I don’t usually write too many blogs. I usually document my travels purely by photographs, however based on a number of negative responses I got from people when I told them I was going to Iran I felt the urge to Blog about my travels here in hope to dispel some misconceptions about this country. In reality Iran is not the place the media portrays.
My main motivation for going to Iran was to climb Mount Damavand, Middle East’s highest mountain.
Mount Damavand is classic shaped volcano and its image is one of the most recognisable icons in Iran appearing on the IR10,000 note, on spring water and other commercial items. The mountain is a spiritual place for many Iranians and has many mythological tales associated with it.
The mountain has 16 routes, the most popular being the classic southern route, the one I did. There are three camps on the southern route. The third camp sits at around 4200m and has one of the best huts at this height in the world. To summit from Polour camp 3 it takes around 5-7 hours. I found summiting tough. When you reached 5200m not only were you dealing with a lack oxygen but you were also breathing in sulphuric fumes strong enough to kill stray animals. Those animals succumbing to the death from Damavand’s sulphuric fumes are oddly displayed at the summit of the mountain smack bang next the summit sign in the summit photo opportunity spot, pretty funny!
I was fortunate enough to climb the Mountain with the impressive Iranian climber, Parvaneh Kazemi. In 2012 Parvaneh climbed Everest and Lhotse in the same week making her the first women in the world to summit two 8000m peaks in the same week. Coincidently Parvaneh translates to Butterfly (my own nickname) in Persian.
Parvaneh is famous in Iran and the climbing world. People were constantly stopping us on the Mountain to meet and get a photograph with her. I was really lucky to have the opportunity to climb with her. Check out her gallery- http://www.peakbutterfly.com/
All in all Mount Damavand was spectacular, it was a great start to my trip and I highly recommend it.
From Mt Damavand I travelled to Tehran. Tehran gets a bad rap, but I liked it. My highlights were The National Jewels Museum (amazing!), and the House of Artists Gallery ( the vegetarian restaurant made this place even better). I’m a bit ‘comme ci, comme ca regarding Tehran’s Bizzare. The Bizzare is known to be one of the best in the world, it was cool for a while but 10km of shopping stalls was all a bit too much for me.
I found the people of Tehran to be the most friendly and welcoming of all the places I visited in Iran. This was a pleasant surprise coming from a big city with a population of 7 million. And, I have finally found a city in this world where I trust the cabbies, another pleasant surprise.
There were a couple of intriguing observations I made whilst cruising around the streets of Tehran. The first was the ‘nose job thing’. Before I travelled Iran I’d read that Iran was the nation of nose jobs. It seems this really is this case. I really noticed the amount of people with plasters on their noses in Tehran, both women and men. The cost for a nose job performed by a top surgeon in Tehran is around $4000. Wikipedia tells me the average monthly wage in Iran in 2010 was $500, so these nose jobs are worth 8 months of work to the average Iranian. Apparently there are around 90,000 nose jobs operations performed each year in Iran and it has become a status symbol to the point where people have taken to wearing plasters on their noses in hope to look as though they have had the job done. The other fascinating thing I noticed in Tehran was the extravagant dress shops displaying tight and skimpy dresses. With strict Islamic laws governing women’s dress in Iran there is no way one could wear something like what is displayed in these dress shops windows in public. My understanding is that these sorts of dresses are worn at private functions in front of women only. Never the less, I found these stores to be such a bizarre contrast to what you see around the town.
I travelled from Tehran to Yazd on an overnight bus costing me around $5.50 inclusive with a box of food, bottle of water and a juice. Funnily enough we had around ten years worth of Yazd rainfall (60mm per year, poor Yazd) in our bottles of water on the bus.
Yazd is a great little town. I stayed at Kohan Traditional Hotel. This place had so much character and was by far my favourite accommodation of the trip.
My favourite part of Yazd was just cruising around and getting lost in the winding lanes of the old city, one of the oldest towns on earth. Just about everything in the old town is made by sun dried mud bricks with most rooftops sporting tall badgirs. A Badgir, also known as a wind catcher or wind tower is an ancient natural air conditioning system designed to catch breeze and direct it to the rooms below. Badgirs are a genius invention, they have a shaft/ air shelf built in that captures some of the hot air and redirects it upwards and out of the house while the cool air comes flowing on in.
Yazd is often used by travellers as a base for day trips to interesting nearby villages and towns. Unfortunately I didn’t have the time to get away and visit any of these places, I had to make my way to Esfahan.
