A Week in Persia

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The prep and the departure

"A week in Persia" - doesnt it sound exotic! As opposed to say "A week in Iran" which probably evokes fear. Fortunately fear was conspicuous by its absence during my time in this wonderful country, whose people are the friendliest of any place I have visited.When I mentioned to my friends I was going the natural reaction was "is it safe?" My reply was "Is Paris safe? Is New York safe ? Is Bali safe?" No one can recall any incidence of violence in Iran in recent memory, but somehow most people think it's a dangerous place to go.  Check out the internet - American women are traveling alone to Iran and reporting they never felt safer.

A second concern was that I'll find it difficult to travel to other countries once I had an Iran visa stamp. Well, I successfully applied for a Schengen visa right after I got my Iran visa. Even Britain has reopened it's embassy in Iran and the latter has now embarked on a visa on arrival program for many nationalities to attract tourists.


In the interest of full disclosure, my visa process wasn't the smoothest. A (happily) unemployed guy, with dozens of entry stamps on his passport, wanting to travel alone did raise some eyebrows in the consulate and they sent my case for approval back to Tehran. But it came through in a week.

Booking hotels was a trifle painful - Iran hotels don't feature on aggregator websites and I had to write to them individually. I did find one aggregator website, but they refused to accept my reservation on the ground that they have had "poor experiences with Indian nationals and as a policy they don't book for them!"

A highly unlikely coincidence happened on the day of my departure. I visited the local pharmacy to pick up sunscreen, and a cursory glance at the picture on the pharmacists' revealed it to be that of Si-O-Seh bridge in Isfahan. What are the chances that an Indian publisher includes a pic of a bridge few in India have heard of , and one of the few Indians visiting Iran happen to come across it on the day of departure !

Having heard a few horror stories, I was apprehensive about my flight on Kuwait Airways. But there was entertainment on board, the aircraft was new and the food was decent - though a combination of uttappam, chhole and paneer mutter wasn't an ideal breakfast. The 7 hour halt at Kuwait was spent watching a few episodes of BBC's brilliant documentary "Planet Earth", interspersed with visits to the Kuwait Police stalls offering free tea, biscuits and dates.


Immigration at Tehran was straightforward, no questions asked. This was the first time that I encountered an immigration officer humming songs as he nonchalantly stamped passports. Customs clearance was a walkthrough. There was no tourist information counter. For a country with currency controls, there was barely any cost to exchanging money. Cab rates to the city center was fixed - my efforts to haggle were met with firm but polite negation.


Day 1: Yazd

I reached Tehran around 9 pm and took an overnight VIP (2 X 1 seater with plenty of legroom) bus to Yazd, the epicenter of Zoroastrian culture.  I was dropped on a highway intersection at 6 am in the morning 10 km away from the city. As I alighted the bus driver gave a piece of paper to a cabbie waiting there and asked me to get in. Given that piece of paper, I thought that this may be a prepaid transfer included in my ticket and was surprised when I was asked to pay the "kiraya". I did argue against it, but with the language barrier it was a losing battle. It was noteworthy that the cabbie was insistent but very calm throughout the discussion. I later found out that cab fare was indeed extra, but I had been charged double the going rate.

I was staying at one of the traditional hotels called Termeh - my room was named "Goethe" and adjacent to it was "Dante". Just a coincidence that I read these greats just a few months ago?

After freshening up and having a breakfast consisting of feta cheese, yogurt and traditional nan-like bread, I  headed out to see the local sights. My first stop was the beautiful Jame Mosque. My understanding of mosques is that non-Muslims are prohibited to enter, with the exception of certain famous mosques that allow visitors during non-prayer hours.  Imagine my surprise when I joined many other visitors into the mosque even as a sermon was going on and all of us were served tea!


Thereafter I visited the Amir Chakhmaq square, the hub of the town's activity. Most shops and businesses were closed on account of Bakri Id (called Eid-e-Qurbani). At one shop, I saw a sweet that looked like a jalebi, only more white than yellow, and upon trying it, found the taste and texture not much different.

