3 mosquito bites and counting. Dial up internet is dreadfully slow but fried eggs for breakfast make up for a lot. Martyn just left to take the metro from Imam Khomeini Square. Most savvy in forn parts is Martyn. I shall miss him. Laundry ready 11.30. Last fag and go out. feel watched, feel guilty, afraid of giving offence. Time to create a UK bubble round me. Touch of the memsahib.
Pootled round Tehran in circles so as not to have to cross the road. Parsnet shut because of powercut so to Cafe Nadir nr British Embassy, heavily guarded Brit Embassy. And heavily fortressed Russian Embassy across the street. Possibly not the safest place in the world. Found my way round much more easily but Tehran holds no appeal for one who spent 30 odd years in London. Reminds me of the aesthete who wrote home from the Somme "My dear! the noise! The people!"
Booked on the midnight bus to Esfahan. Once again a list of missed tourist opportunities; anti-US graffiti, mosques, bazaars. Against that; the lavender wedding dress, the young conscript, surviving the zebra crossings, staying in a waste of tyre shops. OK by me, a peripheral tourist at best.