I’d been warned by my new friends in Tehran that the people of Esfahan had a reputation for being sketchy and would never answer your questions. With this in mind, I treated everyone I came into contact with as though they were from Adelaide. I guess I was lucky on this trip as I didn’t encounter any issues with the people during my time in Esfahan, I did however notice the exchange rate the people in Esfahan used was significantly different to that used in the rest of the country (working in their favour, of course).
Esfahan is Iran’s number one tourist destination and for good reason. There is so much to see-Naqsh-e Jahan Square, mosques, parks, museums, carpet and handicraft stores and bridges. The mosques were the highlight for me here, in particular the Jameh Mosque and the Royal Mosque. The range and details of the Islamic designs inside these mosques were stunning, I spent hours inside.
Naqsh-e Jahan Square was another highlight for me in Esfahan. At 512m long and 163m wide this is the second largest square in the world, the biggest is Tiananmen Square in Beijing. The afternoon was the best time to visit the square as Fountains were turned on and the sunlight was a bit more subtle.
After Esfahan I travelled back to Tehran to spend one more day before catching my flight out. I only had two weeks in Iran, there is plenty more to see and I’ll definitely come back here.
In summary I loved Iran, the mosques, the old towns, the landscapes were all incredible and I loved the Iranian people. I’d have to say I had the best experiences with the people in Iran than I have had in any other country.
Unless you’re going to Iran sometime soon or just really like reading, I’d probably stop reading here. The following is really just some useful information for those planning on travelling to Iran and is also my chance to vent.
There were a few annoyances along the way, first was getting my visa. I submitted all my documents via registered post at the Islamic Republic of Iran Consulate in Canberra. I tracked my item and saw it had been received but I wanted to call and make sure that they didn’t need any further documents from me. The embassy has allocated phone hours on Monday, Wednesday and Friday between 12 – 14:30. That’s 7.5 hours in an entire working week that the phone needs to be answered. I repeat, 7.5 hours! I tried for about 3 weeks to call in their set phone hours. I would get a voiceover stating a brief message about the Consulate hours and phone hours and please hold. After about 5 minutes on hold a voice over would come over saying “We are unable to help you at this time, please call again.” When I finally got through by phone the person on the other end said “Sorry, I can’t help, please call back in half an hour when my colleague is in”. Really, you can’t arrange for someone competent to be able to answer the phone for 7.5 hours per week? Of course when I tried again later I got the stupid voice message that cut out. I also tried to make contact by fax and email with no response. My first of 33 emails was written two months prior to my departure, no reply was ever received. Then one day I came home to find my passport had been returned complete with my visa. Basically what I am trying to say here is- allow plenty of time for the visa and go to Consulate and do it in person if you can. You’re harder to ignore in person.
The second thing annoying my life was the Sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programs. Meaning credit cards and traveller’s cheques are useless in Iran, you cannot withdraw money from banks, you cannot transfer money to an Iranian bank account, you need to bring enough money in cash. These sanctions have cut off Iran’s banking system from pretty much the rest of the world. It’s easier for one to make a payment into Afghanistan or Iraq than it is to Iran. I discussed this issue with a few Iranian’s and they felt the sanctions on Iran impacted Iranian people much more than the government. Having to carry all your cash around with you is a pain in the ass really. I wasn’t buying handicrafts along the way as I was worried about running out of money. I then purchased all my handicrafts in my last few days, for more than I would have paid elsewhere. And then there is always some unforseen circumstance bound to arise, I heard a case where someone had used his last cash to get to the airport, when he arrived he found out that due to Volcanic activity in Iceland all flights were cancelled. The poor guy had no money to get a cab anywhere, no accommodation not even some change to make an international phone call or get on the internet.
Finally, the Hijab! . When the Islamic revolution took place in 1979 it was made compulsory for all women including tourist to wear the Hijab. There are religious police monitoring peoples attire
The Hijab was just killing my life. Hijabs just don’t seem to cooperate with pea heads like mine. My Hijab was always slipping off, my favourite time was when it slipped over my eyes when I was crossing the road. In the end I ended up using the and pinning a scarf to that then draping the hijab over my shoulders. This seemed to do the job however I won’t pretend I wasn’t relieved when I had left Iranian soil and could take the Hijab off.
But as you can see these annoyances are very minor and most importantly I felt safe and comfortable whilst travelling around Iran alone. I wouldn’t let these issues deter you from visiting such a great country and you are sure to come into much more annoying circumstances in many other countries. Give Iran a chance.