My next destination was the Zoroastrian Fire Temple, where resides a flame that's been burning close to 1500 years. While most restaurants were closed, I was lucky to run into a fast food joint offering a falafel sandwich, the pita replaced with a breadloaf and lettuce with pickles. Lunch was followed by a visit to the beautiful Doulatabad gardens and the Water Museum that exhibited various artifacts related to the "qanats", the traditional canal system used for over a couple of thousand years.

Post an afternoon nap, I headed out to explore the old city, and ganged up with a few others - three students from Southwest Iran, a couple of Spaniards living in Dubai, and a Sri Lankan girl from London. What were the chances that the only South Asian I'd meet all day worked for Deutsche Bank, my last employer! This was becoming a trip of strange coincidences. Among other things, we spoke about import of Farsi words into Hindi, the economic and cultural impact of Parsis in Indian life and how politics scares people away from visiting Iran. It was an ironic moment when one of the Iranian guys exclaimed "holy shit" upon entering a beautiful mausoleum and the Sri Lankan girl asked him not to swear!

The two Spaniards and I parted ways with the rest and took a taxi to the Zoroastrian Towers of Silence around dusk. The cab guy was quite chatty. He showed me a recent postcard a friend had sent him - it was of  Brussels, the destination of my next trip abroad ! Yet another coincidence! When we returned to the cab after visiting the towers, he showed a piece of paper that said something like - "when an egg breaks through external pressure, it's destroyed, and when it does so by internal pressure, a new life arises. Change in man should come internally". Quotes like these are dime a dozen on the internet, but a cabbie to share it with his passengers is unheard of.

For dinner, I couldn't find a place around the hotel and was too tired to walk far. The typical neighborhood dessert shop was open, selling ice cream and sweet corn garnished with a sweet sauce. I had a bowl of the latter and then tried the "doogh", a local staple similar to buttermilk but thicker and with a tangy taste.


Day 2: Around Yazd

Day 2 started early - a 6 am wake up and 7 am check out and departure for a day trip around Yazd. It was a small group of 3 people, the other two being a brother - sister team from Paris. Our driver Sadegh was quite a friendly guy, but now I expected nothing less from every local I encountered. And I forgot to mention earlier than every local was fond of Bollywood and the first name on everyone's lips was that of Amitabh Bachchan.

Sadegh was quite fond of music, and was playing a mix of French and Iranian music. Then without warning came up "Jimmy Jimmy ..Aaja Aaja" ! It just made my day! Our first stop of the day was the 1000 year old mud house village of Kharanaq, now abandoned. Situated on a slope, it was a maze and we got lost often, with there being no directions and the three of us being the only people there. The next stop was Chak Chak, but en route we stopped in the middle of nowhere and climbed a hillock to get sweeping 360 degree views of the barren mountains. Sadegh made tea, and not a car passed us for the half an hour we halted there.

Chak Chak is another Zoroastrian site of worship, situated in a small cave a few hundred feet up a hill. Water continuously drips from the cave roof and the legend goes that a religious woman running from persecution found shelter here as well as water in the middle of a barren landscape. Our last stop of the day was the old city of Meyboud which had many interesting buildings - a castle whose underground levels have unearthed artifacts from 4th century BC, an ice house designed to store ice through the summer months and a pigeon house where 4000 pigeons were housed in order to collect their shit which was used as manure.

We were back at Yazd around 2 pm, and my French friends asked me if I wanted to join them for lunch at a place called Silk Road. I had thought of visiting a restaurant near the hotel that had advertised vegetarian fare, but I decided to take a gamble with Silk Road since it would be nice to have company. Fortunately, Silk Road was indeed the restaurant I had in mind ! We ordered  vegetable soup, aubergine dip, saffron rice, yogurt dip and non alcoholic beer, and everything was good. My biggest concern before the trip was if I would find veggie food at all, and here I was relishing the most delicious fare. The icing on the cake was that my friends were very generous and didnt accept my share of the bill. After lunch, we said our goodbyes, hoping to bump into each other in Shiraz the next day.


In the early evening I sat by the bench in a local park - and the city was dotted with dozens of pretty ones - and worked on this blog. A group of students were wrapping the trees with bands of colored threads. All of them were SRK fans. A couple of them spoke a little bit of English and explained to me that it was part of a worldwide project called "yarn bombing". Later on in the evening I bumped into one of the girls and was happily surprised 
that she remembered my name.

