabriz |
Other times in Tabriz
were spent at the Blue Mosque (beautiful from the outside, but closed on the
day we were there), trying to find our information about getting from Tabriz to the Armenian border, and
FINALLY made some progress with our blog at a great internet cafe.
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| Blue Mosque, Tabriz |
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| Blue Mosque, Tabriz |
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| The damaged exterior of the Blue Mosque, Tabriz |
We only had a couple of days to spend in Tabriz, and would love to visit again
on our next trip. We eventually discovered the difficulties of hiring a taxi to
the border, and after a false start where the driver began driving down the
highway towards Tehran (the opposite
direction to the border), we ended up at the bus station, and very quickly
arranged two seats in a share taxi to Jolfa
(a border town with Azerbaijan, and
another place we unfortunately had to miss out), and then just the two of us to
Norduz, a strangely out of the way
border post (hence no public transport there) which was actually quite busy due
to an Iranian holiday.