I was planning to head back to Silk Road for dinner, but then came across a falafel joint, where you could make your own falafel - ingredients included chips and pasta !  Here was a vegetarian only joint - Iran continued to be full of surprises, and pleasant ones at that.Earlier in the day I had seen a ceramic bowl collection at a handicraft store, with a unique pattern and style I had never seen before. I had held off on the purchase as I wanted to check prices elsewhere. But I didn't see the same kind of work in any other store and thus headed back to the original place. There was no haggling and I was given a token 5 percent discount for a bowl I picked up.

As I headed to the bus station around 10:30 for my overnight bus to Shiraz, shops were still open, and doing business. Even in this small city, life went on till late. 



Day 3: Shiraz

The bus reached Shiraz at 6 am. I had made a booking at Park Saadi hotel, but on further research found that its location was away from the main sights. I thus headed to the highly recommended Niayesh boutique hotel and was asked to wait for an hour to see if any room was available.I left my luggage at the hotel, and with a few other travelers who were also hoping to get a room, walked to the Shah-Cheragh shrine, the mausoleum of the brother of one of the Shia Imams. This was a strict place - I was asked to deposit my camera (referred to as "dur been") at the luggage counter and the girl in the group decided to stay out as they demanded her to cover herself a little too much for her taste. The complex consisted of a large courtyard flanked by buildings made in typical Persian style, characterised by the domes and spires, intricate patterns, calligraphy of important verses and  a predominance of turquoise. The interiors were unique though as every square inch of the mausoleum was covered with coloured mirrors, reflecting the brilliant light of the chandeliers. It boggles my mind that even with a surfeit of reflective surfaces, the place couldn't be classified as gaudy.

On our return to the hotel, we got the good news that some spots were available in the dorms. All the rooms and dorms were named after poets - I lodged in "Shakespeare" and was glad to see one named after Tagore. The highlight of the hotel was a beautiful courtyard with a large breakfast table in the center surrounded by large booths with floor seating on all sides.

After checking in, I headed to Eram gardens, considered one of the best in the country. I took the public bus, and lo and behold, the gentleman seated next to me started speaking to me in Hindi! He wasn't very clear, but I gathered he was an industrial worker and had interacted with many Indians during trips to other gulf countries. The bus driver was nice to make a non scheduled stop so that I only had to walk a few steps to the entrance of the garden. In the middle of the complex was an impressive 18-19th century building whose facade was covered with murals, carvings and verses written by Hafez and Saadi. A pool flanked by all types of trees was in front of it, making it a gorgeous sight. The other parts of the garden though were quite pedestrian.


It was a long walk from Eram to my next destination, the Tomb of Hafez. On the way, I spotted a crowded ice cream shop and asked one of its customers who spoke English to recommend me their best ice cream. He did that, and also paid for it !  It had some weird toppings that I didn't like, but thereafter it was a nice double layer of chocolate and lemon.

The Hafez tomb was a disappointment. The building wasn't as impressive as advertised, and I expected a solemn atmosphere at the resting place of the country's most revered poet. There was a huge crowd instead, with some not averse to stepping on a tombstone itself to get a nice selfie.

I was back at the hotel during lunchtime, and ordered a "beef and split pea stew with rice" minus the beef - which made it good old dal chawal. After a long afternoon nap, I visited the Nasir-ol-mulk mosque, well known for its stained glass. Dinner was falafel again with doogh, and I tried the Shirazi falooda - tiny sugar sticks with some syrup topped with lemon juice - with some strawberry ice cream. It was delicious: given the sugar contained in that concoction, it had better be.

Before going to bed, I made some small talk with the two Polish guys and the Korean girl I was sharing the dorm with. One of the Polish guys spoke about his good and bad couchsurfing experiences in Iran. I also noticed he was having bread and raw tomatoes bought at the local market for dinner. Compared to his lifestyle, my modest but paid accommodations and falafel dinners seemed princely!


Day 4: Persepolis

The next morning, I bumped into my French friends from Yazd at the breakfast table. That didn't surprise me - I knew they were going to arrive in Shiraz the previous evening, and given that Niayesh was the top recommendation on lonely planet, it was probably an even chance that they would have booked there. 

After a hearty breakfast of roomali-roti like bread with labneh cheese, I took a guided tour to Persepolis, the capital of the Achaemenid empire built over the 6th and 5th centuries BC by Darius, his son Xerxes and grandson Artaxerxes. The empire in its time was the biggest in the world, holding sway from Egypt in the West to parts of North India in the East. While destroyed by fire, earthquake and plunder over the centuries, a few columns, doors and capitals are still intact and provide an idea of the grandeur of the city. One particular well preserved wall shows dignitaries from various kingdoms making a procession to visit the king.


I had much to speak to with our guide for the day, Elhom. This was another quirky coincidence - I had been on a couple of dates while living in New York with a half Swedish-half Iranian girl named Elhom, and it doesn't seem to be a common name. We discussed points likes Cyrus being a common name in India, Ghalib writing a lot of his poetry in Farsi, and that Freddie Mercury was born a Zoroastrian.

After spending a couple of hours at Persepolis, the group headed to the nearby Necropolis, where remains of Darius and his descendants are buried in four different tombs carved out of a rocky mountain. It was past noon and I was struggling to concentrate on Elhom's commentary in the heat.

Back in Shiraz, I had a falafel lunch, took a nap in the large shamiana in the hotel's common area and then worked a bit more on this blog. For dinner I went to a place called Qavam cafe, which TripAdvisor stated to be vegetarian friendly. If I took eggs out too, there was only one dish on the menu left for me - an eggplant preparation with yogurt and walnuts, which thankfully was delicious and worth the long walk to the cafe.

I had a slight cough all through the trip and had ran out of syrup I had brought with me. I didn't come across a single pharmacy in the 3-4 km I had walked through streets lined with all kinds of stores. When I thought more about it, I couldn't recall having come across one all week. Finally I had to ask some to direct me to one, and the guy walked me halfway up to it. I still don't know why the country has so few pharmacies. After buying a local brand syrup, I picked up my luggage from the hotel and went to the bus station for the overnight bus to Isfahan. 



Day 5: Isfahan

The thought of visiting Iran was planted in my head when a few years ago I had seen a 2 minute video advertising the beauty of Isfahan.  The capital of the Safavid empire that held sway over Iran during the 17-18th centuries, Isfahan is considered the cultural capital of Iran.

I checked into Aamir Kabir hostel, the hub of backpacker activity in Isfahan. At the breakfast table, I spoke at length to Janie, a half Australian, half Filipino girl living in Hobart - an animator by profession, a regular rock climber and cyclist, and well versed in coffee, art, history and classical music. Her life was action packed to say the least. She had traveled into Iran after spending time in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. On her way from Australia to Bishkek, she was held in detention by the Chinese immigration officers as the transit laws had changed at Urumqi airport. Thereafter she was at Istanbul airport when the attacks took place. In Kyrgystan, she spent 4 weeks in a hospital due to a worm infection. Given how friendly everyone had been to me, I was surprised to hear from her that she was often the target of obscene words and gestures from some men. She told me she'd feel more secure if she could join me in exploring the city.


Our first stop of the day was the gorgeous Jame Mosque, which continued to be open to the public even on a Friday. A large square was flanked by huge domed arches in all four directions, and a medley of different styles and designs were used to beautify the structures. Thereafter we walked through the old bazaar - though ninety percent of the stores were closed - to the Meidan Imam, the largest square in Iran and the sixth largest in the world. A few hundred shops formed it's periphery, with a mosque each on the south and east side. A rectangular pool occupied the center of the square, surrounded by shrub-lined walking tracks that also included horse carts besides people. Some kids had jumped into the pool to cool off in the heat.

We headed next to Chehelsotoon Palace. It was only a one room structure, with its tall walls lined with paintings depicting victories and important meetings of Persian kings during 17-19 centuries. One fresco showed the meeting of Humayun with the Safavid king while the former was in exile from India.

We had lunch at the beautiful courtyard area of the Bastani restaurant, located at the south west corner of the square. A delicious eggplant dip and yummy lentil soup was the fare for the day. I wanted to have a glass of doogh, but they served it only by the jug - we nevertheless ordered one and managed to finish most of it. Where else can one have a sumptuous meal in an ornate restaurant located in a busy tourist area for a few hundred rupees per person !


It was nearly 4 pm by the time we finished lunch. Thereafter we walked to the Si-O-Seh bridge, crossed over to the other bank of the dry river and walked alongside the bank to the Khajoo bridge. It was a long walk and lots of locals spoke to us along the way. One gentleman asked us to visit his place for tea, but we had to decline as Janie had already committed to meet someone later. The nearly full moon had an orange tint as it rose over the Khajoo bridge. The crowd at the bridge grew as the evening progressed. Groups of men - women aren't allowed to sing in public - were singing below some of the arches of the bridge and a few lit kites flew up in the sky. Their strings were lined with lights that shined alongside the few visible stars. A quick falafel sandwich dinner wrapped the long day's walk.



Day 6: Shopping and the Armenian Quarter

I had initially planned to take an overnight bus from Isfahan to Tehran on the evening of day 6, spend day 7 in Tehran and head to the airport in the evening. This though would mean two consecutive nights on bus or plane. I had heard mixed reviews about Tehran. It was a massive, polluted mess as per some reports, yet others swore by its happening cafés, if only one could find the way to their inner quarters where young women took off their hijabs and let their hair loose - literally. I figured one afternoon wasn't going to get me into the thick of things, so I decided to spend the night at Isfahan and take the direct bus to Tehran Airport the next day.

To my amazement, agents in the city could not book bus tickets and one had to purchase them at the terminal itself. There was only one bus the next morning that would have got me to the airport in time for my flight and I had to purchase the ticket in advance. Janie also wanted to purchase her ticket to Tehran, and another Korean girl, whose name was Moon-Sun (unlikely spelt like that, but pronounced so) joined us to buy a ticket for Yazd.


After getting our respective tickets, Janie and I took a bus to Si-O-Seh bridge and crossed over on foot to explore the Armenian Quarter. It felt like stepping into a different country - the stores got trendier, the buildings looked different, and there was a marked change in demographic profile. We were keen to visit the highly recommended Vank Cathedral, and Janie managed to negotiate a 25 percent discount for the admission - most places in Shiraz and Isfahan were 400 rupees apiece, and it all added up fast so some savings were welcome. It was a small but gorgeous building, with Persian, Armenian and European elements in its design. One of the officers on duty had spent a few years in Kolkata studying at the Armenian college there, and spoke highly of the time he spent in India.

Opposite the cathedral was a museum, and a small part of it was dedicated to the Armenian genocide by Ottoman Turkey, highlighting the brutal 1.5 million deaths, still not recognized by a few major countries, including India. Notable artifacts at the museum included a painting by Caracci amidst those of lesser masters, and materials used by a German mission to Iran to study the transit of Venus a few centuries ago.

For lunch we headed to Arc A, a large open air restaurant in the quarter. We ordered an eggplant dip, a vegetable and goat cheese roll, and a stuffed-bread basket, the latter's contents reminding me of pudina parathas and stuffed kulchas back home. Damage was again just 300-400 rupees. We had coffee thereafter at a small but ornate joint that was playing music of a band called Sazz and Jazz, purportedly a mix of jazz and Armenian traditional music. Here I was, an Indian guy, having Turkish coffee, in the Armenian quarter of ancient Persia's crown jewel, speaking with a half-Filipino, half-Australian girl about her travels through Central Asia. What a multicultural experience! 

Thereafter we made the long walk back to the Meidan Imam for some shopping. I bought a pair of traditional Persian copper plates painted turquoise and white in an intricate pattern, and an earthenware pot with two spouts in the shape of a bull's head, representative of the Sassanid era. For dinner, we picked up a traditional vegetarian lentil soup and enjoyed it on the lawns of the square.

The next day was the long journey back home. What I had expected to be an adventure was an easy, fun and yet enlightening trip. Given that Iran prohibits alcohol, it tends to attract only those travelers with a high cultural awareness. I learnt something new in every conversation I struck. This was the first time I stayed in dorms and there was none of the late night noise in a drunken state kind of issue.

The Lonely Planet introduction on Iran says that "If travel is most rewarding when it surprises, then Iran is probably the most rewarding destination on earth!"  I couldn't agree more.

My biggest disappointment was that I didn't come across a single Indian traveler during the trip. I hope that changes soon.